My name is Lucian Perez, second officer and now acting captain of the INS-Torment. I always dreamt of commanding my own vessel for the Legion; fighting for true Liberty, naive idealism of youth. The captain, may whatever entity passes for a god in this universe have mercy on his soul, dedicated his very life to this cause, only to die to medical causes. Something that could've easily been discovered and prevented with a routine examination at that.

And now I find myself acting captain of the Torment at the cusp of a major confrontation between the Legion and Liberty; the fight to save the brave men and women of the Separatists in Bering. A glorious chance to prove the competence of myself and the crew, or at least, it would have been, had we been given the chance.

Orders came in an hour ago; the Torment is to patrol the Kansas system and ensure the fleet has a safe route back after the fight, that's the official reason anyway. It's clear they don't want a green captain on the frontline, the frustration of the crew is palpable, but they understand the job needs to be done.

Maybe we'll get lucky and get to take down some fool who decided to chase the separatist refugees.

It has been slightly over a week since the Legion marched to meet the Liberty Navy in the Bering system, and since my sudden elevation to acting captain.
While the Torment was regretably held back from the frontlines, we performed our duties keeping the passageway from the Texas jump hole to Vespuci clear of any pursuers. The Separatist refugees have made it past us safely, but the lack of military vessels was a surprise to say the least.

Reports have come in that the Commonwealth has declared the Legion fleet rogue for going into Bering. Just saying that sentence outloud makes me want to take a cold shower and try to wake up from whatever illusion I've found myself in. I've managed to keep the news from the crew for now, only senior staff is aware of this turn of events.

According to the refugees, their military, as well as the vast majority of the Legions fleet, have banded together and set course for home via a detour through the California system. The crew is anxious to hear what happened in Bering, what happened to their brothers, sisters and friends who fought on the frontlines.

I will leave them in blissful ignorance for now regarding the treason accusations, hopefully we will receive word from the fleet soon.

Things took a darker turn since yesterday; the Commonwealth has called out for the immediate surrender of the Legion fleet and for their officers to stand trial as mutineers.
The fleet responded with two major declarations of their own:

• The Commonwealth government is to be dissolved for treason;
  
• The Hellfire Legion and Separatist forces will combine under a new flag; The LIberty Insurgency.
  

The Insurgency fleet is rumored to have launched an attack on Willard Research Station, not a bad move honestly, leaving fire and ash in their wake to slow down their pursuers. No doubt the move will remind Liberty of the assault on the station that happened 27 years ago, I wonder if they'll try and cover it up this time.
That said, it is only a matter of time before the fleet arrives in Vespucci and things will come to a head between them and the civilian government of the Commonwealth.

There has always been a bit of a disconnect between the civilian government of the Commonwealth and the Hellfire Legion, but I never thought things would escalate to this degree. Now I find myself with the crew looking to me for a decision on which side we'll back, the government or our brothers in arms under the banner of this new Liberty Insurgency. While my initial gut tells me to side with the fleet, I don't want to rush this decision. It will have consequences for not only me, but everyone on this ship.

I'm holding meeting with senior staff this afternoon to discuss the matter, hopefully everyone will be on the same page.

The meeting went as well as I could have hoped, all things considered. The majority of the senior staff agreed with siding with the Insurgency fleet, those who opposed have been detained and confined to quarters until after this matter is handled. I have no intent on seeing former comrades harmed for their beliefs, but we cannot risk losing the element of surprise at this crucial stage.

The Commonwealth is unaware of our decision and there's a realistic chance that any of the traitors will try to escape Vespucci via the Kansas system, where we've been stuck patrolling ever since I became acting captain of the Torment. It will prove to be a good opportunity to capture them as they're trying to jump ship, preferably without violence, so they can be held accountable for their actions. In preparation I've ordered additional fighter patrols to be launched, we'll have to do everything we can to ensure not a single ship makes it through.

Unfortunately this also means we aren't currently able to inform the rest of the Fleet of our intentions; any form of communication, encrypted or not, could tip off the members of the Commonwealth that something is up.

Here's hoping the Fleet doesn't show up here first.

I find myself making this next log entry later than I would have liked, much has happened since my last.
The civilian government of the Commonwealth has fallen, overall the population welcomed the Insurgency fleet as heroes while the traitor politicians fled. That's what the official news outlets are broadcasting, at any rate. I think it foolish to take such reportings at face value, though I do hope it is mostly true. War time propoganda is hardly the most trustworthy source of information after all.

As expected several of the disgraced politicians tried to flee through the Kansas system; our fighter patrols moved to intercept. Some of them put up a fight, shouting nonsense about how surrendering meant certain death, odd how they chose death over a fair trial. Fortunately most of the ones that were caught were wise enough to surrender, they're currently being held in the brig.

I have informed the crew we will remain for one more day to see if any more stragglers show up, after that we'll be heading home to Veracruz to hand over the traitors to the new, proper, authorities.

I'm happy to report that this is my first log entry as proper captain of the INS-Torment. The Liberty Insurgency was very pleased with our initiative in the Kansas system, though there is still plenty of work to be done. Current events haven't left the crew unaffected, a not insignificant portion of the crew sympathized with the Commonwealth after all. As such our numbers have been supplemented by fresh recruits from across the Insurgency; I think we even have some former Separatists onboard now.

While some onboard have concerns about what will happen with our former brothers and sisters in arms that refused to rise up against the corruption of the Commonwealth, the Insurgency command reassured us the prisoners would be treated fairly. We'll simply have to find comfort in that while we continue on with our duties, for time stops for no man and Liberty is as much as a threat as ever.

The Torment is to be deployed to Magellan and hit the supply lines between Liberty and Bretonia, we'll be avoiding civilian ships as best we can, though if we find a convoy clearly carrying military supplies we might have little choice but to obtain it from them. The one thing any organization needs are proper supply lines, and while this is far from a secure way to obtain the supplies needed, every little bit helps at this stage.

I'm so glad we're finally out of Kansas.

It has been roughly a month since my last entry, when the Torment was deployed to the Magellan system. As ordered, we have been hitting the supply lines coming through the system, seizing what military hardware and supplies we can. I must confess I was surprised by how smoothly it went at first, I guess Liberty was more caught off guard by the assault on Willard than I originally expected. The convoys we ran in at first had some minimal protection; enough for fighting off potential pirates easily enough, but not a planned military strike.

The Insurgency sends the occasional freighters to come collect what we've gathered and take it back to be redistributed in Vespucci, a good chunk of the fleet was damaged during the Bering assault and following events, so the supplies help speed up the repairs nicely. After the first two weeks however things started to heat up; they started using heavier assets as escorts for the convoys and soon our fighter wings were facing gunboats instead of lighter fight craft. We lost Ramirez that day. This turn of events put me in a difficult position; do I engage with the Torment and take out the gunboats, but reveal such a heavy asset was in the system, or do I trust that the fighters will manage to break off and get back safely?

In the end the mission was what mattered most, we needed supplies and if Liberty found out they were dealing with the Torment rather than an organized group of fighter pilots, we could be sure that the next convoy would have even deadlier escorts, or worse, they might send out part of their fleet to take us down. As such I had little choice but to monitor the comms and instruct the pilots to come back under the cover of the Wendell Ice Field.

Having experienced the bitter taste of our first defeat, I called a meeting with my senior staff to discuss our options going forward. It was clear a new strategy would be needed.
Utilizing The Barrier wasn't much of an option unfortunately; the field has a decent Lane Hacker presence and while they generally left us alone we didn't particularly feel interested in dividing the spoils for their potential assistance. In the end we decided to go with a more...creative approach. The Magellan system is littered with wrecks from the Gallic war, abandoned and gathering space dust. Our fighters towed one near the lanes and lined it up with explosives before causing a brief disruption in the lane.

It wasn't a pretty sight, and it was far from what I would call a heroic engagement. We waited for escorts to clear the wreckage so they could continue on with the trade lane and once they got close enough, we triggered the explosions. It wasn't enough to clear them out, but it definitely softened them up enough so the fighter wings that had been hiding could swoop in and finish the job.

It seems we sometimes have to do things we're not proud of in order to serve the greater good.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Liberty Navy would find out we were here, they may be incompetent but even they would eventually be able to put two and two together. A week ago we detected a significant increase in Navy patrols in the Wendell Ice Field, no doubt investigating the increase in raids on their supply lines ever since the Torments deployment in the system. Eventually one patrol ship stumbled upon us, seemingly coming out of nowhere. I ordered my tactical officer to open fire and take it out, which succeeded, but not before it had sent out a distress call. We knew reinforcements would be on their way.

I ordered the Torment deeper into the field but in the end it only bought us a few more hours to prepare. Archer class siege cruisers entered pursuit and would eventually catch up to us, at least the asteroids would make it difficult for them to land shots with their potent forward guns. Despite this advantage however, the fight was not pretty. The Torments fighter wings launched to harass the cruisers and their bombers while the Torment opened fire, the cruisers however, were simply more maneuverable, being able to use the asteroids for cover just as well as we could, if not better considering the significant size of the Torment.

At the end of the day the Torment was equipped to deal with military convoys and serve as a mobile base of operations for our fighter wings, our weaponry proved less than optimal against the Liberty cruisers, though they did a decent job of keeping the bombers off of us. Eventually we managed to fight off the cruisers but not without taking significant damage, as well as taking multiple losses to our fighter wings. Given the situation we had little choice but to contact the Insurgency leadership and head back home to Vespucci for repairs.

Hmm, maybe I can convince them to give us a compliment of bombers so we can be more flexible next time.

It took a while before the Torment was back in fighting shape after the confrontation in Magellan, we passed the time by helping unloading incoming shipments as well as performing repairs ourselves. The crew was eager to get back out there after our Pyrrhic victory; shame and determination are powerful motivators, as such many forwent the opportunity for shore leave.

With the Torment back up in action, and the repairs to the rest of the fleet being underway for several months already, the Insurgency is well on its way of having a respectable and fieldable flotilla once more. That said, even with the former Separatists to bolster the fleet, a generous estimate puts the Insurgency forces at roughly half of what it was before the assault in Bering. Once the remaining ships are done with their repairs, assuming we'll have suffered no significant losses in the meantime, expectations are for that percentage to reach the low 70's.

I believe the fleet did the right thing, saving the Separatists in Bering during Liberty's assault, but there's no denying the Legion paid a hefty price for doing so.
At any rate, the Torment has been ordered into the Inverness system, the Junkers of Invergordon Space Port reached out saying they had something of interest. It must be pretty important for an Arbiter to be deployed to collect it. We'll be doing some posturing in the system as cover, make the local groups think we're just trying to remind them of who's sphere of influence they live in.

Oh, and I'm glad to mention the higherups saw fit to provide us with that bomber contingent I requested. Next time Liberty thinks they'll have an easy time taking on the Torment they'll be in for a nasty surprise.