The voyager has some interest assets, namely lots of guns and not a lot of cargo space. Given that I'm more of a talker than a fighter, that doesn't seem to be the best choice for my activities in Leeds and beyond. So I upgraded.
I upgraded big time.
"Vow to Thee" was a fine ship for transporting refugees out of Leeds, but she always felt... wrong, and not just because her docking algorithms were dreadful. Having her try to find the center of a trade lane was like a recreation of my senior prom. No, at the end of the day, she was a Libertonian ship. It shouldn't make a difference, but it does. The angles just don't feel right to those of us born and raised on the bulbous curves of our beloved Bretonian craft. A space ship should look like a fish. Not a pocket knife, not a brick, and not a boat. It should look like a giant leviathan of the deep rose up to the stars and paddled its way from plane to planet.
So I scraped together what I could and purchased an old Palace class luxury liner. It was formerly used by BMM to tour the gold fields of Dublin (man, BMM buys a lot of luxury ships) but she's seen better days. She was press-ganged into mass evacuations when Leeds fell (sorry, when the temporary interruption to Crown administration first began) and those huddled masses took their toll on the girl, rendering her useless to anything save transporting refugees.
Guess what I'm using her for!
I'm keeping the name Vow to Thee and am proud to be flying a Bretonian craft under Bretonian colors with a Bretonian crew of... 5. That last part is a bit of a problem. Unlike our Liberty counterparts that rely on automation, Bretonian luxury vessels were designed to have large crews waiting on dignitaries hand and foot. Five can keep the ship running... barely, but our refugees are on their own for food and such. That's why they bring so much luggage aboard, right? However, if I keep the crew down to five, along with the necessary armor modifications, my cargo hold is exactly 5 times the size of the one on my puddle jumper, meaning 5 runs will load her up to the gills to send her on her merry way.
That was the good news. The bad news is that more cloak and dagger nonsense is afoot. A freelancer named Prometheus contacted me and asked to meet in the same place Wolf and I used to chat. He claimed he was also Liberty Navy Intelligence. He also claimed he had LRF assets mined and ready to destroy, which made me more readily believe that he might actually be Liberty Navy. If that's how they treat their allies, I'd hate to be their enemies. Anyway, this guy wanted the low-down on Wolf, and also wanted me to kill him.
I'm a delivery boy, not an assassin. I've actually never killed anyone face to face. The most I did was suppressing fire with the planetside resistance. I was a terrible shot. Asking me to 1) contact Wolf (I have no idea how to reach him, he always initiated), 2) Invite him aboard my vessel (plausible, he might want to see the inside of a palace), and then 3) slit his throat (hah! If I tried I probably wouldn't be walking away from that one) was an exercise in folly. Eventually, Prometheus seemed to get the point and said I should try to lure him out the omegas instead. Omega-29 to be precise with a story of a liberty dreadnaught acting odd in the borderworlds. I'll pass along the message. Never said I wouldn't pass along a warning to go with it.
Here's the thing: I know Wolf is actually working with the Liberty Navy, or at least with SOMEONE in the 5th fleet. All I have for Prometheus is the word of a guy who's first action was to threaten to blow up everyone I care about. On the other hand, Prometheus tipped me off to a Gallic ambush in Magellan. I was going to head back out to space, but chose to wait, and lo and behold long range sensors picked up Gallic navy craft. Maybe Prometheus knew, maybe he was getting lucky (it's not exactly hard to predict a gallic show of force in Leeds) so that means he's done more for the resistance than the technically-helping-by-not-blowing-us-up that Wolf ever did. I honestly don't know how to play this one. Maybe I should drop a line to Mounier as revealing Liberty infighting keeps me relevant to him without compromising LRF proper. It's late, I should get some sleep and hope that all this makes more sense in the morning. Or at the very least, get Hudson's take on all this. Prometheus also claimed there's a mole in the LRF. Hudson needs to know about that.
Unless he was referring to me, of course. Man, wouldn't that be ironic?
It's been a while. Pneumonia is a hell of a disease. We've had a lot of issues with disease, given the small tunnels. The filters that keep our re-circulated air acceptably germ free in peace time have long since depleted, and so outbreaks of the nastier bugs are common for anyone who spends too much time down below. Given the frogs' fondness of orbital carpet bombing, though, I'll take my chances with the viruses. I wonder if I was the one who brought in the supplies used to treat me?
In any event, it's good to be back.
My return flight on the Vow to Thee brought in more medical supplies to the outpost, followed by the usual puddle jumping runs to swap them out for refugees. All the old habits came right back to me, the captain has as much rust as his immaculate vessel it seems. Along the way I was hailed by a person who acted like we knew each other, said their name was "Remmi" or something like that. I didn't recognize the name or call-sign "huntress" they were using, but they seemed eager to help out the LRF, so who was I to deny the extra company. Plus, I have completely forgotten all of my clearance codes so I couldn't give him docking privileges at the outpost even if I wanted to. And I most certainly didn't want to. For all I know, they were a spy trying to social engineer their way into the heart of the LRF. I may have spilled some quasi-public info to get myself back in the fight, but I'm no traitor.
More interestingly, he introduced me to a Crayterian named Davison Hayes. We met up to form a convoy to take the refugees through Gallic and Kusari blockades out to Freeport 9. Huntress dropped out early, but Davison and I continued on, shooting the breeze and swapping faction history. The Crayter Republic is a fascinating little "what if?" experiment. What if humanity had never torn itself apart and our great houses had been founded out of a desire for exploration rather than fear and paranoia for our very survival. There was a pride and openness to the man you don't see in the core houses. More like the GMG than a traditional house, they've been roaming from system to system, constantly being displaced by misfortune or the ruthlessness of other factions. They're carving a home for themselves now in Coronado. I hope that one holds.
Anyway, the trip had far more danger from Kusari than the frogs. Seems his majesty's navy is adequately distracted by trouble on the home front they couldn't muster more than a few fighters and turrets to harass us. Kusari on the other hand was not pleased by a pirate carrying anything through their territory. They mustered their border defenses to shoot us down, destroyers and gunboats galore. We outran them successfully until we buzzed New Tokyo proper and ran into a full battle-group. We got out alive thanks to the Vow's generous supply of batteries and nanobots, but we limped the rest of the way. GMG controlled space was a welcome respite. We even did a little bit of site-seeing at Hiran. For a few minutes, my vessel got to live up to its original function and be a pleasure craft, filling its occupants with the awe inspiring sites of Sirius. It was a real pleasure seeing the effect on Hayes. Seems Crayterians don't get out much.
We pushed through Samura's project in the Sigmas to get the cargo offloaded at Freeport 9, where we said our goodbyes. A bit of refitting and repair later and I was ready to make my way home. My original plan was to run empty back to Liberty and pick up pharmaceuticals, but a collection of TAZ believers came forward asking for a ride. I couldn't get them all the way to Shasta, but I could get them to Freeport 1, so my ship hung south with some pilgrims instead of north with empty holds.
I got back to Bretonia easily enough and picked up supplies from Cambridge. However, there was a lot of radio chatter about Marauding GRN gunboats in New London. BAF had already scrambled a response team, so I figured I would be safe to slip into New London and make my way back to Leeds along the top edge of the system. After all, their attention would be focused on New London, I would assume. Assuredly, they would take up positions near their line of battleships or the triad near South Hampton, I could sneak behind them to the jump gate and be out before they even saw me. I jumped in, hit planet Dover, and cruised around to make my final run in open space.
I guessed wrong, I received a demand from two gunboats, the Sajuuk and the Evangelique to stop. Once burned, twice shy, I cut my engines voluntarily. They seemed... surprised by my choice, and disappointed by my cargo. There aren't a lot of medals you can earn for intercepting medical supplies. After it was clear that I wasn't anything other than what I said I was, they demanded that I drop my cargo and skedaddle. And so I did.
Live to fight another day. This war has enough dead heroes, and the funds from the unexpected TAZ shipment offsets the losses from the medical supplies. I'm no worse then when I started, but a few thousand refugees can start a new life on Freeport 9, a few thousand pilgrims are closer to their goal, and I get to take in the sites of Planet Cambridge until the BAF can get New London sorted out. It's strange being on a planet where you can go outside without fear of death, but I do not mind this naked sun.
Trees, however, are something I don't think I'll ever get used to.
"There are old pilots, and bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots." I'm most certainly getting older, and I think that is coming at the cost of the boldness. But I am ok with this, the resistance will not win this fight so much as it will survive it. We have enough martyrs, and enough Bretonian wrecks now dot our skies to create entirely new constellations. I'll take knowing when to hold them and when to fold them, as our Libertonian allies are fond of saying if it means living long enough to see Bretonian banners over Leeds once more.
I got in my good deed for the day thanks to Tredison.Ent, a freelancer who showed up at our doorstep with a transport full of goodies for the resistance and no way to navigate down to the surface. Large ships just aren't nimble or sturdy enough to survive to the surface. Part of that is just physics, most of that is economics. If planets are willing to invest in docking rings, why should pilots invest in hull reinforcements when that mass that could be better used hauling cargo? In any event, it's nice to see random freelancers picking up on supporting the resistance. Had he been actively recruited, I assume somebody would have told him about the hiccup at the end. More likely he picked up some rumor that we're paying top dollar for supplies to hit the Frenchies hard. This is good.
Friends are increasingly common and increasingly useful it seems. The Vow to Thee was hauling refugees to Denver when I ran into a Liberty patrol consisting of a police officer Ploddington and a Captain Sawyer of the Liberty navy. While I miss my smuggling days, I will admit that being a law abiding privateer has its perks. The officers not only avoided giving me a hard time, they actually offered to escort me through New York space! Maybe it was sympathy for the refugees, but I wasn't going to turn down free guns, even in the heart of Liberty space. Turns out, it was a wise idea. We ran into an outcast named Kim.Ta.Fong who gave me their piracy schtick. I played the innocent refugee card. I played the enemy of my enemy card (Corsairs are allied with the Frogs). Finally I offered to let them pirate me on the return trip if he was still alive, much to the chagrin of the Navy pilot. That seemed to tickle the outcast's fancy, and I left him trading barbs with the Navy flier, off to swap refugees for pharmaceuticals among Denver's majestic mountains. Sometimes, living within the bounds of the law has its perks.
Other times, you raid a Molly transport in the Leeds smog cloud and end up with a shipment of blood diamonds. The red stones have interesting manufacturing and mining applications, but they are worth far more as a curiosity among Liberty's upper crust. And if those same Denver pharmaceutical representatives are eager to trade carats of pretty rocks for cc's of antibiotics, I'm happy to run the contraband.
I like to think there's an informal brotherhood among traders, whoever we work for. I have no qualms about seeing royal navy fighters get blast to pieces, but I do feel a pang of guilt whenever I see a IDF ship go up. Somewhere in that hold is some frog who got press-ganged into keeping an engine running, and that's what he did to the best of his ability right until the room loses atmosphere. I've passed warnings and intel to IMG freighters to dodge pirates and I've had Kishiro ships return the favor when we're cruising through Liberty together and on our best behavior. We have our wars, but deep down, we all just want to offload our cargo and make it home.
I ran into a Freelancer, Clydesdale, while cruising through Magellan. Having puddle jumped a full load of refugees, it was time to take them to their new home on Denver. Ever short on labor, it makes an ideal site to swap refugees for pharmaceuticals. However, we had a problem. According to my temporary travelling companion, New York was lousy with pirates. I appreciate the irony of that sentiment as a privateer, but we're sanctioned by the crown and adhere to rules of engagement. The lawless factions of liberty... less so. They've mostly given me space as a refugee ship, but when I return with vital supplies for the war effort on Leeds, all best are off. To be fair, I do the same thing to Molly and Gaian patrols in Leeds, but I would hope that the Liberty war machine could secure its own bloody capital system!
And yes, I appreciate the irony of that statement as a subject of New London.
In any event, Clydesdale's warning had me on edge. He seemed especially intent on avoiding or possibly avenging himself on a pirate named Sycorax. I never crossed paths with him, but he seems like one I'd be best to avoid. We split up in New York with me flying in open space to the old Detroit trade lane (a trip I made many a time in my gun-running days) but scanners were clean. We were just chasing ghosts. Better than the alternative I suppose.
In other news, Gallia's consolidating her hold over her conquered territories. Edinburgh is now Aquitaine and Orkney is now Brittany. It seems they finally won enough votes over with the powers that decide such things to have their branding on their systems. It make sense, I admit, we haven't had influence in those systems for a decade, but it still grinds my gears to see the transponders in Leeds labelled accordingly. Leeds is still officially Leeds and none of this Agincourt nonsense, but with the last of the Ageria trade lanes and docking equipment fully swapped out for their Gallic counterparts, the place looks a bit less like home every day.
And, as much as I hate to admit it, the Gallic rings are just universally better. Docking a large transport is hard enough. Trying to negotiate upper and lower planes is nightmarish at times. Gallia's right-left paradigm is infinitely better, though it comes with the small price of being under Charles's authority. All of a sudden, some extra time spent docking doesn't seem so bad!
Not much has happened since I last logged that was worth logging. Another batch of refugees, another landing dodging enemy patrols. Increasingly, the list of factions to steer clear of is growing distressingly long. The siege kept dragging on. The war was growing stale. Revolutionary furor can only take you so far, and more and more our recruits remember less and less of Free Leeds. To them, Leeds was always occupied. Even I'm considered "new blood" by the veterans who were stationed here back when Kusari was the biggest concern in the system. I was still knee high to a grasshopper when the emperor came knocking.
Good times.
But while we've had panic and fury ever since Gallia put her destroyers in orbit prepping for a bombardment (oddly they leave our ships alone, maybe a load out issue?), for the first time in a long, long time, we have a little sliver of hope. New London held and the King's fleet was smashed though at a bloody cost we're still piecing together. Mostly rumor and hearsay is filtering through to the resistance, but the battlelines are undoubtedly retreating. I saw a BPA patrol covering the Cambridge gate to New London today. A police patrol, and honest to god civilian officer scanning us for contraband. I missed Bretonia being able to give attention to anything beyond staving off an existential threat.
The retreat means more allies are making it all the way out to Leeds. I found several friendlies in the system, first time in a long time I remember that happening without significant overwatch and payment in advance. A BIS officer named Victoria Price and a Rheinlander Freelancer named Karl Ostermann were poking around the system and I managed to wrangle them into a make-shift convoy. Ostermann provided puddle jumping services and Price played lookout, all for the greater good of Leeds. We loaded up the Vow to Thee in record time and made for a trip to Sprague as per Commodore Redmond's orders.
The trip gave us time to talk. It's crazy, but after months of mercenaries, navy, and resistance fighters, it was refreshing just to talk to someone with no dog in the fight. We traded stories about rumors of alien ships in the Omicrons, the history of Sirius, and the eccentricities of the TAZ faithful. We were people, shooting the breeze while transporting refugees to hopefully a better life. Every time I lift off from Leeds, I wonder if this will be the last batch that escape the inevitable counterpunch from the king, a king determined to glass a planet who has been denied his prize in New London. Talking with Karl, it made me remember there are people who are living in this sector, and not just surviving it.
Price was a bit more focused on the "mission" at hand. Most of her stories were classified, to be expected of a BIS spook, I suppose. Still, she did her duty. We were stopped by an IMG trader named Tidore in Dublin. IMG has no love for Bretonia, not after what we did to Aland Shipyard, but could see that we were on a humanitarian mission to Leeds. To their credit, they let Karl and I pass through the jumphole, but insisted that Price stay behind. Without hesitation, Price told us to go ahead to leads despite being outgunned. Gods bless her.
Karl and I proceeded to Leeds to do another offloading while we waited for word about Price. She came limping in, looking much worse for wear. Seems the IMG trader got the best of her, forcing her to retreat, but she had done her job and got us here safely. She managed to limp back to New London with us, and I paid her for the damage to her ship. The resistance needs friends willing to take a shot for us more than we need the credits. I also had Karl keep the proceedings from offloading the refugees. He tried to refuse, noble of him, but I instead offered that he pay it forward to the next wayward pilot he sees. The war is finally coming to an end, and we'll need to patch the bridges we've burned. Never hurts having a talkative freelancer in Rheinland on our good side. I don't believe in the Outcast's spirits or in whatever TAZ is peddling, but I do believe in Karma, and after Aland and Grand Canaria, we have quite a hole to dig ourselves out of.
All in all, three full cargo loads of refugees made it to Sprague, along with the extra ones Karl was carrying. Three more batches of Bretonians given a second chance to leave a kinder universe to their children than the one they inherited from their parents. I hope they don't take it for granted.
If you are receiving this, my deadman's switch has triggered meaning it has been 48 hours since I checked in with the neural net or a beacon picked up a confirmation that my ship was destroyed. I am either dead, floating in an escape pod in space, or captured. To all enemies of Gallia or friends of the crown, I ask for your assistance. I am broadcasting my last uploaded flight plan along with my personal logs in the hope that there is a clue somewhere in there that will lead you me, whatever my fate. Good luck to us all, and I hope to see you soon. Newport out.
***UPLOADING FLIGHT PLAN***
ORIGIN - PLANET SPRAGUE, OMEGA-3, BORDER WORLDS SPACE
DESTINATION - PLANET LEEDS, LEEDS SYSTEM, BRETONIA SPACE
ROUTE - OMEGA-3>CAMBRIDGE>DUBLIN>(ERR: NO JUMP GATE ON FLIGHT PATH)>LEEDS
CARGO - N/A
VESSEL - SERIES YX "DROMEDARY" BORDER WORLDS FREIGHTER
VESSEL DESIGNATION - PUDDLE JUMPER
***ADDITIONAL UPLOAD***
TYPE - LOG FILE
I'm flying up from Sprague with the Puddle Jumper to meet up with a Junker inbound to Cambridge with Leeds casualties. I had just evac'd the last of the refugees on base in the Vow to Thee. Apparently, the balloon has gone up and the bombardment of Leeds has begun. I snuck out in the smog clouds so I never saw the planet, but Puddle Jumper's crew did. It... changed them. They were always mercurial. Very eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may all be dead. But this, this was terrifying. It was like seeing all of the charm and wit that made them human had been completely drained, leaving them a shell of just Bretonian stiff upper lip enveloping a void.
I guess I'll see soon enough. We're meeting up with the "Shady Goods." He's a pilgrim liner so I'll be playing the role of ferry captain today. Part of me thinks I should stay on Sprague. Hudson says I've already done my part and then some and should just wait out this last part of the war as we shut down the bases and hit the lights. But those are my people on that planet, and I'll be damned if I sit idle while I can still do something to save them. Even if it kills me.
It will be a while before we sort out who's alive and dead when all this is done. I have no idea about my family and friends. Who's kicking back in a refugee camp and who was buried under a collapsed bunker three months ago. I just hope when this is all done, I'll have someone to share a drink with, before we begin the task of rebuilding.
Maybe we can rebrand as the "Leeds Reconstruction Forces." We wouldn't have to order new stationery. I'd like that, sitting in a mining ship, slowly de-toxing the system one cargo hold at a time. I'll never live to see it finished, but society prospers when old men plant trees they'll never rest under. I suppose this war has made an old man out of me, not even 30 yet. Still, I would be content with that. Even just thinking that this war will end, will truly end, is a novel thought. I've been fighting so long, it will be good to have some rest.
Entering convoy with the Junker. I'll stop here and finish the rest once I'm done with this next batch. Who knows, they may be the last ones out of Leeds. There's a grim thought. I'll just dump it in the buffer and edit this out later I guess.
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