I originally began yesterday's duties with embargo supervision. Major General Rall gave me the flight access codes to Iota 1, one of our Fafnir-class heavy bombers. Following a hint from Obergefreiter Weddigen that indicated the good performance of the 13-ARKM-N37 in embargo supervision, I decided to give it a try. I scanned two passing ships, one being a Universal ship, the Red Bull, flying one of our Colossuses, claiming it to be heritage which sounded rather impossible to believe, the other one was a Freelancer DL-class transport, the Berxard. I turned around the Berxard, since it had our Luxury food on board, with the intention to export it to Liberty. I was intending to ask for the motives that led the captain of the Red Bull to betray his Vaterland and start shipping for a Libertonian corporation, but I was soon interrupted in my task.
A reserve pilot with a name I cannot remember indicated the presence of a Liberty Security Force agent scoping around Hamburg. Of course, I couldn't let that happen. I landed the Iota 1 and fetched my Wraith, as I got back to Hamburg, the Libertonian was sitting right outside Hamburg, chatting with a Hessian criminal. As soon as I arrived, the Hessian, Carl Heinrich broke off and moved to a safe distance, but the LSF ship, registered to Nemanja Jovic enjoyed priority anyway. I could finally deal with the intruder alone.
I was intending to ask the LSF agent of his motives and perhaps give him a chance to surrender, but I never got a reply besides something like "engaging RM", which led him to immediately open fire at my humble vessel. It was a rather amateurish agent, I kept on the flank of his bulky Avenger with my Wraith all along. His flight manouvers were of a beginner kind aswell, even though his ship seemed to be equipped with state of the art technology and deadly weapons, they were worthless in the hands of the unskilled pilot. I disposed of him rather quickly, without suffering hardly any damage to my ship.
The next issue I had to deal with was something else though. As I turned around, I noticed the Hessian bomber piloted by Carl Heinrich was still there. I told him that the time I spent fighting the Libertonian should have been enough for him to make a run for it and escape unharmed, but he claimed that he was still there to "tax some traders", because the LSF broke his plan. Of course, I tried placing him under arrest at once, but we were quickly interrupted by the arrival of a civilian Armored transport, the Peter_Moron (yes, the ship was named like that) with 800 enslaved men, women and children onboard. It was an awkward situation that followed, I admit. The Hessian and I too demanded the vessel to cut his engines. I ordered the Hessian to leave the area and the trader to drop the slaves for recollection and liberation, but the Hessian didn't leave and instead demanded credits from the slaver, right in front of my eyes! The slaver confused authority, he thought we were of the same alignment with the Hessian. Before I had time to respond or assess the situation with a cool head, the Hessian blew the transport up, killing the slaves he had on board and starting to shoot the escape pods drifting in space, still containing numerous survivors in them.
Of course, I couldn't let the carnage continue, for too many times have I withnessed the brutality of Hessians in the recent times, but killing civilians in front of my eyes was way over the border. I immediately opened fire at the terrorist, which chose to flee. Hopefully, I could save enough lives with deterring him from the area, allowing the pods to be recollected by our men or at least drift to safety. I could not allow him to escape unpunished, I threw myself after him while he fled into the asteroid field. He eventually stopped about 10-15 clicks away from an abandoned mining facility. During the brief chase, I thought about the situation and offered him another chance to surrender and be trialed for his crimes against humanity. He told me that he did everything for money, which I deemed an unacceptable answer, telling him that no money could ever replace a lost human life.
I however had my duty to consider. He was unwilling to surrender, so I opened fire. He was far more skilled than I'd have thought, he threw in some impressive flight manouvers and managed to get my shields down occasionaly. He also used his cruise disruptor to his advantage, I had to neglect the usage of mines for a brief period of time, until he ran out of disruptor missiles. The fight lasted a rough half hour, I was eventually victorious with minimal damage suffered, but it was sure an exhausting fight.
After a brief line of repairs, I resumed my duties. Admiral Malte arrived on the Schwanstein, but she left her vessel after my repairs were complete. Again, I stood into the Hamburg checkpoint, Feldwebel Kreuzchen also joined me. Our first and only contact was a smuggler BWT, the Modesty Blaze. The ship had 3390 pieces of Counterfeit software in its cargo hold. After realising I disrupted all means for him to escape, he eventually submitted himself for my prosecution. He claimed to be a Deep Space Engineering supply agent, carrying the software to a DSE base, Solarius. The lies were so obvious that they almost made me laugh. First off, I told him that Solarius was a Daumann base, not a DSE one, neither did it operate any DSE agents. Secondly, his ship was in no way registered as a DSE transport, it had a civilian IFF transmitter and a forged civilian registration paper on board. He was in no way licensed to carry all that software. As soon as I ordered him to relinquish the cargo for destruction, he replied "I will take a break" and docked with Altona.
Not something I wasn't prepared for. I requested a squad of marines from the Schwanstein, but unfortunately the cruiser was still in drydock, under the replacement of fuel rods. Feldwebel Kreuzchen also had the time to get into his bomber. The smuggler eventually left the Altona docks and ran torwards the asteroid field near Hamburg. He eventually led us to the jumphole I was at with Major General Rall, in pursuit of Tridentes a few days ago. I couldn't let him come even close to the military secrets located in the Westerwald nebula, so I ordered the Feldwebel to destroy the vessel. The smuggler tried obvious tricks to fool us, neither succeeded. His ship was near destruction when he jettisoned his cargo into space at last. Of course, we also had to make him pay the 8 million credits fine for firing at Military officers, which he did during his escape. His response was "shut up reinhland moron", I gave the Feldwebel orders to open fire.
As the ship went down, I returned to Hamburg. We just caught another embargo runner, an armored transport designated as Sifa. He was of the unintentional kind, but just as we were about to turn him back, the Ravensburg called us in to protect a Republican vessel being threathened by pirates in New Berlin. We eventually caught the pirate, the Ravensburg identified him as Matthias Zevonen, a Unioner terrorist. He was bringing forth the usual senseless trash about "worker liberation" and "fighting against fascism", but his theories were rather flawed, I kept contradicting him with relative ease. I eventually got tired of his ranting and ordered Feldwebel Kreuzchen to dispose of him, he brought in a nice SNAC shot to the hull of the terrorist, I didn't manage to find an escape pod.
Following a report from an unidentified vessel, the Ravensburg command ordered me to check Stuttgart for pirates. I eventually found one, a Golden C. vessel piloted by Mai Lin, right near Planet Stuttgart. She seemed to be harmless and lost. I never found out her motives. The Ravensburg command ordered me to escort her out of Rheinland, so I did. The helpless Kusarian even thanked me for my help.
There was something about a Hessian attack later on too, something larger scale. I had engine troubles as the fight erupted, so I can only hope that someone who participated to the end will do a report on it, my knowledge regarding that subject is lacking.
Leutnant Voelkel signing off.
Powering down transmitter...
Cutting comm link...
Closing visual data...
------------------End of Transmission-----------------
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