KRS Kreta, undisclosed rendezvous location
18 July, 2184 1200 (Local)

The Kreta pulled silently alongside the hulking mass of the Kessel-class dry dock ship. Beside her hung a Waldberg/M class destroyer, which Wesriedau pointed out as the mysterious Köhl. EVA-suited workmen could be seen flitting around the flat black unmarked destroyer, welding and moving components about. There was a slight lurch as the Kreta finally docked.

946 unseated and gathered their gear. Miner and Freeman went aft to escort the pallet during the transfer. They passed through the gangway into the dry dock, escorted by Lt. Makowsky and several security guards. Per standard operating Procedure there were no ship’s personnel from Kessel to meet them during the transfer.

They crossed the second Gangway to the Köhl. The hatch opened and standing on the other side were two crewmen. They wore grubby grease-stained overalls and had scraggly beards. The taller, thinner man wore an old white service cap, crushed in the middle with the NSL eagle emblem stained with grease and sweat. The shorter, female was bareheaded, with close cropped dirty-blond hair and wore a green sweater under her coveralls. Both had the hard eyes, which had seen much combat and undergone much stress. Both wore no expression.

Lt. Makowsky rendered a sharp salute. “Permission to come aboard?”

The taller of the two crewmen, flicked his hand, “Come.” His personal communicator blinked and he went over to one of the wall mounted communications consoles to answer his page.

The female spoke “Welcome aboard the Köhl. We don’t stand much on formality here. The whole ship is crammed with all kinds of gear so be careful you don’t screw up anything in your travels. We have a berth for you guys a few bulkheads in. Just follow me and don't touch anything! I’ve got crew loading your pallet now. Pick up your things and let’s go.”

Gerard and Lawrence looked at each other and shrugged then started struggling with their gear down the narrow hall. Makowsky wore a scowl.

“Where is the Captain? “ He demanded.

The taller man turned from the console. He clicked his heels in a mock salute. “Korvetten-Kapitän Hauser at your service. This is my number one, Leutnant Hrabek. We’re very busy here, and as number one said, we don’t stand on formality. The crew has been on patrol for two months straight the last few weeks under the most hazardous of conditions, and we’ve been struggling for days to keep this verdammte mark nine mod working without killing any of us. So lets leave the chicken shit at the hatch, shall we gentlemen.”

“Fine by me, Captain”, grinned Lawrence. "If we could just get to our rooms and get to work, we’ll be happy.” To Gerard he whispered: "What do y know. An officer that doesn't like chickenshit." Gerard gave him an annoyed frown. Charlie laughed.

“Very well.” Hauser grinned, his teeth barely visible through his scraggly brown and gray beard, flecked with gray. “Hrabek, see to their accommodations. I’ve got to get down to engineering. The Chief’s got a problem with the FTL control interface.” Hauser sighed, shook his head, touched his cap and left.

946 followed Hrabek through a number of bulkheads on the way to their quarters. A Waldberg-class destroyer is cramped to begin with. There were cases of supplies, new molding and components welded into bulkheads and crewmembers moving quickly back and forth. Their quarters were cramped, the nine men sharing one space. There were only six bunks.

“The W/C is through there," said Hrabek. “The rest of you will have to sleep on the floor. Through this door is an additional space that will serve as your workspace. It is attached to the storage closet where your pallet has been stored. Any questions?”

“Just two,” asked Gerard. “What time are meals and when do we make our next jump?"

"You will find the dinner schedule and details posted on the wall display screen. Can any of you speak German?” Several nodded their heads. “Good, just use the access menu, it is self explanatory. The Kapitän will expect you and Sergeant Lawrence to join him for Dinner in the officer's mess at 1900. I'll send someone to get you.”

“As far as the next jump, we have finalized the work on the pinnace mounts and are taking the pinnace aboard in an hour. We hope to be underway within three and making our first transit at 1700.” Hrabek turned to go then spun around again. “I would ask that you confine your activities to your quarters and work spaces until further notice. There is a lot going on and we need your people to stay out of the way.”

“We’ll do that.” Answered Gerard. Hrabek nodded and left. Charlie noticed that her overalls were pleasantly tight around her buttocks.

“Hmmm,” said Brooks.

Lawrence spun and glared at his commo man. “Brooks, don’t even go there...”

KRS Köhl, deep space
18 July, 2184, 1630 (Local)

"Attention all hands, Jump minus ten minutes, jump minus ten minutes. All hands to jump positions. Internal gravity will be offline in five minutes."

Charlie sat strapped into his shock frame, studying an Intel report. He was annoyed at the hassle of jump prep as it cramped the little prep time 946 had before insertion.

"Here ya go Sarge, take this." Molitoris leaned forward and held out a small gray pill to Lawrence. Domotril. It was a fast acting barbiturate that deadened certain motion senses and other selected neural receptors. It made FTL jumps possible without driving men insane as they were torn from the fabric of reality and hurled light years away in seconds. 946 were taking Domitril-B, which allowed them to remain conscious during the jump. This would get them back to work faster, but was much harder on the system. They had to suck it up. Charlie popped the pill past his lips, and cringed at the disgusting taste, which he quickly washed away with a swig of water. Molitoris finished passing out the pills and took his seat. An NSL rating checked everyone's shock frames, then left the compartment.

"Hey Charlie?" It was Ken Mellor, the Intel Sergeant.

"Yeah?"

"Have you gotten a look at this Kra'Vak OB yet?"

"No not yet, anything good?"

"Well, it's not written in stone, but based on everything they gathered about their ground forces, it definitely shows an interesting organization. According to this thing, they've got a "ritual and inflexible" order of battle. There's about 100 fighters in each clan ground maneuver unit. Weird-ass names for stuff too. Who comes up with this stuff? They're broken up into a number of "strike claws", which are your regular infantry-type squads, "fangs", which are the heavy weapons units, "eyes", which are recon and sniper teams, and "legs", which are support units. They all report to the "skull", which would be like the BC. All their infantry weapons are based on the same railgun technology that their ships use."

"Interesting."

"Attention all hands. Jump minus one minute. All systems powered down. Life support nominal."

All chatter stopped as each man steeled himself for the unpleasant effect of warp transit. Charlie had been going through it for twenty years and he never found it any easier. In fact, he worked at not thinking about it, lest he go insane contemplating what they would go through. These thoughts struggled against the heavy daze form the Domotril. He listened to the bridge chatter, piped through the intercom, as was customary, during a jump.

"Jump minus thirty seconds. Jump vector oriented." The Köhl finished its precision maneuvering to align the orientation of the jump field axis with the planned destination.

"Jump minus twenty. Manual interlocks released. Main jump sequencer online. All pre-jump checks nominal. Initiating final countdown." The jump computers handled everything now. No human intervention. Even the main computer core, with its pseudo-sentient neural net, stood a chance at becoming disoriented by transit. So it shut itself down and would reboot once the Köhl reached the other side.

"Jump minus ten, nine, eight, seven…" Now the part Charlie hated the most, the unnerving blue haze that filled the ship about five seconds out. His hair stood on end, his sphincter tightened, his stomach twisted. Think of Anne…

"Two, one, zero…" Charlie felt as if his whole insides were being ripped from within, pouring out his mouth, rushing away. He saw himself flying passed his gaping mouth, stretched obscenely open in a silent scream. He clawed and grabbed out it as he rushed away, through the walls of the ship, watching it receded through space and time, thundering silence, sickening distortion of time and self. Then he saw the ship falling behind him, snapping towards him like a rubber band, colliding with him, himself plunging back into his screaming body, mixing inside his guts with the rest of his turmoil. Screaming…dreaming…imagined… or experienced?

"Zero. Jump completed, initiating reboot." Charlie lay in his shock frame, paralyzed. Would he ever move again? He hoped not. He needed an eternity to rest from the experience.

"Jump plus twenty. Staged shutdowns of drive unit completed. Main cortex reboot successful. IP scan completed Jump accuracy 92.7%. Command returned to realspace systems. Projected recycle time for next jump: 6 hours, 18 minutes."

Five minutes later, a rating came into the compartment to check on the team. He unstrapped Colin Frament and Molitoris first, and together, the medics inspected everyone's vitals. Warp transit left everyone not knocked out by Domotril-A with an ugly hangover. Lawrence's head weighed a ton. His eyelids weighed twice as much. He pried one open and saw Molitoris, peering down at him with a stupid grin.

"Don't just stand there, get me some fuckin' coffee…."