Anima Sola

[Ryummel]

"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

The Tempest

Prologue here

Ever since the successful recovery of his pod in the middle of the hostile environment that Omega-11 space provided, Oskar Heidrich found himself performing low-tier administrative duties within the Rheinland Military during the first six months, while he alongisde the surviving crew members of the gunboat that Heidrich himself commanded ran through periodic medical checks. These checks were not exactly the kind of procedure that Oskar felt comfortably with ever since he enlisted the Military a decade ago, but given the circumstances that surrounded him and the destruction of the Rosenheim, he eventually accepted the situation.

The Military command were more than aware of the threats that crawled in the Omegas, and the Hessian movement was just one of the many. Fortunately or not, the flight logs were recovered from the Rosenheim's wreck on time for an exhaustive interrogation to take part, where Oskar could only provide the damned name that had been carved deep in his mind since that incident: Vivien Schmitt.

But why and how did a Fähnrich-ranked declared missed-in-action managed to cause such a huge onslaught to the point it left an entire gunboat incapacitated against a couple of passing-by Hessian snubcraft? The hypothesis and assumptions came right away, and while the public report mentioned an attack performed solely by Hessians, the actual report listed yet another case of the sparse group of defecting officers that resided in the Omegas.

Having had provided every bit of information he could and having found no evidences of conspirational elements in him, Heidrich ran through no additional misfortunes as opposed to his former fellowmen, diagnosed with PTSD and living a life away from military duties. He was ready to serve his homeland again, and for that matter, he was called back into the Military Primary Fleet holding the rank of Leutnant.

However, he would soon begin to search for real answers to the Rosenheim disaster.

---

[ChillerMiller]

Battleship Moselle, Braunschweig system

Larissa Schmitt, ranked Hauptmann in the Military, has always had the habit of reading through various files relating to the soldiers that served under her command. While most of them were rather uneventful, there were some rare cases that attracted her attention. One such case was the Rosenheim incident and the fact that Oskar Heydrich survived this particular event.

She was sitting in her office, reading the aforementioned report, even though she had already done that a couple of times. However, she always managed to find new, interesting details in it that she hadn’t spotted before. These were all valuable pieces of information that she needed in order to find her long lost sister, Vivien. During the past three years, Larissa and a group of people selected by her, collected all kinds of reports and evidences relating to Vivien with the goal to locate and eventually apprehend her.

However, Larissa and her team have not yet managed to achieve this goal, as their enemy always managed to anticipate their moves and act accordingly. A proof that Larissa was indeed chasing her own sister. “I was too reluctant in the past,” she thought to herself. The Rosenheim report was one thing, however, Larissa wanted to actually meet the person who survived an encounter with her sister, which was a rare case after all.

Larissa patiently awaited the Leutnant’s arrival while she continued to read the Rosenheim report.

[Ryummel]

He stood firmly under the blast door way as he saluted before Hauptmann Schmitt gestured at him to walk inside. He could not help with casting a sneering expression after noticing the last report he submitted on top of the desk of the Hauptmann, right next to his personal record card. He closed his eyes for a second as the cascade of thoughts invaded him. He had been made aware of his former fellow officers being unable to articulate a word after listening 'Rosenheim' during the debriefing, however the Leutnant realized over the time that a burning feeling of revenge had been holding his psyche strong enough to avoid any mental collapses diagnosed. Perhaps it was Vivien's plan from the beginning, making a monster out of Oskar?
He regained composure afterwards, breathing quietly before speaking.

"I hope no oversights during my ongoing service as Leutnant have been pointed, Hauptmann. Doing my best, I assure you."

He excused himself, despite having an idea of Hauptmann Schmitt having more in common with Vivien than what some people within the Military believed. Doubts had assaulted him during his flight to the Moselle, however if both the Hauptmann and Vivien still shared some kind of contact, the High Command would have easily noticed. The past experience of the Nomad War had made the Military more stern and cautious 'from the inside', but nevertheless the frontline troops and officers were still vulnerable to the threats stalking the borders of Rheinland.
Definitely, he had no reasons to suspect of anyone breathing inside the Moselle. For now.

[ChillerMiller]

“Nobody has claimed otherwise, Leutnant.” the Hauptmann replied while scribbling something into the report...yet another detail she had not spotted before. "Well, this will require some more investigation." she thought to herself and turned her attention towards the Leutnant.

"As you can see, Herr Heydrich, your past as commanding officer of the Rosenheim is something I'm quite interested in. I can imagine that you'd rather not remember this particular chapter of your past, however, I hope that these feelings don't completely paralyze you. Please have a seat, Leutnant." Larissa pointed at the chair in front of her desk. Oskar nodded firmly and stepped toward the chair that the Hauptmann had pointed at, breathing quietly before speaking again. "I submitted every detail in the debriefing report there, I'm not sure if I will be able shed light on the matter anymore."

"You won't be required to do so anyway, I've read this report a couple of times. I believe that I actually know more about it than you." she replied and closed the report. "What do you know about the person you met aboard the Rosenheim?"

"A Fähnrich deemed MIA by the time we came across her ship. And right now, a traitor to our House." He replied, lightly clenching his jaw in silence as the last sentence made him go through the memory of the Rosenheim crew being slaughtered.

"A traitor indeed. And a dangerous one, too." Larissa opened one of her desk's drawers and took out another file, on which Heydrich could see the words 'STRENG GEHEIM'. "This file is the sad record of her actions during the past three years. We have proof that she murdered at least 37 people, which were Military people, business people and even civilians. Moreover, we believe that she was involved in killing another 24 people, however, there's no clear evidence to fully prove that. The Rosenheim victims are not even included in any of these numbers."

"Take a look at these pictures." she said and showed Heydrich a page with five different pictures of Vivien. She had a different hair colour and style on every picture, which made it extremely difficult to immediately recognize her. Larissa pointed at one of these pictures. "You've seen her like this, I believe. The terrorist who also happens to be one of my elder sisters."

[Ryummel]

He didn't even bother to do the maths on Vivien's bodycount including the Rosenheim crewmen, acknowledging it would just make the conversation uneasy for him. His suspicions were confirmed in the end, as he glanced over the pictures and listened to the last sentence of the Hauptmann. "If only I had known..." He only reached to mumble while he casted a stern expression.

""It wouldn't have changed a thing. The fate of your crew was decided the moment you let her aboard your ship. However, there is one question that remains unanswered. On whose side is she? What do you think, Leutnant?"

"Definitely not on our side, Hauptmann. To begin with, a defector in the ranks of the Bundschuh wouldn't have pushed a bloodshed that far without issuing any claim in public. On the other hand, this other group hiding in the depths of the Omega cluster..." He replied, although his voice tone began lowering itself as he felt it inappropriate to speak his mind openly.

"That is indeed an option. However, we know very little about the reasons behind her actions. But to be honest..." she stopped for a moment to collect her thoughts "I stopped caring about that when she killed our parents. I don't care if she's working for the Bundschuh, the Hessians or if she's a damn alien. I don't care if she's alone, or if she has a group of people backing her up. These people need to vanish, my sister included."

"Since it could be problematic for me to point a gun at my own sister, despite the circumstances, I believe that you wouldn't have a lot of issues doing that. Is my assumption correct?" Larissa asked.

She was completely right. After taking a second look at the pictures of Vivien, his mind began to feel clouded by the desire of vengeance that he was also afraid of. "That's correct, Hauptmann." He answered.

"That's the answer I wanted to hear. Please take note that none of this is official and I trust you'll keep everything that's discussed in here to yourself." Larissa said in a rather strict tone. "I'll get severe problems if our incompetent superiors find out about this. And in that case, I'll not hesitate to take you down with me. Is that clear?"

"Clear enough, Hauptmann." He replied. "I think this will make my reinstatement within the Military's middle command less uneventful than I believed."

"It might take a while before you get to the 'action', Leutnant. My sister has been pretty inactive these past months and my team hasn't managed to trace her. But I'll inform you should the situation change. You are also expected to keep your eyes open and report everything that might be important for us."

"Permission to speak freely, Hauptmann?" He replied after casting a brief nod. "Go ahead, Leutnant." Larissa replied, wondering what he had to say.

"I think the records of these... traitors shouldn't be placed under a 'top secret' veil. Moreover, if the High Command resorted to declaring missing pilots as defectors instead of 'MIA', then I wouldn't have allowed -her- medical attention at first."

"But you'd still have taken her aboard the ship. Trust me, your crew was doomed from the very beginning. However, I do agree with your opinion about High Command's decision. There is a reason why I called them incompetent."

"Indeed, what's done is done. However if we could prevent further killing... Right, understood, I'll keep my eyes open. Anything else I could help you with, Hauptmann?"

"That would be all, Leutnant. Thank you for your time and cooperation, I'll keep you informed should anything important happen."

[Ryummel]

The service rendered in the Military since then didn't prove for Heidrich challenging, displaying no hesitation nor weakness at all whenever the duty called down in the Omega cluster. The Omegas had become almost an obsession for the now ranked Major, searching for any clue that could lead to Vivien Schmitt or the missing MND agent, Adrian Zähler. But the 'ghosts' that haunted Rheinland since twenty years ago was not the only threat to face there. The wreck of the Rosenheim still floated in Omega 11, prey of Hessians, while the corporations clashed with the independent miners away from the eyes of the Military. Soon he would realize that his desire of revenge would be hampered by these issues.

Heidrich was finally granted a couple of days away from the Strausberg, which he would take to visit the family apartment block in the cold cities of Planet Hamburg. Both his parents and brother were expected to arrive by the next day, so he would havea great chance to spend the first day alone, meditating, or perhaps checking some of the paperwork he had brought with him.

However, the entrance door was already open when he arrived, and as soon as he stepped into the living room, he couldn't help with moving his hand to reach his now missing gun holster. It looked like somebody had raided the apartment with the sole intention of causing as much harm as possible. Oskar could remember most of the items and furnite being present in the every room of the apartment, but now they were broken or scattered on the floor. Unable to figure out the responsible behind this act, he rushed back to the apartment's exit as he began dialing the Federal Police with his PDA. Just as he reached the entrance hall, his eyes spotted what looked like a picture frame on the floor, as if somebody had slided it under the door before storming the place. 'What kind of purpose...?' He thought, confused. Nothing made any sense until he picked up the picture from the floor and examined it closely.

A stain of dry blood covered the face of one of the girls who may be the youngest one by judging the height of the other two girls, who were holding the little one. The physical traits of the visible girls reminded him of someone, more than he would have wanted.

Was it a message?