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ID:Ezrael Vertiga Location:Core Mako Battleship "Apahanta", Omicron Rho Subject:Battle of Freeport 11, 23. 04. 823 AD ENCRYPTION:CORE STANDARD
Ezrael Vertiga, Captain of Core Mercenery Battleship "Apahanta" here. This is the report on the Core Expedition rescue mission and the nomad battle from yesterday.
Right, a Core Expedition Mako. I don't know when this was sent to Omicron Lost, but it reappeared yesterday, heavily damaged, at system grid coordinates C/D-3, within the Omicron Delta main sun's asteroid belt. We just saw explosions from at those coordinates when the Apahanta patroled Delta and the Freeport on the opposite side of the sun's belt, talking to Outcast Eliza Valdez. We moved both our ships to the coordinates to find this Mako, according to the cruise engine signature it has arrived in Delta using the jump hole from Omicron Lost.
The Mako was in a terrible shape, and it's structural integrity was decreasing rapidly. A nomad battleship and some of the smaller units also got awareness of the Mako and intercepted us. We sent a distress signal to all Core ships in Delta and soon got our back-up. When the WV-Scipio arrived, the Apahanta was already done with nomad battleship and getting closer to the Expedition Ship.
Scans of the ship indicated survivors on board, and we also picked up some strange sensor readings from it's cargo bay. I guess as long as the Core doesn't share some information with us, we will never know what those readings had to mean. Anyway, the sensor recordings are attached to this, so have fun. [The Mako had some artifacts and a nomad power cells in it's cargo (according to console chat by Alley, the Mako itself was a "station"). Since Vertiga is not an official Core captain but just a contracted Mercenary, he and his crew don't have specific knowledge about those kind of technology. Even when Alley wanted us to know it.]
So I ordered the Apahanta to moor with the [Disabled Mako], and two of our boarding team went over there to rescue as many survivors as possible. Core mercenary pilot Cody Sires also moored on the other side of the Mako, trying to bring some survivors to his little fighter. While we were moored, another wave of nomads arrive, again with a marduk battleship at the front. The Scipio, the Outcasts and the other pilots who joined this battle gave us cover. In the meantime, our boarding teams progressed deeper into the Mako. Some bigger explosions caused some parts of the ship to break off and we lost contact to one of our teams. There wasn't much time left, and when the other team reached one of the storage bays, they found some strange artifacts there as well as another group of survivors, totally panicking. The team brought those guys back to the Apahanta, but we didn't have enough time to get those artifacts. I ordered to unmoor us from the Mako, and short time later, it broke apart in a big explosion, when the power core lost it's integrity.
36 survivors. 36 survivors on a ship that usually is crewed with about 470 people or more. Some of them were in very critical physical condition, and all of them still are unable to grasp what happened. We first brought them to the Freeport, making sure we can get back to the ground zero as fast as possible, because...
This arrived...
Those oracle pilots, whenever they joined this battle, called it the "Ish'tar". A nomad battleship even bigger than a marduk, and it's appearance caused multiple headaches among my crew. Literally. Even I heard the mind screams when this advocat of hell jumped in. Must have been terrible to those outcasts.
The Ish'tar gave us the choice: Leaving the battlefield alive in a retreat or die in vein in this battle. At this point, we were totally outmatched. One nomad battleship and also the Ish'tar with it's incredible long range front cannons. It was able to hit the Scipio from a distance of about seven to eight kilometers, and the hit took down it's shields instantly. While this insane captain on the Scipio was about to engage together with the WV-Numidia, I decided to back off, engaged cloak and forcing our ships to fall back to Yaren by doing so. There was no way we could have made it, with all those nomad bombers and even infected around.
At least, while our forces fell back, we managed to get some footage on the Ish'tar while we were cloaked.
Some minutes later, our forces had gathered at Yaren and Bellona for a counter attack. My ship engaged the cloak again to scout ahead, checking the situation. The Ish'tar was still around, close to the wreckage of the Expedition Mako, along with the Inanna, the second marduk battleship out there. And lots of little nomads.
Our snub pilots did a great job, taking down one nomad after another. It took them only a few minutes after the destruction of the Ish'tar to bring an end to this.
Sadly, I also have to report the loss of the Core pilot Cody Sires. It's not like he died in his duty as a Core affiliated pilot, but loosing his body to a nomad incubus. In this whole mess we didn't notice what happened to him when he entered the disabled Mako, but somehow, he switched the sides, telling proudly he was now a under nomad control. He killed the survivors he brought to his ship, shooting them in the head, enjoying it like a mad man. Also, he claimed to got his hands on a nomad power cell he scavanged from the Mako. I suppose this cell was the source of the strange energy signatures we read on the Mako. But that's the stuff our scientist at Alabama and Durban have to deal with.
Anyway, we lost track of most of the smaller ships when we got hit by the Ish'tars powerful guns, so I can't give more information on their doings. Maybe some of the other guys can give you a report from their sight.
After the battle, the Apahanta brought all the survivors, both from the Mako and the battlefield, back to Yaren. Then we head back to the freeport, watching the debris of the Mako, checking for more escape pods or equipment to gather, but there wasn't much left.
Also, I payed the Outcast pilot Eliza Valdez a sum of 5.000.000 Credits for her astonishingly fearless support at our side. She did a great job and without her, the first attack wave would have slaughtered us.
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ID:Ezrael Vertiga Location:Core Mako Battleship "Apahanta", Omicron Rho Subject:Meeting between SCRA, Blood Dragons and Order, possibly more factions involved ENCRYPTION:CORE STANDARD
Ezrael Vertiga, Captain of Core Mercenery Battleship "Apahanta" here. This is the report on the sight of a fleet of the Sirius Coalition Revolutionary Army, the Order and the Blood Dragons as well as other possibly involved parties.
The Apahanta was just observing a small battle group consisting of the Corsair Murmillo Battleship "Majorca", AI harvester cruiser PRIME|Delta-35 and the Apokatastasis harvester cruiser. These ships were patroling the Kiribati Asteroid Field and the central space of Omicron Delta, encountering several nomad forces. While the Apahantas wasn't close enough to the harvester drones, we managed to get a deep scan of the Majorca, aquiring awareness about their cloaking device. Well, it's not the first time we've encountered the Majorca in Delta. Looks like this Corsair Battleship and those AI cruisers frequently patrol Delta to collect nomadic material for research.
We went back to Yaren to refill our cloaking batteries, as SCRA signatures appeared on the radar, showing a fleet of multiple battleship- and carrier-sized ships leaving the nebula area and heading for the freeport. We maintained our distance and stayed cloaked - those guys would have grilled us within a minute. While cloaked, we scanned their ships. Data will be attached to this report.
Our comm. officer also recorded the whole conversation they did. Unluckily, it lacks in relevant information. Anyway, here the logs:
[25.04.2016 20:22:17] Cloaking device on
[25.04.2016 20:24:26] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: Due to the CoF and the NFZ we shall hold a long distance from the Freeport area.
[25.04.2016 20:24:52] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Never seen one of those ships before...
[25.04.2016 20:24:54] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: Appreciated. It's uncommon enough that visitors out here respect this.
[25.04.2016 20:25:17] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: No worries Zoner, any time you ask, just ask [25.04.2016 20:25:25] Order|SD-Kusanagi: // *you want, just ask
[25.04.2016 20:25:37] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Kon'nichiwa!
[25.04.2016 20:26:16] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: So Dragons, welcome to the fronter of the Omicrons, claimed mostly by Zoner nomads, and I believe this captain before
[25.04.2016 20:26:30] Order|SD-Kusanagi: you is one of the C. o. F. if I'm not mistaken."
[25.04.2016 20:26:54] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: C.o.F?
[25.04.2016 20:26:58] ZonerGuard|Griffin: Admiral Griffin: Good evening Paladin
[25.04.2016 20:26:59] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: I'm not a representative, but I adhere to their principles.
[25.04.2016 20:27:25] Tenrai|SK-Fusou: Niwa: These zoners are strange people. We do not see them more than rarely in Kusari.
[25.04.2016 20:27:33] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: Ah, I see, and yes, they are the freeport adminstration officers, anything that happens near the freeports is their job [25.04.2016 20:27:40] Order|SD-Kusanagi: *jobs to attend to.
[25.04.2016 20:27:53] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: Ah, miss Prim, welcome back.
[25.04.2016 20:28:11] SCRA|Pyl'nist': Pimakhova: "You really have trouble with my name, don't you Mish Hellion."
[25.04.2016 20:28:12] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Also... what is that? *points at the huge ship floating above the freeport*
[25.04.2016 20:28:18] ZonerGuard|Griffin: well the outer edge its our play ground
[25.04.2016 20:28:35] SCRA|CPW-Balalaika: Now if only he could help point us in the direction of that pesky Core we would leave the station and him alone.
[25.04.2016 20:28:48] SCRA|CPW-Balalaika: *Nat Sighs*
[25.04.2016 20:28:49] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: That, is one of the few Zoner colony vessels, in its own right, it is a mobile freeport.
[25.04.2016 20:29:28] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Hmm... I see
[25.04.2016 20:30:05] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: Any visitor out here that's human and doesn't immediately cause trouble I would consider fine.
[25.04.2016 20:30:45] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: So... can we have a look at it? [25.04.2016 20:31:07] ZonerGuard|Griffin: :-)
[25.04.2016 20:31:10] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: *she bows her head with a smile* Well, due to your Togo's being classified as battleships, I believe you'd need to ask
[25.04.2016 20:31:18] SCRA|Pyl'nist': Pimakhova: "Well then, Mishtar wake. We are going to get on just fine."
[25.04.2016 20:31:19] Order|SD-Kusanagi: a CoF rep before closing close to their freeport.
[25.04.2016 20:31:37] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: Fine by me if the Griffin doesn't object.
[25.04.2016 20:31:38] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: So wait three monthes for paperwork?
[25.04.2016 20:31:41] Tenrai|SK-Fusou: Niwa: Are the monkeys of the core always this quiet and cowardly?
[25.04.2016 20:32:08] SCRA|Pyl'nist': Pimakhova: *lights a cigarette* "Mishtar Griffin? May we?"
[25.04.2016 20:32:11] ZonerGuard|Griffin: Is it somthing i can do for you
[25.04.2016 20:32:16] A/)-ACV-Eidolon.Wraith: <:: Recent additions to /Core/ ranks deemed untrained and inferior. ::>
[25.04.2016 20:33:05] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: They just want a look at your ship, Griffin.
[25.04.2016 20:33:06] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: I have never seen a ship... that big before...
[25.04.2016 20:33:18] ZonerGuard|Griffin: its ok
[25.04.2016 20:33:20] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: I will hold distance, as I don't wish to cause some problems between Order and the Core.
[25.04.2016 20:33:28] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: They seem alright. You get a feeling for who are trouble and who aren't after a while.
[25.04.2016 20:33:55] PRIME|Delta-35: ::[SCRA_Fleet] {Detected}=>[Adviced] [Not] {Cross} [Omicron_Kappa] [Jumphole]::
[25.04.2016 20:34:14] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: And... what is that?
[25.04.2016 20:34:27] SCRA|Pyl'nist': Pimakhova: "Please heed the machines warnings, Comrades." *nods her head sternly*
[25.04.2016 20:34:28] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: Were not going to your home today, harvesters, you can rest asured on that.
[25.04.2016 20:35:02] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Hmm... *she starts scanning the vessels*
[25.04.2016 20:35:18] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: Hello bot. Don't blow your circuits over this group. [25.04.2016 20:35:38] Attention! Stand clear. Towing Core|WV-Numidia
[color=#004040][25.04.2016 20:35:49] 2016-04-25 20:36:05 SMT Traffic control alert: SCRA|Pyl'nist' has requested to dock
[25.04.2016 20:35:52] Order|SD-Kusanagi: *Kelly respectfully bows her head* As asked by the CoF. I won't engage the core captain.
[25.04.2016 20:36:05] Core|WV-Numidia: Radio Operator: Uh... the no fire zone! Yes! The NFZ!
[25.04.2016 20:36:20] PRIME|Delta-35: ''Prime|Delta-35'' {Guard} [Jumphole]=>[More_Secure]::
[25.04.2016 20:36:27] Paladin's.Wake: Diana: *sighing* Smooth so far, that's nice.
[25.04.2016 20:36:30] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: That. Yes...also, the fact my sensors are going off...your not hidden..
[25.04.2016 20:36:33] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Hmm... that Zoner vessel has a lot of firepower?
[25.04.2016 20:37:02] Tenrai|SK-Fusou: *a sirens sounds* Niwa: Core vessels, all hands to defence stations. sensors are reading unknown signals.
[25.04.2016 20:37:04] SCRA|CPW-Balalaika: *Stares at core ship.* Since when do they not wanna fight us... Is our group that scary for em?
Unluckily, the Numidia appeared at this moment right at the freeport. Still cloaked, we joined the Numidia on it's way to Yaren, where our forces gathered for another stupid raid on the Omicron Kappa system. The combined fleet of the SCRA, Blood Dragons and Order were already leaving Omicron Delta using the jump hole to Omicron Minor. I decided to pursue them. Their fleet set course to the Omicron Mu system, using the Omicron Zeta jump hole in Minor and the jump hole to Mu in Zeta.
[25.04.2016 20:48:32] Cloaking device on
[25.04.2016 20:53:17] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Niwa-sama?
[25.04.2016 20:53:44] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: Hello cloaked vessel..we hear you
[25.04.2016 20:54:01] Order|SD-Kusanagi: Kelly: We got a spy here.
[25.04.2016 20:54:24] Mount.Kongo: Misaka: Niwa-sama I think we should return home... and fast...
[25.04.2016 20:56:11] Cloaking device shutdown, no fuel
[25.04.2016 20:56:11] Cloaking device off
Looks like their sensor arrays in Omicron Mu are a little challenging for us, even in cloak mode. Too bad, the Apahanta ran out of cloaking batteries again, since we had to slow down while pursuing them to Mu. Sadly, that's all the footage we got. Their fleet was gathering at the Taba Border Station, then they seemed to get awareness of our presence in Mu.
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ID:Ezrael Vertiga Location:Core Mako Battleship "Apahanta", Omicron Rho Subject:Meeting with the Omicronkorps ENCRYPTION:CORE STANDARD
Greetings.
Ezrael Vertiga, Captain of Core Mercenery Battleship "Apahanta" here. This is the report on the meeting with the rheinlandian Omicronkorps, as it is called.
First of all, this was a successful operation without bigger incidents. All Rheinland forces arrived in Omicron Rho safe and sound, although a ridiculous amount of outsiders appeared in Rho when our guests arrived. Two Auxesian vessels, one Hayabusa Civilian Fighter Craft, ID "A/)-Seeker" and one Sea Serpent APM Light Fighter, ID "A/)-Sea.Serpent" entered Omicron Rho using the jump hole from Luneburg. Welcomed by our battle group, our snubs directly fired their cruise disruptors at them, forcem them to a little fight. The INXS, a mercenary Orca as far as I was informed, was destroyed by those Auxesian vessels, just when the Athena and the Hopewell entered Luneburg.
When the Omicronkorps together with our fleet arrived in Rho, another two smallcrafts appeared on the radar, two very annoying freelancers, ID "Komachi;Kurosawa" and "Tal.Ravis!". Not only did those individuals violate the restriction law of Omicron Rho, but they also didn't stop talking on open frequencies all the time. Those individuals are a common sight at Freeport 11 and probably this wasn't the first time they violated Core laws by entering Omicron Rho without visa. Potencially spies, maybe?
Talking about spies. There was also a fifth uninvited guest in Rho, ID [RM-MND]Hans.Eckhar. The leader of the Omicronkorps wasn't very happy to this individuum around, saying "They like to put their nose into stuff that does not concern them." and so we took the opportunity to scan this ship, noticing a nomad thruster system instead of a rheinland one. While the Auxesians left Omicron Rho earlier, the two freelancers and the MND vessel followed the Omicronkorps to Yaren Base in Omicron Delta, where the Rheinland pilots began to making themselves familiar with the system.
Well, that's it for the meeting. I decided to patrol Omicron Delta while the Rheinland units are at Yaren. And with concerns we found the Ish'tar near the freeport.
It's the third day now that this monster appears there. Same time, same position. We observed it, first cloaked, later just from the distance. No attempts of mind speech from it. No fire. It was just there, or, "she", as the locals say. Some of the less intelligent pilots dared to get very close to it, not gaining any more knowledge about it but presenting themselves stupidly for any nomad attacks. However, nothing happened so far. Even Finn McCool was around at Freeport 11 today, when the Ish'tar entered the No-Fire-Zone, encircled by Zoner defense forces, Auxesian vessels, Orders and Corsairs as well as the Apahanta.
Some minutes later, the Ish'tar just left without a trace, using it's nomad cloaking technology.
At some point, Vertiga defected and fled with a Mako. We've assumed this was done out of cowardice rather than anything else. Regardless of the sourness between us, rarely the Apahanta may appear within our space with the sole intent of fighting the Nomads, only then to disappear again once more. In essence, it's much like a ghost ship.
It's surprising that the Apahanta may have links to these structures. Vertiga is known for being very resourceful, so perhaps they may know more about what's going on here than they are letting on.