Naval Operations Headquarters [Message Dump]

[Kusari Uchugun]

Kusari Naval Forces

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Transmission received
Code recognised as NT-X49a-NOH-DirexC-9310
Decrypting....

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Recipient: Naval Operations Headquarters
Sender: Santo Kaisa Mizui Naruhito
Date: 28.10.833 A.S.
Subject: "The Lost Weapon"
Priority: Medium

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Sixty-Sixth's Itsumaden reporting in. I bring good news today.

As some may recall, several months ago, Kishiro Technologies decided to grant the Republic of Liberty insights on some of their newer weapon technology advancements. As controversial as this decision was, the Imperial Diet and the Office of Intelligence considered it worthwhile to show such a gesture of cooperation towards Liberty.

According to the sparse logs, the "Shotoku" was escorted by a Naval Forces contingent hailing from the Capitol instead of the Myoko. Surely those with some awareness of the declassified mission logs heard the tale of the entire convoys mysterious disappearance, to nobody's surprise given the volatile state of the Kepler system.

The Office of Intelligence refused to take on the task to investigate further after losing five pilots within this hellhole of a system.

This is Mizui Naruhito and I have taken it upon myself to find out about the Shotoku's whereabouts - successfully. Unsurprisingly, the Kepler system remains greatly destabilized and extremely hazardous to navigate. Thankfully, the stubborn fools of Ames laid out buoys to leading to the mentioned Research Base.

I can promise you, we do not seem to be very welcome there. Just to make sure they'll give me the right pointers and grant me access to their fuel reserves, I brought a ship load of basic supplies to them. Any and all Kusari vessels venturing into Kepler should carry gifts for the people of Ames. However, my own data and the bits the Office of Intelligence revealed, suggest that nobody should enter the system unless it is urgently required.

The locals turned out to be of very little help, with suggestions to "stick to the paths we discovered" and the like. I did not come unprepared. The Itsumaden is outfitted with lightweight missiles, which proved to be awfully helpful in locating the - as the Zoners call them - pockets of "invisible death" present across the entire storm. For those not familiar with the Office's data set, these pockets - or rather large scale areas - almost instantly lead to a collapse of hull integrity upon venturing into them.

When the missiles disintegrated, I had located a pocket.

Three hours of navigation later, post anomalies which were they not deep within the storm would be interesting for Keiretsu scientists, and several incredibly stressful moments, I managed to locate the Shotoku. There was no sign of any of the escort forces, not within the vicinity of the wreck nor on my way there.
The Itsumaden's scanners were hindered greatly by the radioactive pocket close to the wreckage, however there were visibile no indications of a battle, instead the vessel is slowly eroding into a clump of radioactive molten metal.

Any and all potential experimental weaponry carried by the Shotoku, with the exception of one small container, is gone. No signs of outside force leave us to believe that the intense radiation cleaned up after us.

I have successfully managed to escape hell and return the container to Yokosuka. Initial feedback suggests that this weapon design originates from Kansai and that Yokosuka currently harbors several similar prototypes.

The small drone utilized for recording purposes sadly did not survive. The little intact data I managed to save is attached.

In service of Kusari,
Santo Kaisa Mizui Naruhito
66th Tokubetsu ensei-ka

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Attachments:

Files

Welcome to Hell
Drone 1: Departing Ames
Drone 2: A Baxter Anomaly
Drone 3: The Shotoku
Drone 4: Itsumaden & Shotoku

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