“Survey of asteroid belt C-12 completed. Primary composition: silicates, traces of nickel, iron. Yield potential: marginal. Suggest limited extraction viability. Telemetry packets 348 to 371 appended.”
Neer sighed audibly, rubbing his eyes. “That’s the seventh one in a row.”
“Skip… skip… skip…” Neer muttered, poking at the archive terminal with the kind of focused resentment normally reserved for long tax forms and defrosting the freezer. “I swear these are just mineral inventories and asteroid classification charts. Someone must’ve spent three straight years measuring rock densities.”
“Rocks are actually exciting,” Schmidt said dryly, leaning over his shoulder. “They’re just...emotionally reserved.”
Belck was cross-legged on the floor, nursing the power conduit with the reverence of a monk polishing an ancient relic. “If you both could limit your sarcasm to under two kilojoules per minute, the breaker might live long enough to survive this next boot cycle.”
“They were doing exactly what they said on the paperwork,” Schmidt muttered, arms folded. “Post-war recon mission. Rheinland needed valuable rocks. They went out to find valuable rocks.”
“They certainly found the rocks,” Neer grumbled. “In every shape and flavor. If I hear the word nickel one more time—”
“Wait,” Belck said. He stopped scrolling.
One of the log headers looked different. Not just dry summary text, but flagged.
An embedded advisory tag. Belck selected it.
The terminal buzzed softly, then clicked into audio playback.
Date: January 18th, 710 A.S.
Classification: Internal Mission Notice – Command Priority
Audio Only – Source: Capt. K. von Tanner
“This is Captain Klaus von Tanner. Recording under internal directive.”
“At 03:22 shipboard time, long-range scans from Valkyrie Alpha reported anomalous gravitational readings near quadrant A-8, outer Omega-11. Upon investigation, a Class IV jump anomaly was identified — high coherence, stable polarization bands, and, unusually, no existing chart references. Visual confirmation achieved by recon flight — the anomaly resembles a standard jumphole, but with extremely low particle turbulence.”
“Valkyrie Alpha passed through at 03:47 without incident. All systems nominal.”
“At 04:16, the convoy began transition. First wave: support transports, followed by Gunboat RNC Matterhorn. During Matterhorn's passage, spike readings were observed — the jumpfield began to distort. Second freighter group experienced hull vibration. Comms degraded. Sensor echoes began propagating in multiple vectors.”
“At 04:19, the anomaly destabilized mid-transition. I repeat: the anomaly destabilized. Drive harmonics were disrupted. All but us and other 3 vessels emerged into separate grid sectors. Long-range comms failed. We are currently attempting to re-establish contact. Damage control is underway aboard the Morgenstern.”
“Mission status is compromised. I am authorizing short-term contingency protocol T-12: reconsolidation priority. Scientific entries are suspended until regroup is confirmed. Further transition attempts are suspended indefinitely.”
“End log.”
The bridge was quiet. No one said anything for a few seconds.
Schmidt exhaled."That’s new.”
Neer leaned in. “A jumphole that becames unstable after a couple of transits? That’s not how they’re supposed to work.”
“No,” Belck said slowly. “No, it isn’t.”
Schmidt turned toward the screen, tapping the console. “Let’s see what happened next.”
Belck nodded, already queuing the next log in sequence.
“Now it’s getting interesting,” he said.
The bridge lights flickered faintly. Somewhere deep in the ship’s gut, a relay clicked back to life — as if the vessel, too, was finally starting to remember.
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Mission Record No. 117