Login

Coliz · 04-26-2025, 03:02 PM,

Inside the Serendipity

Bridge 1, command deck: at the bottom of the rabbit (hell)hole

The console screen blinked blankly at them. For the third time in an hour.
The bridge was dim once more. After the initial rush of logs, most of the screens had returned to standby, as if the ship herself was catching her breath after remembering too much, too fast.

Belck sighed through his nose—the kind of sigh that suggested deep, philosophical disappointment—and ran another query, his fingers dancing across the console with the grim precision of a man defusing a bomb.
"Still nothing in the main records," he muttered, tapping a few more keys like he could shame the machine into obedience.

"Maybe that’s it, then," Neer offered, spinning lazily in his chair. "The gallant Morgenstern survived the perils of uncharted space, angry Corsairs, and supply shortages, but not, tragically, the rigors of regular data backups."

Belck drummed his fingers against the console, thinking. "No. No, it's too clean. Even on a dying ship, you'd expect corrupted logs. Half-written files. Ghost entries. Not... nothing." Belck nodded slowly. "Unless..." He trailed off, squinting thoughtfully at the console. "Unless the logs were moved. Not erased—just... misplaced."

"Misplaced," Neer echoed, deadpan. "Like a pair of socks."

"Like encrypted military socks," Belck corrected grimly, already diving back into the console. "Old Rheinland emergency protocols sometimes scatter critical files into obscure system caches. Some sort of desperate 'save it anywhere' function. Or bad coding. It's a fine line."

"Marvellous," Schmidt said dryly. "We’re hunting for the navy’s lost laundry."

"Better than hunting ghosts," Neer pointed out.

They bent over the console again, the frustration slowly ebbing into cautious anticipation as Belck tunneled through deeper, dustier layers of the ship’s memory—past user directories, past maintenance logs, into the ancient, half-forgotten domains reserved for dead diagnostics and ghost systems.

Fifteen long minutes passed, punctuated only by the soft clicks of keys.

Then—A sharp beep. A flicker.

Belck froze. His eyes widened, gleaming like a man who had just stumbled across treasure under his bed.

"Found something," he breathed.

Schmidt leaned in. "Please tell me it’s not a vintage software update."

Belck grinned like a schoolboy caught raiding the jam cupboard.
"Nope. Logs. Hidden deep in a diagnostics buffer tied to the lower auxiliary power grid."

They stared at the blinking folder on the screen—simple, unassuming, and more precious than gold.

"Well, gentlemen," Schmidt said, clapping Belck on the back, "looks like the old girl still has a few ghost stories left."

The folder opened, and a list of logs scrolled into view—timestamps stretching almost a year beyond the last entry they'd seen and scattered across the months like footprints leading through a wasteland.

The first file blinked invitingly:
"Maintenance & Discretionary Survival Measures – Captain’s Summary, Month 12."

They exchanged a look.

“Could be good,” Neer ventured.

“Could be awful,” Belck countered.

“Could be both,” Schmidt concluded, reaching for the console.

He hesitated just a fraction of a second—then pressed play.

The bridge lights dimmed again, and the voice of Klaus von Tanner filled the air—older and wearier—ready to tell the rest of his story.

Coliz · 04-27-2025, 02:12 PM,

Inside the Serendipity, aka the Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: at the bottom of the rabbit (hell)hole, but finally looking up

Maintenance and Discretionary Survival Misures, Month 12

[Log Entry: February 27th, 711 A.S. | Omega-41, Echo-4 sector, "Sargasso Nest"]
Commanding Officer: Capt. Klaus von Tanner | E.V. Morgenstern
Classification: Emergency Operations Log, Survival Protocol Theta-5

"This will serve as the twelfth—and possibly final—log regarding the state of this vessel and her crew during our internment within the wreck field known locally as the 'Sargasso Nest.'"

Before I proceed, I must briefly address the irregularity of this record-keeping.
Should this log be reviewed by the Rheinland authorities, it must be noted that detailed entries were not maintained on a daily or even weekly basis.
Initially, it was a matter of futility.
In the days following our isolation, albeit the initial spike of hope, survival seemed improbable. I deemed it unwise to waste our dwindling reserves of energy and morale on recording what would likely become an epitaph.
Later, it became a matter of necessity. Repairs demanded every hour, and the weight of responsibility left little room for anything but action.
Monthly summaries were all I could afford: enough to preserve the core facts without surrendering to despair or self-indulgence.
If disciplinary review follows our survival, I accept full responsibility."

"Over the past twelve months, through sheer will and considerable improvisation, we have restored the Morgenstern from a derelict hulk to a barely-operational vessel."

"Structural markings identifying the vessel as Rheinland Navy property have been permanently removed via precision plasma erosion and applied thermal abrasion. External hull now bears generic plating fragments sourced from auxiliary wreckage. Visual profile adjusted to resemble abandoned Pilgrim-class transport."

"Our work was piecemeal, desperate, and often dangerous. Supplies and critical components were scavenged from the surrounding wrecks—some barely holding together, others long dead and cannibalized before us.
In the earliest months, we focused on stabilizing the reactor and cooling arrays, adapting salvaged heat exchangers and secondary reactor cores stripped from what once had been civilian transports. The Morgenstern's primary power systems now operate at approximately sixty-eight percent of original design output. It is sufficient to maintain full life support, environmental controls, and maneuvering thrust."

"Cruise propulsion systems were patched using a combination of improvised thrust regulators and cannibalized drive assemblies. After exhaustive field repairs, we restored roughly seventy-eight percent of the engines' capacity. While the ship can now maintain sustained travel at moderate speeds, high-acceleration maneuvers remain a risk; directional thrusters are unstable beyond acceptable tolerances."

"Life support required constant attention. Breached sections of the hull were sealed using welded scrap plating and, in less dignified cases, hardened sealant foam. We restored environmental stability to ninety-two percent of habitable areas.
Nevertheless, several compartments remain permanently depressurized, and radiation shielding throughout the ship remains suboptimal."

"Navigation was perhaps our greatest obstacle. With our long-range sensors crippled, we resorted to assembling a hybrid system from scavenged modules, fusing Border Worlds electronics with Rheinland military arrays. Accuracy is limited, but sufficient for short-range plotting and obstacle detection."

"All modifications documented in supplementary schema (ref: TechAppendix748-3). Note: repairs are not to full RheinTech specification and carry elevated risk under prolonged load. Crew advised to avoid sudden power demands or high-stress maneuvers."

"Conclusion: vessel flight-capable. Extraction now technically feasible under favorable conditions."

"As for supplies, we established a cautious resupply routine with Freeport 5. Every two weeks, we dispatched small, rotating crews in disguised shuttles, namely the old faithful Baltrum and Juist, devoid of any Federal insigna, presenting ourselves as independent miners conducting surveys near Omega-7's fringes.
We paid in barter: salvaged alloys, pre-war electronics, anything of value we could strip from the dead fleet around us.
The Freeport's denizens—too concerned with survival to ask unnecessary questions—accepted our story.
From them, we finally learned the truth of our location: we are in Omega-41."

"The psychological toll of this year has been severe. Despite outward discipline, weariness and resignation seep into every corner of this ship.
Still, the crew endures."

"On the anniversary of our internment, the men and women of the Morgenstern held a brief, secular ceremony in the main cargo hold.
No prayers were offered—only silence.
We raised our glasses, mismatched and battered like ourselves, and remembered those who had fallen:
in the battle, in the months that followed, and in the slow erosion of days spent adrift."

"Today, at last, the Morgenstern is more than a broken relic hiding in a graveyard.
She is a crippled vessel, yes—but a living one.
Our systems are fragile. But we are capable, for the first time in a year, of movement.
From now on, me and the senior staff will think at our viable options to leave this hellhole."
END LOG

The recording ended with a faint, apologetic beep — as if even the computer felt bad for interrupting.

For a few seconds, the bridge of the Morgenstern was unusually quiet.
Not the good kind of quiet, like the one before a ship jumps into a Jump-Gate..
The heavy kind, the kind that settles in your ribs and makes breathing feel like a deliberate act.

The overhead lights buzzed faintly in the cold, recycled air, casting long, tired shadows across the battered consoles.
A fine film of dust clung stubbornly to the edges of the displays, caught in the low gravity like a memory unwilling to settle.

Hans scratched the side of his nose
"One year," he said slowly, the words dry in his mouth. "One entire year... living in a scrapyard."

Albert leaned back in his chair, letting out a slow breath through his nose.
"I remember basic survival training," he muttered. "Tents, ration packs, three days in a controlled forest. We thought we were tough."

Hermann gave a low, humorless chuckle.
"Controlled," he repeated, savoring the irony. "There was a cafeteria two kilometers away from BSCI Rebensbuerger."

They'd all served, once.
Not because they wanted to — but because every Rheinland citizen did their time.
"Three years of structure, tradition, lectures about honor and endurance." started again Hermann, "But none of that, none of it, prepared you for this — for hiding a crippled ship in a graveyard, bartering scrap for oxygen, erasing your very existence with a blowtorch and a prayer."

Hans ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up awkwardly.
"Von Tanner’s crew... they weren't just surviving," he said. "They rebuilt her. They fought to stay invisible. Every day."

Albert shifted uncomfortably, drumming his fingers against the console.

"No orders. No reinforcements. Only sheer will and each other"

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.
It was heavy with a strange, reluctant respect.

Hermann tapped a few commands idly on his console, more to feel the keys under his fingers than for any real need.
Outside the viewport, the stars wheeled slowly — silent and indifferent as ever.

"They could have given up," he said finally. His voice was low, almost thoughtful. "Most would have."

"Maybe that's why they didn’t," Hans said.

Albert offered a faint, sardonic smile.
"Or maybe Rheinland conscription breeds a particular kind of stubborn idiot. I mean, look at us"

Nobody argued the point.

For a moment, the three men sat there, adrift not just in space but in the quiet weight of memory — their own training, their own small struggles, suddenly thrown into sharp, almost shameful perspective.

At length, Hermann exhaled through his nose and straightened up.

"Alright," he said, with the briskness of a man folding away dangerous thoughts. "Assuming they could move... where exactly were they planning to go?"

The others exchanged glances. In a Sector filled with enemies, treacherous voids, and the charming possibility of spontaneous decompression, their list of 'good options' was somewhere between 'very short' and 'hilariously theoretical.'

Hermann smiled faintly, not without admiration.

"Hope," he murmured, almost to himself. "The most inefficient fuel in the universe."

Coliz · (This post was last modified: 05-03-2025, 02:21 PM by Coliz.)

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: at the bottom of the rabbit (hell)hole, but finally crawling up

Manteinance and Discretionary Survival Measures, Month 13

There was a long silence.

"Well, I can't really blame them," Neer said, pausing the playback. "You wake up every day staring at a neutron star whose only purpose seems to be making your life difficult. You live inside a metal corpse held together by spite, hope, and duct tape. And every two weeks, someone offers you a chance to visit a place that has what might loosely be called ‘civilization.’ That is to say, a bar. I’d drink too. I’d drink enthusiastically."

"I’d skip the glass and go straight to the barrel," added Schmidt. "Frankly, I could use one now."

"Oh! I may actually have a solution to that," said Neer, as though a lightbulb had flickered on above his head.

"Can we please finish the log?" sighed Belck, already pressing play again.

Manteinance and Discretionary Survival Measures, Month 13

"Three hours later—after intravenous hydration and a cocktail of medications—they were finally lucid enough to understand that they were in the ship’s brig, under martial custody imposed by me for conduct posing a direct threat to this vessel and her crew."
"And that, oddly enough, is when the day took a most unexpected turn."

"They recounted that until 1600, everything had gone as planned: blend in among the Freeport’s clientele, locate transport captains willing to barter for H-Fuel, negotiate for the hydraulic parts. Routine."

"Until 1930, in a bar, they were approached by a group of heavily armed, thoroughly intoxicated patrons who pointed weapons at them and accused them of "talking like filthy Rheinlanders." Based on their attire, they were Corsairs."
"The Lieutenants claimed they stuck to the plan—posing as Sigma traders. It didn’t work."
"Just as things seemed beyond salvage, Lt. Vorr reportedly grabbed a mug, stood up, and shouted something that sounded vaguely like ''We’re friends! Death to the Outcasts!''”

"What followed was not a firefight, but clapping, hugging, and a very insistent round of drinks. According to both officers, refusing would have been socially—and possibly physically—inadvisable."

"I was skeptical, until Lt. Brunswick retrieved a small field recorder from his jacket and told me, “It’s all here. Everything. Even when they told us when we could leave.”" "We played the tape together."

"It matched. Every beat of their story was there—including the tension with the Corsairs. After that, it was all clinking glasses, shouted Spanish, and a lot of Viva el Imperio!."

"Eventually, one of the Corsairs—his speech a slurry mix of drunken Common and vaguely violent Spanish—stood up and declared, “Brothers! Our friends will stay here a few days longer, but we, we warriors, are moving on. Off to Crete! Then Alpha! Those Outcast dogs think their little Cardamine camps are safe? Ha! We’ll burn them from orbit! The Santiago, the Llorona, the Samos—they’re coming. Viva Crete, viva the Corsairs, viva el Imperio!”"

"The Lieutenants continued. Apparently, that same Corsair confided that they were pulling out—most of the main Corsair force was relocating. Only small patrols would remain in the area. It’s the first real opportunity we’ve had in months. Maybe the only one."
"I immediately released the Lieutenants from custody and offered a personal apology."

"Senior staff was recalled. We debated our escape options. Based on intel collected over the past year, we have two viable jump holes:
Back to Omega-11. The one we came through. A direct route home… but dangerously unstable. We can’t risk it. Not anymore. Or, into a sparsely charted but seemingly uninhabited system: Omega-5. From there, data suggests further connections—including, potentially, a route to Cambridge."

"It’s a leap into the unknown. But it seems to be the only leap we can make."

"Tomorrow, we re-power the ship.
At 0000, we depart this hell."

"May whatever good star guided us here start shining again."

"END LOG"

“So just to recap,” Schmidt began, eyes still on the screen, “these two officers managed to get obliterated in every possible sense of the word, formed a diplomatic alliance with a bar table full of pirates by yelling Death to the Outcasts, and came back not only alive but with enough strategic intel to make a Naval Intelligence officer weep with joy?”

“And hydraulic actuators,” added Belck, without looking up. “They did remember the actuators.”

Neer gave a low whistle. “You know, you spend your whole career being told Corsairs are bloodthirsty killers, and then you find out they’re actually the best drunk gossipers in the Edge Worlds. I mean, who needs satellites when you’ve got Miguel from Crete and a bottle of rum?”

“I’m starting to think the real miracle,” Schmidt muttered, “is that they remembered to hit 'record'. And didn’t die.”

Belck leaned back, rubbing his eyes. “In fairness, the Corsairs did shout about burning Alpha from orbit right after singing karaoke with two Rheinlanders. So, you know… military discretion may not be their strong suit.”

“No,” Schmidt said, cracking a grin, “but apparently, neither is spotting an intelligence leak when it’s singing the Imperio anthem on top of a crate of stolen Synth Paste.”

“Edge Worlds Journalism,” Belck muttered. “Mostly rhum, some shouting, occasional strategic truths.”

The laughter, when it came, was tired but genuine. The kind that came at the end of a long string of impossibilities finally aligning in their favour.

“Just think,” Schmidt said at last, a bemused smile playing at his lips. “If that Corsair had held his liquor, this ship might still be rotting in that asteroid field, never found, never recovered. History saved by a drunken pirate rant.”

Neer exhaled. “Well, gentlemen… I suppose that settles it. If the universe wants them alive this badly, who are we to argue?”

They all nodded slowly, solemnly, and entirely unsure what emotion was appropriate to start the next log, already annoyingly blinking in front of them.

Coliz · (This post was last modified: 05-03-2025, 08:35 PM by Coliz.)

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: at the bottom of the rabbit (hell)hole, but finally crawling up

Extraction Log 1

[Log Entry: March 2st, 711 A.S. | Omega-41, Echo-4 sector, "Sargasso Nest"]
Commanding Officer: Capt. Klaus von Tanner | E.V. Morgenstern
Classification: Emergency Operations Log, Survival Protocol Theta-5

“To all crew. This is Captain Klaus von Tanner of the E.V. Morgenstern… recording what may be our final operational directive here in the Sargasso Nest.

Earlier today, I spoke with Engineering. We went over the calculations again—thrust intervals, power flow, reactor pressure tolerances. They said it might work. Then one of them laughed and said it definitely wouldn’t work quietly. I took that as approval. I hereby announce to you all that, finally, the Morgenstern will leave this place.

Now... I speak to you not as your captain, but as a fellow companion travelling with you in the dark.
It has been one long, arduous year. We have drifted in isolation, cloaked by the deadly embrace of the radiation field, our every day a testament to survival amid constant dread—dread of being discovered, of being eradicated. The ship, once a proud survey vessel, now wears its patched-up scars as a badge of our resilience.

We have suffered the relentless assault of this hostile environment; our systems have been corroded, our navigation and communication reduced to mere shadows of their intended purpose. And yet… in this slow decay, a sliver of hope has emerged. A window. A moment. A chance.

Now, with Freeport 5 and, hopefully, the whole system momentarily clear of Corsair patrols, we engage the only course left to us. We initiate maximum impulse thrust. Not cruise—just raw, churning inertia, aligned with the pulse of the neutron star. Each burst of our engines is synchronized with its electromagnetic flare, in the hope that the chaos of cosmic radiation might grant us cover. It is a crude, desperate maneuver. But it is ours.

Navigation has been recalibrated. Emergency protocols are active. Our heading is locked toward the Omega-5 Jump Hole—our one possible exit. Our last act in this system. This maneuver represents the culmination of everything we have endured.

Today, I ask every member of this crew—each of you who has weathered fear, silence, and despair—to offer one more sacrifice. One final act of resolve.

As Dante wrote, thousands of years ago—long before mankind had even dreamed of crossing stars:
“Fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.” Those were the words he gave to Odysseus, and today, I echo them. Not as literature, but as conviction.

You are not just my crew. You are my companions in both venture and misfortune. Let it be said that when fate demanded our surrender, we answered with defiance. We answered as explorers. As survivors. As human beings.

I am not naive. I know the odds. But what is a life if we do not dare to search for light in the darkest of voids? We have endured, we have fought silently against the forces that would have us forgotten, and now—despite the toll upon our bodies and minds—it is time to reclaim our future.

Let history not mark our absence but remember our course.

This is Captain Klaus von Tanner… over and out.”

The log ended with a soft click, the ghost of von Tanner’s final words lingering in the recycled air like dust catching the light.

For a moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the gentle hum of the repowered console and the distant, arthritic groan of a bulkhead that had clearly seen better centuries.

Neer leaned back and rubbed his face with both hands. “Right. So. We’ve officially uncovered a lost Rheinland expedition, a ship no one remembers, a crew that didn’t give up, and now… a speech worthy of theatre. Preferably with a full orchestra and dramatic lighting.”

“I’m not sure whether I want to cry,” Belck said, adjusting his glasses, “or file a patent on that engine burn synchronisation method. Who thinks of that? ‘Let’s ride the heartbeat of a neutron star and hope no one notices.’ That’s... brilliant. Insane. Beautiful. A little like Neer’s flying, honestly.”

Neer didn’t even protest. He just nodded toward the screen, where von Tanner’s name still glowed faintly in archival amber. “He was Rheinland Navy, you can hear it. Structure, clarity, and almost a complete inability to express emotions without a tactical framework.”

Schmidt remained silent for a few seconds, gaze fixed on the now-blank screen. “He knew it was a long shot. Probably knew he wasn’t going to make it.” He tapped his finger against the edge of the console. “But he didn’t go out begging. He went out commanding.”

Neer let out a low whistle. “And to think… this entire history came to us because a Corsair got drunk and couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

“That,” Schmidt said, “it's because a drunken Corsair is the most reliable intelligence source in the Edge Worlds."

Belck nodded solemnly. “Alcohol-fuelled piracy: not great for trade routes, but excellent for historiography.”

They all chuckled, just briefly. Then silence settled again. Not the heavy, haunted kind that had surrounded the ship earlier, but a quieter, thoughtful one—like the echo of something sacred in a very strange, very dented cathedral.

Schmidt spoke again, this time more softly. “You know… I never thought I’d feel patriotic about a half-dead ship buried in orbit over Baden Baden.”

“Me neither,” Neer said, arms folded. “But they were ours. These were our people. And they didn’t go down quietly.”

Belck gave a small nod, then raised an eyebrow. “Did he really quote Dante?”

Schmidt smiled faintly. “He did. ‘Fatti non foste a viver come bruti…’”
“…but to follow virtue and knowledge,” Belck finished. “I had a literature professor who tried to say that right before every exam. Made a lot less sense in the context of calculus.”

“Still,” Neer murmured, glancing back at the dimmed console, “for a man orbiting the edge of death and unknown… quoting a medieval poet? That’s style.”

“And guts,” Schmidt added. “The man was piloting a coffin and decided it needed a soul.”

They stood in silence a moment longer.

Then Neer gestured toward the next batch of encrypted files. “Come on. Let’s see what else the ghosts have to say. Who knows, maybe they actually made it.”

“Or at least left a few more dramatic final acts,” Belck added, already tapping at the console.

As the Morgenstern hummed softly around them, the three leaned in once more, following a trail left by voices that refused to be forgotten.

Coliz · 05-04-2025, 10:39 AM,

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: "e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle"

Extraction Log 2

[Log Entry: March 4st, 711 A.S. | Omega-5, Golf-5 sector]
Commanding Officer: Capt. Klaus von Tanner | E.V. Morgenstern
Classification: Emergency Operations Log, Survival Protocol Theta-5

"After nearly a full year of decay and inertia, the Morgenstern has moved under her own power. It wasn’t graceful, and it certainly wasn’t clean—but it worked. Against every probability, the engines responded to the synchronised firing sequence timed with the neutron star’s magnetic pulse emissions. Every ignition was plotted in advance, matched to the star’s rhythm like a warship dancing to a cosmic metronome. An insane idea, perhaps, but today insanity bore fruit."

"We began the burn sequence at 0330 ship time. Each burst of forward motion brought with it not just velocity, but risk: overtaxed capacitors, hull stress, exposure. Engineering managed each impulse like a surgical procedure—timing, restraint, recalibration. Between pulses, we drifted, silent and dark, letting the star’s chaotic presence mask our signature."

"The first few hours were quiet. Too quiet. We kept all systems but propulsion and life support on low power. No navigation lights. No active scans. Passive sensors only. Every flicker on the display had to be double-checked. We feared detection by Corsair scouts, feared the star’s flares, feared the structural groans that echoed through the ship."

"By the sixth pulse cycle, the ship’s forward momentum stabilized enough to initiate limited course corrections. The magnetic tethers barely held. Several relays burned out. We lost tertiary coolant to Deck 4 and nearly fried the inertial dampeners, but the vector held.
"No contacts. No signals. Just the groan of our hull, the rhythm of the star, and the uncanny silence of a dead system watching us leave. It took two full days."

"Two days of crawling through Omega-41, slipping between radiation bursts and debris fields, waiting for death to notice. I do not exaggerate when I say every hour felt like a farewell. Yet somehow, we made it."

"The jump hole—our only hope—was there, precisely where that Zoner scout told us to search almost 4 months ago. It shimmered with the characteristic gravitational eddies of a stable transit node. Uncharted. Unlabelled. Untested."

"I paused. No scan could tell me what lay beyond. But the crew knew as well as I did: there was no turning back. There was no more fuel to wait, and no more time to hope. So I gave the order."

T"he Morgenstern slipped into the rift with a grace I did not know she had left. Gravity warped. Sound vanished. Instruments surged and then flatlined. There was a moment—perhaps only a second—when all sensation left us. We were nowhere. And then… we weren’t. We emerged into the silence that the locals have christened as Omega-5 ."

"No known charts. No beacons. No hostiles. Just a broad expanse of rocky asteroids—dense, but navigable. The asteroids are more massive than Omega-41’s, and less radioactive. To our left, I can see the pale swirl of what may be the Barrier Cloud. To our right, the orange glow of the Walker Nebula dances at the edge of the system. The stars here shine faint and old, but the sky is clear. No flares. No neutron star. No imminent death. Just cold, stable emptiness.

I did not speak. I simply stared.

At my side, Lieutenant Gerlach leaned back in his seat, exhaled as though he’d been holding his breath for a year, and murmured, “We made it.” His voice cracked halfway through. Behind us, Rehfeld, ever composed, whispered “Gott im Himmel,” as if only now realizing she was still capable of awe. From the engineering console, I heard what I think was Chief Bartz laughing—short, breathless, the kind of laugh that rises when the mind doesn’t yet know whether it should weep or sing.

I gave them a moment. Gave myself a moment and than said, “Pass the word. All decks. General assembly in the main hall.”

Schmidt paused the log, none of them moved. The soft hum of the archive terminal was the only sound in the room.

Neer blinked. “They made it,” he said quietly. Like he couldn’t quite believe the words.

Belck was staring at the screen, slack-jawed. “Omega-5. With that wreck of a ship. Through two days of synchronized burns. And it worked.”

Schmidt leaned forward, arms braced on the console. “They had nothing. And they still got out.” There was a long silence. And then, he added, softly: “I’ve flown through Omega-41. A couple of tume. In a fully-shielded Peregrine with escort. I didn’t sleep for a week after.”

“They were in there for a year,” Belck murmured.

Neer looked at them both, then back at the screen. “No stars charts. No sensors. No help. Just a mad plan and a neutron star for cover.”

Schmidt exhaled, as if letting go of something he'd been holding without noticing. “And they pulled it off.”

They stood there a little longer—quiet, still, humbled. As if they'd just watched someone win a war with tape and sheer nerve. Then, pressed play again.

Extraction Log 2

The log ended. Another click. Another breath held and then released. The three men sat in the now-familiar glow of the bridge, the past playing out like echoes between the walls.

Silence hung for a moment longer on the bridge. Then Albert leaned back in his chair and rubbed a hand down his face. “Well,” he said, voice low but steady, “after all that... it’d be a damn shame not to join the celebrations, wouldn’t it?”

Schmidt turned to him, one eyebrow raised.

Neer was already reaching down into the side pouch of his satchel. From within, wrapped in an ancient sock and absolutely no justification, he produced a glass bottle, squat and frost-clear. He held it up with an air of casual defiance.

Hans blinked. “Is that—?”

“Schnapps,” Neer said, shrugging his shoulders. “Brought it in case we met ghosts. Thought it’d be rude to arrive empty-handed. Figured, worst case, we’d all get spooked and need a drink.”

Schmidt laughed. A genuine one. “You absolute idiot. You’ve been carrying that this whole time?”

“I was going to save it for the end of the story,” Neer admitted, holding it up so the light hit the label just right. “But... maybe this is the end. Or at least the chapter break.”

Hans reached out, gently taking the bottle, and turned it in his hand. “For Von Tanner. And for the crew.”

Schmidt nodded. “They didn’t get to toast when they launched. But they damn well earned one when they arrived.”

Neer unscrewed the cap, and the sharp tang of alcohol and apricots cut through the recycled air.

They each raised an imaginary glass.

“To the Morgenstern,” Schmidt said.

“To surviving going to the hell and back” Hans added.

“To offering schnapps to ghosts,” Neer grinned.

And as the three of them stood there—part archaeologists, part witnesses, and now, in some strange way, part heirs—they drank—quietly, reverently, absurdly. One century too late, but right on time.

Coliz · 05-04-2025, 04:12 PM,

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: "Those who reach the stars get burned"

After draining the bottle—through a series of increasingly incoherent toasts to the crew, and retellings of youthful misadventures that time had kindly buried and alcohol had enthusiastically exhumed—the trio returned to the task at hand: finding out what, if anything, had happened next aboard the Morgenstern.

Von Tanner, after briefly allowing himself to be something resembling human, had reverted to the stiff formality of his early mission logs.
“Maybe it’s being so close to home again,” Neer offered. Nobody answered.

What Hans had recovered from the remaining files was, in short, thrilling only to a very specific category of engineer with a passion for wear diagnostics.

Reports. System updates. Logistical debates about engine tolerances. Small talk between Von Tanner and his technicians as the ship cruised slowly toward the jump hole to Cambridge at a speed so reduced it might as well have been nostalgia-powered.

“Try this last one, Hans,” Schmidt said, with the sigh of a man who had run out of both patience and snacks.
Hans, who by now was typing by instinct more than intention, brought up the file.
A wall of numbers, graphs, and some rather optimistic spectrometry appeared.

“You’re kidding,” he muttered. “They managed to analyze one of the asteroids on the way.”
“Of course they did,” Neer said, standing up and mock-saluting. “Survive a year of cosmic horror, lose your convoy, end up God-knows-where… but no—duty comes first.”
They looked at each other and Schmidt said: “Remember! Rheinland needed valuable rocks. They went out to find valuable rocks!”
They laughed. It wasn’t a long laugh though. It was one of those laughs you do when crying would take too much energy.

“Well, that’s that, then,” Neer said.

“No, it isn’t,” Hans replied. “It’s probably like earlier. Hidden somewhere dumb by the ship’s emergency protocols.”
He leaned in again. “There’s always a forgotten subserver. Look—this one’s labelled ‘Dental Room Medical Inventory.’”
He opened it. Antibiotics. Surgical tools. One very dusty file on molar extractions.
“Fine. Give me a minute. We found them once. We’ll find them again.”
The others nodded. As Schmidt helpfully put it, “Hope dies last.”

Hope, however, was clearly not having a good day.

Three hours later—filled with silence, keyboard clacking, and the occasional insult Hans muttered at the server architecture—Albert stood up.

“Right. Does anyone actually know what time it is? It’s three in the morning, Baden Baden time. We’ve been here half a day. We’ve eaten nothing. We’ve only drunk.”
He picked up his bag with great finality. “I’m out.”

“You’re kidding,” Hans said. “I’m this close.”
“Hans, you’ve been ‘this close’ for longer than the ship’s been in orbit. Best case, you’re overtired. Worst case, they all got spaced and no one wrote a damn thing afterward. Either way, we’ll look tomorrow. Let’s go.”

Schmidt, who had been holding out for a miracle or at least a mildly interesting file name, finally gave in.
“As much as I hate to say it, he’s not wrong. The ship’s been floating here for a century. It’ll still be here after breakfast. Let’s go get a shower and something that isn't liquid courage. We'll come back here tomorrow. Fresh."
“No,” Hans said, eyes glued to the screen. “I swear it’s here, I can feel it. Just a bit more.”

“Hans. Reason.”
Nothing.
“Hans, we’re heading to the shuttle,” Schmidt called. “You’ve got ten minutes.”

They left. The walk down to the service hatch was quiet. The kind of quiet reserved for long farewells and stories without endings. At the bottom, Albert booted up the shuttle while Schmidt stood by the hatch, looking via a porthole at the blackened exterior of the Morgenstern. It was a stubborn ship. Ending the story like this felt wrong.

Fifteen minutes later, Albert shouted from inside:
“Hermann, either get in or you’re staying here with the ghosts, or alone with Hans. Don't know which option is worse”
“All right, all right. Let me try Hans one last time.”

He reached for the radio—just as it crackled to life on its own.

Hans’s voice came through, low, shaky, and with something fragile caught in his throat.
“I found something. Come back. Now.”

Coliz · 05-11-2025, 09:21 PM,

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: "Gotterdammerung"

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.

Coliz · (This post was last modified: 05-12-2025, 09:35 PM by Coliz.)

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: "Denial Protocol"

Footsteps in the distance. Approaching. Fingers tapping on what sounds like a datapad.

"I need to speak to the Director. Yes, I know what time it is, I don’t care. Put him on. Now."

A creak as someone sinks into a chair. Another voice comes through, distant, groggy.

"So, Captain Redcroft?"

"Director, it’s—" a pause, "it’s just as my men reported. They weren’t freelancers. Not scavengers. Despite what the ship might suggest, it’s a Rheinland Navy vessel. They were military. They would never have surrendered, never have bargained. Too much discipline."

"I see. Typical. Well, good for you that you weren’t alone."

"Indeed. Without the help of our" —his tone drops— "esteemed Corsair friends, we wouldn’t have stopped their plan. I’m reading through their logs now. It was… rather well put together."

"Are you certain nothing got out?"

"Fairly certain. They’d preloaded messages—one on the probe they intercepted, others through the ship’s long-range array. Luckily, our associates brought jamming devices. We arrived just in time."

"Excellent. Well then, let’s not waste words. Clean up and get out."

"...That might be an issue, Director."

"Excuse me?"

"Our charming friends have… politely informed us that we’re on our own now. Their words were, and I quote: 'Not our problem anymore. You wanted a favour, we gave it. Now clean your own mess.’ We convinced them to retrieve the bodies, the weapons, debris from two freighters, and the probe. But the ship—well—they made it very clear. That’s our problem now."

"Then leave it there. It’s in the middle of nowhere. Who in their right mind would care about half a wreck floating out there? Blow it up if you must. Isn’t your yacht armed?"

"I thought of that. But blowing it up… it’s messy. Would take days. Too many of our footprints, too much left behind. And honestly? Our guests won’t be thrilled to stick around that long."

"My idea is… different. I say we take it back. To Baden Baden."

Silence.
"You want to tow it?"

"Yes."

"You’ve lost your mind."

"We tow it back, clean it up. Piece by piece. From what we saw, it's an exploration vessel. Rheinland Navy, yes—but lost. Forgotten. If anyone were to go looking, and I believe a search party it's already out, where would they look? Out here. Omega systems. They’ll think it’s lost in a nebula, or buried in an asteroid belt. But Baden Baden? In the heart of Stuttgart? No one would ever expect it to be quietly moored around a luxury planet. No one would even think to scan it."

A pause.

"...Go on."

"We take our time. We hide every trace of us aboard. Carefully. Their systems are military-grade—I can't just delete files, I can trigger I don't know even, some emergency protocol. We’ll need specialists, People who know what they’re doing. And again, time. I’ll keep it dormant until then."

Another pause.

"Not bad. Fine. Tow the vessel. Make it look derelict. Strip the transponder, paint over the name, re-register it.
I’ll have our legal team draft a backdated purchase document. Let’s say… acquired at Freeport 1. Some old hauler selling off junk. We’ll file a salvage acquisition—clean, legal. If someone investigates, it was a routine purchase. It needs to look like a legitimate bureaucratic mess, not a cover-up.
Anyway, that’s my job. The rest… that’s up to you, Captain."

Short silence. A faint creak—Redcroft shifting in his chair. A distant electrical hum. The muffled chirp of a status console.

"Well, if that’s all, Redcroft—"

"Director."

"What, for God's sake?"

"Sir, do you realise what kind of position you’re putting me in? His voice cracks slightly. "This wasn’t... it wasn’t just a misunderstanding, or a defensive response. It was a... calculated assault. A boarding action, carried out with help from third parties. And inside...it wasn’t a fight. It was a slaughter."

He tries to steady his voice, but it’s fraying.

"These weren’t pirates. They weren’t freelancers. They were... they were Rheinland Navy officers. Uniformed. Recorded. They had codes, ranks... Sir. This was an execution. And if it ever comes out—if even one file leaks—”
He breathes in sharply.
"They’ll drag us in front of military courts., It's a capitial offence. Oh God what am I saying, we'll be hanged, I'll be hanged"

A faint, almost amused chuckle cuts him off.

"Oh, Captain Redcroft. Orbital Spa & Cruise pours millions into lawyers every year — the best in Sirius — just to make incidents like this vanish. And trust me—this isn’t even the worst one this quarter.”

A pause. He continues, casually.

“You did your part. Now don’t you dare start getting noble. There’s no medal for regret. No tribunal for conscience.
You stir the waters now, you guarantee only one outcome—you go under.”

His voice drops a note. Still cold. But smoother, almost amused.

“Let’s not pretend anyone up here will face consequences. We weren’t on that ship."
A pause. Measured. Calculated.

“You were.”

There’s a faint chuckle—dry, dismissive.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m in my villa on Curacao, sipping my late-night scotch. And as far as I know, no one ordered your little detour into the deep. Why were you there, again? So far from our scheduled cruise routes. Perhaps one of my captains has gone rogue? What an unfortunate incident. Orbital Spa & Cruise, of course, will disavow any knowledge of your actions.”

Then, his voice hardens, stripped of pretense.

“Don’t grow a spine now. Not when it’s useless. Clean up your mess. Seal it.
And for everyone’s sake—especially yours—return to your guests, smile, and pretend nothing ever happened.”

Click. The call ends. Footsteps receding.

"Alright, move it. Power this hulk back on. We’re taking it to Baden Baden.".

Coliz · 05-12-2025, 09:51 PM,

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: "Friendly Fire"

Hans paused the audio. “Now it’s done. Now.”

“Hans, give me that thing,” Schmidt ordered, curtly. “Give it to me. Now.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Just hand it over.”

Schmidt took back the recorder, rewound the track, and played again—this time at full volume—the last few exchanges between those faceless voices who, out of nowhere, had turned Von Tanner and his crew back into ashes, as if the whole phoenix thing had been just a cruel metaphor.

Silence.

“He really said it. Orbital Spa & Cruise.”

He played it again, as if a second, third, or fourth listen might reveal some alternate ending.

“Hermann, stop,” Belck snapped. “It’s there. See the badge on your uniform? That’s right. That’s the name he said.”

“Oh God. What the fuck did we just listen to?” For the first time, Schmidt’s voice cracked—not with rage, but something dangerously close to despair. He slumped to the floor beside Hans, both hands over his mouth, staring at the seafoam-green and gold uniform, the Orbital Spa & Cruise logo still glinting with oblivious cheer.

“What the fuck happened? What the fuck do we have to do with this?”

Neer, unusually quiet, fixed his gaze on Schmidt. “Hermann. Give me the recorder.”

“What? Why?”

“I’m going to smash it,” he said, pulling a hammer from his duffel bag like a magician pulling out a very illegal rabbit.

“Albert, what the hell are you talking about?” Hans shouted, spinning around.

“What am I talking about? I’m talking about blowing up the one thing standing between us and a war crimes tribunal on New Berlin. That’s what I’m talking about!”

“Hermann,” Hans said, practically throwing himself at him. “Don’t you dare give it to him. Don’t you dare. We’re going to do what that coward Redcroft didn’t do a century ago. We’ll take all of it, get in the shuttle, head straight to the nearest KPR station, and hand over everything. Von Tanner, his crew—they don’t deserve to vanish. Not again.”

“Hans, have you completely lost your mind?!” Albert shouted. “Do you even hear yourself? We turn ourselves in? And then what? They start asking questions, digging into everything—why we didn’t report it sooner, why we went poking around in altered records! No thanks. I’m not ending up in Mecklenburg or Hammersee or any other penal hellhole because you got a conscience about people who died a hundred years ago!”

“A conscience? Me?!” Hans barked, his face flushed. “Says the guy who popped a bottle of schnapps for the crypt we found! Don’t talk to me about conscience, Albert. Don’t pretend you don’t care. Not even a little.”

“Of course I care—humanly. But why should I pay for their crimes? Crimes from a century ago! And for what, Hans? What kind of place do you think this is? A charity? The church of Baden Baden? This is Orbital. We all know damn well our hands are dipped in several flavours of illegal jam.”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t know that, right? I’m just the guy down in the engine room! While you play the part of Albert the Glorious XO on the bridge—you might’ve known a few things more than you let on!”

“How the fuck dare you,” Albert shouted.

They were a split second from coming to blows when something louder—a searing plasma blast cracking against the ceiling—froze them in place.

“ENOUGH, BOTH OF YOU! SHUT UP!”

Albert and Hans turned in unison.

They froze, faces pale. Hermann stood still, his arm pointed to the ceiling, a blaster still fuming in his hand.

“Jesus, Hermann! Are you out of your mind?!” Hans shouted, throwing his arms up instinctively.

“Put that thing down!” Albert barked, backing a step away. “You want to kill us now?!”

Hermann was still standing, blaster in hand.

“SIT DOWN. YOU—THERE.” He pointed to the centre of the room. “AND YOU—THOSE CHAIRS, IN THE BACK.”

Albert opened his mouth, but didn’t get past the first syllable. Hermann’s glare shut him down instantly.

He obeyed without another word.

“Now,” Hermann said, his voice lower but still seething, “none of us leaves this room until we’ve found a solution.”

Coliz · 05-13-2025, 01:51 PM,

Inside the Serendipity AKA the E.V. Morgenstern

Bridge 1, command deck: "Three Men and an Elephant in the Room"

After five excruciating seconds of silence, Albert finally found the courage to breathe—and then, eventually, to speak.

“Hermann… Hermann, listen, could you please explain why exactly you have a plasma blaster on board?”

“I…” Hermann looked down at his hand. The blaster was still faintly smoking. “I brought it with me because I was more afraid of squatters or some Junkers holed up in here than of ghosts.”
“And instead" He glanced at the blaster once more, then tossed it onto the desk with a clatter. "I end up firing it to stop my two lifelong friends and colleagues from bashing each other’s heads in because they apparently lack the adult capacity to sit down and have a proper conversation.”

The three of them fell silent.

“I'm sorry,” Hermann said eventually. “That was idiotic of me.”

The other two exchanged a glance. “We’re sorry too. Albert, I overreacted—really.”
“Yeah, me too.”

“Well, now that we’ve all made peace, let’s not waste more time and finally address the enormous bloody elephant in the room,” Schmidt said, eyes fixed on the recorder.

“Alright." he resumed. "Albert has a point.”

Hans opened his mouth, but Hermann raised a hand.

“Let me finish. He’s right about some things. We can’t just waltz into the authorities like schoolchildren handing in lost property. That would be insane.”

Hermann began pacing.

“Think about it, Hans. What happens if we go? The world implodes. Cross and the whole board get summoned to New Berlin to explain why the company has been sitting on a century-old crime committed by its own people. Even if they somehow dodge legal consequences, the fallout would be catastrophic: interhouse scandal, investigations everywhere, boycotts, the stock tanks, people resign, get sacked… it all collapses. And we lose our jobs right alongside them.”

“Exactly,” Albert chimed in. “And what if they start digging into our Corsair connections? Not just ours ours—though they might get there—but the company’s. They start snooping around the Hawaii, follow the money, and suddenly we’re suspects too. It all unravels, and we’re the scapegoats. And don’t forget,” he added quietly, “whistleblowers in this company don’t exactly retire with a medal. Especially when the Corsairs are involved.”

“Right, and on that note,” Hermann cut in, “you’re being a little dramatic, Albert. Yes, it’d be chaos, and yes, we’d probably get fired. But we’re not going to end up chained in Hammersee or hunted by Corsairs. This wreck’s been in orbit for nearly a century—nobody’s cared, no one’s come looking. The police haven’t investigated in all this time, and they’re not about to. We’re not on any wanted lists. Only Cross knows we’re here. And our wives. Strange they haven’t called.”

“True enough.” muttered Albert.

They chuckled. It was brief, but it lightened the mood for a precious moment.

“But Albert,” Hermann continued, “we still can’t just stick our heads in the sand and bury this again. How do you sleep at night, knowing you're directly complicit in this now? We can't let this be swept away again. Not after what we heard. They don’t deserve that. It’s just not right. And yes, we all know the company’s just a pretty façade, knee-deep in shady deals with the Corsairs and who knows how many others criminals in the Sector. But there’s a difference between ‘forgetting’ to report suspicious activity aboard the Hawaii and staying silent about… all this.”

“So what are you saying?” asked Albert. “Are we reporting it or not?”

“I don’t...” Hermann paused. “I don’t know yet. I need to think. We all do. In the meantime, maybe we can try figuring out what exactly happened—how, after nearly two years of radio silence, they ended up with one of our captains pulling a trigger.”

“Hardly the first time that’s happened,” Albert smirked.

“The antenna!” Hans shouted.

“What?”

“The antenna! The audio! He said they had uploaded logs to the comms array, but it was jammed. Maybe they’re still there—I can try to recover them!”

Hans shot to his feet and began scooping up his equipment.

“ Hans, where are you going?”

“Come on, both of you—now!” he shouted, already halfway through the door. “Communications deck, move it!”

Login
Username:
Password:	Lost Password?
	Remember me