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War hero - Major Harkonnen - 04-02-2016
The charring son of Omega-11 lit the silver wings of a burning Sabre fighter. The ship was full of holes, the engines of the vessel were emitting flames. Miraculously, the cockpit was intact, but the pilot within was severely injured. The flames were engulfing an iron cross emblem on the wings, they were slowly tearing away the grey paint and the hull under it. One could make out "Valkyrie Freikorps" written on the wing before it melted away.
Though it was clearly not a military ship, the fighter was piloted by one extremely Rheinlandish-looking soldier. His face was literally as square as a brick, his eyebrows reflected cruel apathy and most remarkably, he was dressed in a Rheinwehr Major's parade uniform, despite clearly not being either part of the Force, or on a military parade.
But that is how former Major Einar Harkonnen preferred to live. Fancy uniforms, medals, discipline, love for the
Vaterland. He was now wondering how he screwed up so much.
The legendary raging nationalist of the Hauptflotte was now lightyears away from his beloved Berlin, dismissed from the force, dismissed from the Nationalistische Partei Rheinland, having to resort to mercenary work along with a rag-tag force of ex-military and worst of all, shot up by a Hessian elite patrol. The enthusiastic patriot burned out, this time literally.
"Where.... where did I screw up? All I ever did was fight for the Vaterland yet.... I will die an exile's death. An exile, abandoned by the Vaterland he vowed to serve forever."
As usual, he tried to find some external circumstance to explain his failure to himself as his life flashed before his eyes.
RE: War hero - Major Harkonnen - 04-02-2016
His first memory was when he pledged his service to the Vaterland about 12... no it was more like 15 years ago. He recalled all the celebration around getting his first shoulder pads with the "Leutnant" insignia on them, and when he could put the "Lt." sign in front of his name, he literally experienced one of the best days ever in his life.
"Leutnant Einar Harkonnen.... no, *Herr* Leutnant Einar Harkonnen" - he kept repeating to himself.
Later he did that every time he was promoted, Oberleutnant, Hauptmann, Major... as the war with Liberty broke out and officers were dying left and right, it was easy to make progress on the rank ladder.
His superiors mostly didn't mind that he was a fanatic in the beginning. As he charged into battle and got his first few kills, he became even more fanatic. He actively took up politics immediately after he scored his first aerial victory as a squadron leader, and joined the nationalists, a minor faction aspiring to bring back the great glory of Rheinland, lost about 200 years ago. That made him not only a fanatic, but an actively political radical rightist as well.
"FÜR RHEINLAND! ONWARDS TO GLORY!". - he shouted as he kept charging into battle.
Neither his wingmen, nor his enemies (those that survived, that is) ever forgot the stupid-degree bravery which he exhibited. The fact is, most of the time, he only survived thanks to pure luck, such as when the LNS-Trump misfired its flak cannon and took out its escort wing, which pinned Harkonnen's Wraith into a four-on-one.
Regardless of the circumstances, he got noticed by his superiors. There were those who were impressed, and there were those, who wanted him dead. As he got more and more radicalized and became more and more indiscriminate against not only Libertonians, but basically anyone who was even remotely of non-Rheinländer origin, there were always attempts to remove him from the front, one way or another.
But he stayed. And kept killing. Mostly Libertonian soldiers, but some Kusarian workers and Bretonian tourists also were victimized by the overzealous nationalist, when no one was looking. Such is war. Such are war heroes.
RE: War hero - Major Harkonnen - 04-02-2016
Then came the time good times for Harkonnen. Fleet Admiral Günter Rall flipped and escaped to Liberty chasing some love of his life in the form of a Junker cruiser captain, then Fleet Admiral Alec Voelkel stepped up as the supreme commander of the Rheinwehr Hauptflotte. Voelkel was a nationalist himself, though not a party member, he sympathized with the freshly promoted Major Harkonnen, who in turn was more obedient towards him than to most of his superiors.
Eventually, Harkonnen personally arrested Rall, who ended up on Vierlande. Though the former Admiral was kept merely for a symbolic three day long interrogation, Voelkel saw that Harkonnen could be trusted with getting things done that other soldiers would not do for moral reasons.
He was there when the IMG-Rheinwehr conflict broke out (in fact, he was one of the catalysts thereof) or when the Standoff at Omega-3 resulted in a brief conflict between Bretonia and Rheinland.
"Good times, good times indeed" - he remarked as the flames spread around his ship, thinking of what were probably the sweetest memories of his life.
But as the conflicts forced both Fleet Admiral Voelkel and Meyer into resignation, Harkonnen was left all alone without any protégés and a handful of war crimes to answer for.
Not wanting to completely humiliate one of the icons of the Voelkel era when many soldiers still loyal to his memory were in the force, Harkonnen was not tried or dismissed, but moved to Munich instead, where minimal traffic went down at that point, so he couldn't do any more harm to the prestige of Rheinland, undergoing a face shift towards a peace loving, liberal nation instead of a war-mongering industrial giant.
RE: War hero - Major Harkonnen - 04-02-2016
Then some years passed.
Augsburg exploded, Munich became a haven for Bretonian refugees and worst of all, the war with Liberty ended.
Harkonnen was raging at that point.
"They betrayed us.... Rheinhardt was a true leader for our Nation but then....first that incompetent Schulte came, then that woman took office and sold us out. Ausländer refugees. Communists everywhere. Capitalists exploiting the last of our resources. Treason has a name, it is called Luisa Neumann" - he shouted as he angrily threw stuff around his Munich office.
As most of the Rheinwehr - including the Hauptflotte - was devastated, anarchy soon broke loose in Rheinland and marauder attacks, looting, piracy became much more of a commonplace than before. The Rheinland law was shorthanded and Harkonnen was sent back to active service in the main fleet's Rheinland-wide patrols, but at that point, the Major became so obsessed with the Bundestag betraying him, that he did little more than harassing traders, whom he deemed the true lords of the corrupt Neumann-led Bundestag.
The Rheinwehr quickly chose to dismiss the Major, who was but a shade of his former self, devoid of all the heroism and positive characteristics he possessed during the war, instead retaining all of his uselessly overdone patriotism and xenophobia.
A tight-knit band of ex-military mercenaries, called the Valkyrie Freikorps took him in, who were basically keeping clean heavily pirate-infested regions, such as the Omegas or the Sigmas, where the Rheinwehr's hand wouldn't reach.
RE: War hero - Major Harkonnen - 04-02-2016
It was that accursed mercenary band that got him into this position. Sitting in a burning Sabre in the middle of an irradiated asteroid field, devoid of glory, far away from Rheinland. Mercenary work never really suited the Major, who basically continued to pretend to be one of the Rheinwehr, tidying his uniform, wearing it, along his medals, to every engagement he went to. He wanted to continue fighting for the Vaterland, for his citizens, for Rheinhardt and Voelkel, who were both enjoying their luxurious pensions on Baden-Baden, but he couldn't.
Everything he fought for was gone, his dreams shattered, his ship's hull slowly melting away.
Harkonnen sat back on his seat. He stared into the vast emptiness of space, he watched as the burning asteroids of the Von Rohe belt crashed into the hellish corona of Omega-11's giant sun.
He closed his eyes.
He was ready to die.
"VFK Delta 1-1, this is the RNC Braunau am Inn. Do you read?" - the radio suddenly cracked. Wow, it was still intact after all the beating Harkonnen's ship got.
Blood rushed into his head, his heart started beating. Rheinwehr ships? Out here? It was a miracle.
"VFK Delta 1-1, this is the RNC Braunau am Inn. Do you read?"
He wiped the blood from his forehead, then grabbed the radio and shouted:
"Yes! ... Yes! This is Major Einar Harkonnen of the Rheinw---- I mean the Valkyrie Freikorps. My ship was beaten up by Hessians. My vessel is on fire and the reactor may explode any second, can you lend a hand?"
Silence followed for about five seconds, but it seemed like an entire week for the former Major.
"We copy, Major Harkonnen. We're right at your location, we're going to rescue you, just hold on."
A Donau-class cruiser hovered over the burning Sabre. He was saved.
RE: War hero - Major Harkonnen - 04-02-2016
The Branau am Inn's medics pulled the injured mercenary out of his burning Sabre, luckily the flames were quickly put out as oxygen was pumped from the fighter's compartments. He was badly beaten up, his head was bleeding, most likely with a severe concussion and he couldn't feel his legs.
He was dizzy from the blood loss, from the concussion, from the fatigue and from having lost the meaning of his life. He fainted.
The Major woke up in some sort of infirmary, near his bed, a nurse was injecting some sort of serum into his arm. As he hissed due to the pain of the injection, he tried to raise his arm, but he was tied down.
"What the f----"
"Sssssshhhh...."
The hiss came from a Rheinwehr officer near the Major's bed, whom he did not notice until now. His sight was still a bit off and his head was splitting from an ache, but it looked like that the uniform of the officer was from the Niemann-era. It had to be at least twenty years old. His ranking insignia indicated that he was of a Vizeadmiral rank.
"Sir!? Could you please explain what is going on here?" - he asked in a faint, sick voice, which was all that he was capable of.
After all the years of military service, Harkonnen couldn't refrain from referring to his superior officer with respect, even though the picture was very obviously off.
"Everything is okay now, Major Einar Harkonnen. You are safe now." - the Vizeadmiral replied in a calming voice, with a slight, but pleasant smile on his face.
The pilot tied to his bed once again started feeling dizzy. Ever dizzier. He was going to faint again.
"Do not worry, brave Major. You will have the chance to fight for a cause again. No pain, no remorse. Your dreams come true."
Harkonnen wanted to scream and fight, but fatigue disabled him entirely. Before going unconscious, all he could see was the Vizeadmiral leaning over him, smiling, his eyes suddenly lighting up in a bright, purple glow.