The Queen

[PKPower]

Flagship Ostara
Somewhere in the walker nebula
02/25/825

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As Fischer entered the room he instantly felt the temperature dropping. While it could only have been a few degrees, it certainly felt like a dozen and he was thankful for every inch of his trenchcoat.
The Ostara was certainly in the firm hand of the Bundschuh, but its inhabitants were still free people to an extend. Everybody could send transmissions to every person and location they want - as long as the recipient and the location was aboard the Ostara.
During the past Days Fischer spent hours, upon hours listening to the inhabitants of the ship, their dreams, their fears and other irrelevant topics. The only transmissions that stood out were ones sent between members of a family on the far end of shelter deck two. Most of them were concerning their grandfather and contained short sentences like “We really need to visit grandpa soon.” or “I thought we grandpa could use a dog to keep him company.”. While they all were related, their records showed that there were no more family members left that were not on the Ostara, and the grandfather of the family was incinerated on Stuttgart 4 years ago. It was also clear that the code they were using was developed for regular everyday use, and not a situation like this; visiting people was not an issue and pets were not allowed on the ship.
Fischer followed the senders of the transmissions around. It seemed like the two oldest sons were doing most of the work. Every time they expressed the desire to give or tell something to their grandfather they left their room with some garbage and brought it to the incinerator.
After this discovery Fischer spent 48 hours digging through the block of charred, shredded, compressed trash that would have been floating in space now if he didn’t request to analyze it. After hours and hours Fischer built himself a strong, makeshift electromagnet and started to filter out all of the non-metallic materials. Analyzing what was left, Fischer found a device made to store data. While the parts that actually stored the data were metallic, the rest of it was made of an elastic gel-like structure that was sturdy enough to survive the shredder, the incinerator and the compactor.
Deciphering the stored data on the device was a task that took even longer. The code used on that one surpassed the one the conspirators used from day to day by a long shot and it was apparent that it was the brainchild of someone else. Just before he started his meditation earlier he was finally done gathering information from it. All of the contents were gathered from meetings in a rebuilt kitchen referred to as room 101. It was used by many mid- and high-ranked Bundschuh officials as a meeting room. Fischer knew that the topics matched the ones discussed in room 101 because he was listening in as well. Sure without permission, but as a reassurance he requested lists of the discussed topics as soon as he placed his surveillance device in the conference room.
Right now Fischer was treading on thin ice. Of course he was following his own agenda aside from being a part of the Bundschuh. And there was a high chance Generalministerin Haupt knew that. If he Fischer chose his words carefully, this was an opportunity to get one step closer to winning her over to his side.
“First of all I can assure you that most of those rumors are not true - as it tends to be the case with rumors. Now I don’t have to tell you that people are becoming restless and anxious. What I will tell you is that I have found the conspirators who have gained knowledge of our contact to the Rose and potentially even leaked this information to an outside source. I submitted the report for all of this on my way to this meeting. There is a detailed description of who they are and how they did it.”
He let the information he just gave her linger for a few moments. While Haupt did not show any reaction, Fischer knew that the effect was not one to be controlled, but to be processed by the recipients subconscious nevertheless. Of course she did not say anything after he finished - his success was expected.
“While comparing the information I found on the conspirators data storage with the list of topics discussed in room 101, I noticed that Bruchsal has been become quite the hot topic. Now I do not want to talk politics and problems - I want to talk solutions. Do I have your attention?”

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