Evangeline Anastasia McDowell

[Bazza]

Entry#: 116
Date: 06 - 09 - 818 AS @ 19:47 SUT
Title: Untitled.

Another two weeks pass. Not much of interest to write about this time, besides one rather large and obnixious stand out event.

The Alsatia is is back collecting parking tickets at Mecklenburg. Over the last two months I think she's spent more time with her umbilical attached to the station than actually flying. Rather disheartening to see her sitting idle like she is, but the times and circumstances dictate so.

Gunther was around the day I returned, greeting me as I washed up as I did the first time around. But I haven't seen him since. He made mention of teaching me how to cook, which caught me off guard as I was not aware he was anything special in the cooking department. Perhaps I'm reading too deeply into how he acted back then but he seemed... distant.

I didn't get the verbal beating I was expecting for disappearing like I did, in fact I got almost nothing. I want to think he was just glad we all returned intact but I wonder if he actually cared. Wouldn't blame him if he didn't.

As for the interesting bits. I was called up to play courier for the Military and deliver some high-priority documents to Battleship Altenburg stationed in Dresden. I managed to squeeze my rather distended self into the cockpit of my Wraith and get her flying. With the documents locked in a secure case in my cargo bay I borrowed an escort and took off, leaving the Alsatia behind. Something about taking top-secret documents in a beat-up Junker transport seems a bit off, I can understand why they insisted I use the fighter.

The trip to Dresden was perfectly quiet - not a single hostile blip on the scanner. An over abundance of drop-kick miners was noted however; all seemingly headed to the pea-soup called Omega-7. I wonder how long it's going to be before the Kanzler tries to take over the system and creates a new war front.

Speaking of the Kanzler, that moves us nicely on to the incident in Dresden. I had arrived and delivered the documents to Altenburg by flying along the tradelane line to its' terminus at Leipzig Station and then through the Daumann asteroid field to reach my destination. A long and dull trip.

I then tried to take a cheeky shortcut through open space back to the jumpgate to Berlin, which appeared to be closer than flying back up the laneway.

A bad idea. Or at least I thought it was when the hostile unit appeared on my scanner and quickly came into visual range. It was a Hessian Odin, a heavy fighter. I had made the mistake of leaving my escort at Altenburg and flying solo. I guess the lack of any hostile contact up to that point had lured me into a false sense of calmness. And now I was about to pay for it.

Or at least I thought. As it turned out the man I'd had the pleasure of flying into was a rather reasonable and upstanding fellow. That he didn't shoot down a Military vessel on sight is something I'm very grateful for. Although, of course, he made it rather clear in his "opening statement" that he wasn't my friend, to put it politely.

The thing with Hessians in Rheinland is that I believe they are very similar to the Mollys of Bretonia. A group of men down-trodden by corporate greed to the point of fracture. The Molly's were broken by BMM - the Hessians by Daumann. I don't consider these guys enemies - not like Corsairs, for example.

I've been trying to gather as much information on the history of Hessians, Bundschuh and the Landwhatever movements so I can better understand what kind of people I'm likely to be looking through a crosshair at. The problem with that is everything "publicly available" has had the Kanzlers' propaganda grafted into it - always portraying them as evil and despicable terrorists and praising everything Rheinland has done against them.

I know I'm not a rocket scientist but I'm not dumb enough to buy that sort of dribble. So I seek out the story from the other side of the fence. Whenever I sneak out to Kreuzberg, I'll always meet a local activist or two who will spin me a yarn, usually without quite as much bullcrap as the Government's side.

That's what they are - activists. Or, rather, some of them. Those who stay true to their respective movement's ideals. I always try to seperate out those who hold the original values of the Hessian organisation and those who are only interested in a quick buck. The latter I've shot down, killed, arrested. The prior group gets sent away discreetly.

And that's what we talked about for what must have been over an hour. Just the two of us lost together inside a sulphur cloud, denouncing the Kanzler openly as if it wouldn't get us both executed. Because that's what happens when you do speak out against the government of Rheinland. You get shot.

It doesn't take a genuis to figure out Rheinhardt is a dictator. What kind of person calls themselves a god, anyway? One person cannot hope rule an entire nation. You need the power of the people. Something the "Gottkanzler" has ignored for a long time. The dumb bastard went and started a war because his ego was being trodden on. He thinks nothing of killing innocent people who speak out against him. It's even in the freakin' Kriegsmarine field manual - ordering the "silence" of any pilot who speaks his mind in a way not agreeable to "Rheinland's" views.

People lose their most basic of human rights the moment they stop being blind followers. It really makes me sick, and angry, thinking about it. I jokingly told the Hessian fellow "Maybe I should have been a Hessian instead of joining the Military". I find myself wondering how that would have turned out. I can't sit here supporting someone who would kill me if I ever openly criticised him.

I stay in the Military ranks as a non-combatant officer. Admiral's freakin' secretary. I'm here for the sake of my messed up little "family". Not to support Rheinhardt and his oppressive governance.

Dreaming about a Rheinland whose people in its entirety stand united seems to do nothing but raise my blood pressure. And I can't work out why because normally I don't give a rat's arse about it. Growing up in Bretonia I saw the crown and its subordinate bureaucracy as incompetent and outdated; after moving to Liberty I saw the presidency and all below it as corrupt, self-concerned and greedy. I didn't care about either.

Rheinland is different... I want this place to be better.

---