"this is Elizabeth Tate "Jinx". After the recent attacks on delta and the failure of the attempts to communicate with the new nnomad breed, the persephone started an exploration turn into iota to learn more about our enemies.
during that run, the persephone used its long range scanners and opticals to receive data about the system and stayed out of any enemy radar range. the ship was not detected during that mission and returned undamaged into omicron-delta after roughly one hour.
however the nomads became very active while the persephone was in the system, there were attempts to get into my mind and a few torn parts of communication was "received" - but nothing of any tactical value.
while the persephone was in the system, a message was sent using a broadband signal. - that any further attack on freeport 11 will be causing a counterattack on their installations, - now that we know where their bases are.
while the persephone returned from its mission, three nomad ships followed close. It was the regrown harbinger, a fighter and a gunship - but thats not certain because they were out of scanner range.
meanwhile the [THB] was contacted, since they were present in delta at that time, and i asked for assistance. the thb then called in reinforcement. many many combattants showed up and the nomad invaders were scared away mostly by the sheer number of the defenders.
only one fightercraft engaged and was chased away, while the rest of the nomads retreated early.
it was a good defense and many pilots joined in the defense. so i thank all the defenders that headed to freeport 11 so quickly - you all have probably saved many lifes today!
more expeditions shall be done to explore the newly found systems. the more we know about them, the better we can defend ourselves.
Message to: Folks in the Omicrons, or somethin'.
Comm ID: Linus Koios
Location: Freeport 2, Bering
Just wanted to say the gunboat Ravenhurst is armed, ID'd, IFF'd, an' ready fer combat. I'm takin' 'er up to Freeport 11 later today to help with the defense. She ain't fully armed yet, but she's got turrets in all the right spots, so just gimme a call if anythin' starts happening.
"i have finished my deep space explore run today. No new nomad was sighted system Iota and omicron-99 were scanned with a deep space remote probe. The persephone remained at the systems zenith at that time to reduce any risk of being detected. however, i encountered several so called "lost ones" - battleship sized ships aswell as dozens of gunship sized ships.
Troubling pictures show not only one planet that was found to be inhabited but also a fully operational spacestation, allmost as big as a small orbital. due to technical problems, the data from the probe was still lacking and the quality of it is hardly usable for military operations, but at least it gives us an idea of how far the nomad space goes.
several other planets were sighted aswell, but these were not terraformed or made inhabitable, not even by the nomads. patrols appeared to be frequent and the probe was finally destroyed by a fightergroup patrolling the edges of the system before it could reach jumphole delta again.
omicron-99 appears to be an extremely high energy system, probably a system that helps the nomads to grow their vessels as it has a very bright star illuminating the system blindingly.
both systems appear to be far away from delta, cause scanners cannot pick up any characteristics from the delta/kappa wormhole effect. omicron-99 must be even further away, cause is shares no look nor any other aspects with iota, which appears to be similar to omicron lost.
if we thought that we had the majority of the nomads defeated in the nomad war, we must be wrong, because there are still countless nomads around and very close to us. - more exploration is needed to gather as many information as possible about the new systems and its inhabitants.
This is Linus Koios again; got a tad bored the other day in Delta, an' decided to go sightseein'. Explorin', really...none of the lazy heiffers hangin' around in Delta wanted to go with me, so I went alone. An' lemme tell ya, Jinx is right. I dodged a few Nomad battleship patrols to get these pictures, but I figured it might do a bit of good, an' I can't afford any fancy unmanned probes.
I reckon that's the planet Miss Jinx was talkin' about; I didn't see the station, but ya can see the dockin' ring. An' that's just one jump away from Omicron Delta!
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That one's from Omicron-99...had to get a real nice scan fer you folks, so I flew up close enough to touch the dern thing. It's active, alright...thing was shootin' at me the whole time, and just after I scanned the base I got jumped by a Nomad gunboat patrol. No Keepers, lucky for me, just regular blue jellies. And somethin' Jinx forgot to mention: that base is right smack dab in between two stars, so if they can somehow use that energy to grow their freaky space babies, they got a prime location to do it.
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An' this one's from the inside of their Dyson Sphere. They're in there, too....though I noticed the fighters in there ain't near as tough as the ones outside are. An' they kept on comin', too. I thought they got wiped outta that place at the end of the Nomad war, but looks like they didn't...
Anyhow, that's what I saw on my way through. Dunno how much, or if any, of that's any good but I did what I could.
-- Tranmission from Anderson, aboard Star Trading Corp. gunboat Merodeador --
To all defense and otherwise ships in the delta and kappa systems :
We have stationed two ships in the affected area, the light cruiser [STC]-Arcadia, and my own exploration/escort ship. The Arcadia is holding position on Gammu, after having encountered some nomad patrols in the area, and i am going to stay on Freeport 11 itself for a while.
Both ships have been fitted with quite good weaponry, loaded with bots & bats and are ready to defend either Gammu or Freeport 11. We will be also helping anyone travelling through the affected systems, if needed.
If there is any supplies needed, please contact us, we'll get anything shipped over by the company in no time!
And... i might want to join one of those exploration missions. We need to find out what their intentions are...
Had a bit of excitement today...at least one Keeper battleship & two Scorpion gunboats ran the gauntlet from Iota to Minor, taking a few potshots at Yaren along the way. I really gotta upgrade my guns...lucky for us, they didn't seem real intent on doin' damage. Except for the STC escort fighter they destroyed, who'd been keepin' tabs on 'em for us. I think some STC fellas found his escape pod, correct me if I'm wrong.
But it seems they found another infested human or somethin'...the whole bunch of us used system comms to arrange the pursuit when they came back into Delta, and I think they CAN understand us, 'cuz they tricked us good. We covered all the jump holes in the system, an' forgot to cover the Freeport...so we all went back there, and while we were going, the sneaky squishies jumped back to Iota. Clever varmints...
And they tried to communicate...couldn't figure out what they were tryin' to say, but they gave me one heckuva migraine...
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Transmission from the [STC] - Merodeador, currently stationed on planet Manhattan.
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Hi, this is Anderson,
I can confirm that we've managed to retreive Sr. Nieto's escape pod after a long while, it's been quite hard as he disconnected the pod's emergency signal and cut all transmissions.We had to use bio-mass scanners to find him, and they have a very short range.
I actually am responsible for what happened, as i instructed him to follow the alien horde to determine their intentions and anticipate their movements, as well as staying out of their scanner's range. Seems that they ambushed him after the Alaska-->Omicron Minor jump.
After finally finding him, i found out that he was half inconscious and that he could not speak clearly. I decided to take him to a hospital in Manhattan, and he's already recovering there. He's told me he was surrounded by 4 Fighters, and maybe a gunboat. He could not escape, and "heard some weird stuff speakin' in his head". Anyway he tried to fight back and was gunned down by the aliens after a short time.
Doctors say he will recover soon and that there are no signs of infection or brain damage, he's been a lucky guy in the end, and we'll only have to buy another escort ship.
Well, meanwhile in Delta... they have really tricked us. I also heard some weird stuff on the comms, i've had to drink a lot of coffee to clear my head. After checking my comms log, i've noticed whatever they were transmitting, it was wiped from the file. What a mystery!
Smart guys those nomads... i think we can expect anything, and it looks like there will be stuff happening. They actually made it as far as the new york system, going through order space, which means that Sirius is not safe at all. We were lucky to not have a whole base gunned down this time.
It was bad that our cruiser "Arcadia" wasn't available, as this would have been the ideal ship to monitor the Keeper's activities due to its top class equipment.
I'll be back on Freeport 11 as soon as i get Nieto up & running in a new ship.
See y'all and take care !
Anderson out.
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End transmission.
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Transmission from the [STC] - Merodeador, Freeport 11
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To all ships involved in Omicron Delta defense :
Hi, Anderson here.
Keepers have attacked freeport 11 today, while our flagship Arcadia was in defensive position outside the station. The events are still unclear, as the other two assigned STC ships in the area (Nieto's temporary ship, a bomber, and my own vessel), arrived too late to support the Arcadia. It was the only ship defending the station at the moment, so it looks like they knew when to strike.
The recently bought cruiser has not been able to withstand more than a few seconds of hostile fire, and has been destroyed. We have no logs of the ship's sensors as nearly all equipment is not recoverable. Witnesses saw the alien known as Taurvi fly out of the system a few minutes after the attack.
Luckily a bounty hunter who was in the area found the escape pods of the crew and tractored them in, and we can count our leader, Sr. Smith, among the survivors. I will inform as soon as our good boss recovers enough to tell me what happened out there.
Damage to the station is minimal thanks to the new reinforced structure, and personnel from our company are helping on minor repairs.
The wreck of the Arcadia is being towed away to omicron 74's shipyard where engineers will try to fix the ship, but it is going to take time if possible at all, and will cost us a fortune as we're a small company.
I think we will be investing a lot of the company's money in improving our fighting skills and developing better tactics. We are traders, not military, and this isn't the same as escorting our cargo ships and having the occasional pirate stalking on you...generally we negociate anyway. But these guys shoot without asking, and they hit very hard!
If anyone is in charge of defense, please contact me, we need instructions on how to deal with the situation.
Let's discuss how to implement an effective defense, if that's possible in any way.
Greetings and take care of yourselves.
Anderson out.
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End transmission.
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Bit of a frightenin' experience today. Freeport 11 was under attack by Harbinger and Prophecy; I ran there from Yaren as quick as I could, callin' all the way for defenders to gather at the Freeport. Nobody showed...'cept the Keepers. Dunno if they were shootin' at the Freeport, but they were there, and sure as anything they turned to me. Lessee...my IMG gunboat against a Nomad battleship and a Nomad gunboat. I ran, of course!
Checked Gamma...no Corsairs. Checked all the Omicrons...just traders, 'cept for a fella by the name of Rick James in an Osiris. But he was in Kappa. So I led them blue squishies on a wild and wacky chase to give the folks on Freeport 11 some time to evacuate, takin' a hard turn in a gas cloud in an effort to shake 'em enough so I could get to the Omicron Minor jump hole. It worked, I guess...I didn't die, and I made it to the jump hole. But heck, they didn't even shoot at me, and I know I was in range! Why didn't they shoot? That question's buggin' me...I ain't complainin', though.
Got a cruddy scan of the Harbinger, but I was so busy on the comms tryin' to get somebody out to Delta that I forgot to do a good scan on its equipment. Worthless...yeah, we know it's a battleship. No new info there.
I'm a bit confused, though...they got within firin' range a coupla times, but never shot at me. I never shot at them, either, since I figured I stood a snowflake's chance in the Houston desert of survivin' if I did. Somewhere in Omicron Minor, with them still on my tail, I figured they might like if I dropped the Nomad sittin' in my hold...I dropped the thing, and they broke off an' went back to Delta.
That's about when I figured out I didn't get a decent scan of their loadout, an' I decided to go back an' try for it. But the whole way to Freeport 11, I barely saw even one of 'em on scanners, and never got close enough to lay an eye on 'em. They got poor Rick, though, before I could get there...where the heck was everybody? Swarms of defenders just yesterday, and today, nothin'? I docked, and hunkered down. What else could I do? I ain't gonna die heroically. 'Cuz dead heroes're still dead, and their good deeds're done for good, y'know?
Message to: Anybody here?
Comm ID: Like anyone's readin'.
Location: Freeport 11, Omicron Delta
In case anybody was wonderin', the Keepers are still at it.
They came again today, an' all I could muster up besides my gunboat was a Taiidan bomber that ran away and docked at FP11.
So it was just me, defendin' Freeport 11 against a Nomad battleship, a Nomad gunboat, and one of those ugly Scorpion gunboats.
Got a scan of their guns...fer the most part, nothin' to write home about. 'Bout as powerful as our guns...nope,
it's the ships that make 'em tough.
Scorpion seems a lot like the Corsair lunchbox, eight guns an' ugly as all hell. Nomad GB's like the Bretonian owl,
but without the forward gun.
The Nomad BS is somethin' else altogether, though...even the Zoner Jug's not a match for it one-on-one.
My ship didn't last long 'cuz I was busier scannin' than shootin', but in the long run I think it's worth it.
Now I got time to peruse 'em while the techs here work on the scrapheap that my poor Ravenhurst has become.
Didn't see 'em attack the Freeport itself...they seemed more interested in the defenders this time. I hope they were disappointed.