Today's events began with an attack upon Maltese space. The aggressors were not people we traditionally find in our home system, but they were enemies nonetheless. The
Order sent a fighter wing of
four ships, three of which were light fighters, and one a heavier snubcraft. The Lance raised several defense ships, our largest mobilization to date. The pilots are as follows:
- Alessan Contari, Comandante
- Rina Como-Contari, Familiare
- Raphael Visconti, Lanciere
- Marcio Castro, Fanteria
- Marco Santoro, Fanteria
- Valerio Arduino, Fanteria
- Camila Petrucci, Non Lanciere, Though a member of the [75th], she topped off the defense and fought with the Lance.
They lost one light fighter in Omicron Alpha, and pulled back to
Tau-37. We pursued them, though we took heavy losses after jumping, losing
Valerio, Raphael, and
Camila.
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Fortunately, our losses served a purpose, and we managed to take down their heavier fighter and a
mercenary eagle who arrived to help them. The surviving fighters fled to
Tau-23, where we broke the engagement and returned home. On an additional important note, the
[101st] were nowhere to be found throughout the entirety of our defense operation.
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Hours later, I received a distress call from signora
Como, claiming that she was engaged with five attacking ships. According to her, though the
[101st] were nearby, they denied her assistance. I arrived quickly after receiving the message, though by then some of the fighting ships were disengaged, with only three hostiles remaining. I immediately moved in to assist her, firing on
Anna McCarthy. However, to our confusion, seconds after I engaged, the
[101st] at the scene demanded we give her safe passage out of the system and cease our fire. We obeyed, but when we asked for an explanation, we were met with riddles.
We jumped to
Tau-37 to ensure
McCarthy would fly back to Java and cease her operations in our space. She and her comrade, an unimportant member of the
Council began firing on
Como when we jumped, and the engagement resumed. Once again, we received no help from the
[101st].
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Eventually, they ceased firing and broke off, running to
Tau-23. Shortly afterwards the newest incarnation of the
La Villa Strangiato arrived, and I prepared the
Trieste for departure with a hold full of
Orange. Things went relatively well, we ran into a little bit of conflict in Liberty, but I managed to pay a freelancer to handle what we ran into for us, and we left unscathed. We made it back to Malta safe and sound, with a quite a few credits to show for it.
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With the current state of the
[101st] and the increase of activity in the
Dublin system, I believe now's the time to shift operations toward
Bretonia. I'll see if I can talk to the Bretonian government about our presence there.