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ID:Martin McKinsey Location:Oasis class converted deep space research and logistics vessel "Core|APM-Sagittarius-3", New York Subject:Report ENCRYPTION:APM-STANDARD
Ladies and gentlemen,
due to the fact that Ageria, whose Alberta division is working on the prototype jumpgate deep inside the Cold Lake Nebula heavily relies on our hardware shipments, supply runs to Liberty continue. Dr. Rosenberg hopes to aquire - through any discreet means possible - information on the status, progress and prospects of this installation. He believes it could as some stage in the future be reproduced by the APM for the sake of the Core's domination in the Omicrons. Building on that, the Sagittarius once again vacated Leduc station delivering the materials in demand.
Originally I planned to make a stop at Planet Pittsburg to meet our "specials contact" on the way back, as we entered New York however, long range sensors picked up an anomalous energy reading from within Detroit Debris Field along with some disturbing static, whitch basically sounded like a poor Kusarian horror holostory. Naturally we could not pass up the opportunity to examine the phenomenon.
Inside the scrapyard tachyon emissions suddenly went through the roof indicating a propable presence of a gravitational anomaly, possibly even a rift at their core. However, as the Sagittarius approached the cloud
we made contact with, what apparently was an Outcast ship, yet with a crumbling transponder signal - all that we could make out was what seems to be a callsign "Denial". Naturally the Sagittarius is well enough equipped to fend of a threat like that, but as it turned out, it was not alone. Another snubcraft with a similar transponder error, callsigned as "Wache" opened fire on my ship. Curiously enough, it seems to have been a Rheinland craft. Long range sensors indicated more unidentified contancts throughout New York. Hot as it was, we turned around to reach the safety of West Point, where I waited until the agressors got disinterrested, then went stealth.
Naturally, in Liberty one does not have to wait too long for the Navy to respond when there's troubble ahead. Both contacts along with more tangos outside the tachyon cloud were heavily engaged with home forces. From what we were abe to identify, keeping a safe distance in the shadows, the hostile party consisted of two Rogue craft (DogBull, Consequence), two Nomad creatures (Ka'Rena, K'Hara|Kakka, a Rheinland bomber (Stichflamme) with the same transponder issue as the first two contacts and naturally, them both. The only explanation I can think of is, that the above human pilots are in fact infested with alien incubi, yet detailed bioscans and preferably a vivisection would deliver more interresting data.
Although the Sagittarius-3 is a state-of-the-art research vessel, it is not at all built for heavy combat, such as the above - we would have been cracked like a nut by just a few well aimed hits from the enemy bombers, had we dropped the cloaking veil. Instead the opportunity arose to look at the anomaly more closly. As I suspected, it revealed a slightly unstable jumphole connection of unknown alignment. The particle fluctuations indicated a fairly slow decay rate of the anomaly, so I decided to take the risk and we jumped.
What spread before us on the other side was as desolate landscape of dense asteroid clusters. Usually such formations envelop rich ore deposits of various minerals - a survey of those would be of utost interrest to our mining section. Yet we were unable to conduct any cunclusive readings due to the fact, that the Sagittarius is simply too large, too bulky to move about the dense field. Progress was slow.
As we ventured deeper into the system, heading for its center, we made an interresting discovery. Apparently these uncharted parts were already being explored by The Forlorn Hope Mercs, since we found their automated mining ship operating in the area. The purpose of the drone quickly became apparent. It was deployed to mine narcrahtite cristals - rare, semiartifical mineral with a fascinating policrystalic structure. Although the aplications of this are yet to be discovered, I obtained 1056 cargo units for study - no doubt the geology labs at Nauru will find there most interresting. Given that the Forlorn toaster billed me only 25.000 SC for the entire order it was almost a steal. Surely it had to be some kind of malfunction, but you don't look a gift hore in the mouth, as they say.
Currently the Sagittarius is moored at Newark Station in Manhattan orbit as preparations for the return to Core space are being conducted. One should note, that the jumphole to the uncharted system has a monopolic alignment, meaing it goes only one way. There is however a reverse connection deep in the asteroid field, in sector C6 leading back to New York.