The atrium of the derelict station was just a shadow of its former glory. Broken plastic panels on the walls, the lack of any source of light, different electronic rubbish and ash on floor, broken furniture and the line of airtight doors. Despite the fact that almost all gateways were locked and without electricity, it wasn’t possible to unseal them, a couple of doors were already open, like the one leading to the hangar of space station. The hangar itself was a pretty big room with a little control room under the roof and a big gate, leading right into open space.

A few moments later, a Corvo-class explorer, designated Zeppelin, appeared. It was a ship of usual line, with the logo of the Rose on the grey hull with green stripes. A couple of minutes after the arrival of the Corvo, two new ships landed inside of the room. One of them was an easily noticeable Sichel-class fighter, belonging to Oberst Richtofer, while the second ship belonged to Generaloberst Weis, both military leaders of the Weiße Rose. As soon as the three ships landed in the hangar, the Corvo's gateway opened and the figure of a slim woman in a not-so-slim space suit left the ship.
Annika sighed, looking around the room. A bulky suit together with the lack of gravitation didn’t let her move freely. After briefly checking the oxygen systems, she said to the intercom device:
“Kommandir Vladimir. The hangar provides enough space for your ship. Weis, Richtofer, I ask you to follow me after the arrival of our friend. Meanwhile, Whiskey-Alpha. Activate the control room. As far as I know this one isn’t connected to the main electricity system. Oberst Einfalt out.”
We will need a lot of effort to return this place to life, she thought to herself, slowly moving to the gateway that led to the atrium. A couple of seconds later the group of people in similar spacesuits left the explorer, wearing the package of batteries. Weis and Richtofer dressed in their red spacesuits. The leader of the group nodded to Annika and started to move towards the control room.

And thus the little fellowship, careful leap after another, descended into the atrium of the derelict station, their hearts steadied and readied to face whatever lay entombed in the ruins of this place. They threw the glow of flashlights into the room, decussate and entering into a shaky dance on the opposite walls.
A gaping large room it was, with a ceiling that soared high up above people’s heads, inspiring awe in every one of them. Countless questions lingered in the air – except that there in fact was no air for them to relish in here, not anymore. What had the purpose of this station been, buried so deep in the clouds of Donryu? Who had the ghosts been that once crowded its corridors and halls? The pictures of hundreds of people traversing in here seemed so distant, somehow grotesque. Now all that was populating the station were the myriads of serpentine cables and tubes that hang feebly from the ceiling and the walls. They looked like steely snakes in an ancient temple.
Through the intercom barely a sound was hearable; not even the sound of breathing. Everybody stood in wonderment as the mystique of the place entered their minds and held them preoccupied.
Richtofer eventually broke the silence and took a leap forward to the steps that lead to the center of the hall. “This is…” He snapped.
Weis continued for him. “This is marvelous, indeed.” He looked up towards the ceiling, trying to make out the height of the vault. “Be careful everybody. Before proven differently, this is a hostile environment.”
A crackle was hearable through the intercom, together with somebody clearing his throat. “Well,” began Richtofer, who was on his way to inspect one of the towering walls, stroking over the metal with his palmed hand. “Those walls don’t look good. If we tried to flood this room with oxygen, it would all be out again before we could say ‘Volksrevolution’.”
“Very funny,” said Weis while pointing his flashlight at the ceiling. Up there a weirdly artistic ornament came to light, as though the engineers had purposed a mosaic of cables. “It’s not like we didn’t know this place would be in a dire situation.”
He paused for a moment to think. This would be a tricky task to bring the station back online and running smoothly. Whoever its past inhabitants had been, they had done a good job at leaving behind a scrap heap. It came close to a minor miracle that no Junker had yet discovered the place and claimed the hoard all for themselves.
“Whiskey-Alpha, can you open any of the three remaining doors?” Weis spoke.
The answer took a few seconds. Like a whisper static accompanied the raspy voice of the team leader. “Understood. We’re working on it. Give us a minute.”
As they investigated the room further, more and more holes in the walls became visible, through some of which the distant star of Sigma-19 threw its blue blade of light, glistening in the light mist of the nebula that crawled into the station. And with more discoveries the illusion abated that this would be an undertaking the Rose could stem by herself. By now already it was well without her reach, and in silent consent everybody of the expedition began to realize that.
“Richtofer, where are you?” Weis broke into the silence that once again had fallen upon the intercom.
Suddenly a flashlight coming from above blinded his eyes. “There.”
“Humm. What’s the status, Whiskey?” Weis said. A breeze of unrest blew through his words. He was not impatient in the slightest, but still could not hide the fact to himself that the room made him just slightly fidgety.
“I’m afraid we can’t reach either of the three doors from our console, Weis. We’d have to power up the whole station for that, which…”
“…is not possible at the moment,” he continued. “I see.”
“We’ll see what we can do about it,” said the technician after a while. “Meanwhile better remain in the safety of the atrium.”

As though meant as an ironic afterthought, at this precise moment Weis saw something stir in the corner of his eye, not more than a hunch of something about to happen. What he could not dare say. If there had been air inside the atrium, he would have heard the sound of something heavy falling unto the floor and recoiling and rolling over it. “Att-“ was all that was left for him to say before he got robbed of his voice. The observation he had made, something dropping onto the floor, he would not be able to reveal to the others anytime soon.
The next thing he would have heard was an ear-shattering whang, but that way he only perceived the appalled cries of his fellows. The darkness of the atrium lighted up like fireworks, burning on his eyes. He felt a shock running through his body, like a wave that ran through a vat of nothing but water.
The last thing he could perceive was pain that slashed through his flesh. It didn’t even give him time enough to gasp. Before he could utter another sound, the world put ablaze around him went black.

The detonation shredded everything in its immediate vicinity. Tiny blades of metal turned into shrapnel flew through the atrium and pierced into everything – walls, suits, bones. The shockwave rattled the room and sent the whole fellowship of the expedition flying. Many of them would not stand up again, either due to broken necks, fatal wounds or suffocation.
Those still alive after the blow and still conscious, despite the disarray, blew the horns of retreat and commenced a drawback. They tugged the wounded and hauled them away, back through the corridor that led to the hangar bay. Encouraging each other with furious words to get going. From one moment to the other the haunting atmosphere of the place had turned upside down and discharged into chaos.
Once the remaining members of the expedition finally reached the hangar bay and the Zeppelin that stood there as a strong foothold, the counting began. Trying to make out who was still with them, who was unconscious and heavily wounded and who apparently had not made it back to safety. Countless times they had to start counting from scratch as everybody was up and wandering around. The Zeppelin’s medic team rushed forward and attended to the injured.
Under them Generaloberst Weis.

The counting revealed that there were some who had not made it back in the heat of the catastrophe. Circumstances unknown. Under them Oberst Richtofer. Were they still in the atrium, lying there for death to come and seize them? Or were they already dead? Some claimed to have seen a large hole ripped into the wall and sucking bodies in and disgorging them again into Donryu. A shudder ran through spines as these astir people told their stories.
Some shouted they needed to go back and look for the others, assumed their bodies were still there. Others, keeping the word of the leading doctor in mind that the wounded were in need of special treatment asap, argued that time was a factor that they were dearly lacking right now, that the injured were lacking. It was no secret that their status deteriorated sharply with every tick of the clock bumping loudly in the ears of the still conscious.
A sense of claustrophobia began to take hold of some man’s minds. What had it been that caused this explosion? Nobody could explain it – virtually the world around them had been on fire from one second to the other with no forewarning. Some voiced the thesis that it must had been some automatic defense systems that were still intact.
With a heavy heart the survivors, now under the lead of Oberst Einfalt who managed to adequately solve the disarray and put an end to all leading-nowhere discussions for the time being an, decided the top priority now had to be on the saving of lives on the brink of death. Thus a marathon had to be taken, to make it back to Bruchsal in time and bear the bad tidings of this tragedy to the Bundschuh. Leaving behind those presumed dead that they had not the chance to rescue. Mourning for those lost souls.
The Zeppelin idly braced up to become a bird of ill omen.