Crayter Military Reporting Facility

[Panzer]

I've been thinking of writing a status report of the tau detachment for a while now and finally I have enough data in hand to make it worth reading.

The 49th is a battlegroup in name only, composed mostly of post-invasion arrivals, but also a few G-day survivors, mainly former 44th deck aviation pilots who somehow managed to stay alive after their carriers were lost. There are also a number of warships - half a dozen corvettes and frigates, which are being maintained as well as conditions permit, some overdue for a shipyard maintenance cycle several times over. The Hades herself, having miraculously survived the G-day battles is close to becoming heavily-armed hulk not unlike IMG's own Hood. Engineering reports, that while reactors, weapons and shields are close to nominal - propulsion requires urgent repairs, possible only in drydock. For all intents and purposes - unless refueled, supplied with spare parts and towed back to Sabah, the Hades remains stranded you-know-where, doing sublight at best.

Politically, it is a challenge to keep the local miners out of harm's way. Java is garrisoned and Royal weapon emplacements have been deployed around it. while in combat, their value is minimal - we cannot use the base for anything more than cover fire against Outcast raids. The miners in general are sympathetic towards us. A rising issue is a junker detachment operating alongside Cali's Outcasts against (Among others) the IMG. As far as the miners themselves have been able to inquire, the said junker units appear to be a recently formed splinter of the overall Sirian junker population, aimed chiefly at cargo and monetary piracy. Since there are no standing orders on how to deal with them in particular, every 49th pilot approaches them on a situational basis. Since those junkers will engage any Royal or idependent miner just as readily - whenever they are after the former, our units tend to cooperate, while in the latter case, we logically side with the IMG.

A potentially dangerous trend however is developing among some of the more seasoned corvette and frigate crews - since contact with HQ back in Coronado is limited to reports like this one going one way and the extremely rare orders and rarer still supplies and reinforcements coming back, several captains have resorted to highly irregular, though not outright damnable practices for the sake of keeping their ships and crews well-maintained. The Hades herself can only keep strike craft in good order, but the few warships are essentially kept flying only as well as their crews can manage. Worn machinery is increasingly being replaced by what the IMG can safely provide as well as whatever a particular crew can salvage from wreckage or even buy from the local black market contacts. Any casualties are replaced internally as well, most commonly with highly competent, though not formally trained IMG fugitives and some mercenaries. All that is most worryingly of all - funded also internally. The most common practises are halting narcotics-carriers and "fining" them in accordance with outdated, pre-invasion regulations and letting the "culprit" continue should an arbitrary payment be made. The second most-common is considerably more sophisticated - a group of capitains and pilots amassed enough wealth to salvage a Fleet tender, lost on G-day and made it operational again. While this normally would be highly commendable, the salvaged ship (Currently named the Mauritius, an early Celestra) is being used by that said group not only to disrupt Royal mining operations and commerce, but more often than not - seizing the cargo and selling it at considerable profit, none of which reaches the treasury department.

While demonstrably creative and keeping the battlegroup in surprisingly good state of readiness and repair, as well as fulfilling its standing purpose, there is considerable risk of the independent commanders, possibly the entire battlegroup drifting far enough from the command chain to go rogue. A potential remedy would be a small, though visible increase in supply and replacements reaching the Hades, as well as giving the self-financing practices legal grounds or even rewarding them.

~ Cpt. J. Skalski, BG49

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