04-27-2017, 10:14 PM
Incoming Transmission
Vessel Name: Kleves, Oder Gunboat
Author: Captain Eckart Fried, der Alster Union.
Subject: A New Commission
It’s been a pleasure to take on the vessel as her fourteenth commander. She’s old, but she’s still got the fire they promised. A step away from flying Condors, thin as paper bags - she has a skin of steel. You can see the resilience bursting out of every polished out burn mark, every dusting of space debris over the windows.
We had expected problems with the forward shield array, but she’s held the worst the Sudnebel could ware. Helm, I handpicked myself - any rogue can play at gunnery, but a ship’s survival is measured by how the flight stick is handled.
The crew is more skittish than I could have hoped. Many of them have been raked together from raiding parties - a few are openly uncomfortable with any sense of a chain of command. These… outworlders - they lack the tenacity of the Pacifica stock. I have advised the Commissar to be judicious - positive behaviour will be rewarded with positive rationing. Get a man to think with his stomach, and you own his soul.
We were careful to keep our route through Dresden keep to the head five - we’re stacking a full fifteen crew, but our reactive armour suite has yet to be filled with ablative packs. It means we’re down to our structural hull - and she’s a firm one - but will be of little use until her sensors are reclaibrated. The chaos in Koeln has wrecked havoc with the nerves of the weaker men - on other vessels, some are jumping at sensor ghosts, given the chance.
I will be careful to ensure we have none of that here. Wedel crew or not, we will remain tenacious in action. We are the Union’s best - our posting proves as much, and we will enforce the will of the Directorate wherever our ventures take us.
That is, of course, if our course holds true. Dresden was a dangerous system before the war - Stuttgart, almost as much. There remain rumours that the less sympathetic elements of the LWB have been selling our navigation data to the Hesse. We will be vigilant.
Once we have arrived at Koeln, I will be sure to write again.
For the Union.
Eckhart Freid
Voarbeiter, Koeln Cell, Krefeld Base.
Transmission Ended