The Lane Hackers | Internal Comms

[maxzorin]

...hack.initiated...decryption..in..progress...
...comm.id.max.zorin.recognized...transmission.encrypted...uploading.data...

Fellow Hackers, I can present to you definite proof of the shipping and usage of Nomad weaponry within Liberty space.
And what is even more distressing: I can confirm that the Kusari Naval Forces are involved.

As per our recent assignment I was patrolling Liberty in search for vessels carrying alien technology.
I decided to try my luck in New York and made my way over to Rochester base, from where I planned to do a circular sweep of the system.
As I entered the system I noticed an unusually high activity of bounty hunters in the area, so I had to stay on my toes. Fortunately the long arm of the law was apparently somewhere else shoving donuts into the chubby face of the law, so I had only the bounty hunters to watch out for.
I had just left Rochester behind me, when I spotted my first target near Fort Bush, a Turanic Raiders Freighter broadcasting no IFF and bearing the callsign 'ToolBox'.
I approached on an intercept course, taking care to stay well out of range of the government installations and the scanners of the group of bounty hunters that were hanging around New York.
As I came within short range I commenced scanning his cargo and weapon loadout and to my surprise, it turned out my first target of the day was a score. He had a Nomad Energy Blaster mounted and a Nomad Energy Cannon in his hold.
Of course my otherwise trusty flight-recorder chose exactly that moment to malfunction. I have no idea why that happened, because I assure you, I keep my equipment well-maintained and in perfect shape.
Nevertheless, I managed to download a datadump from my scanner buffer to an external storage, which allowed me to capture the perpetrator's callsign and one of the two Nomad weapons he was carrying, as you can see here:

After this, I returned to Rochester to fix my flight recorder.
One of its circuits had apparently overloaded, most likely due to enemy fire I had received in a recent battle.
I replaced the circuit with one I acquired from the Junkers and set out again to resume my patrol.

The bounty hunters had either gotten wind of me or just had a stroke of dumb luck (probably the latter) and I ran into two of them in very heavy fighters shortly after.
I wasn't about to take my chances against that kind of opposition, so I quickly retreated to Texas.
Once there, I received an encoded transmission from one of our Outcast allies, Carlos Traversi, warning me of a heavy bounty hunter presence in Liberty, including a gunboat.
He also expressed his concerns about an increasing activity of Corsairs in Liberty, something I was hitherto unaware of. I was rather surprised to hear that those lowlifes had the nerve to conduct operations so far from home, in the heart of Sirius, right on our doorstep.
Carlos informed me that the Outcasts had plans to step up operations in Liberty as well, mainly by providing heavier escorts for smugglers, to counter the Corsair presence.

I wasn't yet satisfied with the single recording of possession of Nomad technology, but wary of the bounty hunters in New York and Texas being rather deserted, I decided to circle all the way around through California and Ontario to Colorado and try my luck there.
Once there, I took up a spot just within scanner range of the jumpgate to New York and close enough to the Ontario jumphole for a quick getaway.

I didn't have to wait long. The second ship that passed there turned out to be another score.
And this time, it was a vessel of the Kusari Naval Forces. He didn't appear to be interested in engaging me, so I took advantage of that by recording his possession of no less than three Nomad Energy Cannons, as you can see in the flight-recorder data below:

I hung around for a little while longer, scanning two more ships who turned out to be clean, and then returned home.
As I was passing through California on my way back to Mactan, I spotted something that confirmed the Outcast's concerns about Corsairs in Liberty and I recorded a Corsair flying right over Los Angeles!
Within range of the battleship Yukon, nonetheless.

Not surprisingly, only seconds later my scanners picked up the energy spike caused by the destruction of his vessel:

Max Zorin out.

...encryption.in.progress...hack.terminated...

---

Max Zorin - Pharmaceutically enhanced engineering of automated combat routines for shipboard computer systems.
Strength: Programming microchips to dodge big rocks. Weakness: Dodging big rocks.