GC Mission Report: Ayane Hayashi

[Karita]

Ayane Hayashi Mission Report

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The Sisterhood Intelligence Directorate offered me a compelling assignment in the Sigmas, and being a curious girl by nature, I took it.

I had seen information about the Fulda attack on the news, and we all suspected suspected something was off. An EMP strike on Rheinland without a clear, goal-oriented follow-up attack didn't fit the bill for Guild activity. I was definitely ready to believe that the Guild had mounted a surprise attack on Rheinland, and I wasn't going to blame them for that, but what did they possibly stand to gain? Even our Guild contacts are adamantly claiming they knew nothing of the attack, but that would be expected if it were a clandestine operation. Unfortunately, the Sisterhood has no public motive for caring about anything going on in the Frankfurt system concerning the Guild, so our ability to collect intelligence about the matter without arousing suspicion about our undercover links to the Guild is limited. We trust the Guild, but sometimes the job of an intelligence officer is to verify that trust.

My journey from Matsuda to Frankfurt was uneventful, except for the highly volatile gas pockets in Sigma-13. After nearly damaging my fighter, I made it to Frankfurt unscathed.

As I approached the gate in Frankfurt, I noticed a green haze enveloping both the damaged gate and Fulda Station; probably a remnant of the EMP weapon used to attack the station, but unlike any fallout I've seen from such attacks before. I suspected the cloud was still electromagnetically active, as periodic lightning activity was visible at a significant distance. Several large fires were still burning at the gate site, and it was unclear what was still fueling such significant blazes so long after the attack. I've attached guncam footage of the phenomenon to the report below.


Not wanting to draw the attention of Fulda Station, I activated my cloaking device and approached the gate cautiously. As I got closer, several hostile contacts appeared on my scanners. They failed to detect my cloaked ship, and I approached close enough to verify that they were Guild model vessels lacking GMG IFF transponders. The vessels lacked any IFF transponders at all, and my on-board computer classed them as hostile. I did not want to risk blowing my mission before I got to the gate, so I ignored the fighters and moved on.



The green cloud was much denser upon closer inspection than it appeared from a distance. Once inside, however, neither visibility nor scanning range were significantly hindered. The area was filled with debris blown from the gate, and large chunks were scattered as far as Fulda Station. I'm unsure of the composition of the green cloud, but it was dense enough to sustain multiple fires at the site of the gate. Although salvage operations have begun, there were none in the area upon my arrival.

Upon my attempt to activate the gate (I'm a curious girl, what can I say?) the gate's on-board computers sent my Blossom the error code for a jump anomaly before refusing to activate. I was quite surprised the gate's computer systems survived the EMP blast at all; such a strange EMP weapon.



I waited for the unknown patrols to be on the opposite side of the field, and uncloaked with the goal of tractoring in some gate salvage to take back to Matsuda for analysis. I retrieved a piece of gate salvage quickly enough. As soon as I appeared on scanners, however, the unknown Guild ships immediately changed course to an attack vector on my ship. I hailed the vessels as they approached, but they didn't respond and opened fire immediately upon entering weapons range. I escaped into the Taunusfeld, and the fighters broke off their vicious attack.

Unfortunately, my mission failed in its goal to verify the identity of the attackers. The primary piece of intelligence collected - GMG combat ships flying in Rheinland without transponders - could support any number of theories about the origin of the attack. Until we have more information, I advise the Sisterhood to exercise caution generally when operation in the Sigmas, but there is no reason from this report to suspect elevated risk or danger from operating near Guild forces specifically. Pilots should report any ships flying without IFF transponders to Sisterhood Intel Command.

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