Lost to the wind

[Serpentis]

//Decided to continue with the story today, so, added it to the end!//

They were landed at New Berlin at the time of the meeting, but before that, Sergei grabbed a case of liberty ale from storage and started walking towards the mess hall where the others were gathering. He knew that a vacation is exactly what they needed, or, rather, especially him. With the continuous implant issues, nightmares, daydreams, lines of text in his head. Yeah, no. Maybe unburdening himself of stress and getting some time to relax. Who knows, maybe he’ll find a nice girl to spend some time with. Now when walking and thinking, he couldn’t remember the last time he properly had a stress free week, or even weekend, in the last year or so. There was the casino in Kusari, but even that got stressful eventually and besides, casinos aren’t exactly known for being places for relaxation. He chuckled to himself as he walked into the mess hall. There, his crew waited, every single one of them. Karl stood by the end of the main table, along both sides sat the rest, they were all chatting with each other, the mood being quite relaxed and positive. Sergei walked up to the table and sat down the case of ale.
“Here you go guys, some ale for the meeting, thought it’d be nice to get a little buzz while we decide on what to do next.” Sergei smiled and grabbed a bottle of ale, pulled the cap off and drank some. Then motioned to the crate and the others quickly grabbed a bottle each.

“So.” Sergei said and sat down and motioned for Karl to sit too, which he did.
“Well, we have two choices.” He drank some and looked them all over once.
Karl, his Number Two, Hessian and as far as he knew, former military. He was reliable and experienced, a bit withdrawn, but f*ck, who is he to judge him on that. Then it was Jurgen, young, inexperienced, a liability and a damned coward. For now, thought Sergei who wanted to see promise in the kid, but time will tell. Then next to him sat Alice, a young, pretty girl, engineer. She had a lot of promise and Sergei did enjoy her company, the few times they had spent time together. Klaus, Stein and Morgan were all trained crewmen, they had experience but lacked any proper motivation or direction. He got some information from Karl regarding them. Klaus was enlisted with Rheinland Military but got discharged for refusing to follow orders, something about arresting a woman on New Berlin. Stein on the other hand, despite his age, had worked on ships since his teens, he did a lot of things, kitchen, cleaning, repair and even some combat training. Then we have Morgan, smuggler, he did jobs all over House space, but never did join any outfit officially. They had a lot of use from his skills while they worked for Li Hana, he showed them a few Jump Holes in Bretonia space that even Sergei had missed, not to mention who to speak to on New Berlin to help with the goods.
They were a good crew. And Sergei once again felt something, something that he reactively wanted to push away. A sense of companionship and responsibility he never really did have before, at least from what he remembered. He hated that feeling, that.. Weakness. That was his Coalition side speaking, the side that tells him to not make connections cause they will end up dying eventually and then, loss, sadness. No, he had worked hard to not care too much about people. But, even with that in the back of his head, he really wanted to feel something for someone.
“So, we could look for work in Liberty with a guy named ‘Haines’, he said he might have work eventually for us up there. Most likely more smuggling, since he got our information from Rochester.” Sergei took a big sip of his ale as the others looked around and then back at Sergei.
““Well, captain, what’s the other choice?” Asked Stein with a tilt of his head as he drank from his bottle.
Sergei chuckled a little and then raised his bottle.
“Or, we go on vacation on Baden Baden for a week or so. Now, before you decide on doing more smuggling work, cause, whoever wants to go on vacation for a whole week?” He grinned at the others as they laughed.
“Well, captain, I think that we all would, despite it being the bad choice, prefer a week's vacation.” Klaus said and the others all nodded and raised their bottles, to which, Sergei did the same.
They continued to drink for the remainder of the evening and eventually went back to their bunks to get some sleep. Early in the morning, they’d contact Baden Baden and check for reservations.
As Sergei got into his room again, carrying two bottles of ale, he saw that his console was blinking from a message having gotten through. Sergei looked at the console for a long time, maybe ten or so minutes, until he drank heavily from one of the bottles, throwing it into the bin by the door. As he sat down at the console, he clicked it open and checked the sender. On the screen, stood the name of ‘Margeret’. The name of his mother.

--------

As the Lindwyrm lifted off from New Berlin and they laid in the route in the nav computer, Sergei sat down in his chair on the bridge, he kept tapping his finger against the console screen as he pretended to study something.
“Margeret..” He thought to himself.
“Can’t be her.. So, why..” He frowned and pushed it aside, stood up and walked over to Karl, who was sitting in the pilot seat.
“I got the confirmation on the booking for the resort, cost us a pretty penny, but not enough to hurt us.” Sergei said, trying his best to focus his mind on other, more enjoyable things.
“That’s good captain, glad they had rooms for us.” Karl said, looking at Sergei.
“A week then, boss?” He asked and Sergei nodded in confirmation.
“A week, then we’ll get back to work. Maybe check in with Heinrich while we’re in Rheinland space. What do you think?” Sergei asked, knowing that it might be the right thing to do, but rather wouldn’t. But, he got the Lindwyrm from Heinrich, it’s only fair to see if he needs any help.
“Well, boss. I’d say he’d appreciate the visit if nothing else.” Karl would chuckle and continue.
“But he’d also want us to report on everything we’ve done since we left Rheinland space and most likely ask us to do some work for him. But, that is what you were hoping for, yeah?”
Karl knew Heinrich pretty well and now, Karl seemed to pick up and learn more about Sergei as time went on. “That’s an issue.” Sergei thought to himself before chuckling and answering.
“Hoping is a strong word, but, work is work and Rheinland tends to be a bit easier to work in than for example Liberty, cause there they have too many groups and way too many navy ships on patrol. Doing some work for Heinrich could refill our pockets and give us something to do with our time. Right?” Sergei knew Liberty was a shit show for those of the less than legal mindset, seeing how their navy has more ships on patrol than most houses together. At least that is how it felt each time he went there on transports, always patrols, scans and stops. But, then the rewards get even juicier.
“Right boss. That’s clever thinking. And I am sure the crew wouldn’t mind seeing their old friends at Northeim either. I know Jurgen’s dad works in the engineering section.” Karl turned away from Sergei as they exited the lane towards Stuttgart Jump gate.
“That could be good for them, raising the morale even higher. That’d be good if we were to get into some more… Dangerous work.” Sergei mused to himself if it was possible to avoid any work that would be too dangerous, seeing as they might have a Frigate class ship, but it’s not armed with anything special, only civilian weaponry.
“We might be able to get some new weapons on Northeim as well, these guns we have does good enough work for fighters. But anything heavier than that is an issue.” Sergei bit his lower lip in deep thought.
“We still have the cloak, boss, that’ll give us some advantage in a fight, right?” Karl asked, while they waited to enter the Jump gate.
Karl was right of course, that was their ace in the hole. But, armed with, let’s say proper Rheinland turrets, could prove to be all they need to survive even larger fights.
“Yeah, that’s right. But, I want us to be ready for anything.” Sergei wasn’t sure why he was making such a big deal of something that might never happen, at least right now. Now there’s also the fact that they might do work for the Hessians, which would mean that it’s possible they run into Corsairs, and those do not play around.
“Corsairs for example.” Sergei said as an explanation as they jumped through to Stuttgart.
As they returned to realspace, they found themselves facing a Rheinland Cruiser, who without a second's notice began to scan the Lindwyrm, a hail coming in.
“Await Scan, Lindwyrm.” The dark voice of a man was heard, along with some background chatter from nearby patrols. As usual, it took only a minute or so, until the voice returned.
“Where are you headed, Lindwyrm?”
Sergei sighed, but saw no reason not to tell the truth.
“Baden Baden officer, we’re off for a vacation.” Sergei said with the most pleasant voice he could manage. On the other end, the officer chuckled.
“Have a good vacation, Lindwyrm.” and the hail disconnected.
And with that, they glided along in space, hit the trade lanes and continued on their merry way. It would be a bit until they arrived, so Sergei walked back to his seat and console and was staring at the blinking notification symbol under the category of ‘Messages’. He kept staring at it, that flashing red light dug into his mind and without thinking, he clicked the delete button.
‘CONFIRM DELETION’ - Suddenly was in front of him in the middle of the screen. Sergei’s finger hovered over the button on the screen. He sat there for what felt like forever and as he was gonna close the button Karl said.
“We’re closing in on Baden Baden, boss.”
And he deleted the message. He stared down onto the screen. For a few seconds, there was panic. But then, he settled and actually relaxed. “It was for the best, nothing to worry about now.” he thought and then turned to Karl.
“Good, open comms.” And he moved to the comm panel.
“Baden Baden, this is Lindwyrm, I am Captain Sergei, I contacted you earlier and booked a few rooms at the resort for a week. Are we able to land and get our rooms already?” Sergei was just looking forward to doing nothing for an entire week. He had downloaded six books on his personal tablet, he had been waiting for a reason to read again. He always enjoyed it when he had a chance when he was young, he remembered he had a bunch of fantasy books he had stolen back on Leeds.
“Lindwyrm, this is Aaron Krelan of Baden Baden, you are more than welcome to land on pad Beta-Six, we’ll have a greeter to be there at your arrival and they’ll show you into the resort. Welcome to Baden Baden, Captain!” and the pleasant male voice goes silent and the com channel shuts down.
“You heard the man, land the ship Number Two.” Sergei chuckled and then opened the comm channel onboard.
“Gentlemen and lady, we have arrived, we’ll soon be in the comfort of our sun chairs and bathing in hot water. Plenty of drinks and lots of unhealthy food. Meet at the landing bay in ten minutes.” He took a deep breath in as he chuckled to himself, then looked over at the bridge window, seeing them exiting the cloud layer and seeing the black sand beaches and the large resort with swimming pools and fancy luxurious looking facilities.
“Here we go Boss.” Karl said as he landed the Lindwyrm on the correct landing pad.
“Let’s go.” Sergei stopped himself before exiting the bridge, looking down at the console he was at before, looking at the screen that was saying ‘MESSAGE DELETED’. He sighed and then just headed to his quarters to grab his bags and went down to meet the other’s at the landing bay.

---

Abadan and the Arcadia | Sergei, The lost | Feedback Thread