Captain. Hermann Fischer, regarded as one of the best captains of his time and had commandeered one of Germany's best of ships into enemy waters. With it alone in waters deep, he and his ship were assigned to go to the Baltic seas, however. In the midst of the dark blue sea and the night. Where it seemed that only their ship was the only place where light had really existed. Hermann looked at the sea, the moon that shone above it. It was beautiful, yet he knew that for every nautical mile, the closer they'll be towards battle. And it may just be the ship's last days alive.
It possesed four two-barreled turrets with each being a fifteen incher. She armed a combined effort of sixty-four guns of pure hell. And 'she isn't afraid to dip into murky water'. As captain Hermann would say.
-{12:36 AM AT MODERATE SPEED DUE NORTH}-
Of the two-thousand or so crew members, not one was spared from fate. For, in suprised digest. The battleship would be 'attacked.'
A loud crash! It came from the stern, the crew, who was more than unprepared for a supposed torpedo attack. Had flung all over the place, the captain too was knocked back. Recovering from the fall, as well as all the others aboard, the captain yelled;
"It's a torpedo!" Yelled Hermann. The repairmen hurried towards the scene of the crash to 'repair' the damage caused by the torpedo. However, there was no such thing.
"Captain, Hermann!" The sailor saluted.
"What happened? Will the damage threaten her?"
"No, captain. There is no damage."
He was stunned, Hermann thought it over. "Then may it be that something went awry with our machinery?"
"We do not expect that to be the case. There are no problems with the ship's mechanics. It must just be a loud sound."
"Impossible!" He shouted. "Why would there be a loud sound, a lound crash, for no reason!? There is no such thing as no reason to anything! Find out the reason for this crash." He turned over to the people handling the communication between them and the fatherland. "Tell them that we were hit with something, and wish not to continue forward, as we suspect damage unfit for battle."
They knodded, however, with a twist of a dial. There came only static. The man arose. "Captain, Hermann!" He saluted. "We cannot get in contact with the fatherland."
He strudded over to the mechanism. "What do you mean you cannot get in contact with the fatherland!? We are not far, too are our technologies clean and most undoubtfully complete!"
Yet, as he too tried to shake the radio with all his might, he couldn't get ahold to anything. Not one station worked, even the more public ones. It was only radio silence. The crew was noticeably frightened, and so was the battleship stopped until further notice was given.
Captain Hermann laid in the bridge. The crewmen were tasked with investigating the noise, whilst Hermann awaited a sailor's words to enter his very ears. Yet after what seemed like an hour of waiting, nothing came of it. And he grew intrested of the sound they all heard.
"For it not to be a torpedo? That's stupid! There's no way its not a torpedo! Either the ship has been deserted by the Germany. Or that this ship has damaged communication, there is no other way. If the crew have 'fixed' the mess or that there is something really going wrong, I will have to return the my Fatherland."
He walked out of the bridge and out onto the board. The grey funnels had seemed to rise up to the skies, and the crew who were there were busy fiddling about. He walked past them and took up his own spot to look at the waters with much more detail than what he was in the hot bridge. But then, when he looked up, he was bewildered. The north star, it was nowhere to be found. The star, polaris was nowhere to be seen. That man, Hermann, could not have had missed the star, for he knew where exactly it would be. North. That place! It was not there! Unless they were at the southern pole, there was no way that that star would not be where it would be.
"Everyone!" He shouted towards the men who were there.
"Yes, captain!?" They saluted.
"Do you see or not see the northern star?"
Following orders they looked at the sky, they found nothing. Noting further in fact that the big dipper constellation was nowhere to be seen. Hermann was confused, "What has happened!? Has the world been flipped south to north!? Those stars are not of earth's! Those stars are not of what I know!"
( * )
-{1:24 AM STATIONARY AT SEA}-
The more important men were stationed in the bridge, where Hermann had superimposed them to be. Whilst the rest of the crew made due time observing the sea, supposedly the Baltic sea. "Today," Hermann started. "We are faced with a different issue. For it seems that our ship, is in new waters. There are no stars that we know that are in the night sky. The waters have seemingly dropped in its tempreture. The air that was once so cold is now one that has become hot. We don't know its causes, and we need to understand why."
"Might it be that we have oversteered in our course? And that the northern star is covered by a cloud? That would also explain the lack of the big dipper." Interjected the Chief Engineer, Klaus Schneider.
"I doubt that." He answered quickly. "Because the sky is not clouded. No light will inhibit our seeing the stars, Chief Engineer, Schneider."
"Then must we really be set in another world?" Told the Chief Officer, Eberhard Weber. "This may sound like fiction, but I cannot understand any other answer than this one. Even if this 'answer' may be outrageous."
The crew was silent, Hermann rubbed his chin in a desperate sense to come up with some answer that would fit whatever it was that 'threatened' them. To which, he thought. "Then let us go back to the fatherland. Towards the direction it should be."
"Yes, Captain Hermann!" They all shouted galiantly despite the stress of staying awake in the night. They hacked away with the onboard monitors. The clunkly keyboards clacking, and the engineers figuring out what and which among the many coordinates. The map was predominantly talked of, and to is the compass.
Captain Hermann sat motionless to his own doings, minding his business whilst the battleship's mass of crew were still observing the sea surroundings. However, as put one bored sailor, "There is nothing. Nothing anywhere, nothing everywhere, nothing somewhere. Just nothing."
They heard not one man intercom in their radios. The communication onboard were even checked by the engineers, looking for any faults it would've sustained and had sustained in her journey north the Baltic sea. However, there was nothing wrong with the systems, it was all to sound, and not a nick was detected whilst examining it. In case of a sudden attack whilst they were confused at sea, they readied their ship's turrets and had their sailors stationed at their battle stations. The radar couldn't pick up any submarines, neither if anything was nearing them. But they hoped blindly that the fatherland did not get overthrown in just five hours of their departing.
-{2:45 AM AT MODERATE SPEED DUE SOUTH-WEST TO STRALSUND NAVAL PORT}-
The air was getting colder. And though the map predelicted the fact that they were just ten nautical miles away from Stralsund's port, the binoculaurs, their radios, and their lights, seemed to not have done anything to alert the naval port's superintendant. "It is almost as if we are being ignored by the fatherland." Said Hermann with a disagreeing tone. "I find it hard to say, but we have yet to get a response even though our equipment are pristine!" His yell shut the bridge from any other's voice.
"We need to get closer captain, we might see the town's lights from about three nautical miles." Said Eberhard.
"Even if we are this far, the lights of such a town will be seen anyhow. Either all of Germany or that town's been bombed by planes, there is no way we are not able to see a single light from this far." Hermann interjected. "Keep ahead at full steam! And have our men dial down the radios and lights... Just in case."
Understanding the fact, an officer relayed his orders all around the battleship, whom'st men were weakened by the absence of sleep, but they have endured this in training, orders and orders, not one shall be so stupid as to to now follow the captain.
The battleship's engines whirred faster and faster till it reached its maximum speed, the sheer speed of the ship had traversed the nautical miles in mere seconds. But, to the captain's fear. As they approached the fourth nautical mile towards the coast, there were no lights. "Give me a telescope." He said before making his way towards the bridge wing. He sighted in as far as he could make it go, and to his surprise. "Grass!?" He interpreted the black sillhoute as grass, as what else could it be? For there;
Eberhard, who was just behind him said; "What do you mean captain, Hermann?"
"There is just grass, a clean shore! No house, no lights, no ship, no... Germany." Indeed as Eberhard got his own telescope had he seen what Hermann said. And indeed was there no Germany. Hermann fell to his feet, he knew not what he was to do. In a fit of some hidden motivation, he got up and walked into the bridge once more.
"Are you all sure that we are in Stralsund!" His yell filled the room, and the men were quiet. Klaus got up and placed down the map onto the big table that was beside the captain.
"As you can see, captain, Hermann." He pointed at a point where they exactly were. Just some inches away from the point, was land. It was the port of Stralsund. "We do not know either what is happening. We have checked more than twice that we are surely in the correct coordinates, and that Stralsund's lights would've had shoned all the way here where our binoculars could catch. But nothing, and with that, our radios still remain in static."
Hermann fell in shock. Undeniably, they were somewhere else. if they did make a mistake, then they were deep in enemy lines, or that ifi they weren't then they really, as Eberhard said; 'in another world.' And Hermann didn't know which arguement he should settle on.
"You have checked twice, no, more than that. If you are truly certain that we are where you think we are. Then we truly are in someplace else."
They were defeated, like they lost the great war, and the leader of Germany announced it's regime's fall. They did not know where they were, no-one did. To conserve energy for tommorow's voyage, "Rest tonight! Everyone. When the sun shall rise shall we learn more of our predicament!"
"Yes, captain!" Their depleted and tired faces were lifted as they heard the word 'rest' enter their ears. They all saluted before retiring from their positions towards the cabin's quarters of the battleship. The ship was stationary, without help, and without a goal. The battleship was stranded, her anchors to the sea ground, and the tired captain Hermann, did not know what to do.