“Bring us closer, Neer. I am quite certain the shields on your Dorado will hold.”
“Yes, ma’am. I believe so too,” he replied, briefly meeting Hans’s eyes. Hans responded with a shrug and a nod that conveyed the reassuring message that the shields had been recalibrated by someone who would be personally offended if they failed.
Albert shook his head and, hands steady on the controls, eased the shuttle closer to the Morgenstern’s aft section. The Dorado slid laterally along the ship’s vast, asymmetrical bulk, passing the engine block at a distance that was, by all reasonable standards, closer than strictly necessary.
From here, the ship stopped pretending to be a single object. Scorched plating gave way to exposed trusses; conduits wandered across the hull in patterns suggesting that, at some point, urgency had decisively outranked aesthetics.
The proximity alarms chimed in small, offended bursts as micro-impact warnings accumulated on the displays — debris, slag, fragments of armour drifting with the lazy confidence of things that had already done their damage. Albert elected not to comment.
Schmidt studied the hull in silence, head tilted back. For several seconds, no one spoke. Then Huber did.
“I would say,” she began, carefully, “that it is easier to identify what is not of civilian manufacture here.”
The reinforcement did not merely sit atop the original hull; it argued with it. Layer upon layer wrapped around the engine housing, correcting perceived weaknesses with an enthusiasm that suggested repetition rather than planning. The original lines were still present, but only just — betrayed by seams that refused to agree with one another and by structural elements that clearly came from different schools of engineering, and in some cases, different centuries.
Huber hesitated, as if weighing whether the next sentence was strictly necessary.
“The recordings from Omega-11 are… consistent,” she said at last to her recording datapad, with the faint reluctance of someone discovering that an inconvenient story appears to be telling the truth. “They indicate prolonged exposure to a radioactive debris-dense environment, traces of at least one naval engagement, and a pattern of multiple high-energy impacts and collision events.”
Her gaze followed a repaired breach as it drifted through the Dorado’s floodlights — a patchwork of mismatched plating reinforced far beyond what any civilian regulation would have required, or permitted.
“A vessel subjected to that sequence of circumstances,” she continued, “would not have had the option of elegant solutions. Salvage, adaptation, and emergency reinforcement would have been… unavoidable.”
She paused, then added, almost grudgingly:
“In that context, the external configuration we are observing does align with the historical record.”
Schmidt nodded, once. “There are Rheinland components, though” he said. “Structural elements, armour segments, portions of the thermal baffling.”
He indicated a section where several armour alloys overlapped in a manner that could only be described as optimistic. “Hans — pass her the other binoculars.”
Hans complied. Through the lenses, the ship’s compromises became more explicit. Point-defence turrets had been welded onto reinforced pedestals with little regard for symmetry; power lines ran externally, protected by casings that looked as though they had been designed during a particularly stressful afternoon. The weapon mounts were functional, certainly, but integration appeared to have been postponed indefinitely.
The Dorado continued its slow circuit along the port side and beneath the keel. Floodlights revealed old impact scars filled with mismatched plating, entire sections where original armour had been removed and replaced wholesale. Navigation lights flickered irregularly, all of them working, none of them quite agreeing on where they ought to be.
Antenna clusters protruded at angles that suggested afterthoughts. Sensor arrays overlapped generously, redundancy having clearly been preferred over restraint.
“Those ionic dispersers are almost certainly Hessian in design,” Hans muttered, mostly to himself.
“Ah,” Huber replied without lowering the binoculars, so those filthy terrorists have retained you as an engineer, Mr. Belck?”
Hans stiffened.
“No, Dr. Huber. Absolutely not,” he said quickly. “Those are… academic memories. Advanced engineering courses. You don’t truly understand a hostile vessel unless you know what tends to fail first.”
“Mr. Belck,” Huber replied evenly, “I am joking. We do, on occasion, joke at the Ministry.”
Hans opened his mouth to respond and was immediately persuaded not to by a precisely delivered kick from Schmidt, accompanied by a clear and eloquent lip-read: be quiet.
“Very well,” Huber said after a moment. “I believe we have sufficient material for the external inspection.”
She lowered the binoculars and turned toward the plethora of ministerial officials occupying the Dorado’s observation deck, each surrounded by overlays, measurements, and the quiet satisfaction of having measured nearly everything.
“Colleagues — final checklist?”
One of the officials glanced down at his display, scrolled for a moment, then looked up.
“External armour fully surveyed.”
“Multiple reinforcement layers identified; density exceeds civilian norms.”
“Weapon mounts catalogued. Mixed manufacture. Several non-standard installations noted.”
“Laser telemetry of former hull markings and insignia completed.”
“Spectrometric analysis of added structural components acquired. Alloy composition inconsistent with a single-origin refit.”
“Hull breach repairs mapped. No active decompression risks detected.”
“Passive spectrum of antennas, sensors, and external emitters recorded. Exterior lighting functional, though irregular.”
A pause followed, just long enough to be professionally uncomfortable.
“Thermal and high-resolution visual scans of the main engines remain outstanding.”
“You want to power up the engines remotely — have you completely lost your mind?” Hans said.
“What he means,” Schmidt interjected smoothly, applying another corrective kick, “is that given the current state of the engines, it may be advisable to postpone that step until we have inspected their structural integrity from the inside. Even from out here, they do not appear to be in optimal condition.”
Huber regarded the engine block for a final moment, then inclined her head.
“Captain Schmidt is correct. We will postpone. There will be ample opportunity to be alarmed later.”
She straightened.
“Very well, gentlemen. We may dock. We have, give or take, fifteen decks to catalogue.”
Hermann rolled his eyes toward the ceiling for half a second, then placed a hand on Albert Speer’s shoulder.
“Come on, Albert,” he said. “Work your magic again and get us aboard.”
Planet Baden Baden, Steinbach administrative archipelago, November 30th, 835 AS
Forms, Heat, and Other Misunderstandings
Schmidt gave a brief nod of thanks as the outline of his virtual assistant folded itself neatly back into his holopad and ceased to exist.
He turned to Albert and Hans. “They’ve begun atmospheric approach. Let’s go and perform the honours.”
A few minutes later, the silhouette of a Pelican bearing the muted colours of the Ministry pushed its way through the sulphurous vapours. The trio was immediately hit by a wave of heat, sulfur, and badly combusted helium-3—an aroma suggesting that the planet had never fully committed to the idea of hospitality.
“Charming,” Albert muttered. “You really wonder what our taxes are spent on if they make their officials fly around in those crates.”
Hans sniffed. “Not that we travel much better.”
Schmidt did not respond. His attention was fixed on the Pelican’s hatch, which stubbornly refused to open.
Several long, deeply unproductive seconds passed.
Eventually, a small delegation emerged down the ramp, visibly overdressed for Baden Baden’s climate, their attire chosen for rooms with walls rather than for planets with geothermically active opinions. At their head walked a woman.
Schmidt stepped forward before she had even reached the final rung of the ladder.
“Dr. Huber, I presume. Captain Schmidt. Welcome to Baden Baden.”
His arm was already extended, hand open, ready.
“I haven’t set foot on Baden Baden yet,” she replied calmly, stepping diagonally to avoid his hand altogether.
She touched down on the platform, adjusted her tailored jacket with the precision of someone reclaiming dignity from gravity, and added, “Now I have. Susanne Huber. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Might I suggest we conduct the introductions somewhere with air conditioning—and preferably filtration?”
Schmidt blinked. “Yes—ah—of course. Absolutely. This way. Right away.”
They moved quickly.
As they passed Albert and Hans, their raised hands were gently but decisively lowered by a sharply mouthed later, inside from Schmidt, accompanied by raised eyebrows that tolerated no debate.
The antiseptic calm of Orbital’s administrative atrium was reached in record time. Cool air, neutral lighting, and the quiet reassurance of a building that believed, at least on facade, in procedures, welcomed them in.
Dr. Huber paused, inhaled, and visibly recalibrated.
“My apologies,” she said. “I’ve never tolerated Baden Baden’s air or smell. Not since the holidays my parents insisted on spending here when I was a child.” She offered a small, professional smile. “A pleasure. Susanne Huber. Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
A round of greetings followed—Schmidt, Neer, Belck; ministerial aides; Orbital technicians—names exchanged, datapads waking, the ritual completed.
Huber clasped her hands once.
“Very well,” she said. “I suggest we begin immediately. Shall we proceed?”
Chairs were arranged with the quiet efficiency of people who did this for a living. Datapads were placed on the table, aligned just enough to suggest order without committing to it. Someone dimmed the lights a fraction. Someone else adjusted the temperature by a degree that would later be debated but never reversed.
Huber took her seat, unhurried. She did not open her holopad immediately. That, Schmidt noticed, was deliberate.
“Before we move on to the physical inspection,” she said, finally activating the display, “I’d like to clarify a few points from the documentation you provided.”
The dossier unfolded in the air between them: schematics, timelines, registry excerpts, neatly annotated. Orbital’s work. Clean. Careful. Thorough in the way only something reviewed by three legal departments could be.
“You’ll find,” Schmidt said, keeping his tone light, “that we’ve tried to be as transparent as possible. The discovery, the ship’s condition, the recovered logs—”
“Yes,” Huber said pleasantly. “Captain von Tanner. Geological Reconnaissance Convoy. Disappearance presumed due to Omega-systems instability.” She scrolled. “A tragic but not uncommon outcome, given the period.”
Hans relaxed a fraction. Albert leaned back, folding his arms.
“So far,” Huber continued, “everything aligns with the submitted materials. Hull modifications consistent with prolonged survival. Mixed-origin components. A… rather heroic level of redundancy.”
Hans smiled despite himself. “Heroic is one word for it.”
Huber glanced up. “You approve?”
“I mean,” Hans said, catching Schmidt’s warning look a second too late, “given the circumstances, it makes sense. You don’t refit for elegance when you’re just trying to keep the lights on.”
“Quite,” Huber replied, making a note. “Survival engineering has its own aesthetic.”
A pause. Comfortable. Almost friendly.
Albert cleared his throat. “The engines, in particular, suffered repeated stress cycles. We’ve documented multiple field repairs, often performed under less-than-ideal conditions.”
“Yes,” one of Huber’s aides interjected, scrolling. “Repeated interventions, improvised solutions, and no consistent refit signature.”
“Which suggests,” Albert said carefully, “that there was no long-term plan. Just… continuity.”
Huber smiled faintly. “Continuity is interesting. It can indicate necessity.”
She paused. “Or commitment.”
Schmidt leaned forward slightly. “Orbital didn’t acquire the ship with any intent beyond salvage. Actually, we don't even know why the ship was acquired back in the days”
“Of course not,” Huber said immediately. “The purchase predates any of this by decades. That’s well established.”
Another aide chimed in. “Still, it is remarkable how complete the narrative is. Logs, damage patterns, personal accounts. Even gaps where one would expect them.”
Hans frowned. “Gaps?”
“Missing data,” the aide clarified. “The sort that suggests loss rather than omission.”
The room remained calm. The air conditioning hummed. Somewhere in the building, a machine dispensed a beverage no one had asked for.
Schmidt smiled. It felt wrong on his face.
“You’ll appreciate,” he said carefully, “that we didn’t embellish anything. If anything, the material is… inconvenient.”
“Yes,” Huber agreed. “That is often the mark of authenticity.”
Albert exhaled, slow and quiet.
“And yet,” Huber added, fingers steepled now, “inconvenience can also be curated. Rough edges left in place to suggest sincerity.”
One of the aides nodded. “With the restoration of the monarchy, we’ve seen a sharp increase in cases like that. Every week, another family appears—long-lost nobility, forgotten lineages—claiming ancestral estates, rights, privileges.”
“They all have documentation,” Huber said. “Some of it remarkably well prepared.”
“Old seals, partial archives,” the aide added. “Gaps where wars or administrative collapses might plausibly have erased records.”
Huber’s gaze drifted back to the hovering outline of the Morgenstern. “History,” she said mildly, “is surprisingly cooperative when people are sufficiently motivated.”
Hans shifted in his chair. Albert unfolded his arms.
“You understand,” Huber continued, “that our concern is not enthusiasm. It is precedent. A genuine rediscovery obliges the Ministry to act one way. A constructed one obliges us to act quite differently.”
One of the aides allowed himself a thin smile. “People usually expect paperwork from us. Clarifications. Delays.”
“Yes,” Huber said, finally meeting Schmidt’s eyes. “They are often surprised to learn that clarification is sometimes followed by consequences.”
She closed the dossier with a soft, final gesture.
“Tomorrow,” she said lightly, “we will be aboard your ship. We will look at it carefully. And we will see whether the physical reality supports the story we’ve been given.”
Her smile returned, polite and impeccably placed.
“For your sake,” she added, almost kindly, “I hope it does.”
For a moment, no one spoke.
The trio exchanged brief glances—nothing obvious, nothing that could be recorded—just the shared realization that the ground beneath them had shifted, quietly, without asking permission.
And that whatever awaited them aboard the Morgenstern, it was no longer going to be inspected under the assumptions they had prepared for.
Planet Baden Baden, Rastatt archipelago, Schmidt's house. November 30th, 835 AS
The Trouble With Honest Lies
Hermann’s house hung over the cliff with the quiet confidence of something that had already won an argument with gravity and saw no reason to revisit it.
Below, the sea struck black volcanic rock in slow, deliberate waves. Steam rose from distant vents, turning the islands into layered silhouettes, half land, half weather. The view was spectacular in the way people later described with excessive hand gestures and unnecessary adjectives.
The three men did not look at it.
They sat around the table as if they had arrived there by mistake and were waiting for someone to correct it. Plates had been served. Food had cooled. Glasses had been filled and then ignored, as though hydration were suddenly a matter of principle.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
“They think we’re liars,” Albert said finally.
He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even sound angry. He sounded confused, as if he had just been informed that gravity was optional and he had been doing things the hard way out of habit.
Hans stared at the table. “I know. I heard them. I just… didn’t expect it to hurt this much.”
Schmidt leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “They don’t think we’re hiding a crime,” he said. “They think we’re selling a story.”
Albert let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s the part that’s killing me. Of all the things we’ve actually hidden.”
Hans shook his head slowly. “We lied,” he said. “Yes. Absolutely. Repeatedly. Professionally.” He looked up, eyes sharp. “But not about that. Not about von Tanner. Not about the ship.”
“No,” Hermann said quietly. “That part was real.”
The words hung there, heavy and awkward, like something that had never expected to be questioned.
Hans pushed his plate away. “We spent months sanitizing that story. Cutting out the parts that would get people killed. Filing down the edges so it could exist in public without setting off alarms.” His voice cracked, just slightly. “And now they think we invented it.”
Albert rubbed his face with both hands. “We finally had a version of the truth we could live with. Not the whole thing. Not the blood. But something that meant something.”
“And now,” Hans said, “it’s going to vanish under the label of fraud.”
Schmidt closed his eyes.
“That’s the beffa,” Albert went on, bitterness creeping in now. “The joke on top of the joke. We tell the truth—carefully, responsibly—and get punished for lying about it.”
Hans laughed once, sharp and brittle. “I would have preferred they accused us of murder. At least that would have been… honest.”
Schmidt opened his eyes. “Careful.”
“I mean it,” Hans insisted. “A crime can be hidden. A fraud gets erased. Declared void. Unworthy of discussion.” He gestured vaguely at the room, the planet, the absurd beauty outside. “They don’t prosecute frauds like this. They dismiss them.”
Albert stared into his glass. “They don’t just take the ship away,” he said. “They take the story. It becomes an embarrassment. Something no one wants to touch.”
“And von Tanner disappears again,” Hans said softly. “This time officially.”
The sea crashed below them, indifferent and impeccably timed.
Schmidt straightened. “We are not victims here,” he said. “Let’s be clear about that.”
“No,” Albert said. “But we are about to be punished for the wrong sin.”
Hans looked at him. “We lied so the truth could survive.”
“And now,” Albert replied, “the truth is going to be buried under the accusation of fiction.”
Silence again. Thicker this time.
“So,” Hans said eventually, “what do we do?”
Schmidt hesitated—then broke the silence properly.
“Listen to me,” he said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it had acquired that particular density it only took on when he had stopped thinking aloud and started deciding. “We’re framing this wrong. We keep talking about how to defend the story. That’s not the fight we’re in.”
Hans frowned. “Then what fight is it?”
“A cheaper one,” Schmidt said. “From their point of view.”
Albert shook his head. “They already think it’s cheap. A fraud. A fabrication that happens to be very well researched.”
He stood and walked toward the glass wall, looking out over the dark sea and the glowing scars of the islands below.
“A fraud has a logic,” he continued. “It has intent. It has efficiency. Someone builds it to work.” He paused. “The Morgenstern doesn’t work. It survives.”
Hans swallowed. “You’re saying—”
“I’m saying we stop helping,” Schmidt said. “Completely.”
Albert sat up straighter. “Helping how?”
“By explaining. By smoothing. By contextualizing.” Hermann turned back to them. “Every time we do that, we make it look designed. Curated. Like someone wanted it to look this way.”
Hans shook his head slowly. “But if we don’t explain—”
“—then the ship explains,” Hermann cut in. “Badly. Inconsistently. Expensively.”
Albert stared at him. “You want to let it be ugly.”
“Yes.”
“You want to let it contradict itself.”
“Yes.”
“You want to let them walk into spaces that make no sense and tell them we don’t know why.”
“Yes,” Schmidt said again, softer now. “Because no one committing fraud leaves this much unanswered. No one spends this much effort to gain nothing.”
Hans let out a quiet, bitter laugh. “You realize this means trusting a hundred-year-old wreck with our reputations.”
Schmidt nodded. “I trust it more than any explanation we could invent.”
Another pause—different from the earlier ones. Still heavy, but steadier now.
“So,” Albert said at last, “we go aboard tomorrow knowing they expect theater.”
“And we give them logistics,” Schmidt replied.
Hans straightened. “And if that still isn’t enough?”
Schmidt hesitated, just for a fraction of a second.
“Then at least,” he said, “we won’t be the ones who buried von Tanner a second time.”
They began clearing the table without comment, movements automatic, practiced. Outside, the lights along the islands dimmed as Baden Baden settled into its version of night—volcanic, humid, and entirely unconcerned with tomorrow.
When they finally stepped out onto the terrace, the Morgenstern was just a distant glimmer in the sky, barely visible against the stars.
Tomorrow, they would walk her decks with witnesses.
Tonight, all they could do was stand there, listening to the sea, and accept that whatever happened next would happen in full view—ugly, incomplete, and impossible to rehearse.
Hermann was the last to turn in.
“Get some rest,” he said. “We’re going to need it.”
After overcoming what felt like a century of incompatible docking protocols between the Dorado and the Morgenstern—resolved, in practice, by Albert’s manual overrides and a series of discreetly creative insults—the two vessels finally locked together with a resonant metallic clang.
Albert leaned back in his seat. “There,” he said. “Diplomacy.”
Hans checked the readouts. “Atmosphere stable,” he announced. “Again. Incredibly.”
The Dorado’s inner doors parted. Stale air drifted in from the Morgenstern—coolant, metal, something faintly mineral and old. Not decay. Just, long-term existence.
“After you,” Hermann began—but Dr. Huber was already across the threshold.“Like she owns the place,” Hermann muttered.
He waited until the rest of the delegation disembarked, lingering just long enough for it to be unclear whether he was being courteous or reconsidering his life choices. Then he drew a breath and stepped back onto the Morgenstern.
The corridor lights of Service corridor 4A were still there.
Faint. Uneven. Persistent.
Déjà vu from eight months ago.
Same lights. Same dust. Same metal layered onto metal without any visible consultation with symmetry. Bulkheads slightly bowed. Ceiling plates refusing to agree on height.
The smell hadn’t changed either.
“The scent is identical,” Hermann observed.
“That means nothing has improved,” Albert replied. “Which, in fairness, is consistent.”
Hans ran a hand along the wall plating.
“I see our technicians kept their promise.”
“Of doing nothing?” Albert asked.
“Of observing only.”
“At least if something collapses,” Albert added, “it will collapse authentically.”
Footsteps approached behind them.
“You have entered through this airlock before?” Huber asked.
“Yes,” Hermann said. “We chose this access point deliberately.”. A pause. “It seemed… appropriate,” he added.
“It seemed like the only one likely to open,” Albert clarified.
Huber raised an eyebrow.
“We were uncertain about the main hangar,” Hans said quickly.
“In what way?”
“That it might not,” Albert replied.
Huber did not pursue the matter. She moved forward down the corridor instead, fingers brushing lightly across the uneven plating.
“This passage has an air of having been negotiated,” she said. “Fused sections. Welded overlaps. Mixed alloys.”
She paused near a pipe that bent at an angle incompatible with polite engineering.
“Whoever worked here,” she continued, “was not concerned with aesthetic continuity.”
“They were likely concerned with continuity in a more immediate sense,” Hans said. “As in continuing to live.”
“So it would appear,” Huber replied.
They proceeded.
Bootsteps echoed with a tone that was neither hollow nor solid, as though something beneath the deck had been reinforced in ways that altered acoustics but not structure. The auxiliary generator hummed somewhere deep in the ship, steady but not entirely confident.
“From here?” Huber asked.
Hermann gestured toward the junction ahead.
“Forward and up leads to Command. Aft and below to Engineering. Midship port for the astrogeological and scientific section. Communications is two levels below Command.”
“And during your previous visit?”
“I went directly to Command,” Hermann said. “They checked the scientific deck and navigation briefly. Then we regrouped at Command and checked together Communications.”
“And nothing beyond that?”
“We considered it prudent,” Hermann replied evenly, “to preserve the remainder in its original condition.”
“At the time,” Albert added, “that seemed responsible.”
“And now?” Huber asked.
Hermann looked down the corridor, then at the floor beneath his boots.
“Now,” he said carefully, “it feels as though we were walking on assumptions.”
One of the ministry officials glanced up from his datapad.
“Then today will be instructive.”
“More or less,” Albert said.
Silence settled. The ship creaked faintly, adjusting to their collective presence.
Huber turned.
“Very well,” she said. “We shall begin where none of you have been.” The trio exchanged a glance—brief, tense, not entirely pleased.
“Only fair,” she added mildly. “You deserve a little discovery as well.”
She activated the holographic deck map.
“If the surveys—yours and ours—are accurate, two levels above and aft should be the primary engineering section and the main reactor.”
Hans blinked.
“You intend to power it up?” His tone had drifted into Albert’s register of concern.
Huber did not slow her stride.
“Let us first determine whether it is capable of objecting,” she said. Then, already several meters ahead of them: “Move along. It promises to be a long day.”
They climbed in relative silence.
The access ladder to Engineering was narrower than regulations would have preferred and steeper than knees would have liked. The metal rungs bore the uneven polish of use—old use, not recent. Dust had settled in corners where airflow had once been stronger.
“Two decks up,” Albert said unnecessarily. “No one was disputing gravity,” Hans replied.
The hatch to Primary Engineering required a manual override. That alone said enough. Hans knelt at the control panel, removed a secondary cover plate with visible satisfaction, and bridged two contacts with the sort of care normally reserved for delicate surgery or mild vandalism. The hatch disengaged with a heavy internal thud. The door slid aside.
The reactor chamber dominated the space—cylindrical in origin, but no longer in purity. The core housing had once been clean, balanced, designed by engineers who trusted supply chains and schedules. What now stood before them was something else.
External reinforcement ribs had been welded onto the containment shell at irregular intervals, intersecting with older structural members in ways that suggested necessity rather than design. Some braces did not align with the original stress geometry at all; they simply held.
Sections of the outer casing bore discoloration from repeated thermal overload. Entire panels had been cut out and replaced with plates of slightly mismatched alloy. The welds were not elegant, but they were deep—layered, deliberate. Scaffolding encircled the midsection of the core, clearly not original to the vessel. It had been bolted into place using brackets from at least three different manufacturers. One support strut had been fashioned from what looked suspiciously like repurposed cargo frame material. Another bore faint serial markings from a class of freighter long decommissioned.
Panels from different production eras coexisted without conversation. Some bore Rheinland markings nearly worn smooth. Others were stamped decades earlier. Cabling had been rerouted repeatedly, bundled in improvised harnesses that did not match any known standard. At least three generations of insulation materials could be identified from a distance—ceramic composites, polymer wraps, and sections patched with something that might once have been thermal shielding from a completely different vessel.
Here and there, handwritten calibration marks were still visible in faded grease pencil—notations made by someone who had been adjusting tolerances in real time, not updating software.
Hans stepped closer.
He crouched near a secondary coolant manifold, tracing the weld seam with two fingers.
“Oh,” he said softly.
Albert glanced at him. “That good?” "That impossible,” Hans replied, stepping closer. His eyes moved rapidly across the patchwork. “Look at this bracing. That’s not factory. That’s field improvisation. And this—” he gestured at a welded manifold—“this was never meant to hold that load.”
He stepped back, almost smiling. “This thing didn’t get refitted. It really got kept alive.”
Albert folded his arms. “That’s a living hell.” “That's a miracle,” Hans corrected softly.
Huber walked past them and stopped at the primary control station.
“This,” she said calmly, “is your primary reactor.” “So it seems,” Hermann replied. “And it remains connected to the main distribution grid.” “That's what's written.” “And you have not attempted full activation.” “No?”
A pause. “Why not?” she asked.
Hans turned around slowly. “Because,” he said, in a tone that suggested the answer should be self-evident, “this is a century-old fusion core wrapped in emergency solutions and hope.” “One might assume,” Huber replied, “that if the vessel is structurally sound enough to merit restoration funding, its core systems should at least demonstrate basic operability.”
“Power it,” she said.
The words did not echo. They did not need to.
Hermann blinked once. “I beg your pardon?” “Main core activation,” she repeated. “Begin diagnostics.”
Hans stared at her. “You can’t be serious.” “I am”
Hermann took a measured step forward.
“With respect, Doctor,” he said evenly, “if that containment shell fails, we will not be filing a report. We will be vapor.”
Huber turned her head slightly toward him. “Captain Schmidt,” she said, almost pleasantly, “your shuttle is docked and fully pressurized.”
Albert leaned closer to Hermann. “Two minutes. If we don’t trip.” “That is not the reassurance you think it is,” Hermann replied. "oh, I know, it's just my way to deal with existential threats"
The ministry engineer hesitated at the console. “Proceed,” Huber said. There was no raising of her voice. No emphasis.
Just inevitability.
The engineer initiated auxiliary feed routing. “Containment minimal,” he reported.
Hans stepped forward instinctively. “Stop. You don’t know how the coolant loops were rerouted. That manifold was never meant to carry full—” “Mr. Belck,” Huber said calmly, “stand down.”
The startup command executed.
Nothing.
Silence.
Albert exhaled slowly. “There we are. Historical authenticity confirmed.” “Repeat,” Huber said.
The sequence ran again.
Still nothing.
Hermann felt a small, inappropriate wave of relief. “We can document non-operational status,” he began—
The deck vibrated.
Not explosively.
Deeply.
A low resonance rolled through the chamber. Everyone stopped breathing at once.
Containment indicators flickered erratically. “Field fluctuation,” the ministry engineer said sharply.
Power output twitched upward.
12%.
Dropped.
19%.
Spiked.
A metallic groan rippled across the reinforcement braces.
Albert took a step toward the exit hatch. “I would like to formally register,” he said, strangely calmly, “that we are standing inside a century-old experimental kettle.”
Hermann did not move, but his eyes shifted toward the corridor. “The Dorado is exactly one hundred and twenty meters behind us,” he said quietly. “If this becomes incandescent, we run.”
Huber did not move. “Stabilize it,” she said.
Another surge.
33%.
The lights flared violently, then dimmed.
Hans moved. “Move,” he snapped at the ministry engineer, sliding into the console position.
Coolant pressure was climbing unevenly. “Who initiated full grid handshake?” he demanded. “No one?” the engineer said. “Exactly, that's why the system is compensating blind.”
Another vibration.
The scaffolding emitted a sharp crack.
Hermann took one involuntary step backward. “This is the part,” Albert said softly, “where it either becomes a legend or debris.”
Huber’s expression did not change.
Hans’ hands flew across the controls. “Containment realigning,” he muttered. “If that outer brace fails we lose ring integrity and then we—”
A sharp metallic report echoed through the chamber.
Everyone flinched.
Power spiked.
51%.
Coolant equalized under manual correction.
The hum shifted.
Less chaotic.
More strained.
65%.
Hans clamped the output ceiling before the system could attempt nominal capacity. “Don’t let it chase full load,” he warned. “It will try.”
The output climbed.
68%.
69%.
Hermann inhaled. “Albert,” he said quietly. “Yes, Hermann.” “If it goes past eighty—” “We run, Hermann, I got it”
70%.
The number stopped climbing.
It held.
The oscillation narrowed.
The reactor settled into its deep, stubborn resonance.
Seventy percent.
No alarms. No rupture. Just effort.
Hans stepped back slowly. “It’s self-limiting,” he said. “Structural governor. It knows it can’t do more.”
One of the ministry officials compared the output curve to the archived logs. “Captain von Tanner’s final technical report indicates sustained operational capacity at seventy to seventy-two percent following structural compromise.”
The number hovered.
Stable.
Uncomfortably stable.
Huber studied the display without visible reaction.
Across the chamber, secondary systems began to awaken. Lighting steadied. Environmental processors engaged. Long-dormant relays clicked reluctantly back into conversation.
The Morgenstern did not roar.
She endured.
Hermann turned toward Huber.
This time he did not mask it. “Was that necessary?” he barked, way less politely that intended.
Huber did not answer.
Hermann stepped closer, voice low but edged. “Was that small act of demonstration strictly required? Or was it simply convenient?”
Albert watched the output display, then glanced toward the exit hatch again. “For the record,” he said mildly, “we were approximately thirty seconds from reconsidering our life choices.”
Hermann did not take his eyes off Huber. “If that brace had failed,” he continued, “if the coolant loop had destabilized, we would not be having this discussion. The Dorado may be five minutes away, Doctor, but fusion events are faster.”
Silence.
The reactor hummed behind them, stubborn and imperfect.
Huber finally looked at him. “Yes,” she said calmly. “It was necessary.”
Her tone did not rise. “It resolves three possibilities.”
She gestured lightly toward the stabilized output. “Possibility one: the vessel is a recent fabrication. In that case, structural distress is cosmetic. The reactor ignites cleanly and reaches nominal output without deviation.”
She let that settle. “It did not.”
She shifted her gaze briefly toward the reinforcement braces. “Possibility two: the vessel is genuinely ancient but irreparably degraded. In that case, ignition fails entirely, or catastrophic instability occurs.”
Albert coughed softly. “That was the scenario we were attempting to avoid.” “It did not occur,” Huber continued.
She turned fully toward Hermann now. “Possibility three: the vessel behaves precisely as documented in the historical logs submitted to the Ministry. Partial ignition. Stabilization at approximately seventy percent. Structural governor engagement consistent with recorded emergency reinforcement.”
She paused. “And that,” she said evenly, “is exactly what we have observed.”
The words hung in the air longer than the vibration.
Hermann felt the shape of what she was implying before she articulated it.
Huber’s gaze hardened—not emotionally, but analytically. “From an administrative standpoint,” she continued, “this outcome is the most problematic.”
Hans blinked. “Problematic?” “Yes.”
She nodded once toward the reactor. “If the vessel were a crude fraud, it would be easy to dismiss.”
She glanced toward the reinforced shell. “If it were a relic beyond function, restoration funding would be indefensible.”
Her eyes returned to the stabilized output curve. “But what we are witnessing is a system that performs exactly as described in the documentation you have provided.”
Silence.
Albert folded his arms slowly. “That’s good,” he said cautiously.
Huber’s expression did not change. “Or,” she said, “it is the result of an extraordinarily thorough and very expensive reconstruction designed to align with those logs.”
The implication landed heavily.
Hermann felt something tighten in his chest. “You think we engineered a reactor to fail at precisely seventy percent,” he said. “I am stating,” Huber replied, “that precision can be manufactured.”
She stepped closer to the console, studying the curve again. “If one wished to convince a ministry that a century-old vessel behaved authentically, one would not aim for perfection.”
She tapped the seventy percent reading lightly. “One would aim for documented imperfection.”
Albert looked between them. “That would require a remarkable amount of effort,” he said. “Yes,” Huber agreed. “It would.”
She turned back to Hermann. “And that,” she said quietly, “is the difficulty.”
The reactor continued to hum.
Steady.
Stubborn.
Indifferent to interpretation.
Hermann held her gaze for a long moment. “If this is a reconstruction,” he said evenly, “it is the most elaborate and least profitable one in recorded history.”
Huber’s lips curved—not amused, but acknowledging. “Perhaps,” she said.
Then, with calm finality: “Gentlemen, continue the inspection.”
While Dr. Huber and her delegation debated the most appropriate next step, Albert, Hans, and Hermann had quietly drifted a few meters away.
For the first time since boarding, they were not looking at reports or transcripts.
They were looking at the ship. Touching it.
What had once been only the distant voice of von Tanner was now something far less abstract — steel, weight, and a stubborn, uncooperative reality.
And the more real it became, the more unsettling the idea was that it might all be dismissed as fabrication.
Above the now constant, low murmur of the reactor, Huber’s voice cut through. “Very well. We will proceed downward.”
Her heel struck the deck with quiet authority. “From here we will visit the astro-cartographic and astrophysics section.”
Albert leaned slightly toward Hermann. “Didn’t she just say she didn’t want to go where we’d already been?”
Hermann responded with a small shrug that conveyed resignation more than confusion.
“Indeed, Mr. Neer,” Huber replied without turning. “However, circumstances have changed. I now have a hypothesis to test.”
Hermann raised an eyebrow. “And that would be?”
Huber stopped briefly, just long enough to ensure she had everyone’s attention. “Engines,” she said calmly, “can malfunction honestly.”
A small gesture toward the reactor behind them. “Data, unfortunately, can lie very convincingly.”
Hans blinked, pulled out of an intense and entirely inappropriate fascination with a functioning terminal connected to what appeared to be a deeply questionable heat exchanger.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “what possible sense does that make?”
The question, while entirely reasonable, received no reply.
By then, the group had already begun moving toward a narrow service staircase on the far side of the reactor chamber.
The climb took longer than anyone would have preferred.
The stairs protested every step with a sequence of metallic complaints that gradually eroded confidence in their long-term structural integrity. At roughly the midpoint, one of the ministry officials slowed down noticeably.
“These were… inspected?” he asked.
“Visually,” Albert replied.
That did not help.
They eventually emerged into another service corridor. Huber was already consulting the holographic map.
“This way.”
They followed.
The corridor was tighter than expected. Cables and piping ran along the walls and ceiling in patterns that suggested later additions rather than original planning. In several places, one had to lean slightly to avoid contact with something that was almost certainly not meant to be touched.
The group moved in silence.
Then—
“Uh.”
Albert had stopped.
Hermann turned. “Albert?”
Huber’s voice echoed from several meters ahead.
“Mr. Neer, I do hope that ‘uh’ is not a technical assessment.”
Albert pointed at a door along the wall.
“This door.”
Huber walked back toward them, glancing briefly at her map.
“Secondary storage,” she said. “Generic designation.” She turned slightly toward her technicians. “Mark it. We will return if necessary.”
“Oops.”
All eyes shifted.
Hans stood by the door, attempting a posture that suggested both innocence and inevitability. In his hand — or more precisely, already attached to the electronic lock — was a small signal injector.
“I just wanted to see if it still worked,” he said. “Hans,” Hermann sighed.
There was a soft click. The door unlocked. It opened a few centimeters on its own.
A stale breath of air slipped out into the corridor. Not strong. Just… old.
Huber paused for exactly half a second. “Well,” she said, stepping forward without looking at anyone, “since the ship appears to be cooperating…”
She pushed the door open fully. “…we may as well do the same.”
And, without waiting for permission or commentary, she stepped inside.
Inside the Morgenstern, secondary storage room #2-2A
Overflow
As Huber stepped inside, the room decided—after a brief and entirely unnecessary hesitation—to acknowledge their presence. A row of overhead lights flickered on in sequence, cutting through the thin veil of dust stirred by the opening door.
At first, it looked exactly like what it claimed to be.
Storage.
Crates stacked along the walls. Containers, some sealed, others left open. Cabinets whose contents appeared to have been removed either in haste or with a degree of determination that did not lend itself to tidiness. It was, in short, a room that had seen use, misuse and spikes of entropy.
Then, after a few seconds, it became clear that it had seen rather more than that.
“Looks like someone went through everything,” Albert murmured.
He stepped further in, frowning, hands briefly on his hips as if the room might respond to criticism. “This makes no sense,” he went on. “No one stores things like this. You’re wasting half the available space.”
Hans placed a hand on his shoulder. “Look again.”
Albert did, and this time the arrangement resolved itself.
The crates were not scattered. They were aligned—low, parallel, spaced with just enough room between them to move. Not efficiently, not comfortably, but deliberately. Along the walls, small diagnostic lamps had been mounted wherever there was something sturdy enough to hold them. Hooks had been fixed to the ceiling. A narrow cart stood at the far end, its wheels locked in place as if it had not been meant to move again.
“These aren’t just crates,” Hans said quietly.
A pause. “They’re beds.” “Beds?” echoed one of the technicians, who had not yet adjusted his expectations.
Hermann stepped forward, taking in the room with a slower, more deliberate gaze. “A field infirmary,” he said at last.
He gestured around them—not at the disorder, but at the structure beneath it. “And this isn’t chaos. It’s what happens when you run out of space and start using whatever is left.”
That seemed to settle something in the room, or perhaps only in those observing it. The distinction was, at that point, largely academic.
Hans, in the meantime, had already moved toward the terminal mounted on the far wall. “Hermann, Frau Huber?”
He didn’t need to elaborate. “Yes,” Hermann said. “Let’s see if it still remembers.”
They leaned over the console together. Behind them, the others lingered—watching, recording, or simply trying to reconcile what they were looking at with what they had expected to find.
Huber did none of these things. She simply observed.
For a few seconds, the terminal resisted the idea of cooperation. Then, slowly, the interface reassembled itself—a familiar green-tinted system that looked as though it had been designed in a more optimistic era and had not been meaningfully updated since.
Hans navigated quickly, his initial curiosity giving way to focus. “Medical logs,” he said. “Partial corruption. A lot missing.” “Expected,” one of the ministry officials replied, in a tone that suggested expectations had been met rather more often than anyone would have liked.
Hans opened the first intact entry.
The text appeared in fragments at first, then settled into something readable.
Two patients transferred from central infirmary due to lack of available beds.
Supplies requested from central pharmacy. Capacity extended to six patients.
Lt. F. Venkers — acute radiation syndrome. Nausea, visual disturbances, dehydration.
Peripheral access failed. Central line established.
Antiradiation treatment initiated. Vital parameters currently stable.
Eng. G. Brunner — nausea, headache, fatigue, hyperthermia (39°C).
Acute radiation syndrome. Standard hydration and antiradiation protocol initiated.
Hans scrolled.
Another entry emerged, this one less orderly, as though written under less accommodating circumstances.
Ten additional patients transferred from central infirmary.
Placed along corridors and on available surfaces.
Chief medical officer has sent additional personnel. Orthopedic specialist.
Unclear how useful he will be, but assistance is required.
Shortage of antiemetics. Saline reserves depleted.
Continuing with Ringer and glucose solutions.
All radiation cases originate from decks eight and below.
Request submitted to command to relocate non-essential personnel.
Mild cases treated in quarters.
Non-radiation cases returned to duty.
Estimated depletion of supplies in twelve days.
Command notified.
Hans leaned back slightly. “There’s more,” he said, though his tone suggested that more would not improve matters.
He scrolled again. “Radiation, again. Burns. Exposure from unshielded sections…”
He paused. “…and fatalities.”
No one spoke.
Hans opened another fragment—short, incomplete, but legible enough.
Patient: S. Keller — cardiac arrest following systemic radiation collapse. No response to intervention.
Patient: R. Vogt — severe thermal injury, multi-organ failure. Deceased.
He closed the file without comment. “They’re not isolated cases,” he added quietly. “It keeps repeating.”
Hermann spoke, almost to himself. “They stayed in that environment for a year.”
Hans let the terminal scroll for a few more seconds, then stopped it with a small, almost reluctant gesture. “There’s more,” he said quietly. "Same pattern.”
He did not turn the screen this time. “Radiation. Burns. Systemic collapse. It doesn’t really… improve.”
Albert exhaled slowly, still looking around the room. “But they made it out,” he said. “They found Freeport 5.” “Twenty-three days after the registered ambush,” one of the technicians corrected, without looking up from his datapad.
Hans nodded, though without much conviction. “Yes.”
A pause.
“They got supplies,” Hermann added, almost automatically. “Medication. Stabilizers. Enough to keep systems running.”
Hans glanced back at the terminal. “Not enough to fix anything.”
Silence settled again, thinner this time.
Albert shifted his weight.
“So this just… kept going?” he asked. “Even after that?”
Hermann gave a small, restrained nod. “If these logs are consistent with the others—yes.” He gestured vaguely toward the room.
“They didn’t stop being sick when they found Freeport 5.”]
Hans closed one of the files.
[color=#FFBF40]“They just stopped getting worse quickly,” he said.
Another pause. “And started getting worse slowly.”
No one commented on that. Albert looked once more at the makeshift beds. “A year,” he said quietly. “They stayed like this for a year.”
No one answered immediately. So Huber spoke into the silence.
“Curious,” she said.
Albert turned toward her.
“Curious?”
She inclined her head slightly, as if acknowledging a point that had not yet been made. “That we would, by chance, open this particular, anonymous, compartment,” she said. “Among all possible rooms aboard this vessel.”
Albert frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re implying.”
Huber’s expression did not shift. “Only that this is… a fortunate discovery.”
Hermann’s tone sharpened, though only slightly. “These logs match what we already found. Dates, conditions—everything.”
“Yes, it's exactly my point,” Huber replied.
She glanced at the terminal, then back at him. “They align with the documentation you have provided.”
A brief pause. “Or rather,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “with the documentation attributed to Captain von Tanner.”
“Doctor,” Hermann said, more firmly now, “we did not write these.”
“Mhm,” she said, in a tone that suggested the statement had been noted and set aside for later consideration, if ever.
She turned toward the door. “Let us move on. The air here is… inadequate.”
She paused just long enough to issue instructions. “Extract everything from that terminal.”
Then, without waiting for acknowledgment, she stepped back into the corridor. “We will reconvene at the designated deck.”
The group followed, one by one.
Behind them, the improvised ward remained as it had been—ordered, functional, and quietly indifferent to whether anyone chose to believe in it.
“I am beginning to suspect,” Hans muttered to no one in particular, while ducking under a pipe that seemed to have been routed in a moment of acute despair, “that she cannot actually read those maps.”
They had been walking through the narrow service corridor for nearly ten minutes, following Dr. Huber, who advanced with the untroubled certainty of someone either entirely correct or constitutionally incapable of considering alternatives.
Without turning, she raised one hand.
“It should be exactly beyond this bend.”
A beat later, it was.
The service doors of the astro-cartographic deck emerged from shadow ahead of them.
Hans stopped.
“Well,” he said quietly, “that is mildly unsettling.”
Huber reached into an internal pocket of her uniform and handed Hermann a datapad. Old casing, Rheinland military manufacture, by the look of it. But reconditioned. Orbital markings added discreetly near the interface ports.
“Courtesy of your company,” she said. “Your technicians reactivated surviving command credentials.”
Hermann looked at it, not immediately taking in what she meant.
Huber continued, as though explaining filing procedures.
“Mark yourself as captain of the vessel. With command authorization active, we may stop forcing every hatch electronically.”
She said it the way one might discuss elevator access.
Hermann took the datapad.
The screen stirred at once.
Ancient software—newly coerced into modern obedience—came alive.
A pale interface unfolded.
Then a voice, dry and almost offended to still be employed:
Visual and tactile identity confirmed.
Captain Hermann Schmidt.
Acting custodian, OS&C vessel Serendipity.
Albert frowned.
“Oh, that stupid Serendipity name”
Huber blinked.
“Serendipity?”
She looked genuinely puzzled for a moment.
“Yes,” Albert said. “That was the name on our registry, at least when it was bought.”
“Ah.” A pause. [color=#40BF40]“I had forgotten.”
She sounded mildly disappointed in herself.
“It surprises me,” she added, “that you still haven’t corrected it.”
Hans gave a tired half-smile.
“It has been a complicated few weeks.”
That, if anything, was an understatement so compressed it almost qualified as engineering.
But Hermann was no longer listening.
Because the screen had changed.
A single line glowed before him.
Accept command authority of vessel?
He stared at it.
For a moment the corridor, the delegation, even the persistent hum of the ship seemed to recede.
Accept command.
As though that were a thing one answered casually in a corridor. As though one inherited a century-lost exploration vessel between administrative inspections.
He thought, absurdly, of von Tanner. Of logs read on dead terminals. Of a captain speaking into the dark believing no one would ever hear him.
And now this. A bureaucratic prompt.
Waiting.
Huber glanced over.
“Well?”
Not impatient. Just practical.
Hermann pressed. The datapad pulsed.
Command confirmed.
Captain Hermann Schmidt.
Orbital Spa & Cruise | Serendipity
Albert grinned.
“Well. Congratulations.”
Hans gave him two light taps on the shoulder.
“Commander.”
But Hermann was already frowning.
He began tapping rapidly at the interface.
“What are you doing?” Albert asked.
“This.”
He changed the designation manually. For a second the old system buffered on this sudden lines of command inserted.
Then accepted.
Command confirmed.
Captain Hermann Schmidt.
Orbital Spa & Cruise, OS&C|E.V. Morgenstern
Silence.
A small one.
But not empty.
Albert looked at the display.
“…That is better.”
Hans nodded. Considerably.
Huber observed all this with the expression of someone watching people become sentimental around access credentials.
“Very moving,” she said. “Can your inheritance open the door now?”
Hermann stepped toward the hatch.
The system sensed the newly authenticated command signature.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then the doors began to open with the reluctant dignity of machinery that had served under a previous captain and did not change loyalties lightly.
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INFIRMARY LOG, 1 FEBRUARY 710 AS