Revolutionary

[Blodo]

Bautzen station, Dresden
22th December, 810 AS

Christmas time for everyone. Everything moves even slower than usual as most people in Rheinland are celebrating the old holiday. Amongst the whole wave of happiness, the kind that allows people to get away from the stresses of a poor quality of life and work, there are those that are relied on to keep the entire economy up and running during the worst three work days of the year. For the corporate CEOs anyways.

- "What do you mean you are cancelling my leave?"
The line to the office was long that day. Only fifty people of the total crew at Bautzen were allowed to go spend time with their families for the three days, most of them being directors and members of security. Most of the workers were overwhelmed with rage and decided to completely block the Human Resources Directors office. They quickly realised however that he too had embarked to spend a few days of Christmas away from the station, and thus the line ended up in front of the office of the Shipping Director.
- "Do you know what I had to do to get the money to celebrate a proper christmas this year? Well? Do you? My family is waiting for me in Berlin you old coffin dodger!"
Paulsen raised his eyebrow at this remark. He was trying to remember what exactly did he do to the company to deserve this, but could come up with nothing. Must've been bad luck on his part. Before the worker could continue, he interrupted him.
- "Careful there, son. There are at least twenty people applying for each single spot on this station every week. You can get your leave right now if you really want to, but don't expect to be allowed to come back."
Silence. The worker knew he had nothing to say to that. He turned around and walked out slamming the door behind him, but letting Paulsen catch a glimpse of the rest of the long line to the door. He sat back, relaxed for a moment and pushed a button on his intercomm after sighing loudly.
- "Miss Schultz? Please send the next one in.."

Meanwhile Kaspar has been spending his time at the bar. He knew there was no chance he was going to get a leave period. Even without him blowing up those ten tons of diamonds it was a bit iffy, but now? So he decided to drop the matter and just enjoy himself with a synth Jaegermeister and a few Bretonian whiskeys while engaging in all sorts of discussions with the bar staff. The bar was only moderately full and Kaspar had the barman's full attention.
- "No, if the flag of the Leeds Rockets was red, there would be no chance that match would've ever been played on Stuttgart. They would've been executed on the spot by the Rheinland Military, no questions asked!"
He served Kaspar two more shots of whiskey. Kaspar grabbed one and downed it quickly, then responded.
- "How do you figure?"
The barman leaned over the table to him. Kaspar picked up the other shot glass.
- "The Kanzler hates the colour red. You seen what he did when there was that diplomatic meeting with a few Brets on Stuttgart and the air composition there made his personal silken flag of Rheinland turn reddish?"
- "Oh yeah, that HV transmission that got banned later on. Jesus christ, I thought he was going to pop a vein there."
- "Yeah, exactly!"
A loud beeping suddenly started, and Kaspar quickly realised it was him. He downed the last shot and stood up to remove his pager from his belt. The message was a bit weird considering he was grounded, but nonetheless he was to report to the flight deck immediately.
- "Catch you later, Franz. They need me in the hangar." - Kaspar said as he started walking away. The barman looked at him for a minute, leaning on his elbow.
- "Wait, weren't you grounded?"
- "That's what I thought too. I should be back in a few minutes though so save some drink for me."

The hangar was pretty quiet at this particular moment. Most of the time ships are getting loaded and unloaded almost constantly there, and the transport clamp makes enormous amounts of noise when moving ships to the airlock. This time around however there were simply sounds of a few engineers prepping a few Eagles for flight, and about ten people on the deck standing in a line.
- "Meisnerr! Get over here!"
Kaspar wandered up to the line somewhat slowly. He looked at the man in front of the line, and he looked back at him. It was Mueller, the chief of security. The difference between both of their gazes was that while Kaspar was looking at him with a bit of an anticipation, Mueller looked back with a sort of disgust. He then spouted.
- "Button up, this isn't an ice cream social."
Seeing no reaction from the pilot, he simply faced the others and started explaining why they were here.
- "Right, so I've just got word from the bigwigs that they want us in space immediately. There is a convoy coming in and we are to escort it. They didn't say much more than that but apparently they are short of pilots and we are the only station on their way that has a relatively competent security team on hand. So prepare yourselves. Any questions?"
- "Chief?" - Kaspar says while taking a step forward. - "You remember that I've been grounded by ol' Paulsen, right?"
Mueller, visibly annoyed looked back at him.
- "Meisnerr, you're ungrounded. Any other dumb questions?" - He paused for a second, then looked at the rest and spoke louder. - "Good! I want to see you all in space in twenty. My ship is ready to go so I will be leaving first. In the mean time get prepared. That convoy is going to be here soon and I want you fatheads to be ready to move out... Get to it!"

The pilots all dispersed to their ships quickly, Meisnerr along with them. He couldn't bear himself from thinking however.. why would the pencilpushers on New Berlin go out of their way to organise a single convoy like this on the night of Christmas? Certainly not for profit, it is doubtful there will even be anybody to recieve it at it's destination.
He decided to think about it in space. Escort duty was usually uneventful and boring as long as the convoy made it out of Dresden, so he would have plenty of time to figure it out.