Family Ties

[Knucklehead]

Incoming Transmission
Name: Airom Artnam
Comm ID: AiromArtnam
Encryption Key: Public
Access Granted
Begin Log

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3... Is this working? Ah, good. Knucklehead told me I could post my logs on his family's system. I see it's working.

Anyway, allow me to introduce myself. I am Airom Artnam, an old friend of Knucklehead and his family. My father was born in Rheinland and was flying for them just before the whole Nomad incident began. He noticed that something was changing in the ranks and began to question what was going on. Soon he found himself at the wrong end of some Firekiss barrels and made tracks for Liberty.

Once he got there, he went into hiding on Manhattan until a couple years after the sudden end of the Kusari/Rheinland war. It was there that he met my mother, and I was born.

He often told me what it was like living on New Berlin and serving the people there. Defending the citizens from the Red Hessians and other pirate groups that were scattered around the House's territory. I could see, even at a young age, that he longed to go back.

One day, he decided to go. He felt it would be too risky to bring my mother and I, so he asked his friend William Modnar to look after us.

He was on his way back to New Berlin when his ship was attacked by a group of ex-Rheinland Military pilots. They were equipped with weapons my father had only heard rumors of, and it took everything he had to try to survive.

He limped his ship to New Berlin, but was overcome with his injuries, and died a few weeks later.

From that day on, I vowed to do everything I could to eliminate these "Das Wilde."

I attended flight school at West Point Naval Academy, and did fairly well. As a graduation gift, Eman, Knucklehead's son, gave me a substantial sum of money, 10 million credits. With this, I was certain that I could make the Wild pay for what they had done.

I was nervous as I prepared the little starflier the Academy gives to freelance pilots, and ended up forgetting to get rid of the freelancer ID when I bought my initial Trader ID. I got all the way to New Berlin before a Rheinland Military officer noticed my mistake.

With that taken care of, I left for the Battleship Strausland, where they kept the ship my father had been flying after the attack. It had been fairly beat up, and with no one to pay for the repairs, it needed extensive work. Some 2 million credits later, the ship was ready and I headed out to Rostock Station to acquire my Mercenary ID.

The Bounty Hunters who run Rostock weren't too enthusiastic about giving me the ID, but a few credits in the right places took care of that problem.

Knucklehead had told me about a fair number of places where pilots whose luck had run out left some high powered weaponry behind. I set out to do a search of these areas to see what was to be had. It took me a while, but I had amassed a fair collection of these Codenamed weapons, and was able to get a shield that would protect me from the high powered plasma guns The Wild used. The time had come for my first hunt.

My father had been attacked near the jumphole that leads to Sigma 13, so I set out for there for my hunt. It didn't take long for a couple of them to show up. If I told you I made quick work of them, it would be a blatant lie. These pilots were well trained and their Valkyries well equipped, but I was better. After a fairly long battle, I emerged victorious.

I spent the next few days alternating between hunting and refining my weaponry. At one point, a couple of pilots in Raven Claws were out hunting as well, one named Tweedledee and another named Qbone. During the battle, I noticed that I kept taking hits from Tweedledee, but didn't think anything of it until the last of The Wild had been taken out. When I continued to recieve fire from Tweedledee's chainguns, I took exception to it and turned to defend myself. Before long, Tweedledee succumbed to my heavy weapons and was sent packing.

Meanwhile, more Wild had shown up, so I turned my attention to them, after explaining the situation to the RM pilot on duty. Suddenly, I noticed more chaingun fire being directed my way, as Qbone started to open fire on me. I gave him a warning to stand down, but he continued to fire on me, including launching one of those Paralyzer missiles at me. It was clear then that he meant to fight, so I engaged him. My skills were clearly superior, and I had his ship fairly beat up when he engaged his cruise engines and left. I turned my attention back to the Wild, but before long, Qbone was back, shield fully charged and flinging more missiles. I reengaged and sent him running again, only to have him return again. As he started to run a third time, I fired my cruise disruptor, only to have it miss slightly. When he returned, I gave him another solid beating, and he tried to run again. Knowing what he was probably going to do, I kept unloading disruptors on him, while pounding his ship with my guns, until his ship exploded.

I went back to my routine of hunting The Wild and new equipment, trading a few items with Knucklehead along the way. During one of my hunts, I overheard a trader talking with an RM pilot, and decided to help escort the trader to New Tokyo. After agreeing upon a price, we set out for New Tokyo. I offered to show the trader a few things, but beyond that, the trip was uneventful. We parted ways, but still kept in touch for a while. She wanted to learn more about mining, so I told her I'd let Knucklehead show her the ropes.

I went back to my routine, and had been doing so until yesterday, when one of the NovaPG people Knucklehead had warned me about showed up in the middle of a hunt. I kept an eye on him, but it quickly became obvious that he meant to hunt me. I gave it a valiant effort, but quickly realized that he outclassed me. Not willing to lose the rare weapons I had in my hold, I made a run for New Berlin. His disruptors didn't make that an easy task, but I managed to get back to safety. I conceded the battle to him, but promised that we would meet again.

After taking a fair sized break while my ship was repaired, I decided that I should give the rare equipment to Knucklehead for safe keeping. After that, I resumed my hunt. Shortly after the hunt began, the Ion Storm warning came on, so I headed back to New Berlin for the night.

And that's where

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It's official, I have too few ships now...