-My combat patrol began on no small note, moments after breaking New Berlin atmosphere I cam face to face with an Outcast Destroyer by the handle "BOLT", fortunately I had opted to spread the wings of my Snubnose this day. Though even more fortunately I wasn't obliged to engage in any activity save gazing in slack jawed wonder as the Westphalia herself disembarked and dealt with the threat. The great battleship veritably snapped the flimsy Outcast letter opener in twain.
I swapped back to my Wrath and began the day's patrols in earnest. I encountered the vessel "Convoy1|H.X" on its way to the Hamburg system, laden as it was with Cardamine I demanded the vessel release its cargo and prepare for impounding, apparently the captain of the ship took some offense to this notion and began to attempt to flee whilst firing upon my vessel. The encroachment of several local hooligans complicated the affair and I was fortunate to have the Luxury Liner XTriton lend its aid in the chase.
The smuggling vessel begged the mercy of the law moments before its fusion core went critical, the vessel released its cargo, which was destroyed, and paid a fine of four million credits.
I resumed my patrol duties, fulfilling a few minor missions in Stuttgart whilst waiting for my vessel's registry to be completed. This is when something truly curious happened.
Just outside of the Strausberg I encountered two freelancers, Tyler.Nicholas and Roger.Downing, both, I believe, in Virage class fighters. They hailed me, to which I demanded that they state their business, to which they replied "Oh, we will" or something to that affect. At this point they fired on me in unison. My vessel was badly damaged in the initial assault and I executed the 'panicky Xeno', as my flight instructor coined it, while trying to get the fire control to kick in. I made a pair of passes at Roger Downing before he loosed a disruptor at me, the shot appeared to rouse the Strausberg as she opened fire on Downing, destroying his vessel in quick order.
However, at this point some errant RFP officer began to sqwak about some LWB pilot in my hold, so great where his laments that the Strausberg lost its mind and began to fire on -me-, complicating my fight with Tyler Nicholas somewhat.
The two of us made countless passes before I was able to enlist the aid of Robert Fitzgerald. He responded quickly enough, but I did not notice if he was able to join in the battle proper. The Strausberg had begun to fire on both Tyler and myself, the drunken gunnery officer apparently having decided to simply kill everything moving within the range of his guns to simplify things.
I managed to drop a few lucky mines on Nicholas, giving me the window to finish his vessel with a few blasts of my hornviper.
The attacks seemed somewhat co-ordinated and deliberate, while it's not my paygrade to ponder the broader implications of this it seemed worthy to note that this did not feel like a random assault.
