Andre Moire sit at its table in Leiden base, at Galileo system, looking through the windows to the ion clouds outside, and holding a coffee cup.
Andre: Synthethic coffee, again? Thought you had arranged for real coffee smuggled from Denver, Paul.
Paul: Sorry, sir, but this was not possible since the incident at Nelson refinery.
Andre: Ok, what you have for me now?
Paul: The files about the Phalanx, sir. We arrranged to bring it to you.
Paul throws a datafile in the table.
Andre get the data file eargely: Finally.
Andre connects the cable in his head and close the eyes. All the information is uploaded directly to his brain, the sensation of slumbeness possess his body from top head to feet.
Navy Directory <top_secret>, subject: The Phalanx
At <data_blurred> the Navy created, by comission of minister Raul Berger, the special operative called the Phalanx. The operative consists in five ships and a division of 150 marines with the most advanced equipment in the navy and trained to board any station.
The reason was to counteract the outcast presence at Colorado. They had build a huge base from where they deployed three destroyers at an attack on Pueblo Station. All patrols were put in high alert, but nobody was able to find the location of the station. After two months Raul Berger proposed the creation of the operative.
The division was consisted in the dreadnought Theseus, two cruisers, the Perseus and the Odysseus, and two gunboats, the Achilles and the Herakles. Plus two wings of 15 fighters each. High intelligence personell was located inside the Theseus, and they managed to find the secret base. The mission was successful, and the outcast threat was no more present at Colorado, except for the usual piracy. The leader of the operative was admiral Dom Claus, an exceptional strategist and specialized in fighting the nomads on Alaska.
However, the costs of the operative was going high. A reallocation was necessary, and they were deployed in Alaska and Omicron Minor, where, besides the nomads, they fought against the Order too.
Some months after, Raul Berger was assassinated. Everybody in the high sections of the congress knowns that were <data_blurred> and <data_blurred> who were doing deals with smugglers of nomad brains and financing horrible experiments in secret bases located at Pittsburg. Possible connections with the Junkers were found, but the deputies were not accused, since they had hot backs.
Dom Claus did not tolerate such deals. Abiding by his oath to protect Liberty, he decided to tell others in the navy what was happening, including his captains of the Perseus and Odysseus, that is, Henry Scuttari and Paul Austin. A fierce battle followed when two nomad battleships appeared on Pittsburg, backed with several nomad fighters. The Achilles was destroyed, and the members of its crew that survived were captured by the nomads. Dom Claus was charged for incompetence, and in its trial he decided to show the information about all the corruption and dirtness going on in the Manhattan congress. He was imprisoned and, after a mock trial, executed. His crew was arrested, but his lieutenant managed to alert the others about what was happening. The Theseus was decomissioned and its parts sold.
Henry Scuttari took control of the operative and they escaped to the Alaska system, where they were backed by some officers of the Navy, who supplied their ships. However, the LSF asked for the Navy for his arrest. After hiding for some months, the Phalanx was obliged to face a Navy squadron with 4 dreadnoughts, 8 cruisers and more than 50 fighters. The Odysseus was destroyed in Alaska, the remaining fleet escaped to New York and then to Galileo, where they used the clouds to hide one more time. Paul Austin and part of the crew onboard the Odysseus was retrieved to the Perseus.
The navy officers who were supplying the Phalanx were caught and arrested. One of them, major Conrad Johnson, was executed in another mock trial. This got Henry Scuttari very angry, as they were long standing friends. He planned a attack on Pueblo Station, and help was offered by a wing of lane hackers leadered by Vur-X. Vur-X was captured in the attack and interrogated with torture. He revealed the position were the ships were hiding in Galileo, and after that he was executed with poison.
Another battle ensued, and a serious defeat for the Phalanx. The Perseus and the Herakles were destroyed, all their crews were captured and passed in a mock trial that lasted six months. They were executed with torture involving chemicals. However, Henry Scuttari escaped, using a code offered by a nurse who was attending in the hospital of the prison, located at California Minor, where the crews were being tortured. The nurse felled pity for his suffering and she was daughter of a navy officer who sympathized with the Phalanx.
After that, Scuttari conducted terrorist actions against the navy, allied with guerrilas at California Minor. Navy installations were destroyed with bombs, but there were no civilian targets. The LSF, however, managed to find the location were Scuttaris wife was hiding, at planet Houston, and captured her, sending her to the care of navy officers who hold personal vendettas with Henry. Deanna Scuttari was tortured with all sorts of chemicals, and she got crazy, being sended to a mental institution, a mad house located in a isolated spot in planet Houston. Henry leaded a rescue team, but when they arrived, Nigel Torazin, a navy officer and one of the worst Henrys enemies, killed her at his front. After a fight involving guns and knifes, Nigel Torazin was killed by Henry, but this was not enough to bring Deanna back. Scuttari burned the institution to the ground, after freeing all its prisoners. He was not seem since that, and files regarding him were deleted to ensure no investigation was to be conducted about his life.
<updated>
Twelve years passed, the nomads were expelled back to the rim, and the administration of the navy changed since. Nonetheless, <data_blurred> and <data_blurred> were still holding power on the congress, now as senators elected by majority vote.
Scuttari returned, with a complete refitted Perseus, now a outcast destroyer. He is determined to destroy the navy and will target civilians if necessary. All the navy was alerted about his presence in Liberty space. He is now a lane hacker and is using their technology to spread misinformation in Liberty.
<data_ends>
Andre: We need more information, Paul.
Paul: Well, sir, I talked with Oshima Takahashi who is now his lieutenant.
Andre: Oshima? I already met him, before Scuttaris return.
Paul: Was Laerte who put Scuttari in the lane hackers sir, after recommendation by the Mactan council.
Andre: Laerte died five years ago. I see in the files that Scuttari stayed four years out of any activity until recently during the war between the navy and the asgardians. I need to known what he was doing during all that time. What Oshima told you?
Paul: Henry was living with the zoners during four years.
Andre: What? The zoners?!
Paul: He was in need of some peace after all the trauma caused by his wifes death. He was on alcohol remember?
Andre: Yes I known he had became an alcoholic, and a drug user too. Congratulations for him to have get rid of those, because I cant get rid of the cardamine.
Paul: Oshima told me about money stealed from some liberty firms using hacked accounts. This money was handed to Henry and he decided to put Perseus back into business.
Andre: Who stealed this money?
Paul: A lane hacker from Mactan, sir. Codename is Thames.
Andre: Raphael Thames.
Paul: Yes.
Andre: Well done. Thames always impressed me. Although he dont known how to pilot a stilleto, he is good with code-breaking.
Paul: The irony is that this money was hold in a account in the BHG before being handed to Henrys account.
Andre laughs out loud. He looks at the ion clouds, and he taste more of the coffee. Ah, we are brilliant, he thinks.
Henry enter in the fine decorated room inside a big building in the middle of a colony in planet Hamburg. The red carpet decorated in golden details, the pictures and furniture all very signs of luxury. The big clean glass face the white desert of snow behind a desk, where, in a chair, a sinister executive look at distance. He turns to Henry and smile:
Henry: So, what is the deal? You said me to come here.
Director: I want you to bring this data file to Yanagi base.
Henry: Junkers?
Director: The ALG dont like junkers, true, but we want these data being hold by themand dont you dare to connect your neural net to it, its important information about the military, encoded so that only the right people can connect to it. If you try to connect to it, your brain will burn.
Henry leaves the room, his face showing disgust. He boards back to the ship, and Oshima look at him and show to him in the screen the incoming transmission from Leiden base. Moments after Henry is not only angry but surprised.
Moire: So, Henry, I want to recreate the Phalanx.
Henry: You want what?
The hologram displayed in the middle of the comission room shows a man in nice executive dress, but not so nice as the one of the ALG guyMoire is a business man and do all kind of deal to bring the navy down to its knees, he knewn he will never succeed but he can die trying.
Moire: Well, you put the Perseus back, right? So will not put all the others?
Henry: All officers are dead, only me survived.
Moire: We can arrange new ones. New crews. There are lot of people dissatisfied in the navy and ready to join the hackers.
Henry: Send them to the Hellfire Legion. I dont want to put the Phalanx back, Moire. It was Bergers idea not mine, I was just following my ordersand even Berger is now dead because ofwell, I dont want to talk about that. This is the past.
Moire: So, I think about the future. The navy is growing more than you can imagine, and even division is happening in their ranks.
Henry: Better that, then. We dont have money to put the ships back, and Thames is busy with other deals. So I say no to that. We already have a destroyer and Oshima is my lieutenant. If you cant trust on me you can trust on him.
Moire: But I trust you, we already had talked about that.
Henry: My answer is no. Have a nice day, Moire.
Henry turns off the channels and sit in his chair.
Oshima: Where now?
Henry: Well, lets return to Liberty space, our home, and shot at some cowboys.
Oshima: Sir, we have orders to shot the corsairs too.
Henry: Yeah, lets do that. But I will not dare to go to Omicron Gamma without some support. I known, Moire want that, butlets do it differently, not put old things back.
Oshima: So, we return to Liberty or not?
Henry: I dont known, let me think
The ship strives on the space, heading through the clouds of Sigma 13 to a unknown destination.
Comm ID: Henry Scuttari, captain of the Perseus, personal log, 25/3/whatever
Begin Entry
This sunday was a great day for our crew. We had victories and defeats, and lots of fun.
First, we came out through Texas and destroyed [SA]-Tod"Maniac"Marshal, who was flying a fighter. He ejected his escape pod and was immediately hospitalized. Pity on this ensign, one day he will discover the dirty in the navy and will open his eyes. But we were just passing to Rheinland space. Fact is, I was heading to Hamburg for the stupid deal that Moire send me to do there with a ALG executive. The moron director gave me a data file that I cant access through my neural net without having a password, and those who try to access it will have their brain burnt. There is nothing in Sirius, in matter of codes, that we cant break into pieces. So I send word to Raphael Thames, but he was busied in Cortez. According to the director this data file contains important information about the rheinland military and should be delivered into junkers hands at Sigma 13.
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Oshima was taking drug again in the toilet. Pity on this lieutenant, one day he will discover the dirty in the use of cardamine and that the hackers dont rise to power because of this s**t. Tanya raised him and put him back into detoxication, he soon got better and was back into the bridge full of energy. So I received word from Moire the moron again, saying about re-creating the Phalanx. Looks like Witz released the files onto his hands and he started his delusions over again. I said no to his proposal and turned down the comm.
Well entering rheinland space we were attacked, or we attacked first, I dont remember. But we destroyed the RNC Weser, was a great vision to my tired eyes after a slepless night. We did a lot of havoc, gunboats and cruisers were destroyed.
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Then we headed to Sigma 13 and delivered the data file safely, but was not just that, we returned to New Berlin and a Helghast junker, named Olsav, helped us in engaging a rheinland police pilot named [RFP]Franz.Eberly. Both of them were in fighters. Franz ejected his escapepod but soon returned with his ship repaired, and was joined by a rheinland military pilot called Meric Freelamen, also in a fighter. Soon we had navigational problems (ooc: lag due to the presence of too much npcs) and tried to atract the two pilots to the Frankfurt gate, after Olsav was forced to retreat back into Sigma. But they dont followed the Perseus, and we returned to Sigma through the trade lanes in Frankfurt.
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Arriving in Sigma 13 we faced the SA doing a expedition in the border worlds. Four of them were detected in this expedition, all capital ships. One of them was in Sigma 13 and called Olsav to battle. We passed to Sigma 19, but before enter the hole the presence of another SA ship was detected in that system. Oshima asked me, maybe he is in the other side of the hole, but I answered, he is probably near the hole to Omicron Beta. And he was really there, not much far from the hole. [SA]-Interceptor started to chase the Perseus, and was a very exciting chase. He shoted lots of cruise disruptors but our pilot evaded all of them. We lost visual contact in the cloud in Beta, but soon he appeared again. Arriving in Alpha we lost sight of him again, perhaps he was spinning in the asteroids, we dont known. But as we landed on Malta, another capital ship was detected in the system. The SA was going to siege Malta to get me. I sold all the pilots into the slave trade and took a break.
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In Malta I encountered Erasmo, one of the best code-breakers in the outcasts. We had some talk about the data file. Erasmo said to me about the grave news concernign the upcoming war against the corsairs. Everybody is being called: the junkers, hessians, unioners, blood dragons and mollys. He said quite clearly: this war will show who are the real pirates, and who are the poseurs.
It not ended yet. We got back to California through the Tau systems, and soon were attacking Texas again. This last one involved a engagement with a gunboat, the first one, who showed new possibilites for our ship in matters of configuration of weapons, something that John, our technician, liked very much. We engaged [SA]-LNS-Washington near the Virginia jump hole. He did heavy damage in our ship and we were forced to retreat back to Beaumont. The control of the missile guns was damaged and we had to do a quick refitting in the positions, something that took some time but soon revealed to be a better option. Second engagement with the navy gunboat resulted in his ship exploding and he ejecting with his escapepod, soon being rescued by navy patrols near. First we lured him into the debris field to avoid the help of navy fighters, and the rogues appeared to help us. He keep firing with his forward gun but our infernos, now reffited in the backs, got his shields down, and then we proceed to damage his hull until he exploded.
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Now Im writing this from the junker base, thinking on a lot of possibilities. If we will be called to the war against the corsairs we will have to drop these attacks. For now I want to rest after this very tiring day.
