Bretonian Armed Forces Defense Intelligence Staff (DIS) (iRP) (AO)

[l3wt]

Incoming transmission

Location: New London HQ

Priority Message: YES

Encryption: HIGH

From: Lieutenant Commander James Arland

Reporting to the Admiralty board that the situation regarding the Harbinger has been resolved.

I will relay the full extent of the events that transpired today.

First of all, I was preparing with my patrol wing to commence our routine sweeps of the home systems. When I attempted to inform the Harbinger of this, I received only dead air - even stranger was that the vessel was operating in Chester at the time!

As this was hardly standard, I informed my direct superior - Commander Goodman - and tried raising the Harbinger again, whilst putting the fleet on alert.

Finally, we received a distress signal from Admiral Davis (already filed in this archive) and we set course with our rallied forces immediately. Several fighters, a battleship, a destroyer, and a couple of gunboats were among our number once the alert was fully out.

I was the first to arrive on scene in Chester and acquire visual on the Harbinger.

First things first - the damage to the battleship was obvious, her superstructure was fractured and melted all over, her engines were out, (she was listing towards the star's gravitational pull for quite some time, then a planet) and communications were spotty.

I relayed the Harbinger's coordinates to the rest of the fleet, and remained on station for fighter intelligence support while the other ships made it to our location.

I tried to take scans of the Harbinger to check for lifesigns, but weapons and cloaking systems malfunctioning and activating at random intervals made this task difficult.

The vessel was ultimately saved from her collision course with a planet by Commander Goodman's destroyer, Invictus, by means of ramming into her. Sadly, this further damaged the superstructure of the battleship, but it was better than allowing it to die.

I finally managed to establish a blackbox uplink with the Harbinger, giving me a more detailed damage report: 90% percent of all compartments decompressed, comms and sensors almost completely inoperative, engines offline, shields offline. High Command personnel still alive at the bridge, lifesigns weak. I shared this information with the rest of the battlegroup.

Boarding teams were sent in, and they secured one living crewman as well as Admiral Davis himself, who I believe is in surgery as we speak. Nobody else were left alive by the nomads, apparently.

After a bit of work we managed to get engines and navigation semi-operational, and we escorted the damaged craft back to Southampon Shipyard by way of Dublin.

An emergency zone was declared around the shipyard, and one trader who refused to leave was destroyed. We are told that the Harbinger will be fit for service once more in about two or three months, which is still entirely too long.

The loss of this craft, even if it is temporary, is absolutely detrimental to the war - we cannot abide losing capital ships in this manner.

Thankfully due to the fast response of our forces, we can salvage it and its commander - I have served under Admiral Davis for quite some time and he is an excellent commanding officer, and I am very appreciative that he is still with us.

Arland out.

End of Message.