INCOMING TRANSMISSION
COMM ID: Deputy Provost Marshal Commissar-Commander Vicenta Gonzalez
LOCATION: CPW Ho Chi Minh, Baffin System
With the completion of the new Typhoon destroyer Ho Chi Minh, I was able to assume command and perform her shakedown cruise. I noticed on our intelligence reports that the imperialist swine and war criminal Jack Fraser's destroyer, the HMS Dagobaz, had been sighted in the Edinburgh system. This was the perfect opportunity to test the Ho Chi Minh's combat capabilities against another cruiser-class vessel, and I set out with now-Lieutenant Rasputin to teach Fraser a lesson.
Upon arrival in Edinburgh we found ourselves faced not only with Fraser but with a Bretonian "Dunkirk" battleship, the HMS Royal Sovereign. Outclassed, we made a break for the Tau-31 system, where the asteroids would render the battleship useless. Sub-Lieutenant Rasputin valiantly stayed behind and disrupted the battleship's cruise engines, allowing the Ho Chi Minh to escape to Tau-31. Rasputin somehow survived, and we made for the Baffin system, where the Zoner presence would give us a tactical advantage (and the Naval Forces vessels on the way would hamper Fraser's progress).
Upon arrival in Baffin, we were forced to engage Fraser, who had pursued us from Tau-31, to protect the Zoner population in the system. The Ho Chi Minh fought admirably, with the Dagobaz suffering serious hull damage from its Light Mortar. Rasputin again acquitted himself brilliantly by destroying Fraser's cruise disruptor early in the fight, thus preventing him from stopping the Ho Chi Minh's manoeuvers.
However, the battle soon moved to the ice cloud within the system, where the smaller Dagobaz was given an advantage due to its agility in the dense asteroid field. Rasputin's Partisan fell to the destroyer's defence turrets. His pod was beamed aboard the Ho Chi Minh as we retreated to Shasta for repairs, successfully evading Fraser and docking with the station.
It was due to Comrade Rasputin's bravery in facing down the battleship that the Ho Chi Minh is not currently in pieces in Edinburgh or Tau-31, and thus, on my authority, for staring down a far larger foe, aiding the Ho Chi Minh's escape and living to tell about it, I hereby award Lieutenant Ivan Rasputin with the Shield of the Hammer. That having been said, if he ever does anything as stupid as that again, he will find himself on solo latrine duty aboard the Havana for a month.
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