In search for redder soil [Roter-Lehm]

[Graineater]

Chapter 2

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And she turns right back to her work.
"A single Corvo would cost at least four million credits to acquire and outfit. Equivalent to bribing independent miners to bring a convoy of a dozen trains fully loaded with supplies just for us."
"I'm here to handle the little requests, things that don't need action or vote from the greater community. This would need a vote, and I can tell you outright - nobody will approve of this. Now if you wish to explore, I can grant you a light fighter right here and now."
Explore with a light fighter?! Do these words even have the same meaning to us? Did she hear me ask for Corvo class to scan transports cargo?
Niklaus leans on the desk, standing to make his point.
"And keep doing the same things that brought us nowhere? I urge you to think of the grand strategy, whenever transport routes or armaments change, whenever police presence increases, even with routine economic declines of the houses - we suffer. We Hessians need to find ourselves a planet, our own resources."
Annegret works along completely unfazed, responding even more dismissively than before:
"I can assure you, we think of 'grand strategy' every day..."
"Then you should see Hessians are declining, failing. Rheinlanders have infinitely more resources, they will eventually crush us. Just by the numbers, it is impossible to win. Why are we still trying? Space is incredibly vast, we should fly away, find a planet and start fresh. Far from Rheinland, far from corsairs. We will be safe and able to fully live up to communist ideals. It worked out well for sleeper ships which fled sol, we can do that too."

She slaps the desk, turns to Niklaus, herself standing up and leaning on the desk. Now it's serious.
"There is something you forget, and understandably so for you grew up here. You talk as if Hessians are a nation all on its own, you feel that Rheinlander's are different. Let me remind, your father is a Rheinlander, your mother was a Rheinlander, you, me and all Hessians are Rheinlanders. Our homes are in New Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt. Our homes we must take back from lying fascist filth! People like you and me live there, fooled by carefully crafted web of lies, slaving away to feed insatiable greed of those in power. Every day some wake up to the lies, become Hessians in the soul without even needing to reach out to us. Even if we found another planet, packed up and left, hessian movement would live on."
"Could you imagine for a moment what that would be like to learn the truth? Only to find that Hessians have fled, everything hessians have built is gone. That you are all alone, that you have to start the fight for liberation again - from nothing. What it would be like to be forced to accept impossibility of it? How would you feel to know there's nowhere to run, no hope to win, that you just have to submit to the fact that your life is nothing more than a plaything to those born richer than you? That's what I think about idea of escaping, starting a new on world far far away.. It's.."
"...Selfish"

Oh I sure have a good feel for what it's like to have nowhere to run, no chance to win, and to submit to the fact my life is nothing but a waste fighting unwinnable fight.
Annegret sits back down and turns back to work, her point made.
"Now I'm fully aware things look bleak, the supplies are short and Vogtland has more people than food. I get to watch the data every day, I get to see hessians that go without things they need. And I would love it if one of our scouts just happened upon a wormhole and a pristine world just beyond it. But realistically that won't happen, even if we actively looked for it. We remember explorers which made grand discoveries, but we should also remember many more which never found anything. Or rather used their just as impressive talent and ambition to produce surveys of space which, in fact, had nothing of use."
"A light fighter is something I know will be immediately useful, for a small fraction of the cost. So is a mechanic at home and in the field. Explorer is a gamble, expensive gamble with little chance of payoff. You are free to organize however, maybe with a larger group and greater resources council would take it more seriously, but for now request is denied."
Finishing in more irritated tone.
"Will that be all?"

I see, hard no and now I'm in the way.
"That will be all, nothing else."
"Good. Keep up the good work, come back if you need anything."
Niklaus steps away, back into dimly lit corridors, taking the route back to the docks. Every step heavier, feeling sudden onslaught of shame and guilt dragging him down until he's hidden in a dark corner.
Shouldn't have asked, shouldn't have come. I was ridiculous... stupid, selfish. Asking everyone to skip out on their needs for a ship. A Corvo, I may well have asked for a train full of gold, luxuries, food and beer all for myself. Would have been more reasonable.
I should have said.. Anything else. It all gone through so fast.
Grow up already! Twenty-three yet still acting like a stupid teenager.
Not even a single thought made beforehand how to make your case.
I should have said... That we loose out on our credibility, living like pirates. Communist principles? Food for all? Housing for all? We are lucky to have AIR for all.
Who's going to ever take anything we do but piracy seriously?
Niklaus smacks floor with his fist.
THEORY! Basics originating to before the Coalition! Why is air free for all? Because it's everywhere. Why is food carrying a price label, be it money or ration token? Because it's scarce. It will be free only if it is abundant. It will never be abundant to pirates, unless it is so abundant in transports that food is as free as air on Berlin.
Which it can never be, the closer capitalists approach the point, the less appealing the profit, the less they make.
That's why, eight hundred years of interstellar travel and they still cannot feed the hungry.
That's why Hessians are at a dead end!
We can never have more food than those we steal from, and if we can never have more - we will never convince them that our ways are better!
Leave them...
We are not Rheinlanders. We are communists and we need a world of our own!
...
...
How inspiring, if only you weren't screaming this inside your own head. Idiot.
Already made a fool of yourself, as if anyone would take you seriously now.
They want to keep doing the same thing over and over...
Insanity...

And yet I'm inevitably drawn to participate in it. Racked my brain about it a thousand times already, conclusions won't change. I can't leave, I can't accept betraying dad. I believe in what we do, I can't accept becoming yet another drone in yet another corporation.
Get up, enough for today. Nothing will change from strong words in your head. Better see dad, hope he doesn't think I'm upset with him... He sure would if I went straight to the buffet alone.

Another door, another bulkhead and Niklaus is back in the docks. Back to the same Odin, now surrounded by tools and replacement parts. And another ship, a freighter - a Dromedary. Shot up as well, look at it makes Niklaus sigh.
Another smuggling ship shot up, more work... It never ends.
"So, did you get a ship?"
Dad asks as soon as he notices Niklaus, himself bringing spare parts for this freighter.
"No.. they would only offer me a fighter, and I don't want it."
"Good, only ever risk your life fighting for a cause you really believe in. This is yours then."
"Mine? I was repairing this Odin."
"Yours as in your yours. I see it was wrong of me to have you all cooped up in here. So here's something to let you see the galaxy for what it is, make up your own mind what you want to be remembered for. That is, if you'd be willing to put in the extra effort to fix it."
Dromedary.. I can have her fixed up without the manual even. Open-source schematics make it a mechanics dream. I can rig it for speed. I can sacrifice part of cargo hold for a mobile home, be stealthy going cold in asteroid fields. I can be safe, I can go to any world.
Excited, Niklaus grabs hold of dads arm for a firm shake and a hug to follow.
"Thanks dad! Let's get her fixed"

.
.
.

Two weeks of work on this hobby project, one week on the engine alone. All the friends visited - goodbyes said. For now, he has to go at it alone. At least if he wishes to carry any salvage or smuggled goods.

Niklaus in the pilots seat, following checklist items.
Helmet on, auxiliary power unit start, life support on, seal cockpit, pressurize, oxygen mask on, request tug to launchpad
"Niklaus, all good, push me to launchpad."
Here it is, Libertonian rite of passage. Freedom to go anywhere is granted. And yet... I feel like I'm in a coffin, I can't move, it's stuffy, vibrating, loud...
What do I even need to feel happy?

Looking down to arms through long sequence of tugging and depressurizing
Little scaly forelegs before him. Scales like gloves up to the elbow. Puffy feathers above cover the rest of his small body. Little predator of Cambridge of similar niche as Earths fox.
Everything around, green, beautiful. Trees, bushes.
Everything smells wonderful.
A quick dash to a bush, scaly snout sticking into a bush. Thorns are no match for armored snout and all the berries free to pick from.
Everything tastes wonderful.
Another dash to cliffs edge.
World so vast, he could run for days. He is free to explore it all
He is.. finally happy and free.

A quick headshake pulls him back to the checklist.
What a ridiculous thought...
Reactor on. Thrusters on. Release clamps. Main engine ignition.
"This is Vogtland control, Niklaus you are free to launch."

And so he's out, onwards into a yellow haze of poisonous corrosive cloud.
Even in a sealed ship it feels like he can smell the sulfur, the reek of hydrogen sulfide.
And a light whimper follows...
Just a moment ago he was in heaven.
I could... go there. Salvage a wreckage for hard currency. Just avoid the police and I'll be there.

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Chapter 2/end

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