Neo Terran Front secure comms

[Xalrok]

***INCOMING TRANSMISSION***

Priority: Moderate
Encryption: Full
Destination: Boadicea, Kansas + NTBS Belisarius, Kansas
Source: NTF Captain Robert Crompton
Subject: Report

Damn those gunboats. I don't know why, but for some reason it's a fashion for everyone have one these days *sighs* Anyway, turns out that there's been a few more than usual in Kansas recently.

Day One
Patrol started out normally, when a Kusari Explorer pops through the Magellan jumphole:

For once, the Captain didn't have Harris Syndrome. Seemed he only wanted to rob the miners in Kansas. I was about to give him the boot out of Kansas, when suddenly, without warning, an ALG Liberty Gunboat of all things decides to pop in and say hello. Or rather silently run off in a straight line towards Tuttle Creek.

Something was wrong there, the translator on the ship seemed to be broken as well as the transponder. Nonetheless, a Liberty Gunboat is a Liberty Gunboat , and with the help of the Explorer, we pursued it into the cloud. One quick firefight later, (mostly involving it running away from us) the gunboat demanded we cease fire. Bit too late for that, though:

*sighs* Another one down, another wreck to litter this -beautiful- system. Afterwards, a little chat with the captain revealed his name to be Alexander Black. Somehow he knows about us (and not the Liberty/Miner propoganda either) and he's run into us before as well. I guess we should look him up in the records though. Anyway, after that I decided to let him go pirating. Taking out a suspicious gunboat for us probably deserves that reward.

Then I fly off, take a quick nap in Smoky Hill and returned to a fat Mining ship, the Kingfisher. Amazing how he progressed from a mere freighter to being the Captain of a Mining ship overnight, I guess that's how Tuttle Creek is goldmine. Shame he chose the hard way out of things by shooting at me, so I guess that meant he would have to lose some of his cargo instead. Nope, he didn't want to drop any of that either. So a bit of a scrap and some laser exchange aaaannndddd...

*scratches head* Really, what's with these people? They're so damned greedy, stubborn or both that they'll sacrifice the lives of their entire crew just so they can make a profit. *shakes head*

Well, there's some good news for once. A Freelance Combat Service freighter by the name of Twister stopped by Junction. He had a nice set of cargo for us too:

Well, just the MOX. But the MOX was good enough on its own. Says he'll be bringing Firearms and H-Fuel next time 'round. Anywho, following this he proceeded to assist against an unaffiliated Kamome that decided to cloak, and a Salvager by the name of 'wizamacator' who turned around of his own accord and left. *laughs*

Eh, I think that's it for that day.

Day Two

Same salvager around again today, didn't do much, that is until a Corsair gunboat was spotted heading for Kansas. Executive Commander Rossini appeared on scene, and we proceeded to intercept it. Interestingly it had come all the way out here just to escort that same Junker. Amazingly the 'Sair captain seemed alright. A bit of a conversation which ended in them being asked not to bring a gunboat around again. Then, when out of sight it tried selling us those trashy Corsair Gunboat Turrets. Of course when it came to bringing us something useful like food or fuel it wasn't that interested. Only other notable thing was some Armoured Transport, and that about sums it up for the day.

*whistles* Phew, that was quite a bit. Anyway, Captain Robert Crompton, signing off. OH! Also, we have some Prometheum on board the Hinton. Problem is that the stuff's super-radioactive and it's in a copper box. While it could make a perfect source of possible fuel, we can't do any kind of research on it without protection from horrific radiation burns it would inflict. Right now we're sealing it off but if this keeps up we'll have to jettison it because of the health hazard it poses. Hopefully it won't come to that, as I do want to hear our Science Officer/First Officer, Mike Korlin to make some actual scientific discoveries rather than some incredibly obvious discovery about the Coffee Machine, something I'm still scratching my head as to what to do with it.

Captain Robert Crompton, signing off for real this time.