On the Persistent Problem of the Pilgrim named Morgenstern

[Coliz]

Planet Baden Baden orbit, December 1st, 835 AS

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Back on Geostationary Orbit over Yankee-7

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“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.”