TO: Mr. Ling | FROM: Chloe

[Mr.Ling]

...hack.initiated...connecting.to.Spyglass.Network...decryption.in.progress...
...Deceiver.Mr.Ling.recognized...encoding.transmission...
...uploading.data...

Wassuh? Let's see...

Just got done moving the wife and kids down in the direction of Bretonia. As fortified as my mansion on Pecos is, I don't think it's "A whole moon turning into a damned alien beacon" fortified. Cost a bit, and I'm literally rich so that's saying something. Brute force on the Argonaut and the Niyodo is proceeding apace. The stuff in there is pretty disheartening, but hey, what are you gonna do? Arms races make scary weapons.

Now, uh, Unioners. Ugh, where to start. Mostly, they're your regular strongarm-deals, bait-and-switch betrayal, predatory lending types. They want to control Texas and are willing to cut deals and backstab anyone on their way through. Most of that was done at the hands of Corin Frei. If they've grown past the days of "being for the working people" and then gassing a station full of working people, I mean congrats to them. Get on the net and look up "Alster Shipyard Gas Attack", it's a rabbit hole.

The other part goes all the way back to like 826, somewhere around there. So, when the Hellfire Legion took over Vespucci from the Lane Hacker Guard, the original Battleship Spyglass was lost. You know, the one that makes the foundation of basically all our scanner tech and those network nodes we keep at our stations. Hellfire Legion was its own problem, but somehow Unioners got their hands on an "Arbiter" battleship. "Found it in a nebula" or something, except Professorship sent a team that included yours truly to go check it out.

Thing was a mess, discharging power directly into open space to compensate for the generator overloading itself every single cycle. Evidence pointed to them ripping out the entire scanner suite and Liberty's original engine array, probably because they couldn't figure out how to use it. Big ass Tesla coils to displace the overloaded energy, but even then the ship couldn't really handle it and had to return to drydock to discharge like every two weeks or so. Definitely not an actual Arbiter from the Legion, something completely different, jury-rigged for their use.

After that, Unioners took over the Rheinland government. They'll call that civil war a lot of things, but I'll tell you this much: Rheinland used to just look at us strongly. Never land on stations, but they wouldn't come shooting us. Maybe they wanted to keep the ever-present Lane Hacker information network as an option, they DID just get over a war with Liberty at that point. But, I'm over there maybe second day of the war, and I watch a single Unioner, low rank guy I've seen him piss around Bering before, commanding a pair of cruisers and a battleship to go hunt me. Delivering commands to high-end Rheinland Military, and they immediately followed him all "yes sir yes sir, roger roger". They'll call that civil war a lot of things, but it was Rheinland getting taken over by Unioners, and it's why Lane Hackers can't even fly through Rheinland sightseeing anymore. Ya ever been shot at by Rheinland Military? Unioners did that.

Anyway, while all that went down, Professorship basically told Unioners to turn towards Hamburg, and keep going until they fucked all the way off, and leave the Spyglass at the door. Unioners didn't, obviously, and so we fought them. That's basically the long and short of it. If they're talking to you, it probably means you have something that they want, and they're willing to pretend to be friends until they can snatch it, stab you in the back, and run off back to their little hovels with it. So, good luck with that. Equal chances they turned over a new leaf, or they're the same stank, just pretending so that they can get one over you.

Though, if you can get a bead on Corin Frei, do let me know. There's not a lot I wouldn't give to get to put a plasma bolt between his bug eyes.

---

<X> Read Only: Sirine Recon Gun-Cam
<X> Read Only: Sirine Recon Audio Logs
<X> Read Only: Rheinland Military Ambush Gun-Cam
<X> Read Only: Rheinland Military Ambush Audio Logs

---

...encryption.in.progress...disconnecting.from.network...hack.terminated...