To: [TAZ], CC: The Council of Dons

We were on our way back to Alpha from a classified mission and upon entering Coronado we were intercepted by a Colonial Thanatos Class cruiser. We exchange short words, and the captain of the Colonial vessel proceeds to engage us. Due to the low visibility in Coronado we hail the captain just to be sure he is actually firing at us, as there was one of those awkward moments of silence where I thought he would be giving us some verbal insults or state his reason to kill us. None of that, but he confirms he is firing on us. The surroundings are sub-optimal for our ship, so we decide to tactically retreat to the closest system (without opening fire), which happened to be Baffin.

The Colonial takes up the pursuit, and I realize that we won't be able to keep distance to him for long due to the asteroid fields in Baffin and in the Tau's as well. Our ship is substantially larger than the sleek Thanatos and have a habit of getting stuck in asteroid fields. So when we exit the asteroid field in Baffin, we send a few transmissions to the Colonial and rip his shield. He verbally confirms that he is defending his ship (although he could of course have hit cruise and left, that's far more effective than using his guns). We go back and forth a bit, the superior speed of the cruiser enables him to come in for a few shots and then run when his shields are lowered. Our engines are being disrupted while this takes place.

Junker Crow arrives at the Tau-29 jumphole, our ship is in reverse and about 5K from the Colonial, awaiting his moves. When the cruiser keeps coming in close, we fire to ward him off. The Junker sits and watches for a little while, it must have been quite uneventful for him. He later confirmed that we were in fact "going at it" when he arrived. This is of course a central piece of information, as your captains later kept claiming the Colonial never fired a shot, even though your ships were only present for the last tenth or so of the actual fight.

Moments later, your [TAZ]The.Ashira arrives and I greet the captain politely, and he replies with the words (and I quote) "This is your one chance Outcast. GET OUT OF BAFFIN". Hardly appropriate seeing that I am defending my ship and crew from an aggressor that at any point could have hit cruise and abandoned his assassination attempt. The Colonial even took advantage of me seizing fire to state my amazement of the surprising lack of judgement, he nearly ripped our shields. We fire a few shots back at the Colonial, and when I realize the captain of the cruiser is going to keep coming at us, that he thinks that this is his chance, I order my crew to destroy his ship in self-defense even though I was busy conversing with you. The only safe solution, and I would make the same decision again without flinching - for the sake of your crews, I hope you as captains would too.

Naturally I can sense the animosity from the captain of [TAZ]The.Ashira and the couple of cruisers he called in, and I start to make way to the Tau-29 jumphole hoping we could put this unfortunate situation behind us, at which point the captain of the [TAZ]The.Ashira shouts to Junker Crow to stop my ship, which he of course doesn't. I politely wait on the other side of the jumphole to inform the captain that he could just have hailed me, and I would have stopped. I am trying my best to clear up this misunderstanding, but your captains seemed very determined that shots should be fired even though I was clearly showing my good intentions by waiting in Tau-29 on the other side of the jumphole. At this point I had enough of the commotion, and order my crew to engage cruise. Your captains make a few attempts at disrupting us, but fail at that. It is my firm belief that they would have opened fire had I stayed around any longer.

1. Because the Colonial contacted you, you assume he must be right and I must be lying. Now if you are somewhat familiar with the crime fiction genre, you will know why this is a very elementary erroneous assumption.

2. You assume that because this Colonial is so-called "Lawful" and us Outcasts are "Unlawful", he is right and I am lying. Had you witnessed half of the acts of the Colonials in the Tau's, you would know what monsters you now have as neighbours. In time you will realize this too, sadly.

3. You assume you have sufficient combat experience to assess the situation adequately. Yet you try to lecture me about how a cruiser is not a threat to a Battleship (and therefore I must be the aggressor) and how cruisers aren't meant to be fighing anything bigger than gunboats. Let me tell you those Pulse Cannons mounted on that Thanatos are not meant to be hitting gunboats.

4. You assume that the fact that our ship was without a Cruise Disruptor is a minor detail. However if you ask around your combat-hardened friends and allies, they will tell you that a ship without a cruise disruptor cannot single-handedly combat a ship that do not want a fight. It's really the crux of the matter - the Colonial was in Baffin fighting me because he chose and desired to do so, and not because I in any way forced the confrontation. Even if I wanted to, my ship isn't technically capable of doing so!