Rubicon: Chapter II

[Char Aznable]

CIC, Deck 5, WGS Ostara, somewhere in the Sigma Cluster
21/09/824 AS, 00:20 AM

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"Three degrees starboard, nose up two." The voice of the Navigations officer repeated Nika's order in a whisper, while he entered it into the Navcon. The blue light in the CIC, coming from all sides of the room, made the situation almost surreal. The lack of shadows and the general silence, only interrupted by the occasional typing and order (and it's repetition) had been accompanying the operations in the past few days. The officers assigned to the room had begun calling it the 'ice palace', a reference both to the cold atmosphere, and to the person usually residing here, in the center of the ship. Today, however, was not a usual drill. They hadn't begun the day with deploying the spiderweb, and they had also not checked on any of the caches.
The officers in the room had quickly noticed that something was off when she had not, as usual, arrived alone, but flanked by Michael Wolf, the sole person on the ship that had been seen conversing with her outside of her official functions. His presence in the room could only mean that there was something different today.

This assumption had so far been clearly confirmed. For about eight hours so far, Nika had ordered course changes. The ship had accelerated to maximum speed, and then she'd ordered the engines to stop - they were only flying on inertia and the occasional thruster correction. It was obvious that she intended to keep the ship as quiet and low-signature as possible.

Nika Haupt sat in her command chair, eyes closed, and seemingly sunken in thought. Indeed, she had a different plan for this day. Drilling void combat would only get you so far, and with Anna Heinrich... Gone, she would have to act on her own, again. To her surprise, she didn't really mind that. On the contrary, For the first time in years, she actually felt free. There were no friends to hold her back, no superiors to order her around, no demands set towards her. Now, she would be the one making demands. This was her ship. Her mission. Her crusade.

And whoever stood in her way would suffer.

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#notmyfrankfurt