Attempted piracy in the lane between California gate and West Point Academy. He asked for my food rations. I lured him away from the lane, instructed Recruit Ristar to lead the convoy home, and let the pirate have my half-eaten rations. After a short while he became aggressive, and I destroyed his ship. He seemed to have given up the fight, and let himself be defeated.
Casualties:
[Exilez]Diabolic
CEO Notes: "Recruit Ristar showed skill while scouting and shielding, and although he did not seem overly enthusiastic about being given orders, he completed my directives efficiently and without question. He seems to be a suitable candidate for Junior Cadet, once he has completed his training.
Captain Gruzlund responded quickly to directions from myself and Recruit Ristar, and informed Raven of the commodities he should purchase at each stop.
Raven did lag behind a bit at the end, but not a great deal. Other than that, he was actually a pleasure to have along with us."
---Incoming Transmission---
---Comm ID: Kurt Gruzlund, Supervisor, Department of Trading---
---Subject: Convoy Report 0101---
---Location: Trenton Outpost, New York System---
In Shikoku, we witnessed [AFA]Crop.Duster pirate another trader. Luckily, due to our numbers, he did not interfere with our convoy. He was flying a heavily armored Big Dragon transport.
Casualties:
None
CEO Notes: "The night shift was nice and smooth tonight. We tried a "helter skelter" line order for this one, and due to the route's heavy reliance on jump holes and long cruises, it worked out very well and I think it saved us time. Everyone did well and there were no problems. Good job everyone. Fees forwarded to the bank."
CEO Notes:
"Hoban Washburne met up with us on the way out of Dublin and escorted us home. Three SW) vessels tried to pirate us in Magellan, but we slipped by."
---Incoming Transmission---
---Comm ID: Hoban Washburne, Manager, Department of Trade---
---Subject: Convoy Report 0101---
---Location: The Yorktown, Trenton Outpost, New York System---
CEO Notes:
"After getting a slow start due to Mr. Sevyn (Pensacola) having comms problems, we commenced our route to deliver military supplies to the front. During one of the route legs, Mr. Sevyn had mysteriously picked up a Slave Girl from one of our stops. Despite her great efforts to use her feminine wiles on him, he resisted her advances, and he dropped her off on Planet Houston to be looked after by the local authorities. I chastised Mr. Sevyn regarding the security on his ship, or lack thereof, and made it clear that his ship could do with some upgrades to its internal security systems."
"The only other item of note was that we suffered some minor damage to our ships during our ingress/egress through contested space. We're having the dock techs at Trenton look our ships over to identify and repair anything they find out of the ordinary."
---Incoming Transmission---
---Comm ID: Araevin Teshurr, Department of Trading---
---Subject: Convoy Report 0102---
---Location: Trenton Outpost, New York System---
---Incoming Transmission---
---Comm ID: Hoban Washburne, Manager, Department of Trade---
---Subject: Convoy Report 0105---
---Location: The Yorktowne (C2/DsR Vessel), Trenton Outpost, New York System---
Encounters:
From our data recorders, only 4 contacts were detected at medium to long range (not within scanning range). Names have been redacted from this report due to classified nature of mission.
Casualties:
None
Manager Notes:
"After receiving information from a Lawful Independent Faction in Kusari space that has recently declared themselves a 'fair market' attraction, the President of USI decided to undertake a mission to determine the feasibility of moving certain 'regulated' goods to said faction in return for a precious commodity to be delivered to Liberty space."
"Stealth on ingress and egress of star systems was at a premium on this mission, and with the exception of 4 contacts gained at medium to long range, we remained undetected in our transits of Liberty, Kusari, Sigma, and Rhineland space."
"All in all, a good run under the radar, and we hold a sincere hope that future missions of this type can be conducted more 'openly' by USI personnel, and that it can be made into a more viable trade route, than the clandestine route which was conducted by us."
Casualties: .:FTU:.James.Parcker(M) - (Killed after we escaped our 2nd pirate encounter.)
Manager Notes:
"To begin, this was by far the most exciting, frightening, and hilarious convoy I have led in my short time with USI, and the following report will clearly show all of it in the finest of details."
"Our flight to Dublin was interrupted by Space.Wolf at the jumpgate to Cortez space. The hilarity of his convoy began here, as this pirate had the audacity to try and pirate us, right in plain sight of an LPI Sargent, LPI-D.Dusentrieb[S]! Needless to say, we moved into Cortez space with Space.Wolf pursuing us, and with both [*USI*]G.Allen[R] and LPI-D.Dusentrieb[S] hot on his tail. I decided to act as a plasma magnet for his weapons fire, while the two snubs, plus some supporting fires from [*USI*]Chicago[S] guns. I was able to run at full impulse with thrusters all the way to Planet Curacao, Space.Wolf eventually broke off his attack, and he ran into Coronado space. We continued onward to Planet New London, where I patched up my ship and replaced 5 cargo pods that were destroyed in the attack."
"The exchanges of ore and monies went really smooth in Dublin compared to most of my past experiences with ore mining operations. The FTU lads had already mined approximately 15k units of Gold Ore, and were all ready for transfers from their storage vessels when we arrived. The total time to fly in, exchange, and fly out was less than five minutes. Kudos to the FTU for having a well-oiled operation there in Dublin!"
"As we were making our journey out of Bretonian space, we happened upon Andrew.Carter just past Planet Leeds. While he "wished to talk with us", his true intent was extortion like most other pirates we've encountered in the past. The "tax" as it was demanded was 3 million SC, but rather than pay it, we decided to allow the pirate to "gamble" with his prospective "tax" monies via some coin tosses. While this was occurring, we made contact with .:FTU:.James.Parcker(M) and requested the FTU Escort Wing to provide us with some assistance with this pirate. During the whole exchange with Andrew.Carter, he managed to be "in the hole" owing us 6 million SC at one point before breaking even on subsequent coin tosses. As he was trying to "win" back his "tax" monies, and with the FTU Escort Wing distracting him with some non-aggressive flight maneuvers, we crept away at a slow drift towards the Magellan jumphole. On a pre-arranged signal, the FTU commenced bombardment of the pirate with CD's, and we hit our cruise engines to full power and jumped into Magellan space without him pursuing us. We appreciate the FTU Escort Wing for allowing us some latitude in "stringin that boy" along until the proper moment came along for us to book it out of there!
"As we were in the process of jumping into New York space, I spotted BDM|U-66 approaching the jumpgate to head into Cali space. I warned both [*USI*]Chicago[S] and [*USI*]Santa.Fe[S] to effect the "scatter and run" plan, and both made a successful end-around into Ontario space, where I rejoined with them at the jumphole into Colorado space. From there, it was smooth sailing to our delivery point at Detroit Munitions, and well appreciated after all we had gone through to ensure a successful convoy."
"As a gesture to both [*USI*]Chicago[S] and [*USI*]Santa.Fe[S] for their cool heads and determination under multiple instances of extreme duress, I waived their CEO fees for the convoy, and placed that burden solely on me. I also doubled the escort fee for [*USI*]G.Allen[R], and paid .:FTU:.James.Parcker(M) 5 million SC for their greatly appreciative services in Leeds, and for the repairs to his ship which was lost in combat during our transit through Colorado space."
"With this convoy, we set the bar pretty high for 'wild', and we will gladly do it again, just so we make sure we didn't miss anything the last time around!"
