I began my patrol with taking my Snubnose to assist Admiral Malte in combat against a Junker Pirate transport and a Roc-class bomber, terrorising the populace of Munich. Unfortunately enough, I was still on Freiburg in watch for Junker pirates around the area when the Admiral's call came and since my ship also started to malfuncion during my route, I got there too late. However, the delay didn't cause any possible drawbacks, since Admiral Malte single handedly destroyed both hostile ships, she was just finishing up as I got there.
Following that event, we got organised into wings. Wing Einz was consistant of me and reserve pilot Volker, while Wing Zwei was composed of Hauptgefreiter Drum and reserve pilot Reinboth. Admiral Malte issued us waypoints, but we were quickly interrupted by being warned of a wanted Junker pirate transport, the Baraka being present. Admiral Malte caught him first, but the Junker made a run for it as soon as the arrest warrant was made. He ran off to Hamburg and landed on Border Station Luebeck, as Hauptgefreiter Drum's wing cut his path, approaching from Alster.
Presuming that the Police officers on board Luebeck were handling the arrest of the Junker, Admiral Malte ordered us to resume our patrols, while she left off to talk to the Kanzler regarding the recent Junker problems we had to deal with. I took my wing to patrol Stuttgart and Omega-7, all seemed to be silent. As we were heading back though, both reserve pilots signed off duty and only me and Hauptgefreiter Drum remained in space.
We were eventually contacted by a Bowex ship, the Bramall, in request of an escort through Stuttgart and Omega-7, due to the increased pirate activity present in both systems lately. I ordered Hauptgefreiter Drum to escort the ship out, but his systems started malfunctioning and his ship's heat signals vanished from my sensors. I was starting to get worried when he didn't show up for a good five minutes, but since we had to move on, I ordered a repair ship to search and rescue Drum, while I myself agreed to escort the Bramall further. However, we were soon interrupted by strange, illiterate transmission incoming, I thought it was my comms at first, then I spotted an incoming vessel on my sensors.
The ship moved quickly and went off sensors, I couldn't get a scan on it. At first, I thought it was some Hessian attempting to mess with the lane, as he smelled the massive Bowex ship trying to move though Rheinland, but as I took the lane to the Stuttgart gate, it turned out to be... something else. The ship shot the lane from right under me and opened fire as soon as that. I encountered this class of vessel before, but I didn't realise it was indeed the so-called "Wilde gunboat". As I tried my best to evade its projectiles and call in reinforcements, only Hauptgefreiter Drum, whose systems were repaired in the meantime came. The enemy ship fled the area, moving on to Stuttgart, where it attacked a trader vessel.
That was opportune for us, we caught up with the hostile ship and the civilian also managed to escape unharmed. The target attempted to flee using the lanes, but we disrputed its attempt to do so by taking it down, which led the ship to escape to deep space. I, still being in belief of encountering a Hessian or SCRA technological breakthrough (even though it soon became apparent that the ship was of even further advanced weaponry), ordered the pursuit and destruction of the thought-to-be pirate vessel.
The ship of course, started to retaliate. Its armament was rather formidable, but we used the tactics of "one strikes, the other evades" with Hauptgefreiter Drum and were successful at doing so. My ship got damaged slightly and Herr Drum's heavily, but we eventually managed to bring the foreign vessel to its knees in a long-lasting and exhausting fight with using only two Wraith-class fighters. Long live the tactical superiority of the Rheinwehr forces.
I personally managed to salvage a few pieces of the ship and gave them in to the Karlsruhe for analyzation. I understand that the findings might be above my level of clearence, this ship seems to be not either of human nor nomad origin. It is something inbetween, something composed of both elements, a crossbreed, if you may please. This could also be one of the rumoured Liberty nomad research projects.
On a final note, I would like to nominate Hauptgefreiter Drum to recieve the Reinforcement Service Award, since I admit, I wouldn't have stood much chance against a gunboat with fighting capabilities way above the standard human level. His presence turned this encounter into an utter victory of the Rheinwehr and even though we shared the work, his presence saved my life again.
Leutnant Voelkel signing off.
Powering down transmitter...
Cutting comm link...
Closing visual data...
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