Lieutenant Beltram decides that there is no way to escape from the Free Planets Alliance ambush and plans to self-destruct the destroyer Hameln II and die an honourable death as an Imperial military officer, completely ignoring a plan proposed by Schmidt, an enlisted soldier who studied astrophysics before being drafted into the military. Siegfried Kircheis, after learning about Beltram's plan and his rebuffing of Schmidt, decides to release Reinhard von Müsel from detention, even if that means starting a mutiny. With the help of some enlisted crew members, Kircheis manages to release Reinhard and forcibly take over the bridge of Hameln II. Reinhard decides to implement Schmidt's plan which involves exposing the ship to a predicted solar eruption from a nearby star and make use of the momentum generated to escape the Alliance ambush in high speed. As the crew attempts to repair the damaged ship engines on time for the solar eruption, Beltram succeeds in breaking out of captivity and storms the bridge. A brief confrontation ensues, resulting in the death of Rolf Zaidel and would have escalated if not for the timely intervention of Lieutenant Commander Adenauer, who repeats his order of passing command authority to Reinhard.
