Evangeline Anastasia McDowell

[Bazza]

Entry#: 070
Date: 15 - 02 - 818 AS @ 20:50 SUT
Title: From Rheinland with love.

I do have a penchant for creating trouble, it seems. Evidence to support that notion is the fact I'm in the bar of Alster Shipyard, Hamburg System, Rheinland Space.

I crashed at Rochester yesterday to get myself back in order after that incident with the battleship. My day got interesting on the tradelane linking Planet Houston to the Hudson jumphole. I was on my way back to Vieques Shipyards with the Maelstrom.

What I found after dropping out of the lane was two Rheinland fighters and a Liberty gunboat seemingly engaged in a (relatively) civil conversation. And I cannot deny being a terrible eavesdropper. So me being me, I hung around and listened in.

The first thing that struck me was the educated manner in which the Rheinlanders spoke. Certainly far removed from the inbred dribble one gets used to hearing as a resident of Liberty. One of them, Katrina, seemed especially agreeable. I have to say I give her accent a 11/10 for being utterly huggable. If an accent can actually be hugged. The guy she was with wasn't too bad either.

I announce my presence and we end up engaged in a cordial conversation, with the LNS Hunter gunboat sitting there with a very confused commander. I learnt that Katrina is the leader of an elite fighter pilots hand picked by.... someone.... for.... something....

Hmm.

The usual political propaganda that two enemies exchange alongside the occasional racial slur became history as the four of us shared idle conversation. Just wonderful.

I soon discovered that Katrina was having problems with her ship. From what she was telling me her command console kept on cutting out, as if it wasn't getting any power. Since this woman was such a pleasant person to talk to I offered her my services as a mechanic. I told her that if she took her ship to Beaumont I'd have a go at fixing it.

As I've always said, I have nothing against the people of Rheinland as just people. They are the same as anyone else underneath, they bleed just like I do. My objection in this case lies with the "government" itself.

I was now technically committing high treason for aiding and abetting Rheinland insurgents.

Bite my shiny metal ass. She's a nice girl and the guy in tow isn't impolite either.

We were just about to make our own way to Beaumont to repair Katrina's ship when a damn battlecruiser showed up.That was when things started getting stupid.

Of course the first thing the commander does is jump on his milk crate and denounce the Rheinlanders' presence, along with my own. No idea why. All I was doing was being a fly-on-the-wall to a Rheinland invasion, albeit a hopelessly small one.

Without any delay nor any time to think, the commander of the battlecruiser issues an order to open fire on me, but not the Rheinlanders, as, using his own words, he lacked the authority.

What?

Now without any real choice, the Rheinland agents and myself promptly legged it and made our way to Beaumont Base in the North Dallas Debris Field.

We got maybe half way before Katrina's ship **** itself in open space. The command console shut down and the ship could no longer be flown, the fail-safe system bringing the ship to an "approximate" halt, leaving it drifting slowly, but noticeably, in space.

I had my suspicions on what the cause might be. With Katrina in contact through the emergency power supply I told her the highly-skilled, expert method of fixing intermittent electrical faults with a ship.

Boot the living hell out of whatever isn't working.

And what do you know? The ship fired back up almost instantly after the first blow.

And it held together until Beaumont. I got her clearance to dock with the station. A paying customer is a paying customer in the eyes of a Junker, no matter whence they came, after all.

I disembark through the gangway and set foot on Beaumont for the first time in.... several months. I head directly to the dock where Katrina had set down. An unexpectedly formal "official introduction" later and I had my head deep inside the naughty bits of one of the Rheinland Military's finest pieces of kit.

I asked Katrina a few basic diagnostic questions, and through those I decided the problem lay with either the alternator or the conduit linking it to the battery.

With the electrics isolated I delved in to the very bowls of the ship, quickly locating the fault.

What I saw made my blood run cold.

Whoever had serviced the ship last installed a new generator, but they hadn't tensioned the bolts holding the conduit to it.

What this meant was the spark generated was arcing across the single bolt still intact, creating a situation so hideously dangerous I was simply in shock. I attempted to worm my way around the portal I was in and succeeded in nought but taking the skin off both knuckles. I commissioned Katrina to retrieve the correct bolts for the conduit, a set of four M10x120 high tensile.

Katrina should have been dead. The fuel lines were literally centimetres away and covered by a thin insulation that would have done nothing to protect against the sort of voltages a fusion engine creates. And that insulation did in fact have burn marks on it where an arc had hit.

So we had the problem mostly fixed. Parts of the weapons system were munted beyond what could be repaired using basic tools. I had offered the Rheinlanders a place to stay under the radar until they could make the trip home, so long as they didn't cause any trouble.

Trouble, however, ended up coming right to us. A squad of Liberty Gunboats came barrelling through the debris field making a clear heading directly for us. Somehow they'd figured out we were here.

I didn't have much choice when it came to running with the Rheinies back to Hamburg, high treason carries an instant death penalty in the fine "justice system" of the Liberty police state. With the lives of Misaka, Kana, Fumika, Sakura and a selection of the finest men the Junker variety-bucket has to offer in my own hands I, alongside Katrina and Alex, the gentleman chaperone, booted for the Hudson System across the massive expanse of the Texas wastelands; the remains of the Dallas Incident.

Thanks in no small part to my loving care, Katrina's ship was much happier. The core components were built tough enough that a few thousand volts wouldn't hurt them at all. Her weaponry and some auxiliary systems had seen better days but the ship would get her home. At least, I hoped.

We made our way across the open expanses of space, with the funboat patrol not five kilometres behind us. They were starting to gain on the bulky cruiser, I was holding up the rest of the convoy.

As the enemy ships got dangerously close, Katrina broke out of formation and turned around. As she did so she ordered me and Alex to keep flying for the jumphole.

I watched her fly behind us and smack the gunboats in the face with cruise disruptors.

Her plan got two of the three that were following us. But at the cost of becoming caught in their midst. She commanded Alex and me to keep flying, to reach the protection of Battleship Westfalen in the Hamburg system.

At some point through the stint across Hudson I got separated from Alex, I don't quite remember how. All I do remember from that point on is getting dangerously close to the LNS Aegis Fate as it showed up unannounced near Planet Atka, inconveniently as the exact time I was attempting to slink past unnoticed.

I however, did manage to avoid getting caught. I hit up the tradelane with seconds to spare before the cruiser was in range. I got spat out at the jumpgate to Hamburg, the limit of where Liberty's ships dare go without a death wish. A few seconds later I was within Rheinland's borders, greeted by Battleship Westfalen.

Somewhere along the line Alex had caught up with me; he was only seconds behind. He explained the situation to the Westfalen, who had not been too appreciative of a destroyer showing up at their front door without an invite.

Katrina, however was nowhere in sight. I sat there for a nervous two or three minutes before Alex cracked and jumped in the tradelane to go find her. I got about three feet away from the lane myself when she went me a radio transmission. She said she had managed to ditch the Liberty boats and was on her way.

Breathing a sigh of relief I returned to the Westfalen and waited. Indeed, a few minutes later Alex and Katrina were safe and sound.

What happened next was, to be honest, rather unexpected.

The last Liberty fleet to enter Rheinland was mercilessly slaughtered and never even reached the moon which contains the Westfalen, in orbit.

Today was a bit different as some time later a Siege cruiser, seemingly unescorted, popped out the end of the lane. Literally, right on top of Westfalen.

He didn't fare to well, it must be said. The flying space-sausage lasted about two minutes, the Westfalen's crew displaying blood-lust the likes of which I had never seen outside a Xeno.

The cruiser did, however, manage to escape alive, if not too happy. It ran outside the firing range of Westfalen, but before the battleship could make a move I closed in and unleashed my own brand of justice.

As I did so, I noticed something. Since I had been so fixated on this siege cruiser I hadn't paid any attention to my radar, and when I did I found the gunboat squad plus an extra bomber and the battlecruiser who'd broken up my earlier party.

So whilst I and the Rheinlanders tore apart what was left of the siege cruiser the gunboats and battlecruiser got stuck into the rest of the Rheinland Military present, one of their own cruisers and two gunboats.

My own special blend of blood lust took over and I made a real mess of the LNS Tyrant. In the face of an incoming barrage of razor-fire I just kept unloading everything the Maelstrom had to give, the bridge plunging into darkness by the power overload, only broken by the bright lasers flying past.

Once the LNS Tyrant bit the dust we retreated back to the Westfalen, now preparing herself for all-out combat.

What was left of the Liberty fleet retreated itself, leaving us to ourselves.

Cutting the inconsequential chatter out, I was allowed access to Alster Shipyards to repair the damage.

For now, I have a safe haven in Hamburg. Katrina and Alex have seen to it that I am treated as a guest of Rheinland. I guess it only makes sense, I did kind of save both their lives, after all.

Hell, I need a damn break. This is too much **** for me to deal with.

From Rheinland, with love.

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