Bretonian Armed Forces Defense Intelligence Staff (DIS) (iRP) (AO)

[Unseelie]

Comm ID: Christopher Wren, Bowex Director Of Operations.
Official Complaint, re: Policies regarding Pirates.

Sirs of the Admiralty Board. I've just had an encounter which shocked and appalled me. My ship, the Underbridge, and Pete Conroy's vessel, Farstrider, were both pirated by one M42 Ghost.Ship, around the Bretonian region. Myself in Leeds, and the Farstrider in 49. We then formed a convoy to protect ourselves from such extortionists. When we entered London, we discovered, on scanners, the Dunkirk HMS-Majestic and the Ghost.Ship in close quarters. We dropped out of the lane to lend our aid. What I find so appalling folows:

We found this Dunkirk negotiating with the gunboat, because of some sense of fairplay. The Majestic's captian felt that, for some reason, the Gunboat was beneath him, too easy a target. When that Gunboat assaults tradeships, a simmilar imbalance of firepower, it has no such compunctions.

The Comms officer of this Dunkirk, likely at the commander's urging, spent a great deal of time trying to shoo us away from the Ghost ship, telling us to return to our trade. Now, sirs, lest you misunderstand, we are not civilians. We're veterans of more than a hundred convoys through hostile space which the BAF dares not enter, we run blockades and encounter more corsairs, more pirates, outside of Bretonian space than the defenders of Bretonia ever see within it. If we are to 'return to our trade' we will do it secure in the knowledge that we will not, in fact, find the same pirate just across the next lane whenever we have the firepower to make sure he'll not.

Bowex does not hold a place undeserving of combat respect. It is our policy to destroy pirates whenever we have the requsite firepower, lest they join into larger fleets, and pirate again. When we enter a feild and find the BAF declining to fire upon a pirate gunboat, we have every right to act as vigilantees and secure our own safety. We do so in every region beyond the coattails of the BAF, and we'll damn well continue to do so inside, wherever we are threatened. Letting a Gunboat flee will in no way ensure our safety, nor the safety of less defensible convoys.

I'd expect any officer of a Dunkirk to understand exactly how dangerous to the trade of bretonia even a lone M26 can be, and to not be taken in by the sob stories told by its coms officer about ailing sisters. Any person trying to finance a hospital stay could find much better employment than the helm of an M26.

---