Bretonian Armed Forces Defense Intelligence Staff (DIS) (iRP) (AO)

[l3wt]

Connection secured.

Transmission source: Lieutenant James Arland.

Boosting signal...

WARNING. PILOT HAS INVOKED EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS

UPLOADING SHIP DAMAGE REPORT

SHIP TYPE: B-1290 TEMPLAR VHF

CALLSIGN: SABRE-4

MAIN REACTOR NONFUNCTIONAL

ALL THRUSTERS OFFLINE

ALL WEAPONS SYSTEMS AND COUNTERMEASURES OFFLINE

PILOT LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING

PILOT VITALS STABLE

END OF AUTOMATED REPORT

Uploading guncam imagery from blackbox...

Done.

Incoming audio stream...

-Static and heavy breathing can be heard, then the transmission stabilizes-

-ommand? ...Command, do you read? This is Lieutenant Arland here, callsign Sabre-4. I hope this transponder still works... Damn it. Frakker got me good, the entire right side of my bird is gone, poof. Got two hull breaches here, stray bits of newly created junk from when the bastard knocked me out of the sky. Emergency seals have clamped down, but I got two bits of searing hot metal through my leg to show for it.

-Nervous, half pained laugh-

Merely a flesh wound. I managed to stop the bleeding just now, not a hell of a lot else I can do now that I've drifted into a neat, stable orbit around Planet Dover, current position... Far side from the installations as far as I can tell. Ejection systems have shut down because of the aforementioned depressurization and my flight suit breach.

-sigh-

I'm sort of stuck here now. Man. Space is just so quiet without the auditory emulators engaged. I... really hope someone recieving this.

I mean, damn, I'm in system New London, after all. You can't go ten klicks without stumbling across someone in service to the crown.

But enough about my possibly impending doom, what's of interest to the brass is how I ended up here. Maybe talking about that will help calm my nerves.

It started off so simple, too. I launched for routine duty, linked up comms without Lieutenant Hobart. Then suddenly he reports a number of red contacts in Cambridge. So I head out, enlist a couple of Bowex security birds for support, and arrive on-scene, finding SCRA ships attacking our forces. LT Hobart calls off the extra two guys, and I joined the fray.

After a rather inconclusive struggle (that was mostly in our favour by the end) the SCRA vessels broke and ran towards Omega-3. When we reached the ice cloud, Hobart called off the attack, but I had a nasty feeling we hadn't seen the worst of it yet.

Shortly after I had returned to regular duty after this first engagement, we got contact reports yet again.

More SCRA, this time in force.

They weren't the only ones who'd bulked up their troop strength, though. The Intelligence chaps came to help us out, as well as some MMs, both parties proved indispensable in the massive snowballing fight that followed.

Dear me, but that was crazy. Fighting in an ice field, what were we all thinking?

I saw one of our birds go down, but we got at least two of theirs...

After that it was slowly beginning to become more clear who was winning the engagement. It sure wasn't them, at any rate.

We chased them off, off to Omega-5. I was briefly on the other side of the jump hole... I remember seeing an installation there, just on the other side, in plain sight. I hope I live to see them getting cleaned out.

Anyway, that was the end of that. We returned home as the victors.

But of course, Lady Luck wouldn't have any of that, and sent a bunch of 'sairs our way in New London.

I got one, blew the crap out of him with a nukemine.

But then we lost two guys before we knew what the hell hit us, and I got careless with the bomber... He got me with one of his heavy weapons, turned maybe half of my Templar into vapour and now I'm sitting here in its carcass.

Lost contact with everyone else when that happened.

-Another deep breath-

Well, that's that. Now I'm here. Made the report. Now I think I'll just go to sleep. Let the life support systems do their job, you know, and uh... Well. Hope I wake up again. Would be great, you know, command, if you chaps don't let me die out here.

Out.

Audio cut.

Transmission end.

Looping broadcast...