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  “And the fucker came up to me and said, ‘If you talk to me like that one more time…’ and it was right there when I knocked him onto the ground. I don’t like knives you see, gotta just—”

  He wrestles with the air, pretending to down a figurative man. The crowd’s attention has now turned to me placing myself on a chair, joining the group bunched around the flames. The air becomes thick with nervousness. They aren’t used to the Captain himself joining them in their drinking.

  “After I stopped throttling his neck he eventually regained consciousness but you should have seen the wedding party—” he pauses, as his good eye slowly turns to meet mine.

  “That’s a good story you should continue,” I encourage.

  After a few seconds of wide-eyed befuddlement, the man quickly regains his composure and waves his arm down to the fire. “Welcome to our humble fire, Captain,” he says with a smile half full of teeth.

  Clear the streets for the brown battalions,

  Clear the streets for the storm division!

  The muffled voices continue to sing and I turn my attention to the small wooden box that is blaring the music. It’s cobbled together in a makeshift fashion with screws and tape. With every call of the horns it rumbles like it will burst open at any moment.

  “That’s an odd contraption,” I remark, pointing at the box. “Where did you get it?”

  “He made it himself,” a man to my right says in a slurred tone. I can’t place his name, but he appears to be a guard by his uniform. More armor, more pouches, and a rifle by his side. Each ship in the Kiln was assigned at least a few still-active military members, although most of the men who sail in the Kiln have themselves at one time served in the Kiln.

  “Thank you, but I would like to hear from Chief Engineer Keller,” I calmly reply, my eyes turning toward a face covered in a fix of dust and grease.

  “I did make this myself, Captain,” Keller beams, pointing to the box. He stops the song, and the group bemoans their loss of entertainment. With one quick fashion he opens up the wooden lid and takes out a dark and round, yet flat disc. “A friend of mine sold it to me in Eagle Nest #18. Said some Scavengers found it while scouring the desert.”

  “Scavenging is illegal, you realize,” I state, leaning back.

  Keller’s eyes freeze for a fraction of a second, still grasping at the disc. The fire reflects speckles of orange off of the disc’s glossy coating. I can tell his mind is churning with the right words to say.

  “Technically, yes it is, but I didn’t scavenge this, somebody else did,” Keller defends.

  “Fair enough,” I respond, not caring much that the disc was actually found. I’ve never agreed much with the rules about scavenging in the Kiln. It’s a vast desert. I’m sure there are things out here worth some money. Yet the law demands that nobody take even a trinket from the sands. The reason for this is unclear. Some argue that it’s to prevent some ancient virus from resurfacing to plague humanity once again. Or maybe, the Scavengers planted a lie in the desert. I doubt the latter, I don’t think the Scavengers are smart enough to even replicate an Aryan artifact.

  Keller takes the disc and places it neatly back into the box. With a closing of the lid and the press of a button the song continues on with its jubilant melody.

  Millions are looking upon the swastika full of hope,

  The day of freedom and of bread dawns!

  The voices ringing from the box were muffled and distant. Perhaps it was just the rudimentary nature of Keller’s design, but this song certainly didn’t sound like anything I’d heard before. It sounded…old. Like singing from the distant past.

  “We were taking bets on when this could have been made, sir,” one crewman draped in a brown cloth pipes up, “I think it’s from the Glass Wars.”

  “Fuck off, it’s far too old for that, I’d say twenty-ninth century…at least,” another butts in with a deep baritone voice.

  “What about you Keller?” I ask, the Engineer sitting himself down. Keller puts a gloved hand to his face, rubbing more grease onto it.

  “I’d say…Reclamation,” he guesses, putting his hand to his chin in a comedic fashion. The group howls in laughter at the idea.

  “Reclamation! Fuck you! Something like that doesn’t survive that long out there!” the man to my right yells.

  For the last time, the call to arms is sounded!

  For the fight, we all stand prepared!

  “I like that idea,” I say, and the laughter dies down, eyebrows raise. “I’d say it’s Reclamation too.”

  “Well looks like you win, Keller,” another jokes. “Captain has final say. Reclamation it is. We’re listening to the original Aryans.”

  “There’s no way to know for sure,” I state, not wanting the festivities to end just yet, “So what are we betting?” I ask. “Just so I know what we get if we win.” I point to Keller and me.

  “The finest German whiskey, aged twelve years, winner gets the bottle.” Keller states, holding up a fine brown bottle with the engraving of an eagle. An idea pops into my head. There is a way that we could figure out this little mystery…or at least, the best-educated way to.

  “I have a way to settle this,” I say. “My brother Ulric. Knights have all that knowledge of Reich history over any of us buffoons. He might help.” Drunken agreement arises from the crowd.

  “I’ll go wake him up!” the man to my right eagerly says, but before he stands I place a hand on his shoulder.

  “If some random sailor he doesn’t know knocks on his door at this time of night, I guarantee he won’t come out, and we’ll never learn the secret,” I joke. “I’ll do it.”

  With that, I lift myself up, excuse myself from the group who raise their drinks to me, and turn back toward the portway into the officer quarters.

  The joyous song still plays behind me. It must have been some crazy bastard, to go out into the desert to get that. Yes, it was “illegal” to take objects from the sand, but nobody really bothered to scavenge anyway. Going out without a ship oftentimes was just suicide.

  A decent suit of armor was really the best and only defense against the scalding heat outside, and at best it lasted a few hours. After that, the last bit of power runs out, the cooling systems fail, and the suit’s occupant succumbs to the heat in a matter of minutes.

  Who would want to risk their own life to try to find something out there? Everything interesting, like old ships and lost civilizations once under the sea, had supposedly been picked clean long ago. Who would expect that after two thousand years, there would still be objects out there left undiscovered? Something potentially from the Reclamation—from the time of the Eternal Führer and the founding of the Reich? The time when Europeans reclaimed their land from the influence of foreign outsiders…

  It was a difficult time. Everything changed so rapidly. Technology, culture, society as a whole. Records from that time were simply lost over the thousands of years. Now only the legends, the book My Struggle, and the dams remained as a testament to that time we can only imagine now.

  The origins of the Aryans have always been wrapped in a bit of mystery because of that. So to have something from that time, to hear those voices speaking back to us…if it was actually true…that’d be a remarkable find.

  I stroll down to the special chambers where the officers sleep and find myself in a dimly lit, empty hallway. Most of the occupants are out on the deck or stuck in the Bridge. I really should get back to Volker and Witzel, yet my curiosity is getting the best of me.

  I reach a metal door and knock softly on it with three rhythmic hits. There is no response. After a minute of waiting, the door slowly opens, revealing a puzzled Ulric. He has disbanded his armor for the night. His eyes, half shut, look back at me as he scratches at his disheveled hair. Looking past him, I see inside his quarters a book placed upon his mattress. It looks like a copy of My
Struggle.

  “What is it?” he asks, resting an exhausted hand on his forehead. “I was about to sleep.”

  “Not socializing with the crew, huh?” I say with a smile to a sleepy Ulric. He looks back at me, unresponsive. Mouth agape.

  “Not particularly,” he yawns after a few seconds. “I was just reading, it’s pretty late.”

  “It’s only 22:00,” I chuckle. “Nobody sleeps this early.”

  “Two hours to read before bed. I was on the section where the Führer discusses how peace in Europe came to be.”

  “Want to use that reading for some good?” I say. Ulric’s eyebrows perk up, and he straightens himself up just a little bit.

  “What do you mean?” he asks, an inflection of curiosity coming through his tired voice.

  “First Engineer Keller somehow got in the possession of this old black disc.” I explain, putting my hands in the shape of the circular object, “It plays a song, and nobody can place when it was made.”

  “And this can’t wait ’til tomorrow because…”

  “A twelve-year-old whiskey is on the line,” I flat out admit.

  Ulric stares at me blankly, blinks a few times slowly, and begins to close the door. My hand goes to catch it.

  “The song might be from the Reclamation,” I quickly explain, just before the metal hatch shuts. A gap still persists, before Ulric swings open the door again, snapping himself out of his stupor. He looks at me with wide eyes at the sound of the word.

  “You’re joking?” he asks, his tone shifting to excitement.

  “Not at all, that’s why we need you. You’re the scholar here,” I say.

  Ulric stands frozen. I can tell the cogs must be turning. He looks to his bed, and then back to me.

  “Damn it,” he curses under his breath. “Wait here.” And with that he shuts the door.

  Back on the deck, I lead Ulric past the other fires and toward the group with the booming song. They notice we’ve arrived and raise their drinks yet again, welcoming Ulric in. He nods to the men. I can tell his main focus is on whatever the artifact must be, as he sits down on a stool. I join him.

  “My brother caught the best of my curiosity. Damn him,” Ulric says. “So what am I looking at?”

  “That is an audio device,” Keller answers in a satisfactory tone, pointing with pride at the unremarkable combination of wood, wire, and a horn fitted on top. “I made it myself, took a couple months.” The song continues on with its melody:

  Raise the flag! The ranks tightly closed!

  The SA march with quiet, steady step.

  Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries

  March in spirit within our ranks.

  Clear the streets for the brown battalions,

  Clear the streets for the storm division!

  Millions are looking upon the swastika full of hope,

  The day of freedom and of bread dawns!

  For the last time, the call to arms is sounded!

  For the fight, we all stand prepared!

  Already Hitler’s banners fly over all streets.

  The time of bondage will last but a little while now!

  Ulric sits as stiff as a flagpole focused in concentration. It was a posture I was all too familiar with when we were children. Every situation, any question was met with a posture that could only mean he was focusing all his energy to reach the answer. As the song came to an end and we were met with silence, Ulric remained with his face in his hands.

  “I’m trying to think back to my time scouring the Reich records,” Ulric remarks, baffled and confused. “All the chants and songs, the speeches from past Führers, and…yet…”

  “Yet what?” I insist, awaiting the answer. The rest of the group leans in just a tad closer toward my brother.

  “Yet I’m blanking!” he insists, his eyebrows raised at the prospect, “I’m not familiar with this, or quality of the audio. Everything I’ve ever heard had such clear audio that it could have taken place right in front of me, even songs from thousands of years ago. Unless…”

  “Unless…this was recorded before the official records…” the freckled man says in a slurred voice.

  “You all think this was recorded during the Reclamation?” Ulric asks.

  “I still think it’s Glass Wars,” another chimes in.

  “Well, Keller and I do,” I say, lending a hand to the grease-faced, missing-toothed grinning man across the fire, “So what do you think, S.S. Knight?” I ask Ulric.

  The group leans in a little bit more with bated breath, waiting to hear the verdict.

  “They do mention something about ‘clearing the streets,’ and such a song wouldn’t make sense if all the Reich’s enemies were already outside our borders.”

  “But,” a man with a crooked nose interrupts, “But it also said ‘the call to arms,’ so a battle. Glass Wars.”

  “You idiot, that could mean Reclamation too,” Keller debates, pointing his empty pint across the fire.

  “I mean, the Reclamation was largely a peaceful affair,” Ulric teaches. “It was just the expulsion of the Scavengers and uniting the countries under the Reich. The Eternal Führer never mentioned anything about violence in his book.”

  He begins flipping through his copy of My Struggle.

  “There are a few passages in the Eternal Führer’s words that could be construed as violent. I theorize, however, that it’s mostly just about the defense of the country against foreigners, not outright violence. Like a metaphorical war, not a literal one, since he did unite Europe in the end through peace…” Ulric lectures to nobody in particular, perhaps just rationalizing a conclusion to himself.

  “Damn,” Keller says with a tone of defeat, “guess it is the Glass Wars.” He prepares to hand the whiskey bottle to the freckled man.

  “Well…hang on…” Ulric interrupts, pointing up a finger, “this audio is far too muffled. Where did you find it?”

  “I didn’t find it, it was sold to me,” Keller replies.

  “Where did they find it?” Ulric asks.

  “In the desert.”

  Ulric’s eyes widen, and he leans forward with hands covering the lower half of his face. Letting out a groan, he runs his hands through his hair as he looks back to me.

  “You know this is illegal right?” he says to me with a disappointed expression, his face falling flat.

  “I know,” I reply, not bothering to come up with an excuse.

  “We aren’t supposed to take anything from the desert. You know that you’re putting me in a very difficult situation…” he lectures.

  “It’s fine, Ulric,” I insist, attempting to downplay the entire thing. It wasn’t that big of a deal, and I knew that Ulric would have a fit over the law being broken, however I wanted to know when this disc was created…and also…you know…whiskey. He looks at me strangely, but composes himself and turns back to the group.

  “Can I see the disc at least?” Ulric asks, his mannerisms laced with begrudging annoyance.

  “Of course!” Keller accepts, opening up the hatch on the box yet again. He reaches inside and pulls out the black disc with a small hole in the center. Keller bends over the fire and places the disc in Ulric’s hands. Ulric examines it as if he was scanning over a book, feeling the circular ridge lines and touching its glossy, smooth surface.

  “It’s not damaged. So that’s good,” he concludes, his eyes squinting at the artifact.

  “What are you looking for?” one of the men asks impatiently, “I want my whiskey.”

  “I’m trying to see what could cause the muffled audio,” Ulric defends. “I mean, if this really was during the Glass Wars, we’d have clear audio. Oldest audio I heard was from the twenty-second century…I think…and that was perfect quality. This however, this sounds so distant. Maybe it was your box that caus—”

  “Na
h ah ah,” Keller insists, cutting off Ulric. “This thing was hand-crafted by me. It works perfectly. Don’t question my craftsmanship.”

  “I can’t prove otherwise…but if that’s the case then, simply based on the poor audio…this might very well be from the Reclamation,” Ulric concludes, handing the disc back to a celebratory Keller. He and I both cheer, at the expense of the others’ protests.

  “Oh come on, of course he’s going to say that because he’s your brother!” one of them says.

  “I assure you, Ulric cares very little about the whiskey, now if you please,” I say, reaching my hand out for the bottle. “I’m going to share this with everyone.” This seems to calm the entire group.

  “Good save, Captain.” Keller jokes, handing me the bottle.

  Rounds are given and shots are taken around the fire. The song continues to play on repeat as men joke about. Ulric, however, sits next to me, drink still full in hand, eyes locked onto the small brown box.

  “Still trying to figure it out?” I lean over to ask him.

  “No, I’m trying to analyze what I should do. That is illegal contraband,” he whispers.

  “You don’t need to do anything, this is my ship. I don’t need to deal with any stress from laws.”

  “This is still Reich property—you’ll just disobey a law? I thought you were devoted to the Reich?”

  “More devoted to the moral laws, not the literal laws.”

  “So you just pick and choose?”

  “That’s the best you can do out here. Don’t you think what a waste in history it is that we can’t just take stuff from the desert anyway?”

  “Of course, but it’s not my job to question the law.”

  “It’s not your job to enforce it either. You’re just a scholar, and a Knight.”

  “Knights can enforce it out of principle.”

  “Well can you leave the principal alone for a bit, at least until we get back to shore? I don’t want to deal with you making enemies by smashing the disc.”

  “I guess. It is a tremendous find…if it really was from that time…I’m at a loss for words if it was,” Ulric admits, his face changing into a smile at the thought. I think the idea of the illegality of it is taking a back seat to the prospect this might be historical. “I’ve spent so much of my life reading over the words of the Eternal Führer…imagine these men knew him.”