My patrol, if you could call it that, lasted a good five hours or more, and left my ship well within the Bingo limits for fuel. Nevertheless I flew my Wraith straight to the choke point.
It all began with an innocent request by Herr Major Voelkel to get into my Wraith and help him with a Corsair pilot who'd breached Neu Berlin space by his lonesome. I was in the Eisenkreuz at the time, in the middle of a prisoner transfer, but I obliged nonetheless. However, by the time I'd formed up on his wing, a local Polizei unit had already destroyed the intruder, leaving us nothing but a border patrol. For the better, though; it means the Polizei are doing their job.
And so we went on patrol. All was well and gut until we hit Omega 7; a Libertonian fighter was running about, so naturally we intercepted it. What proceeded, however, was a rather ridiculous series of events. The ship itself was being piloted by what appeared to be a Freelancer. Said Freelancer was also packing Rheinland, Liberty, and Kusari weaponry. His alibi about our weapons was that he was a "Wilde Hunter", although to be completely honest his ship was hardly capable of "hunting" anything but civilians. Whatever the case, even if his story was true, those weapons were still looted Rheinland Military weapons; three Mk.II Hornvipers. The Major demanded their immediate surrender and the pilot's immediate withdrawal from Rheinland territory, but the Freelancer, probably sick in the mind, kept deliberating, at one point even suggesting he wanted to join our military. He tried to engage cruise engines, and was put to an abrupt halt, and at one point looked as if he was about to land as to unmount those weapons, but he decided to run again. "Fool me once" as the saying goes, so his ship was destroyed. Hard to consider it a kill though; he never fired back.
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Herr Major Voelkel had to RTB to refuel, so I was left by my lonesome for a short while. On my way back to Neu Berlin I ran across a Hessian transport with a massive load of Blood Diamonds, the captain of which decided to say "Bollocks" to my demands at his surrender. But a faulty jump gate which would not let me pursue in time gave him the chance to run to the Ruhr Feld. Given his surly demeanor and obvious crimes, I'd advise the High Command to stick him right up on the "Shoot on Sight" list.
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Rather downtrodden at my failure to apprehend this criminal, I looked over my HUD only to see three ships in a convoy making a break for the jump gate to Stuttgart. A quick scan revealed that all three ships had questionable IFF returns, so I jumped in after them. The Major had refueled by this time, and had stopped all three ships out of Stuttgart high orbit. This mangy trio of brigands was composed of a Gaian Gunboat, a rickety Pirate train, and a Corsair bomber. When interrogated, they all fed us some kind of story about being "fugitives from their ex-factions". Naturally we had no way of corroborating their story, but seeing as how they had committed no crimes in front of us, nor were they carrying anything illegal, we didn't have much reason to apprehend them.. except of course for the bomber. It was one of the top of the line ships used by the Corsairs; apparently the "new life" this pilot wanted to lead did not include divesting himself of a blood stained vessel, so we decided to do it for him. Oddly enough, this one, after some bit of coercing, 'did' comply, and Herr Voelkel and I escorted him to Vierlande where his ship was strapped down nice and tight.
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On the way to the prison station, I was informed by my previous apprentice, Herr Hermann, that a smuggler, carrying Blood Diamonds no less, escaped his grasp and fled into the Ruhrfeld. Being much too far away, and preoccupied, to assist, I told him to keep out of that death trap and let that bastard go. But irony of ironies, the very same transport he was pursuing showed up out of the Sudheide on our way back to Neu Berlin; it was the same kind of transport with the same kind of cargo I had encountered earlier, only this time he had nowhere to run. He decided to open up with all weapons before the Major could even demand his surrender, but his weapons proved to be worthless compared to ours. We sent his ship to the Great Spacial Graveyard and fried his left over Diamonds for good measure. It would appear that a number of smugglers are running a Blood Diamond route using some warp holes deep in those two asteroid fields, heading towards Liberty Space. I'd advise including patrols along the flank of the Sudheide in order to cut off this train of ships. Once again, I can't consider it much of a kill, as a flying brick isn't hard to hit.
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Herr Major Voelkel finally turned in after a long shift, and I was about to return to the Eisenkreuz when I struck up a correspondence with Admiral Malte regarding my current rank. Just my luck, however, that this conversation would quickly involve the words "Liberty", "battleships", and "bomber".
Next thing I knew I was on Frau Admiral Malte's wing, screaming towards Hamburg. Advance scouts had detected the presence of an entire fleet of Libertonian vessels, completely bereft of fighter support and sitting in the middle of the Nordheide. This was practically a God-sent turkey shoot, because it meant that all available bombers could converge on them without even worrying about being bounced by Executioners; not that it would have mattered, as the Admiral's organization of all assets prior to the engagement included querying fighter pilots as well. In the end, Herr Voelkel was called out of his bunk, and Herr Hauptgefreiter Weddigen also joined up. Arriving at the scene, we found two Dreadnaughts, a Carrier, and some three Seige Cruisers pitted against two Fafnirs and two Bergelmirs. The commander of the Liberty fleet was opening his mouth left and right about "ending the war here and now", mentioning that the Admiral would "find use of her escape pod today." But as Frau Admiral Malte said later, "The only thing bigger than their guns was their mouths".
The cocky Liberty commander gave the order to open fire over all channels. This only prompted us to engage sooner, along with the Hessian Cruiser Ulm and some other pilots of Rheinland origin who discovered the fight. The LNS Philadelphia, one of the cruisers, was the first to fall under a concerted hail of antimatter; the big ships were no match for us, seeing as how everywhere they tried to run they were met with a face full of rock. One of the Dreadnaughts went next, for the cost of one of our bombers, but the other one fled, with the two remaining cruisers scattering. The carrier's energy signature abruptly stopped some twenty klicks distant from the fight, so it was ignored while the LNS Nazareth tried to run to a jump hole to Bering. It wasn't hard to track the ship down, once again in the middle of an asteroid field, and it was pummeled mercilessly until its reactor exploded.
We returned to Hamburg, hoping to look for the other cruisers, but found only what looked like the hulk of the carrier floating through the debris. As such we called in some ALG to salvage the junk, especially the contaminated remains of the reactor, and set course for the planet. We ran into a Rott Front fighter out of orbit, so most of us in the group hopped into our Wraiths to intercept this proverbial bug on the windshield. But it wasn't long before a new Liberty Navy ship appeared in Hamburg, called the "Defiance". A fitting name, given the thrashing we gave the rest of their fleet earlier. In any case, while on patrol to find this pest, I ran into the carrier, designated the "Wrath of Liberty", crawling out of the Nordheide and bisecting the trade lane to the Westfalen. By now all of the action had garnered the attention of Herr Admiral Engels, who arrived on the scene in the RNC Emden. The carrier tried a rather sluggish escape, all the while disregarding our repeated requests at their surrender, and in the meantime the Defiance decided to show up in support of it. Suffice it to say that ship met its doom shortly afterward, as by now three cruisers and Frau Admiral Malte had all converged on the location. The carrier, apparently devoid of fighter support since its last battle, was mostly defenseless, and a concerted long range bombardment by the cruisers brought it to a halt. It tried recalling whatever lost fighters were left in the system, but with an entire fighter squadron around it, combined with three capital ships, they were promptly dealt with. Needless to say, the carrier was nothing short of a burning lump of metal, but seeing as how there were still men on board, including some of our pilots, it was necessary to board it. The starboard hangar bay was completely smashed in the bombardment, so I directed the two landing vessels from the Emden to the port bay, where the marines who landed quickly came under some fire from the hopelessly doomed yet agonizingly obstinate survivors. They fought their way to the brig, rescued some of our men from the burning debris, and got back to the landing craft in the bay. I was firing into it in order to cover their escape when the entire hulk suddenly lurched forward. Astoundingly, the ship had enough spirit left to hurl itself directly at the sun. While Admiral Engels lamented about such a waste of life by an irresponsible captain, I looked on in awe as the massive ship simply plowed right through the sun's corona and smashed headlong into the burning plasma. Gott help us if the nuclear detonation that followed affects the star there in any way...
Frau Admiral Malte directed the RNC Ravensburg to scan the sun for any signs of trouble, or survivors, but it came out with nothing but heat damage. Very tired after a very long trip already, I offered to escort the Ravensburg back to port at Oder Shipyard and call it a day. Half way there we received multiple distress calls from reservist pilots; as it turned out, a gaggle of Hessians who had stopped to watch the show earlier decided to kick us while we were weary. The Admiral stopped the battleship on the spot and set out in her fighter. Almost delirious, and with fuel down to some 20%, I followed to the rendezvous point in Hamburg orbit.
An entire military fleet was there, a battleship and cruiser included, staring down that bunch of Hessians and Rott Front. Numerically speaking they were hopelessly outmatched, but as always they decided to press their luck. As our two squadrons stared each other down, with the larger ships covering Altona Station, my ship's Betty began hollering at me something fierce; fuel level was critical. I mentally kicked myself but realized that having my engine die in the middle of a firefight would do no good, aside from give some verdammt Hessian another victory mark to paint on his ship. I had to withdraw; luckily Herr Putzkammer arrived to take my place, but I hope that fight turns out well.. Sorry, meine Kameraden..
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In any case.. I think I'm going to take leave planetside on Neu Berlin and call it a day; this was more eventful than my first patrol, God forbid!
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