Today's "patrol" began with a bang. I'd just left Oder Shipyard after a quick once-over on my Wraith when a civilian sent a (personally directed) distress call; he was being pirated along the trade lane between Neu Berlin and the Brandenburg Border Station, along that stretch that intersects the asteroid field. Herr Hauptfeldwebel Weissman had just launched at some location nearby, so I called him in for backup and went to investigate. It wasn't hard to find the situation; our old friend Herr Mike Stah of the Red Hessian Army was trying to pirate three transports at once in his single bomber. It's stunts like these that really undermine the RHA's claim to fame that it's "above pirating".
In any case, Stah was there trying to goad a million credits out of some three transports, by himself. Before Herr Weissman arrived, however, a Bounty Hunter Guild fighter and gunboat arrived on the scene. Stah, as usually, started running his mouth, and the Bounty Hunters threatened action, but Weissman showed up in time to stay their hand. But he couldn't stay Stah's hand; the fool opened fire on one of the Hunters and I was ordered to engage. A little rusty, and in the middle of an asteroid field, I took a few hits from his cannons but in the end sent him packing, and by packing I mean in a body bag.
Herr Weissman and I were about to begin a patrol after seeing the Hunters off when a Rottfront pilot showed up further down the lane. This "Leo Trotzky" began speaking his nonsense around the same time one of their "truth transmitters" started blabbering. I attempted, of course needlessly, to sway his opinion of his "occupation" and leave, but he merely called for backup instead, and a Vlad Lenin appeared to help out his Red comrade. This wasn't before a civilian transport registered to a Nina Starcatcher was gracious enough to lend me a refill on my nanobotts before leaving the area.
... And then the Joker showed up, resplendent in all his 'gory'. He was still packing his gunship and decided to "help solve the local dispute" because he "loved squabbling" or some other such thing. In the meantime, just to add fuel to the fire, the two Bounty Hunters from earlier appeared, taking no clear stance on their course of action.
They really didn't need to since things developed quickly. The Rottfront pilots, on the verge of siding with the Joker, suddenly turned around and noticed that the Bounty Hunter gunboat was carrying a metric ton of Liquid Cardamine. Weissman and I obviously had more dire concerns than the policing of this little article, but the Rottfront had no such tact, and decided to play Polizei officers. They demanded the Hunter's immediate surrender of the Cardamine, to which the Hunter retorted it was to be taken back to one of their research labs. When asked for what purpose, the Hunter merely inferred that, "What if we could use it to make a cure for the drug? No more Outcasts." The Rottfront pilot, Trotzky I believe, was flippant enough to reply, "And what if I grew three meters tall and shot rainbows out of my a$%, it'd be nice but it's not going to happen." While this situation seemed to be growing to a boiling point, the Joker apparently thought it prudent to take matters into his own hands.
He shot at the gunboat.
A few seconds later the Rottfront pilots used the excuse that they would "Stop firing at the Hunters when they dropped the Cardamine", and opened fire as well.
Luckily, in the middle of all this, Weissman and I received a host of reinforcements, from Gefreiter Voelkel to Flieger Stahl and a reservist pilot by the name of Hans Wolfgang. The Rottfront receieved a few helping hands of their own, including a number of Red Hessians, but by then we'd already designated the Joker's ship as the target of the day. Our four Wraiths (sans Weissman) laid into it, and eventually gunned it down. We turned around to find the two Hunters and Herr Weissman engaged with two Rottfront and two Hessians, one of whom was actually destroyed while we took care of the Joker. Our flight of four held back in support.
Admiral Malte arrived on the scene, along with Major Voelkel in the gunboat RNC Hansa, which was present to pick up the escape pods of the Hunter gunboat which, under fire, eventually gave in and exploded. I attempted a quick foray into the rapidly developing fight in order to pick up the Liquid Cardamine, but a Hessian, who had joined in with several others, managed to snag it instead. By now Hessians were pouring into the fight, rapidly unbalancing it. Admiral Malte sent Gefreiter Voelkel into the fray, then Stahl, then myself as it got worse.
The fight dragged out into the nearby asteroid field where fire was concentrated on Vlad Lenin. While my shots were the last that landed before his ship was rendered a fireworks display, the credit really goes to the rest of the pilots involved; we whittled him down together.
Unfortunately, the Hessians decided to bug out, along with the surviving Rottfront pilots, taking with them the load of Cardamine. We cost them, and they cost us. In the meantime, the crew of the Hunter gunboat were taken back to the Strausberg for interrogation into the methods they used to acquire those drugs.
We pulled out of the asteroid field as to not be ambushed and regrouped and resupplied at Neu Berlin. The Admiral gave the order to send us out on patrols, and Herr Major Voelkel on the Hansa was given command of the operation. The group was comprised of himself, Gefreiter Voelkel, Stahl, Wolfgang and myself. Tanja and Hans were grouped into Zwei flight while Stahl and I became Einz flight.
After setting out to Frankfurt, we ran across a short chain of Freelancers packing Rheinland military gear, namely full-fledged R7-n Hornvipers. One of them complied with orders to check with the Oberkommando and turn in the weapons at Mainz, while the second ran himself out into the nebula and disappeared.
Flieger Lehmann joined our group as Wolfgang left, so Stahl was regrouped with Tanja and I got Lehmann. I took our flight out to Munich, which was dead as a graveyard, and then returned to Frankfurt. Meanwhile, Zwei flight checked out Sigma 13. However, in our case, we ran across a Volksfront pilot in the middle of trying to convince some civilian to join them. "We will feed you and treat you well," or so his story went. He tried to escape once my flight showed up on his scanners but a Mosquito in his tailpipe persuaded him to cut his cruise engines. Of course he kept on going at a leisurely pace out towards the jump hole off Heidelberg.
Zwei flight, along with the Major, rendezvoused with us when we were about half way to that jump hole. This "Daniel Boehmer" said a few choice words about the Rheinwehr being "traitors" and "influenced by Liberty" and a few slights at the quality (and gender) of our pilots. Needless to say, Frau Gefreiter Voelkel instructed him in the lessons of reality, but the bastard escaped through the jump hole just as his nanobott supply ran out.
Curiously, in the middle of all this, a certain Adolph Neumann contacted me from half way across Sirius. The conversation was benign, and actually reminded me of myself, but my attention was firmly planted in the situation. The channel log will be included along with that of the Volksfront pilot's banter.
Einz flight was directed to rendezvous with Herr Feldwebel Henrik Drum in the Neu Berlin system, where he took command and immediately set off for Stuttgart. While that was along our patrol route, Herr Drum went there with a great sense of urgency, but somewhat stoically. As it turned out, a reservist cruiser by the name of RNC Kuun-Lan had let out a cry for help... yet we saw the ship leaving the system just as we entered it, followed by a reservist fighter. We overheard some comms chatter, suspicious in that it referred to the cruiser as "Running like the Kanzler's dogs do", so we went to investigate. The perpetrators, a pair of ner-do-wells, identity unknown, saw us coming and made a break for the nebula and escaped.
Herr Drum was ordered to take Einz flight, now down to just the both of us, into Omega 7. The patrol there was... brief. The good Feldwebel then took us back to the Karlsruhe without incident. Running low on fuel after an eventful few hours, I requested permission to divert and set down on the Battleship, destined for the mess hall that I'd missed five hours earlier.
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