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Today's patrol was exceptionally hellish, it gave us a nice introduction on what awaits us if we intensify our Omega-11 operations. Certainly Daumann could have picked a better place to set up their mining operations at, considering that an entire fleet of Red Hessians and Corsairs alike decided to join us in our little radiation bath. It's truly a divine wonder that we lost no men.
At 1318, a patrol consistent of me, Leutnant Meyer and Leutnant Kreuzchen entered Omega-7, sweeping the system and finding it clean of any malignancy.
At 1331, we entered Omega-11 to do a routine sweep which did not end as routine as I hoped.
Me and Leutnant Meyer, my sole wingman at that point started doing a circle around the sun to reach the newly discovered mining field on the other side of the system. In a few minutes, we ran across a mining vessel under a Hessian designation, obviously with stolen diamonds in its hold, heading into an asteroid field rapidly.
We engaged the vessel as it made its escape and it lead us to a heavily armed asteroid platform, the armaments of which we chiefly deterred to fire at the mining vessel itself. However, before we made any notable progress with the miner's destruction (as an addition to the fact that it had rapid-firing AAA defense turrets), numerous Red Hessian escort fighters materialized from among the asteroids. Me and Meyer suddenly found ourselves against approximately six Hessian very heavy fighters, some of IMG make.
I immediately called for backup, not only were we heavily outnumbered, but the radiation levels emitted by the sun also rapidly ate up our hull. Thankfully, our men were quick with getting to the field, several more Rheinwehr vessels arrived before the firefight erupted.
We made out a pattern between the opposing force, apparently we were facing two separate Red Hessian divisions, one the Red Hessian Army, the other one the Rot Front, a mixed group consistent of several IMG rebels and their equipment.
After successfully neutralizing two of the Rot Front vessels and engaging the Red Hessian Army in a more lengthy encounter, a pair of Corsair dreadnaughts materialized from amongst the asteroid fields, their intentions at that point were unknown, but they caused both fighting forces to raise their heads.
Determined by their transmissions, we concluded that the Corsairs were specifically intending to neutralize the Rheinwehr part of the battlefield, which the Hessians either ignored deliberately or were not keen on happening. At any rate, both forces disengaged and headed to neutralize the Corsair capital ships, the CNS Fratria and the Carlos Sombrero.
During the engagement, more Rot Front vessels, up to the size of a Zephyr-class emerged to assist, but the Corsairs successfully neutralized quite a huge amount of the Hessian force, including the Zephyr itself, not necessarily to our sorrow.
The arrival of a third dreadnaught caused most of the stir, luckily it disappeared before delivering any damage and was simply some sort of repair ship which recharged the defense systems of the Carlos Sombrero.
The final conclusion was that the Corsair forces were nullified and the Red Hessians took heavy casualties. The Red Hessian commander decided it would be wise of them to retreat and defend a certain "Freital" he mentioned, the MND will determine what that exactly is. Our men were exhausted and our ships were damaged both by gunfire and radiation, so I gave the order not to pursue the revolutionaries, but to return to the Karlsruhe instead.
At 1428, we left Omega-11 after conducting a successful cleanup of the system. Hellish it may be, this area certainly needs more attention.
Finally, this image summarizes the altogether stance of things the most accurately, courtesy of Leutnant Meyer:
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