Yesterdays patrol began shortly after I had finished qualifications in the Bergelmir; the SCRA agent Luka was spotted by Herr Daniel Richter, and I moved with him to intercept. The suspect ran into the Westerstede Nebula and hid by the hostile station within. But while he was making his ideologically fired propaganda speeches, we had received a notice by Herr Admiral Engels that two Corsair cruisers were sighted within the Neu Berlin system. Naturally, priority mandated that we disengage from a small-time bandit and move to assist the Admiral. Of course, by the time we arrived, the Ravensburg had already made space dust of them. Luka actually followed us back to Neu Berlin, where we gave him the ultimatum to surrender. Needless to say he did not, but in the ensuing fight between Richter and the SCRA agent a rather hefty ionic storm swept by, and Luka managed to escape, although plenty scathed.
After Id returned my new bomber to its proper hangar on the Strausburg, I set out in my Wraith along with Herr Richter on genuine patrol. I rejoined him just as he was stopping a ship and interrogating its skipper. However, wed received a call from a reservist pilot claiming there were Libertonians in Hamburg. Richter ordered me to check it out while he handled the situation, so off I went. I found that the reservist was flying a Fafnir, and had stopped a Liberty gunship commanded by a Lieutenant Roe. The hold carried some fourteen Rheinland Police pilots; he could not be permitted to leave under those circumstances. The reservists ship gave the gunship plenty of pause, but admittedly the reservist was being coarse about the whole deal, saying such things bluntly as, Drop em. I addressed the Libertonian with all due severity but professionalism, and he complied to my demands to relinquish our pilots. The reservist picked them up, and I ordered him to return them to Altona Station for processing, which he did while I saw off the rather frightened gunship. I returned to base shortly thereafter.
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Late that afternoon I took part in the prisoner transfer of a Commissar Katz of the SCRA from the Munster Research Station in Bremen to Vierlande. I was part of the advanced guard, and arrived at the station before any of the primary escort. When said escort had arrived, along with the RNC Schmeidehammer, I moved out yet again as the advance scout. It wasnt very long before Id detected the massive SCRA battlefleet en route to the station in order to rescue their fearless leader, so I relayed the information to the rest of the escort and quickly doubled back to their location. The SCRA crowded outside of the stations minefield; too hesitant to breach it. We took advantage of this by moving the convoy out the other side of the field, forcing them to circumnavigate it. Nevertheless, they cut off the formation and demanded their Commissar back, after much gloating of their superior numbers.
In the ensuing firefight, the four Wraiths of myself, Herr Flieger Richter, Frau Gefreiter Fessel, and Herr Oberfeldwebel Meinhardt engaged the entire formation of ships while the two cruisers and gunboat made a break for the jump hole. They succeeded in drawing away the SCRA battleship and the accompanying bomber, which left us the gunboat and fighters that had escorted it. The gunboat and bomber were promptly destroyed, being the highest value targets, so while the cruisers plied at the battleships shields, a massive furball was developing between us fighters nearby. During the action, Id latched onto one of the ships which was the most badly damaged and held on tight, even while being fired upon; needless to say in the state it was in it was easy pickings, and I destroyed it when it leveled out and flew straight for even the slightest moment. Of course, every one of us had put lasers into all of the SCRA fighters out there at one point or another, so I was simply there to administer the coup de grace for this particular Communist. After some fifteen more minutes of heavy fighting, another SCRA fighter met the same fate, and shortly thereafter so did the battleship. They must have called a general retreat, as the whole of their fighter contingent bugged out of the fight in unison. We let them go; we hadnt lost a single of our fighters, although a gunboat was heard to have been destroyed elsewhere. My gun camera was a little off, so the number of available shots is sadly limited.
So, after a good hours worth of knife-fighting in the Bremen system, the crippled SCRA fleet abandoned their attempt to save their Commissar, while our escort suffered only very few losses. We rendezvoused with the Schmeidehammer and escorted it all the way to Vierlande, where Commissar Katz was given a nice cell where he couldnt see the sun. The Schmediehammer returned to Alster to undergo repairs while the rest of us landed on Hamburg, much in need of a bar and a bed.