Eyes for two sides

[Shelco]

The hallway lit up as Admiral Hofmann walked up to deck number 4 where the U-99 was located. His crew was already working on finishing the scanners and the reconnaissance module, his eyes went over the many lights that lit up as he passed by them, almost as if they would only light up if he came closer. As he entered the hangar the U-99 was parked, he let out a sigh, the U-99 was under the massive arms of the station that held it in the air, several machines were tied onto it as well as many engineers stood by it and gave it the last bit of repairs and extras. He was not greeted like a normal Admiral would be, nobody saluted him when he entered the hangar but he was fine with that, he enjoyed the view of the many people working on his ship, he was only greeted when an engineer saw him admiring the view. "Oh, Admiral, I didn't even see you, I assume you want to deploy the U-99 now, we need a few minutes more but the reconnaissance module has been updated and some of the crew members are already preparing everything, you can go inside if you want." Stefan still looked at the gunboat and then turned over to the man."Vielen Dank..." He walked up the stairs to the entrance door of the gunboat, the engineer was kind of confused by such a short response, he still stood there and watched how Stefan took the stairs up after he let out a silent "Kein...Problem...?" when Stefan passed him. Hofmann entered the U-99 and made his way to his cockpit. His crew was already placed at their seats and working. "Guten Tag, Herr Flotillenadmiral, we have finished all measurements and precautions, we only need the go of the engineering team outside." said Theo, one of the reconnaissance pilots. Stefan made a quick look on Theo's monitor before answering. "This mission is highly dangerous, is the medical kit prepared?" Theo swallowed and then nodded back at Stefan. He answered with a fast "Sehr gut." before he entered his cockpit. He sat down on the chair and equipped his headset to communicate with the crew, he tapped on one of the screens next to him to check the status. "Okay, it is ready!" yelled one of the engineers outside of the ship and gave green signal to Hofmann, the green light now appeared on his screen, he let out a small smile. "U-99 is launching." He activated the engines which made a very loud sound, the engineers were already behind the cover from the pressure the engine released, the rest of his cockpit, as well as the whole ship, lit up now and slowly launched the ship forward into space.

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[Shelco]

Stefan shut down his transmission console after finishing one for Jack Daniels who just showed him valuable things. He leaned back for a moment and sighed, he then stood up and walked to the other crew members. As he entered the room, all eyes were on him. "A problem?" he asked and raised an eyebrow."Nein but...what are we going to do about the skirmish?" it was a lady named Andrea who asked this question, a woman that knew how to handle the sub controls of the U-99. "I am not sure, now that I got to know this Daniels, I don't think we should risk losing the alliance with them but that is something the Direktor has to decide." He walked past the crew that was still looking at him as if they'd be in a hopeless situation. Stefan turned back as he was about to leave the control room "Take the rest of the day off and go to your rooms, you did good work today, we still have to fly back if we already can" He then left the room with slow steps, the crew sat there for a while until they all stood up to leave the controls. Stefan shut down the energy after an hour, the lights that kept the U-99 illuminated vanished and when everyone was asleep it was as quiet as never before there. They did not use the rooms on Alabama but insisted on staying in the U-99 as it was perfectly safe. The night was a long one, what they saw was nothing one could just get along with, those nomad installations left a mark on some of the members but not so that it would influence their potential. Stefan knew that every single one of the members was valuable and too good to be left alone with any kind of doubt, they needed to be a unit, especially in waters like this, one person alone can rapidly find the way into death's hands.

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[Shelco]

The distance was lighting up under the purple lasers the nomads shot on the U-99, hordes of them were following Stefan and his crew through the voids of the Omicron Delta system. The ship had already taken a few hits, nothing too bad but they had to avoid any bombers. With some quick maneuvers, Stefan was able to dodge one of the void archons nomad torpedoes. "Time to fire back!" He said with a rough voice. The U-99 unleashed a storm of Cerberus weapons, some nomads died, the others had to dodge the shots and gain distance. A moment later a guardian uncloaked just 3k away from them...a giant glowing battleship just how they were described in the data files..."Was is that?? Admiral??" Stefan was rattled awake from his dreaming as one of the lasers hit the U-99, luckily, the shield was still up and he was able to dodge the fire that would have killed them. "A Marduk...is the cloak ready?" He checked his screens, fuel was slowly going out, they'd only have enough time for a fast trip to Omicron Rho to get into safety again."The cloak is almost ready, we're taking fire, they will do another attack run with the bombers!" Stefan looked at his left screen that showed how 4 Nomad bombers made their way for another bombing run up to them, he pulled the U-99 over in direction of the Marduk. "Admiral, what are you doing?? We will die!" They closed into the Marduk that was starting to fire upon them. "It can't destroy us if we're next to it, the bombers torpedoes will track us, everyone hold onto something I will bring us through this!" The ship started to rattle furiously as if they were in an earthquake as the Marduk hit a few shots on the shield. They kept coming closer, the light was blinding them but just as they were about to collide, Stefan pulled the U-99 up and it went into cloaking mode. "Mein Gott! We could have died at this very second!" Stefan breathed out and leaned back as the U-99 flew towards the Omicron Minor jump hole. When they arrived at Alabama shipyard, the repair bots and Core engineers were already in position to repair the damages, Stefan activated his comm device to answer a message he received.

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[Shelco]

A singing voice appeared in Stefan's head, he was looking around in his cockpit and realized, that the singing came from the dangerous nebula in the Omicron Delta system. The U-99 set course to the azurite reactor they recently found. As they arrived at the giant complex, a bright light illuminated behind them, so bright, that it threw a shadow of the U-99 on the reactor's stone hull. "Another Marduk!" Theo yelled he was just about to activate weapon systems when Stefan told him "Crew...don't...move...an inch....I got this." For second they all were like frozen and did not move, a sound of the communication devices of the crew turning off was heard and they started to yell for Stefan. Some of them stood up to bang against his door, others just sat there and expected the Marduk to soon blast them into the voids. For approximately one minute, it was completely quiet, nobody talked or moved, it felt like the sweet relief of death would come every second. Suddenly the U-99 started to move away from the giant nomad "Crew! We did it, that was too close!" came from Stefan as they flew evasive maneuvers from the ship. "Admiral, how did you do that?" Andrea asked, she still stared at her screen that showed the distance to the Marduk that increased with every moment. "Nothing but luck today..." he answered and breathed out as they left the nebula.

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[Shelco]

After they were done assisting the Core forces stopping illegal shipments to Freeport-11, the U-99 made its way back to the Shipyard in Omicron Rho to prepare the way back to Rheinland. As they were about to enter the jump hole to Omicron Rho, Stefan received a call that they were attacked by nomads, he turned the U-99 and made his way back to the Omicron Delta jump hole. There was no answer when he asked for details so the whole crew was completely dark about the situation, it could have been a trap or another Marduk, maybe this time they wouldn't get away unharmed. When he left the nebula in Omicron Delta, a large number of nomad ships appeared out of the voids and started to attack the U-99. "Crew! I'm doing evasive maneuvers, put the energy on the shields!" He yelled. he threw his eyes on the screen that displayed how the energy of the ship was split into weapons and shields and watched how the bar fell on the side of the shield. The lasers of the nomad weapons pounded against the shield of the U-99 as Stefan tried to evade the fire of the nomads but it was too much to dodge and the energy bar was constantly sinking. "Admiral, this is not working! We need to fire back!" It was Theo who said this, Stefan knew he was right but it would mean exposing the U-99's hull to the fire of the nomads. He sat there and thought for a second and then activated the weapon systems. The shield went down and the fire of the nomads now pounded on the hull, making the ship shake. "I'll open fire!" He fired upon the nomads that were just behind him, 2 of the nomads got destroyed but the exposed hull would not hold for that much longer. A loud sound appeared and the alarm inside of the ship went off as well as the red emergency lights, the U-99 had lost three of its guns. "Verdammt! Hit the cloak, we lost our forward gun too!" Stefan pressed the cloak activation but they had to wait for a few moments until the U-99 finally went invisible just before it would fall apart. They've reached Alabama shipyard with damages at the rest of guns and the hull, Core scientists immediately started to repair the damages as the U-99 had to leave to Rheinland again.

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[Shelco]

"Admiral, are you sure this is the right way?" Theo asked as Stefan proceeded to close in on an asteroid field within an unknown system."Ja, we need to take another one, there are many nomad vessels in Omicron Xi at the moment, we can't go there." "Uhm, okay." Theo sounded like he was not comfortable with them flying in this area, the BDM seemed to not be aware of it, Stefan, however, was. "I have something on the scanner, do you see it, Admiral?" Andrea asked. She was sending what she saw to Stefan's screen. "Ja, an anomaly, proceeding." He closed the U-99 to the jump hole. "Was? We don't know what's behind there, it could be a heavy defense system waiting for us!" Andrea sounded scared, she tried to convince him to not go through there but the jumping sequence has already been initiated. They found themselves in a new system they had never seen or heard of before, the background seemed to be pink glowing while there was a giant dark cloud ahead of them and a planet on their left. "What is that? Admiral? Where are we?" There was no answer coming back, the U-99 kept moving to the left until something was visible in the distance, it looked like a shipyard. "Admiral! Where are we! What is that?" Andrea stood up from her place and walked up to the door before the cockpit of Stefan and banged against the door. Suddenly the U-99 came to a stand and she was pushed against the door. "Contacts are closing in, Admiral, they're hostile on the scanners!" Friedrich, another member yelled. Still no answer, the ships were coming closer. "I identify them as Wraith-vessels, what is that equipment??" The ships came to stand just a few hundred meters from the U-99 and inspected it. "It's our escort, I need to cut our communications, just sit on your places, they will escort us." Stefan said with a calm voice, without listening to the complaints of his crew, the U-99 followed one of the Wraiths that was guiding the U-99 to the mysterious shipyard. As they came closer, the gates of the shipyard began to open and the U-99 made its docking approach, the U-99 entered the Hangar and shut the engines off. "Andrea, what is going on here..?" Theo asked her and sounded frightened while doing so, the rest of the crew was just sitting on their seats and listened to the sounds that were hearable from the inside. Suddenly the lights went off on the ship. "To the gun room! Everybody! Now! The Admiral has lost his mind!" Friedrich yelled at the others, they jumped up and ran to the weapon room. "Arm yourselves!" he yelled. The opening of the doors was to hear, everyone stopped loading their guns for a moment and stared to the direction of the sound. "Come on, hurry!" He now yelled with a whispering tone, they finished loading their guns and formatted in the short hallway the U-99 had and activated the attached lights to see something. "Move, we need to defend ourselves in here, we might be able to get to the sleeping rooms." Friedrich whispered. They made their way through the corridor and went to the left as they saw someone standing in front of them, it was Stefan himself. "Admiral! What is the meaning of all this? Where are we?" Theo yelled at him as they all pointed their weapons on him. "Relax, I brought you home, that's all" Stefan said. They all stared at him and the confusion was easily visible on their faces. The short time of silence was interrupted a loud scream that came from behind, their weapon lights suddenly went off and the whole ship was left completely dark. Nothing but screams for a minute, some shots fell...then...silence...

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