MRG | Sabine de Bordeleaux, Dame of Lyonnais

[Bordo]

(OORP: Fanfare to accompany your reading)

Commander's Log: Dame-Chevalier Madeline Sabine de Bordeleaux

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High Orbit above Planet Leeds, Occupied Leeds System, Gallic Space

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These are the personal logs of the Lady-Knight ('Dame-Chevalier') Sabine de Bordeleaux, logged for personal meditation and so as to make a personal account of the young noble's travels and assignments, but are here below posted and preserved for posterity, that all may peer into the mind of a young commander at war.

It has been 4 days since the Esperance (Sabine's personal 'flagship') arrived in the Leeds System - the very place where my father fell during the first push into Bretonnian space. The space in this system is clouded by some noxious gas - the nebulas around Planet Leeds itself register high levels of carbon, lead and other toxic materials. It is a system marred by the unforgiving appetite of industry, and now, the gears of la guerre. I imagine that Piccardy or even Ile-de-France will not look so different in a few decades time, unless we learn to do our work more sustainably.

We have been stationed by Leeds' docking ring and moors for the time being, occasionally responding to distress calls made by IDF Shipping and merchant vessels coming under attack from Bretonnian Resistance Fighters on the way here from Stokes. We also volunteer for assignments that take us into the clouds around the planet, usually to hunt down BAF stragglers, partisans and supporters by attacking their convoys, harassing any wings we find flying by the atmospheric opening on the far side of the planet, and by destroying their military installations in the area. I count 2 stations and 4 weapons platforms thus far.

This is also the first time I and my crew are facing les étrangers. Foreigners. Unlike the Maquis, the Brigands, the Council or the Corse, who are simply malcontents and curs, these men and women here - they fight with a desperation I have yet to see before. I cannot help but think how many of them grew up in this very system - or in neighboring Edinburgh, who now have to watch their home go up in flames as the war spreads further and further into Sirian Space. They are our enemies, yes, but I cannot help but feel heavy at the thought of things like this. I don't know how I'd cope if Lyon befell a similar fate, and if one day I find myself looking at my homeworld through the same eyes these Bretonnians now see their home.

Misère inimaginable.

At any rate, in light of my application to enlist my ship and my crew officially in the Marine Royal Gaulouise, I am filing a report both to High Command and the Recruitment Office to tell of the work we have done out here. Sentimentalities aside, the occupation of Leeds goes well, and with the Esperance's collaboration with the MRG, we expect BAF resistance to thin out and wear down. The system's Governor-General has reached out to me, and expressed over dinner planetside at Leeds that the jumpgate to New London should be restored on schedule, provided we can continue our current task of securing IDF convoys, skirmishing with the BAF and patrolling around the jump holes the Bretonnians are using to harass the occupation. Avec de la chance, we may even have working trade lanes.

But until then, and also while I await a response from the MRG, we shall continue to do our work here. I still have to think about what to do about the increasing number of Bretonnian pilots we are keeping as PoW's in the lower decks - after serum-assisted interrogation, most of them are just officers doing orders, and I have never fancied sending our guests to the mines. It is not well that commissioned officers do menial labor after all, Gallic or foreign. Perhaps I will find a way to get in touch with the Bretonnians to drop the poor things off somwhere - we have already extracted all the information we need from them.

Au nom du roi, on ne passe pas. *

* Literally 'In the name of the king, they shall not pass.' - the historical motto of Sabine's household, being charged with what is essentially a 'border world' on the edge of Gallic Space in the Lyonnais System; just one trade lane away from the jump-gate into the neighboring neutral zone with the Kusari Republic.