Chapter 10: Reassigned to Norden

Five weeks had passed since the incident and many things had changed at the Academy.

To mention one: von Rerugen had been promoted to the Strategic Headquarters, and therefore he had been forced to leave his post as Chief of Personnel Affairs, so his position had been taken by a new arrival, Major Wolfram Springer, from Berun. Although Major Wolfram was very scary-looking, he was also an honorable man, who firmly believed in order and discipline. Besides, he was the father of two children, and perhaps it was for this reason that he held a paternal attitude towards Tanya and I. Thanks to this, the dossier that von Rerugen had opened on "The Incident" had quickly disappeared in the archive of the Academy. Even today, I am happy that this happened: In my opinion, it could have ended a lot worse.

The fear of receiving a Court Martial was over, but that did not mean I was not troubled now. The countdown to our graduation had officially started, and we were increasingly busy. The short time that we did not have to devote to training the cadets under our command, we devoted to our studies. And we used it well, to ensure that our vote average does not fall. There were days when I felt like a zombie, after fourteen hours of study and training I could not wait to get back to my cot.

Mentally, I counted the days that separated us from graduation.

​

"Norden?" I said with a mix of amazement and surprise, "They are sending you to Norden?"

Tanya and I were once again in the cafeteria, reading the operational orders of deployment that had reached us. From these documents, we learned that Strategic HQ had decided to let us perform joint exercises before graduation.

At the Academy, it was a common topic of discussion to ask oneself what their destination would be: naturally, everyone hoped to be assigned to a quiet sector, where, in the event of an outbreak of hostilities, the chances of being on the front line were low.

"Yep" said Tanya in front of me "Apparently, someone at High Command must have been positively impressed by my skills"

I exhaled deeply.

Tanya had been lucky: the northern border that the Empire shared with the Entente (a kind of united Scandinavia derived from what must have been the local equivalent of the Kalmar Union) was considered one of the best postings for a warrant officer in training. The Entente was a very hostile nation. However, from what information I was able to gather, it was currently going through a very harsh economic crisis, that (in the eyes of many) made new territorial disputes with the Empire very unlikely. Moreover, their army had a reputation for not having fought in a war for many years.

"And you?" she said "Where will you undergo your training exercises?"

I looked down, looking at the sealed envelope with a mixture of fear and nervousness. A part of me did not want to open it, so much was the fear of being reassigned to a dangerous front like the border with the Republic or the Federation. Even so, I could not keep the envelope closed forever: according to regulations, it would be the same as "not following orders".

Therefore, I took a breath of courage and opened the envelope.

Please not the Rhine, please not the Rhine, I thought in my head as I pulled out the envelope and ran the text in silence.

What I saw left me speechless.

"Wow…" was the first thing I was able to say.

"Wow?" asked Tanya coming nearer "Do not tell me they reassigned you to the Dakia border?"

"No." I said with a very smug smile "Better."

Within seconds, Tanya had already grabbed the letter and was reading what I had been reading a few moments ago.

"What?" she exclaimed, "You're being assigned to Norden too?"

"Apparently, yes." I said looking at her "Someone at High Command thinks we work well together ..."

She glared at me "Please tell me that was a joke and not a very stupid attempt at flirting…"

"What do you mean?" I said chuckling sheepishly.

​

The following day Tanya and I left the Academy, albeit temporarily, and we went to the nearby station to catch the train that would take us to our new base of operations.

Since we both remembered the "risks" of being too close to the edge when the train arrived, we waited for the train sitting on a bench along the platform. This way, even if someone had decided to push us, the chances of ending up under the train would have been minimal.

"Do you really believe that such a thing can happen again?" I asked looking at Tanya, who was busy gazing at the station.

"What I believe does not matter when you're dealing with someone like Being X," she said with anger. "I do not know if he would be bastard enough to repeat the trick, but I clearly remember the last thing he told us before he let that train hit us!"

I sighed, while the words of Being X came back to my mind.

"Try to live as long as you can. If you will die again, there will be no second reincarnation, for both of you," I repeated almost verbatim "Yet I still have not understood what he meant."

"Is not it logical?" she said looking up "It means that if, for one reason or another, we should die, he will not give us the luxury of a new life again!"

I froze, thinking about it. The life that I live now was not exactly Paradise, but it was still a life. If I had died and had not received another, what would have become of me?

The first thought that came to me was that I would probably have ended up in Hell, or at least in its local version, considering the way Being X had behaved towards me.

What could have been my punishment for eternity? Having my intestines devoured like Prometheus? Torture of the most unequal fate? Would I have kept this aspect forever and would he have locked me in a kindergarten? Any choice would have been pure torture.

And yet… There was a worse possibility.

Being X had also said that he was responsible for the reincarnations. What if he simply decided to let us disappear?

The idea of being tortured for eternity was horrible, but the idea of ceasing to exist was worse. To be tortured, you at least had to be still "alive", from a metaphorical point of view.

But, disappear into nothingness; as if you had never existed ... I believe there was no worse fate.

As if to distract me from those terrible thoughts, a piercing whistle echoed along the platform, informing us of the arrival of our train. It took a few moments before a large black steam locomotive stopped along the platform, pulling behind itself a dozen passenger wagons.

Almost immediately, the people standing on the platform with us got up from their seats (if they were seated) and lined up in front of the train, waiting to get on board. Each of them had the same frenzy of getting on the train that I also had in another life, that which had been the basis of my downfall.

"Time to move, princess." I said, "Let's go to Norden."

We lined up behind a large group of people (including other soldiers) who were waiting to get up. Unfortunately, because of our still short stature, we could not clearly see beyond the people in front of us, and this put us at disadvantage.

Destiny, however, still had a bad joke in store for us.

As we boarded the train, I noticed the controller for the first time. He was a tall, austere man with a mustache that in my old life had gone out of fashion almost half a century ago. I know he had noticed us, because at times he looked at us with stern glances.

"Tanya, that man is watching us." I said, a little worried.

"I know," she replied with nonchalance "I've been keeping an eye on him for a few minutes,"

Reassured by her words, I tried to think of something else and not look at the controller. The latter, however, was moving away from the platform, and was heading for a station office that I could not identify.

I did not know yet what would happen soon, but instinctively, I felt a chill on my back.

​

"Are you sure you want the place near the window?" I asked.

Tanya turned to me with an irritated look "I'm sure. I do not like smoking and unfortunately, it seems that there is still no distinction between smokers and non-smokers," she said, looking along the wagon, where some men were already pulling out pipes or cigars.

In some ways, I could not blame her. I did not like being too close to people who smoked too, both out of respect for them and for my lungs.

"As you wish, princess." I said siting down on my seat "By the way, do you think we will have free time between exercises?"

"I do not think so. Why do you ask?" she said, still looking out the window.

"Well, from what others told me at the Academy, in Norden it snows nine months out of twelve. We could… you know… do something together… for fun, of course!"

"Fun? Are you planning to build a snowman? No chance!"

"No, I was planning more of…"

"Tickets and documents, please!" suddenly a gruff voice resounded from above our heads.

We jerked up. It was the controller from before. And he seemed very angry.

Almost instinctively, I took the leather case where I kept all my personal documents and I pulled off my military recognition document, along with my ticket. Tanya, with a few seconds of delay, did the same.

The controller took our documents and looked at them very carefully. I did not notice at first, but I realized his jaw was grinding in a grimace of rage.

"Come with me." he finally said, putting our documents in a pocket of his jacket.

"Why?" Tanya asked with annoyance.

"There is some problem?" I asked

"Yep, two unaccompanied children trying to get on a train with false documents. You must come with me."

For a few seconds, I was stunned. Was he talking about us?

"I'm sorry officer," I said, believing that I was facing a trivial misunderstanding "But I can assure these are genuine. I am warrant officer Frederick König and this is my fellow officer Tanya Degurechaff. We are taking this train to reach our new deployment area at Norden"

"Yeah, right." he said looking at us with a very smug look "You think you're smart, but you made a very simple mistake: there is no way the military would even accept two children young as you two!"

Once again, I cursed Being X for this extra-cute body "We are. Even without the documents, you can understand from our uniforms that we are telling the truth."

The controller went closer, grabbing each one of us for one arm.

"You are just a couple of brats who believe they above the rules just because your mother bought you a pair of fake uniforms, they! Get out of this wagon, or I'm calling the station security!"

Now I was definitely angry. Being grabbed against my permission was not something I liked, and from the gaze in her eyes, even Tanya did not like it.

"First:" I said pulling my arm free "Do not touch someone unless they allow you to do it. It is very rude. Second: I can assure you that we are both warrant officers at the Academy for Officers of the Imperial Army, here in Berun, and that we are wizards!"

I realized then that our little argument was causing some confusion on the train: more than one passenger had turned to look at us.

"Third:" I kept up "if you do not believe me, you can contact our superior the Brigadier General Christof Weitz, chief of the Academy. He knows us, and he will be more than happy to make you look bad with your superiors! And Fourth: if you try again to grab us by arm, I'll kill you!"

I looked around. It was evident that the other passengers were disconcerted and did not know what to think. Mentally, I hoped that my "outburst of anger" would be enough to make that idiot controller withdraw his accusations.

But I was wrong. Very wrong.

"That's it!" The controller said, grabbing both of us and pulling us from our seats "I'm reporting you to the purser!"

We protested, shouted, and in general, we got angry, but the controller dragged us from our seats, leading us forcibly away…

​

We were now in large room of the station illuminated with an oil lamp, which generated a gloomy and quite scary light. To make things worse, the ceiling was crumbled and full of cracks, creating shadows that increased my anxiety.

Inside the room, there was a wooden table, in front of which Tanya and I were currently sitting. The controller was standing behind us, as his current task seemed to be to prevent both Tanya and I from doing something violent.

In fact, he could not have done anything if the "princess" or I really decided to use our powers, as we had threatened. However, if I used my powers against a railway officer, I would have risked going to the wrong side (as Tanya had not hesitated to warn me in a low voice), so I kept my anger inside and tried to focus my mind on other things.

In front of us, sitting on an old creaky chair, was the station commissioner: a short, plump man who would probably spend the rest of his life keeping order in the station.

"So you continue to claim to be wizards of the Imperial Army, and that you are being redeployed to Norden for exercises?" the commissioner said, letting the smell of his terrible breath reach our nostrils.

"Yes." Tanya said a very sharp tone of voice "You checked our documents. You have inspected our equipment. You even sent a relay to the Academy to verify our identities. Why do not you let us go then?"

"You will not go anywhere!" repeated the controller behind us "As soon as we find out who you really are and who are your parents, you are going to get a big spanking!"

Mentally, I appealed to all my strength not to attack him. Was he "helped" by Being X or was he this stupid by himself?

"Useless fatigue." I murmured, "Just because you know it, neither me nor Tanya have parents..."

"Oh. So you two are orphans?" the controller said "Even better: this means that once we have finished here, I will be free to send you to the reformatory!"

Tanya and I shared a look. Yep, he was an idiot.

"Sir!" said a young low-level station employee entering the room "Here is the official report on missing children in the last 24 hours!"

The commissioner grunted, grabbing the papers without even bothering to thank him.

"Very well." he said kept exchanging glances between Tanya, the papers and me "This is your last chance to tell me the truth, children. Who are you? Who are your parents? And how we can contact them? I am warning you: if you still refuse to answer, I will have to examine all the papers until I find you. And when I find who you are really, you'll get a severe punishment!"

I looked at him maliciously. If he really wanted to read all the sheets of the report in a vain attempt to find us, worse for him.

"Okay, you won," said Tanya with a very melancholic voice.

I jerked up and watched her. She did not had her usual look; instead, she looked frail… and innocent. What was she playing now?

"We do not want to cause a mess." Tanya kept up with her cute child voice "If you want, we can give you a phone number to call. Tell them that we are here and what happened, and they will be happy to tell you who we really are and what we we're going."

"Ah!" said the controller with a very smug smile "I knew it. I knew you little rascals were just trying to deceive us!"

I was astonished. Why was Tanya telling this idiot that he was right?

The commissioner leaned forward and placed a piece of paper and a pencil before Tanya

"Please, write down the number we have to call!"

Tanya quickly grabbed the pencil and began to write a telephone number on the piece of paper. Instinctively, I leaned forward to see what number she was writing.

I saw it and realized…

"Very well." said the commissioner getting up and taking the sheet of paper on which Tanya had just finished writing. "Now I'm going to call this number and I will tell them everything that has happened. Controller, please watch over the kids while I'm outside!"

The commissioner then left the room, leaving us with the idiotic (and now smug) controller.

"Tanya!" I hissed trying to not get caught by the idiot. "That was the Academy number, right?"

"Yep!"