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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