To: BAF Merchant Navy | Sender: Atrum Exercitus

Adamandem online.
Greetings, glorious Bretonian Armed Forces and their brave Merchant Navy.

I'm sure, we never been contacted since our group have been created. Let me introduce ourselves.
Our organization has name Atrum Exercitus. It is crooked Latin name translates as "Black Army" existing for a years and mostly working in Tau worlds. Last events forced our wings to change location closer to Liberty-Bretonia borders and local people more and more often meeting our pilots.
First of all, I apologize for some actions which my people did against your soldiers: I didn't order them to fly into deep Bretonia space. Last encounter with Gallic squadron teached them how to avoid orders.
Your pilots could consider us as group of pirates and they're right. You can hate us, try to arrest my people or kill them, but you should understand one thing - piracy is our only way to survive after losing home, work and family.

So why I contacting with You? Gallia is our common enemy. Gallia is reason why we are illegal and hiding ourselves beyond civilization in ice rocks and IMG mines. And we want to avenge 'em for that. We asking you to ignore our ships when you see them on scanners and I give you guarantee we won't touch Merchant Naval ships and Bretonian civilian ships within Bretonia space. Unless, I cannot guarantee Independent traders will be safe, because simply they can be spies or smugglers. We monitored a large smuggler's activity within Independent Worlds, so you have been warned.

Also, we could hide our real group identify being lonely Freelancers and help you against Gallic Naval ships in systems beyond Houses. This is unusual move for me but cruel times changing everything.

Sender disconnected...

Hello again, sir McIntire, Mendacium online.

First of all, I want to solve the problem with the "names".
Our community consists of a diverse population. In our ranks, there are also simple clerks with LD-14 and defectors from the Gallic fleet. You, as an admiral, must understand the importance of maintaining anonymity in a hybrid war, led by us, Atrum Exercitus.
Declassification and free distribution of names, positions and various personal confidential information can bring troubles and undesirable attention to our personalities. Let the backbone of our army consist of Bretonians who lost their families and homes at the slaughter in Leeds - we also have those who have relatives and friends.
After all, the search for vulnerabilities in the ranks of the enemy is an important task of any hostile agents.
It would be very unpleasant to learn that, for example, Royal Intelligence is trying to blackmail our people, threatening to kill their loved ones.
Draw an analogy with the current special-forces of Houses. I very much doubt that the BIS agents represent their names to everyone on the spot.
Hope for understanding.

If you do not know how to contact us - just imagine that Atrum Exercitus is a person.
We are very democratic among ourselves, therefore somehow - when you talk to one person, you talk with a whole organization.

Well, now let's get to the point.
Our group represents the co-operative victims of the Gallic invasion of Bretonia. I would not say that we are all Bretons - in our ranks, there are both persons from Gaul and Liberty.
We do not have the resources to organize "heavy" resistance to the invaders. I will be honest with you - we do not even see a need for it. We are quite satisfied with the several squadrons and we improve our skills in their use.

I believe that we need to clarify one point - our piracy.

The Bretonia Government must understand that running away from the planet under massive fire is not the best way to gather thoughts and things. Each of us managed to capture a certain amount of money and later buy a ship. However, life makes you think about buying food, water, shelter, clothes and various consumer goods. We could not afford a merchant fleet, so everything was reduced to such a sad work. Nevertheless, we are ready to postpone piracy aside, if such is the price of the union.

So, Atrum Exercitus can guarantee you the inviolability of official Bretonia ships throughout the zone of influence, help in eliminating a common enemy - Gallia, as well as compliance with the laws of Bretonia in the territory under its control.

However, we reserve the right to pursue an independent policy, to conduct a robbery policy with regard to merchant ships of independent traders (excluding the Liberty ships) who by "lucky" chance happened to be in the border worlds and who do not carry an important diplomatic mission with respect to Bretonia. We will also continue to rob ships carrying contraband goods, even if they are ships of Bretonia. You must understand that stealing from thieves is not stealing.

I do not think that the Admiralty will disdain to get a few squadron to help if they can not destroy the battleships, so to divert some of the forces themselves. And, of course, undermine the economy of Gallia. Furthermore, we perfectly know, how to fly in the Tau space stealthfully to avoid detection, coordinates of hidden jumpholes and good places to make an ambush.

Hard times require unusual, wild and strongly risky ways to do small step for our common victory.

We await your response.