A Judge's Log

[Avenguarde]

-Confidential Log, Judge Cruacious-

Log Start 8.10.819 AS
16:40 System Time

Location: Leeds (Planet Leeds)

Space has often been regarded as a cruel and harsh mistress who would take your life in a second with only but a moment's mistake. But it is this angle, this mystique of the risks that she brings with her harshness that drew me to her.

My current assigned task for the foreseeable future is to patrol Leeds looking for marauding squadrons of Gallic fighters and proceed to destroy them with prejudice in my Eagle. I went out today as usual on my patrol route from Leeds up to Glasgow station when I was suddenly dropped out of the trade lane by, of all the random things, a squadron of Molly's who immediately demanded my surrender.

Being the upstanding citizen that I am, I powered down my weapons and shields to comply, then slammed my thruster while passing them and letting their leader eat a nuclear mine in the pass. By the time that the Molly's had gotten over the shock of their leader being severely damaged, I had already powered my guns and shields back up and set a salvo of cannon fire up his exhaust pipe to blow him to bits. Needless to say, sad as it is, he did not survive.

At this point I was outnumbered 3 to 1, but they were under-gunned in the older Wolfhound class of VHF, and easily fell prey to my Eagle. It was pretty quick, but unfortunately very loud and flashy. I believe it was because of the initial surprise attack with my nuclear mine, but not even a minute after I finished the last Molly off and started collecting the surviving escape pods to be taken to Leeds for prosecution, did I notice an unknown contact on my scanners. Checking once more, I noticed it was coming from the trade lane itself, and then it was nearly too late. Suddenly, a Gallic Cruiser, two Gunboats, and half a dozen fighters dropped out of the lane roughly 2 kilometers from my position and promptly engaged.

Naturally again, I did the only thing that a gentleman such as myself would do in such a situation: I turned my engine straight towards them and hit my thrusters to full the other way. Sadly, this did not entirely work as the 6 Lynx-class VHFs that composed the fighter squadron fired Cruise Disruptors to prevent me from fleeing entirely, but in the process of the chase got separated from the gunboat and cruiser by roughly 4 kilometers. At this point, I flipped my Eagle around and angled into a climb to go above the lead Lynx, firing every gun I had fitted into the top of his ship. This severely damaged him, yet did not destroy them. That was reserved for my second pass, in which a well-timed mine drop put him out of his misery.

During this time, the cruiser and gunboats had caught-up and proceeded to fire everything they had at me, knocking out my shields in the process. By this point I though I was a goner (although I was satisfied when I took another Lynx down after tailing it while flying through the gunboats), when I got my best break of the day. A Bretonian Battleship patrol around the planet Leeds had also noticed my earlier fight with the Molly's and had proceeded over to my position. While the two Gallic Gunboats and the remaining fighters attempted to flee, I turned my fighter on the cruiser and proceeded to fire cruise disruptors into it to prevent its escape.

After a rough ten minute pursuit, the Bretonian fleet finally managed to get the battleship in range (their two destroyers and gunboats had to fly ahead to flank the cruiser to force the engagement) and it was subsequently destroyed by some of the most beautiful gunfire I have seen in a while. And copious. I hailed my thanks to the admiral commanding the Battleship, and immediately flew back to the trade lane to land at Leeds. I turned over my captured Molly's for a pittance (they just don't fetch what they used to) and got the bill for my fighter's repair and rearm job (a quarter million credits...).

Despite the financial setbacks of the fight, my repair was credited to the BAF as a reward for the assist with the cruiser kill (nice gents), and I'm still kicking. Next time though, I'm going to drag some of the other Judge's out on patrol as my poor baby isn't meant for this kind of pain.

Well, time to get off. Kinda glad noone else can read this, unless one of the other Judges can hack it. But what are the odds of that?

-End Log-