The "Albtraum"

[Dark.Star]

Karl Gerwald Schultz was the captain of a Tirpitz class battlecruiser until it was ambushed by a wing of Red Hessian bombers, and his escape pod was recovered by a nearby Kruger transport, which then dropped off Karl on Oder Shipyard with only a few bruises. Karl didn't have a ship anymore, and since the people on the shipyard offered him a workplace as a ship inspector and designer, he started working hard on Oder shipyard for 4 years.


Date: 26th of August; 816 A.S.


One day, he was inspecting a few gunboats at Oder shipyard, when a worker came and told him: "Come with me, the shipyard's chief has something to tell you!". Karl went with the worker to see what the chief wanted. Once he entered, before he could even say something, the chief calmly told him: "Take a seat my friend'.

Karl seemed worried and he told the chief: "D-Did I do anything wrong sir?".

Again, with a calm voice, the chief responded: "No Karl, you didn't do anything wrong, even though you work here for 4 years, you made only a few mistakes, so why don't you look over through the window and see what is in the second yard?".




He looked through the window and was a bit confused: "It's just a Donau cruiser, what's up with it? Wait... Is it for... me?".

The chief told him with a sad voice: "Yes. I have talked with some Military officials, and you can return back to flying warships again".

Karl was now confused again: "What's wrong?".

The chief simply told him: "Nothing. The Military needs you for something important. They didn't tell me what it is of course because I do not have authorization, but they will tell you for sure. They said that they will meet you on Battleship Koblenz. I don't know where that is but I am sure you will find out. The ship will be ready to get out of the yard in a few hours, you can go and pack your stuff. Now please, I want you to leave the room ".

Karl went out of the room and started packing up. He was ready to leave, now all he had to do, is wait until the ship was ready to undock, so he decided to go to sleep. A few hours later a man came and started shaking him a bit so that Karl would wake up. "Sir! Wake up, the ship is ready to leave!" It was the Chief Officer of the Donau cruiser. The captain woke up, rubbing his eyes and said: "Never do that again, or I will demote you. Now let's get rolling".

Karl asked the CO: "What is the name of this cruiser? The chief of the shipyard didn't tell me." and the CO replied with an excited voice: "Albtraum sir!"
They went straight to the ship's cabin, and ordered the crew to start up the engines. Karl was feeling very happy since he was back to flying cruisers again. He asked the Chief Navigator to set the course to Battleship Koblenz. When he heard that the CN said: ""Captain, the Koblenz is in a restricted area. Should I contact the battleship and tell it to dispatch 2 fighters to lead us to the entrance of Sektor-7?" Karl replied firmly: "Yes. Tell them to do that. I do not want to bump into mines while searching for the passage.". The CN contacted the Koblenz, which told them to wait for 2 Wraiths at Mainz Storage Facility, and so they waited.

Once the fighters got there they told the captain to follow them. He ordered his crew to enter the cruise sequence, keeping the ship steady so it wouldn't touch the mines when they would go through the passage. They reached the battleship and the fighters docked on it, while the cruiser had to use one of Schatten's yards so it could dock. He got aboard the Koblenz, where a Military officer was waiting him and asked Karl to come with him to the operations room, where he was met by 2 Military agents and a representant of the MND. The representant of the MND told him: "You are not allowed to tell anyone else what is going in here or Thuringia. We heard a lot about you. You are a skilled captain and that is why we need you. Our combat drones are failing to protect the restricted zones because someone, or something keeps destroying them, so we would like you to patrol the Westerwald and keep people away from it while we are trying to find out who the hell keeps destroying some of our finest drones. We will give you 5 days to prepare for all this".
Karl was a bit scared but in the same time curious about what kept destroying the combat drones, and he replied: "I will do my best. I promise you, and I am a man of my word. Anything that happens will be reported to you".
"You better do so. I will just give you a small tip, prepare faster and you might even have 1 or 2 days to relax until you have to start working again.", the representant said. Karl was taken out of the room and boarded on his cruiser. The CN asked if everything went alright, and Karl told them: "It went fine. Really. We now have really important stuff to do, for now, set the course to Planet New Berlin, I want to prepare the ship from now so we have some free time before working". The CN set the course and they arrived quickly. They started to prepare the cruiser for it's mission.

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[Dark.Star]

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4 days later
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Date: 30th of August; 816 A.S.


Karl felt relieved that he had finished preparing the "Albtraum" for it's mission, so he went to a bar with his CO and CN to celebrate. The CO said amazed: "We need to party today like it is the last day of our lives! Because from tomorrow we will rarely have breaks". Karl and the CN agreed with him, and they ordered a few bottles of Rheinbier. Since Karl was so excited because he never got a chance to party like this, he decided to order 4 more bottles of Rheinbier for him, and the CN and CO kept telling him: "Captain, you need to stop or you will get wasted! You need to sleep well before going to work!. And Karl replied them with a strange voice: "Ah come on, nothing will happen. I will sleep well don't you guys worry". Karl was so drunk and he could barely walk, so the CO and CN had to carry him back to the cruiser.

They took him to the sleeping quarters and put him in bed. They said good night to each other, and they all went to sleep after, hard work was awaiting them the next day.


Date: 31th of August; 825
A.S.


It was 4 A.M., when an annoying sound played, it was the alarm. Everybody woke up, and went to their posts. Karl ordered the CO to tell the others to start up the engine so they can get going. "Captain, there is a battle occurring in Sigma-21 near planet Saigon against the KNF and our forces need urgent help. I talked with the MND representant and he told me it is up to us whether we go help them or not. What do you want to do?" Karl replied with calm: "We will go and help our brethren. Inform the representant about that. Set the course to Sigma-21!"

The course was set. Now they just had to get there. The CO was in the communications room when a static voice started talking: "H-Help. There is a a battleship and 4 gunboats, please help us, we are just fighters, and all of our capital ships were taken out. Help, us." The CO rushed to the captain and told him: "Captain Karl! They are going to get killed if we don't get to them! They told me what ships are trying to kill them: A battleship and 4 gunboats." Karl responded with a calm voice, almost as if he was about to start laughing: "Only those?! We can take 'em out, don't worry. But we need to hurry and help our comrades."



The "Albtraum" jumped to the Sigma-21 system, and started heading for planet Saigon. When they we're almost there only 2 fighters were left, but they had the other pilots's escape pods. The general speaker of the ship started talking, it was the captain: "Men to battlestations! Battleship has been spotted, the gunboats are still there for sure. Activate the main cruiser turrets and the pulse cannons! First targets are the gunboats, use dodging maneuvers and try to stay away from the battleship." They all rushed to their posts, it was the first fight in which the "Albrtraum" had taken place, so they all were a little nervous, but there was no room for any mistakes. Since the cruiser was way more powerful than those gunboats, it made short work of them, and then the general speaker started talking again, this time it was the CO: "Alright people the battleship is the only target left. We better take it out before reinforcements arrive. Activate the mortar and use it in combination with dodging maneuvers, just as you did with the gunboats." It took a while to kill the battleship, since it was a cruiser and it could only use 1 light mortar at rather small refire rates due to the ship's core. When the crew saw the battleship starting to blow up, they we're so happy, it was their first victory, and yet a major one. The 2 pilots docked on the "Albtraum" to transfer the escape pods of their comrades. They undocked shortly after, and returned to the Bayern to receive repairs. Karl told the CN to set the course to the nearest planet on which they could dock to take the injured pilots to a hospital.

The injured pilots we're very thankful towards the "Albtraum"'s crew, they told Karl: "We owe you and your crew captain, if it wasn't for you we wouldn't have been here today. Now we can fight another day." Karl told the rest of the crew the same message, and after that they returned back to their original duty, guarding the Westerwald and Sektor-7.

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[Dark.Star]

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9 years later
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Date: 16th of June; 825 A.S.

It was just another day at work. The crew working as usual, the engines making the same noises over and over again... and nothing interesting happening. "Captain! Our radars are picking up strange readings from a nearby ship. It is on the move and seems to be closing. We have it in range. Orders?" "Stand down, let it close in more, so we can identify it." Karl replied. The ship seemed to be closing in on the aging cruiser, but all of a sudden, it turned around, heading for the entrance of the restricted S-7. "Crew! Code Theta! Activate the cruise sequence, start chasing it!" The crew rushed again to their battlestations, and to the engine control room. They felt happy... because something was finally going on in the end, but they didn't know what a sombre destiny was awaiting them. The ship started chasing the unknown vessel, it entered the passage of the S-7, with only one way in and out of the restricted area and the ship out of their sight, it's crew assumed that it jumped to Thuringia and so they jumped too, desperately trying to catch it.

On the other side of the gate, in Thuringia, a crew member yelled "Captain! Captain! The ship is escaping through one of the passages!". Karl replied: "Do not lose the ship! Follow it to the bitter end!" A choice that would lead the crew to it's end. The aging "Albtraum" entered a strange nebula, chasing the ship, but the unknown craft managed to get away. All out of nowhere an EMP torpedo hit the ship's engines, and more unidentified ships started appearing, desperately trying to destroy the cruiser, or kill it's crew and take control over it. The general speakers started talking again, it was Karl: "Men to battlestations now! Prime all turrets! Code Doomsday! Prepare for combat. We will have to take them down. Don't let them take us down!". The cruiser standed it's ground, until a few more EMP torpedoes disabled the ship's core completely. The attackers, that later revealed themselves as Das Wilde, started boarding the isolated cruiser. The crew made one last stand. They held off the infected marines, but of course, they didn't have infinite supplies. After a few hours of bloody combat, Wilde forces have successfully infected the rest of the crew. The captain locked himself in one of the ship's armories, he knew that his end was near. The armory's door was finally busted, and the captain was infected in the end. Wild pilots managed to take the cruiser back to Valhalla, where it received repairs and upgrades, so it could still fight for the Nomads. The cruiser never came back.

Now the "Albtraum" continues it's reign of terror, mainly operating within Rheinland and sometimes in other space. A lot of searches we're conducted to find the missing Donau, but none succeeded.

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