To: Livadia Shipyards | From: A civilian

[Sombs]

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:::[INCOMING TRANSMISSION]:::
:::[ESTABLISHING SECURED VIDEO FEED]:::
:::[VIDEO FEED: LIVE]:::

ID: Ezrael Vertiga
Location: Omicron Kappa
Subject: Repairs
ENCRYPTION: We're docked.

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Mr. McCool,

I'm in your debt. I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have made it to another system. The engines are totally burned out, and with a crew of just 40 people, it would take an eternity to replace everything. However, we were prepared and brought an amount of replacement parts with us.

Your engineering team will probably need some some technical advice, so I told my, well, engineers to provide every information your guys want.

Now, what this is all about.

How to begin with? I'll try to spare you the boring backstory. It's simply that: In house space, people are, or were, talking good about the Core. Ensuring a peaceful environment in the Omicrons while having the power to do so? Sounded good to me in Curacao, as well as to many other people from house space. We made our individual contracts with Core. Some just with APM, hoping to get a good job, doing the right thing out here in the Omicrons, getting a good payment. You know, everyone with their individual story, but 52 of those guys had something in common with me: The disappointment. The Core is warmongering. And the Core is not interested in finding a solution to the nomad threat. A law is an unquestionable law, and there are only two kind of people in the Omicrons: Those who play along their rules and those who refuse to.

I was okay with commanding an expensive battleship, buyed and upgraded from nearly all the money of a small company my family owned, and use it to defend mankind from nomads. Our focus was on researching those that would comply and destroy those who are dangerous. But Core wanted us also to kill those who where violating their laws, no matter how big the issue was. Showing mercy was no option. Some of us wouldn't cry to see less corsairs, outcasts or whatever flying around in Sirius, but Zoners? No. Slaughtering innocent and leaving women, children and injured people out to die just because Core could use those D.R.O.P.s too? All those things added up, and as the time passed, the unrest grew bigger and bigger.

So I contacted people, and here and there I didn't carry out orders. It is a miracle that I didn't got executed, or banned into the nomad worlds. I guess all those bloodthirsty guys were too lazy to report that, or they were too busy with Battlegroup Auxesia, Zoners, the Order, AI-drones and Corsairs.

I used my old Corvo to do most of the preparations. You may wonder why that ship is still using a Zoner transponder while I'm... I was... a Core captain, but back then, when I signed up for the Core, there where no hostilities between Core and Zoners.
Anyway. I asked Kishiro Technologies to give me a robotic service crew, capable of maintaining a battleship-sized vessel, asked the Lane Hackers to provide me a system override software and a transmission encryption matrix for secured communications, and I asked the Junkers to provide me a place to hide. And we installed some internal defense turrets from Detroit Munitions. I tried to ask as many corporations as possible, just giving them enough information to not get suspicious. However, you can guess the Lane Hackers are always suspicious about everything. And I asked Battlegroup Auxesia, since they have a, well, very specific situation with the Core, to help me creating a scenario.

We have a basic replacement crew, the software to ensure the control of this ship, security measure for a boarding situation, but we didn't have enough manpower to pull it off. The Apahanta, as a ship that had it's little accidents during it's construction phase, never got much love by the Core, and thus they provided it only a skeletal crew, as I told you earlier. So I took my time to know my crew, interrogated them, asked them about their policies, their goals, their motives to join the core. While I'm not a psychologist, I think I got a good impression on whom I can trust. Those who I had my doubts on, well, they are now together with the Core-loyalists in... whatever Auxesia put them.

Looks like this list needs an update...

I placed the trustworthy people in secured areas on the Apahanta, letting them know that there will somewhen happen something. Including my bridge crew. I contacted Sapphire Raven, the Ex-Guildkeeper of the Core and current leader of the Battlegroup Auxesia. A terribly weird person, and where ever she appears, things are about to get weird, dangerous, and unintentional funny. However, I think she had a good reason to leave the Core, and she shared some information with me regarding the nomads, the Core and what the hell Auxesia is doing anyway. I'm not a fan of her, but I do trust her more than I'd trust anyone else in the Omicrons. Well, aside from Zoners, because, you know, they are way less hideous and bloodthirsty. And they aren't maniacs.

So I asked Raven to create a situation where the Apahanta would get heavily damaged, in an area where Core was out of communication range, just to make sure we don't have to fight about 150 Core loyalists, some of them with cybernetically enhanced bodies, but just 15. So, the show happened in Omicron Minor, Raven did her best on scaring the shit out of my crew, talking like Nodtviet himself when he lead the first attack on Freeport 11. They appeared with their battlegroup, bombarding our engine section, and after three minutes, most of the Core-loyalists had left the ship using the escape pods, or a shortcut through the ship's hull, as you can see on the damage report. We "surrendered", and my team of Core defectors began with the elimination of the Core loyals, backed up by the DM-turrets - and seriously, don't fight body-enhanced Core soldiers if you're not ridiculously outmatching them. You see what one did with my shoulder, just missing my head from one end of the hallway to the other. By the way, thanks for the medical examiner. A second opinion is always a good thing. Sadly, after the battle, some of the injured died to their wounds.

Most of these people want to return to their homes now, or, well, making themselves a new home. Just a few of them actually want to stay on the Apahanta, and I can't blame the others who don't want to. It won't be easier from now on, and we will need to get any help, any support we can get. Core will find out that the Apahanta is still out there, not destroyed but defected, and they will hunt us. Therefore it's acutally good to have this ship, and I guess there will be people anywhere in Sirius that could need the help of a battleship. However, like Zoners, we will avoid to interfere with other's wars. Sounds contradictorary, but I guess you know how I ment that.

When the repairs here are done, we're moving away from the Omicrons for a while, just long enough to have the Core forget about us, so we can recover, get us a trustworthy crew, get us some jobs, connections, supplies and everything. I guess sooner or later we will have to deal with each other again, and maybe we will find something we can be useful for the Zoners and the CoF, the providers of a home to those who don't have one.

As I said, we're in your debt. Your house, your rules, and we will comply. My men will stay on the Apahanta, and as soon as the repairs are done, we will depart.

Ezrael Vertiga

Attachement: Defection