*Kadego tries his best to look relaxed, but the unfamiliar experience of getting questioned is having a visible effect on his heart rate - the monitor to his left reads "ELEVATED ANXIETY", which does nothing to improve the situation. He exhales deeply, before starting to speak to commander Michela Calliente...*
Where should I start... let me see...
I was drafted into the Maltese Navy through family connections from my mother's side - her father (my grandfather), Arturo Sudrossa, was an ace pilot in the roster. As such, he was tasked with testing new spacecraft as they were being developed, such as the Carabela and the Rapier (the replacements for the venerable Stiletto and Sabre fighters).
Grandfather Arturo died during one of the final tests, as he was pushing the limits of the vessel - something he was known to often do. I never met him in person, but my mother used to tell me stories about him. Those same stories are key to how I met with one of the top brass at the MN.
Enter chief engineer Diego Rojas - one of the brains behind the creation of the "CQ - Conquistador" line of snub craft. Guess who used to be his closest friend... my grandfather, Arturo Sudrossa. Our meeting was inevitable, as I frequented the spaceport bar on Malta almost daily during my smuggling run breaks, telling stories about my exploits. During one of my bragging sessions, I ended up mentioning my grandfather's name... One mention of the family name "Sudrossa" was enough to provoke Diego to come running at me, knocking me down with a single uppercut punch. That's how we met.
Not long after, I essentially became part of the Rojas family - Diego took care of me, bailed me out of any trouble I got myself into, gave me a a home... his sons were like brothers to me. Unbeknownst to him, I enlisted in the Navy as a security patrol pilot, to honor my granfather's family name. Diego wasn't happy about it, but went along with it - he actually had me move up two ranks immediately, in the hopes that I'd be offered a safer position as a HQ comms officer aboard some command base. I, however, always volunteered for patrol duty and action.
Cmd. Calliente:Give me full details of your relationship with the Outcasts - past and current.
I climbed the ladder further, establishing myself as a reliable security pilot and got tasked to guarding Torino Base in the Lorraine system - one of the riskiest jobs on THE most remote outcast outpost, right in Gallic space.
Me and the rest of the security patrol pilots on Torino, we were relentlessly sent to deal with possible contacts around the station's 3 safety perimeters - if any vessel breached the outer perimeter, we were on it. But as the months went by, our diligent work of 'disappearing' gallic vessels did not go unnoticed... We started encountering armed patrols of both Gallic Royal Navy, as well as some shady para-legal group, called the Unione Corse. They were possibly suspecting the existence of Torino base in the asteroid field, but they didn't yet know its exact location.
These developments forced the hand of our naval command and they decided to dispatch one of their Elite Guard to deal with Torino's security - enter commander Socorro Pelaez... a greasy sleazeball of a bastard, who ultimately is the reason for my 'untimely retirement' from the Maltese Navy.
Cmd. Calliente:How did you obtain this ship?
There was an... operation in the works, codenamed "Sombra Asunto". Its main objective - to 'discourage' the gallics from further venturing into the asteroid field, by deploying "mobile" heavy weapons platforms. By "mobile", I mean actual ships. Vessels that are simple to operate, armed heavily and are devoid of the typical crew that would be present for tactical, medical and navigational duties.
Enter the decomissioned RM-1 "Storta" destroyer - something that was big, heavy, old and lacked any of the advancements of the current RM-2 counterpart.
Those old RM-1's were dumped around Bastia Shipyard in the now closed-off Omicron 85 system, acting as weapons platforms and practically rotting away in the dense radiation-infested green gas cloud around the station.
Being completely disposable, yet operational enough (and sporting a slim vertical profile), those ships were quickly patched up to base functional state and manned by a single pilot - no other crew was needed. Acting similarly as a gunship, with heavy armament, a couple of those vessels were sent off to Torino Base in Lorraine, to actively hunt down and destroy unprepared enemies inside the safety perimeter.
Cmd. Calliente:Interesting... Then, I assume you are piloting that very type of vessel?
Correct - 'The Shovel' was the first of those "mobile weapons platforms" to arrive at Torino. I was immediately put at the front line of defense and soon had been tasked with a mission (which ended being impossible to complete, if I was to follow the instructions of Mission Control).
We had two squadrons - Sigma and Iota, each tasked with a different objective.
Sigma was to make contact with a local (to Lorraine) leader of the Unione Corse. There was a deal proposal that Sigma Leader (none other than Cmd. Socorro Pelaez) was supposed to extend to the gallics, and supposedly avoid a full-on war.
The Iota squadron was tasked with being "Plan-B", should Sigma fail in its objective. As you might have surmised, Plan-B is the total annihilation of ALL Corse ships, to send a message (and ensure the safety of Torino from getting discovered).
Pelaez failed in his negotiations. Not only did he fail, he actually ended up abandoning the field of battle, tasking Iota squad (of which I was part of) to take the brunt of the gallic force. We were already outnumbered, when more hostiles arrived... this time from the Royal Police, with bomber support. Pelaez's final orders were 'sacrifice code'. We were to either destroy all enemies, or not return to base at all (to prevent its discovery).
I ordered my surviving men from the Iota squad to split up in separate directions, to give themselves more chance of survival. The Royalists ended up swarming my ship, but ultimately failed in bringing me down (they were overconfindent in their direct attacks, not aware of my Light Mortar armament until it was too late).
Having survived the battle, I was faced with two options:
A] to return back to Torino, unknown of what would happen - I was at this point not sure if I was being tracked, or followed by more Royalists;
B] to head off in an off-plane direction, thus evading all system traffic and then plotting a route out of Lorraine;
Cmd. Calliente:And which 'option' did you take, captain?
I took the second option. Not only that, but I managed to squeeze my way through Gallic space, back into the Tau region. The key to my survival was a contact that Diego had gained, a gallic freelancer, whom he had helped and owed him a favor. That person never identified himself to me, but managed to contact me through comms and gave away navdata locations to the jumpholes that I had to navigate through, to get out of Gallia safely (the less travelled routes).
Months later after my escape, I got in touch with Diego. He was relieved to know I was alive, but advised me to 'lay low' and not return to outcast space, until he could ascertain that I'd be safe. Several people, whom I served with, on Torino were going missing in uncertain circumstances, supposedly shortly after getting debriefed by none other than Cmd. Socorro Pelaez.
This should cover the topic of my military career fully.
*Having finished telling his story in detail, Kadego let off a sigh of relieve. His heart rate had normalized at this point... perhaps as an effect of 'coming forth' with his personal story... or perhaps because of the drugs he was given at the start of the session. Whatever the truth may be, he was now looking calmly at commander Calliente...*
![[Image: iWs7UZ5.png]](https://i.imgur.com/iWs7UZ5.png)