HMMS Broadside Day 313

Personal Journal Serene Falk Captain, HMMS Broadside

Mission parameter – Hunting Ghosts

Classification – Secret (Captain’s eyes only)

Today was better, although “better” has become a relative term aboard the Broadside.

Bonnie has, for reasons known only to her fractured personality core, elected to sulk in near-total silence. No unsolicited commentary, no passive-aggressive system alerts, no eerie half-hummed lullabies bleeding through the comms at 0300.

And for the first time in days the ship actually felt, well manageable. Not calm, never that, but at least functionally coherent.

Clyde took full advantage of the quiet. And with Bonnie withdrawn, he resumed primary navigation control, running manual confirmations on every jump vector and drift correction. I could almost feel the relief in him if that’s possible.

The crew followed suit. Efficiency returned in increments, engine checks completed ahead of schedule, patrol rotations executed cleanly, even the mess hall reported no incidents worth logging, which is a miracle in itself. As if there is going to be an ruckus, it will happen there amongst the strictly rationed and reconstituted navel regulation chips, beans and bacon. Still, small victories, but in this sector, hey, we take what we can get.

As per war footing protocol, two Firestorm fighters remained on continuous patrol. Rotations every six hours, no deviation. It’s exhausting for the pilots but today justified the strain, and well brought home the bacon.

As at 1420 ship time, Patrol Wing Delta reported a visual anomaly approximately 3.2 million kilometres off our port trajectory, initially flagged as debris scatter. Our standard procedure would have been to mark and bypass, but something in the pattern caught their attention. Too structured. Too deliberate.

They were right.

And what they found was the remains of the fleet carrier RMS Penrose.

“Although remains” feels somewhat insufficient.

--------------

The Penrose was, is a 12,000-ton war carrier, a ship built to endure prolonged combat, layered with redundant shielding, reinforced hull segmentation, and enough firepower to flatten a small moon. She had a reputation: unbreakable, unyielding. Crews spoke of her like a fortress that moved.

But now it seems she is a hollow shell.

The fighters’ initial sweep confirmed catastrophic structural failure across all decks. Entire sections of the hull have been peeled back, not blasted outward in the usual pattern of internal explosions, but torn and ripped like something forced its way through her. Compartment seals are gone. Bulkheads breached. The internal skeleton of the ship is exposed to vacuum in a way I have never seen before.

And then there is the absence.

Crew manifest: 640 souls.

Recovered: zero.

No bodies. No escape pods. No suits drifting in the void. Not even biological residue in the scans. It is as though the crew were, well removed. Not killed in place, not vented into space just not there anymore.

Clyde ran a full spectrum sweep for transponder echoes, emergency beacons, anything that might suggest a delayed signal or automated distress relay. But nothing. Not even corrupted fragments.

Looks like the Penrose died without making a sound. That alone is wrong.

Even in total systems collapse, even under electronic warfare conditions, some trace always remains. A burst transmission. A broken code. A whisper in the dark. But here, there was nothing. A silence absolute and complete.

I authorised a limited approach and for all bio resources to remain at a safe distance. As without more data I am not going to risk contamination, biological, technological, or otherwise. Or even remote detonation which would be the perfect booby trap . Instead, we deployed what we call The Strip and Search drones. That are equipped with deep-scan and forensic arrays. Their feeds came back inconsistent.

Some corridors appear intact at first glance, but structural readings fluctuate as though the ships material has become unstable. One drone reported visual confirmation of a sealed command deck, doors closed, no breach. Yet internal scans showed it as empty space. Another transmitted a brief burst of static that resolved, for less than a second, into what looked like movement along the inner hull. The feed from that drone cut immediately.

Since then we have lost three more drones.

No explosions. No impact signatures. Nothing, they just simply, stop transmitting.

Bonnie, of course, then chose this moment to speak.

Not fully, just a fragment, slipping through the silence of her self-imposed exile.

“It remembers,” she said.

No context. No follow-up.

And what or who, we have no idea.

Then she fell quiet again.

Bloody sentient systems.

If that was a crew member he or she would be in the brig.

The best I can do is have her access restricted to non-critical systems until the nerds can assess her stability. As the last thing we need is an AI with compromised logic inserting herself into critical systems

Still, in typical Bonnie style, her timing bothers me.

We catalogued what we could from a distance.

There is some weapon scoring along the hull that suggests some sustained engagement, but its not from any recognisable armament profile. There are no clean burn lines, no residue consistent with plasma, rail, or ion discharge. Instead, the damage patterns are irregular, almost organic, if such a word can be applied to ship-to-ship combat.

But I find myself returning to a single question:

What and who have the capability to dismantle a carrier like the Penrose and leave no trace of its crew?

As far as we know we are alone out here in the black.

Although there are possibilities. For example, the Pirate fleets are viscous and effective but not stupid enough to take on a Naval carrier, nor would they have enough firepower. Even coordinated strikes would leave wreckage patterns, boarding evidence, or salvage signatures. But there is none. No sign the ship was looted. No missing weapon arrays. No stripped components.

Whatever attacked her was not interested in resources.

Only in… what?

The crew?

I do not like that line of thought, but it persists and remains logical.

The official report has been filed under command-level encryption. Access restricted to senior officers only. The crew has been told we encountered “derelict debris consistent with prior engagements.” It is a lie, but a necessary one. Morale is already fragile. The idea that something out here can erase six hundred and forty people without a trace might just tip them over the edge.

And if I am honest, it’s pushing me closer to the same edge of panic.

This mission, “Hunting Ghosts” was always meant to be metaphorical. Tracking lost signals, investigating dead zones, recovering fragments of data from forgotten conflicts.

But not this. Not ships turned inside out. Not black space where people should be.

Consequently, we have altered course in case there was any data breach regarding our mission co-ordinates. And have ordered Navcon to maintain a parallel vector to the Penrose’s last known heading toward the Dog Star Cassiopeia.

If this was not an isolated incident, and I do not believe it was. Then whatever did this may still be out there.

Watching. Waiting.

Clyde advised caution. And strongly suggested we mark the coordinates and withdraw to report. He is not wrong and protocol would support that decision. But protocol also assumed threats we could understand, quantify, and engage.

This is none of those things.

If we turn back now, we learn nothing.

And whose to say we would be any safer.

We would just be presenting our backside to whatever is out there.

So, we proceed. Although by ignoring a sentient AI I may be in violation and end up in my own brig. But hey I have heard the food is good and it’s got to be less stress full than this.

In response though I have increased patrol rotations despite the strain on our pilots. Weapons systems are on continuous readiness. Internal bulkheads are set to rapid seal at the first sign of breach.

I have also authorised continuous internal life-sign monitoring across all decks. If anything, anyone well just disappears, I want to know the exact moment it happens.

No delays. No mysteries. Not aboard my ship.

And yet, as I record this, I cannot shake the feeling that we may already too late. As whatever left the Penrose a hollow shell spinning in the void may have already marked us.

The silence outside the hull feels, different now.  Not empty.

But occupied and waiting.

End log.

Corrupt data 314 -315 00000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000110100010001001XXXXXX100011001000100100000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000110100010001001XXXXXX100011001000100100000000000XXX11111XXXXX1111111100011000

Unrecoverable data

Want to read more. Get the next installment straight to your inbox

About the Author

HMSS Broadside is created, authored, edited and published by Rob Frankson. Artificial intelligence is used to assist with research, initial drafting and supporting imagery. All articles are reviewed and, edited by Rob Frankson before publication. The opinions, editorial position and final decision to publish remain the author's.