Private logs of Yelena Vollkegel

[Sturmwind]

Entry 9: 23.03.818

Liebes Tagebuch,

It's been a while since I made an entry here. Probably because nothing interesting happened me during the past month, running into a Hessian patrol was all I had to deal with. However, this day brought me a definite change.

A Hauptgefreiter walked into my barracks quarters, his name was Leon Fischer. He seemed to have been quite worried, in the usual, stoical manner that is to be found when considering people of his position. I was chosen from all the pilots present to go with him on a search and rescue mission, which later turned out to have been ordered by Admiral Malte herself.

The mission was this:

One of our vessels, piloted by Hauptfeldwebel Drum was lost... again. Two hours ago, he went into Omega-11, hell knows why, but never came back. I have no idea what made him so important that the Schwanstein, the Admiral's cruiser was chosen to spearhead the operation, but me and Hauptgefreiter Fischer went in first.

=:=

Upon our entry to Omega-11, we were subjects to ultimately heavy amounts of radiation. My ship external systems MELTED under my shield. Fortunately, the Daumann-placed nav buoys showed us a path towards Solarius that was relatively low on radiation contamination erupting from the gigantic red sun.

We eventually reached [color=#FFFF00]Solarius station. No sign of Herr Drum, so we kept on, moving inwards to the asteroid field. We came upon three permanent gravitational anomalies, that seemed to be stable enough for the usage of fighter-class vessels.

Admiral Malte gave the orders to check them out. So did we jump.

=:=

Our first and last jump took us to an eerie asteroid field. The scenery of the system reminded me of Dresden at first, but Hauptgefreiter Fischer noted two obvious differences. The first one was that there was a planet in sight, a rough 90 clicks from our position. The second was that space was clearly visible at parts, unlike in Rheinland. We were on the edge of the Walker nebula, probably lightyears away from the closest installation or charted system, for that matter.

The asteroid field and the system in which it was to be found was quiet and undisturbed. It was honestly scary how quiet the whole place was. Not even a message through our radio from the Admiral arrived. We lost connection with the Schwanstein overall, as I came to notice in seconds.

Since our mission was to scout, so we did. The only landmark we could go by was the planet, 90 clicks away. We charged our cruise and went to inspect the stellar body's whereabouts. It was another uncharted, desert world, one of the many to be found in the undiscovered edge worlds.

Undiscovered?

That does not entirely stand. There were two wrecks of fighters actually around the planet, one had a the flag of the Rote Hessen on its side, the other seemed to be simply of a Corsair design. The ships must have been drifting there for years. Any reasoning regarding their presence was not to be found...

We went deeper into the unknown, but the deeper it got, the more scared I was. I felt as if... someone was watching us on our whole journey... as if they knew we were there, but didn't want to come out...

I felt as if we were subjects to some higher power observing our movements...

We eventually made it out without making contact with anything other than asteroids, uncharted planets and wrecks. Sure, it was scary and a break from the boring patrols, but we were not to deal with anything THAT unusual.

Maybe they will name that planet after me!!

As we got out of Omega-11, the Schwanstein greeted us. I was given a free ticket for a Baden Baden anti-rads bath! I will spend my entire day there, enjoying the famous tourist resort. Some free time does not hurt...

Yes, I do hope they name that planet after me!

~Gefreiter Yelena Vollkegel



End of log.