By the time they reached the bridge again, Hans was sitting on the floor.
Not in a chair, or next to the terminal. Just there — cross-legged, like a schoolboy who had discovered mortality. In his hands, a small, scorched recorder. It looked ancient, pitiful, and far too significant for its size. He didn’t even look up when they entered.
“Hans?” Schmidt called, slow and cautious.
Hans nodded, but not in a way that meant yes. More in a way that meant "I’m here and I don’t have the emotional bandwidth to explain it yet." “What… what’s that?” Neer asked, dropping his bag with a soft thud.
Hans stared at the recorder, then blinked as if remembering how to speak. “I hit the table,” he said. His voice was quiet, almost puzzled. “I was about to give up, I was mad — I hit the table, and I heard something move behind the terminal.”
They waited.
“There’s a panel. A maintenance slot. It must’ve… slipped back there during the attack. I opened it. It was just sitting there.” He turned the recorder over in his hands.
Schmidt crouched down beside him. “The attack? Hans what are you babbling about?" He paused for a second, and then continued, slowly. "Hans, have you...listened to it?”
Hans nodded again. “Plugged it into the portable generator. It still works.”
Silence. Neer stepped forward.“Well? What’s on it?”
Hans didn’t answer. His eyes were red. Not from crying — not yet — but from something rawer. Something that hadn’t had time to become grief.
He looked at them both. No preamble. No explanation.
He just pressed play.
Gunfire echoes in the distance. Shouts. Something heavy being dragged, then overturned with a loud metallic crash.
"Seal it! Seal it! They're on the stairs to the command deck!" Footsteps thunder on metal flooring. A loud thud against a bulkhead.
"Straben, Müller, take position behind there!" von Tanner’s voice cut through the noise—sharp.
"Markus, go around. Whatever comes through that door, drown it in plasma."
"Ja, Kapitän."
A soft hum—someone charging a weapon. Labored breathing. A rifle slamming against a brace. Footsteps again. Heavy, deliberate, too many to count. A silence falls.
"Ready weapons!" A hand taps against a barrel. Someone mutters something under their breath. Then—an explosion.
A deafening blast. Screaming metal. A chorus of panicked voices and weapons discharging in every direction.
Then—coldly, clearly in libertonian: "Drop your weapons! Down, now!" A voice follows. Rough, calm. Too calm.
"No. Todos mueren."
Plasma fire, laser bursts, the unmistakable crack of ballistic rounds. Screams. Shouts. The thick sound of a body hitting bulkhead. Another. And another. Something fragile shatters.
A voice — Von Tanner — sharp but strained:
“Hold the line!” Then his voice again — choked, hoarse, full of pain. A thunderclap. And silence
Voices rise in Cretan. Joyous. Triumphant. Magazines emptied into the bulkheads. Footsteps trailing off. A laugh. Then… nothing. Only the dull hum of emergency lighting.
Schmidt took the recorder from Hans and switched it off. As if turning it off might erase what they’d just heard. As if it had never happened at all.
He stood still for a second, staring into the nothing. Then ran a hand through his hair.
Neer slumped against a bulkhead, hands over his face. "No way," he muttered. His voice was a long, drawn-out exhale. "I don’t believe it. They made it. They were right there. Practically home."
Schmidt shook his head, like he was trying to knock the thoughts out of it. "Where the hell did they even come from?"
He took a few steps, gesturing vaguely, like trying to locate the enemy in thin air. "‘Todos mueren.’ Corsairs, obviously. Had to be."
"But weren’t they supposed to be gone?" Neer snapped, fists clenched. "How should I know, Albert? They were there. Hiding. Maybe they were followed. Maybe they stumbled across them."
"Guys..." Hans tried. No one looked.
"Or maybe they intercepted a signal or something. There’s a thousand ways it could’ve gone wrong."
"But why get caught like that?" Neer continued, ignoring him. "They were ghosts for a year. Then they just… pop up like fireworks on radar?"
"Albert. Hermann..." Hans said again, more insistent this time. Still nothing.
"It doesn’t add up. It makes no sense."
That did it. Hans stood up sharply. The screech of his boots over the floor got their attention, just in time for him to snatch the recorder from Schmidt’s hands.
"Hans, what the hell are you doing?"
"It’s not over!" Hans snapped, eyes wild. "The. Recording. Isn’t. Over."
Each word fell like a hammer.
He tapped the screen with a shaking finger, scrubbing forward a few minutes. A soft chime marked the skip.
Then, quietly, the recording resumed.
