It had been a while since my last patrols due to some persistent technical faults in my Chimarea, which caused sudden power outages in flight. Today, however, technicians assured me that the craft is most likely to funcion properly, at least for a while.
I met up with Chūi Kurosaki Takeshi in Hiroshima. We started to patrol towards Honshu system.
While going on a lane between Akita and planet Honshu, a hostile unidentified contact appeared for a second on our radars at about 14k distance. Unfortunately, as we assumed search, the contact disappeared and was nowhere to be found. Takeshi made a very valid gues that he probably used some of the shady jumpholes and left the system.
Just a minute later, we spotted quite an interesting contact on Osaka-NT Jump gate lane. A Rheinland bomber sitting next to a tradelane ring. Mariko.Kietan. was the ship's callsign, which I assume corresponds name of the pilot. The vessel had no IFF signal.
The pilot acted in a mysterious manner and didn't state what exactly her business in Kusari are, and, most important, why are she sitting in a Rheinland bomber on a tradelane.
Quite a long conversation ensued, in which we tried to find out what the situation is about and what should we expect from this vessel.
What we found, is that this person originally belonged to Golden Chrysanthemums, but left them for Bretonia prior to war. The ship she got as a present from some privateer. Ship itself is not a standard Rheinland model, but is slightly modified.
(About at this time Shōi Hijikata Toshizo reported to the location)
As it went on, we understood that this person blames the Kusari for starting a war, and tried to question us of our loyalties. That we found unacceptable.
Takeshi offered the pilot a chance to leave the system peacefully. Offer was refused and a fight ensued.
Just as I started combat, I felt my Chimarea shacking and its lights flickering. Apparently, the technicians were wrong about the condition of my craft. Since there were other two KNF pilots on scene, I reported the system failure and disengaged. I made it about 17k from site of battle toward planet Honshu, when my systems blacked out completely, leaving me drifting in space for several hours till I managed to get the emergency generator to work.
![[Image: weekdaysig1.png]](http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/8526/weekdaysig1.png)