Yesterday, Captain Vertiga decided to approve the request for an internal news broadcast. "I guess that's a good way to keep some of our less occupied crew members busy. Have fun with it. No celebrity gossip, though!"
We are currently in the periphery of the Omega-49, hidden within an unmapped ice asteroid cluster. Enjoy the view as long as you can, boys and girls, these giant ice rocks are not a common sight in this system! In the meantime, the people of Omega-49 are wondering why Bretonia sent an entire battlegroup into this system. Speculations are ranging from an exodus fleet to escape from Gallia's Death March to an actual attack of the Corsair colony on Planet Gran Canaria, now that the Corsairs have no direct link to Omega-49. The Cayman connection was lost few month ago when Omega-11's red giant went supernova. This strategic advantage was expected to be used by either the Coalition or Bretonia at some point.
We'll keep you informed once Commander Aguilar and Captain Vertiga feed us with more information!
There will be Pizza for dinner today, so don't expect tomorrow's work-out to be forgiving!
After dinner, Captain Vertiga took control of one of our drones to scout the situation in New London. The drone appeared there right before a gallic raid occured in New London's orbit. Gallia and their hirelings arrived with about ten snub-sized ships while facing only two Armed Forces snubs and their hirelings of the White Shipping Company and a Forlorn Hope snub - that's right, a Forlorn Hope snub. Are they back?
Captain Vertiga sadly did not manage to get answers to his questions as these ships engaged each other in a fiery skirmish right infront of the planet. The battle was unforgiving and the BAF snubs fell quickly to the hirelings of Gallia, which apparently also get paid by the Corsairs. Once the escorts got disabled, the gallic raid group engaged two capital ships and forced them to retreat. One of them was put out of action for a while.
On a more positive note, please remember to fill out your shopping lists for Miss Hookier as she will embark for the next shopping tour on friday.
The chaotic situation in Omega-49 is climaxing harder than the Captain in his best performances. Miss Hale of our friendly little helper company Hot Gear has left the summit at the Tombstone Estate, hosted by Doctor Holliday, head of Med Force Enterprises. The Captain decided not to share her audio recording of the summit, however we've been authorized to report about the final state of the event before Miss Hale left.
According to the provided information, Bretonia stated the intention to increase their presence in the Omega-49 system and demanded the evacuation of all Corsairs from this system. They indicated their willingness to find a peaceful solution or an acceptable compromise that however would not be in favor of the non-bretonian parties. From their perspective, the dissolving of the Confederation of Freeports nullified the Treaty of Port Jackson, the bretonian colony on Gran Canaria as well as the critical condition of the Kingdom of Bretonia empower Bretonia with the force of Battlegroup Stirling to go this very bold step into the Omegas. While the Core showed colors and willingness to support Bretonia in this possible conflict scenario, the Order and pretty much all mentionworthy powers of the Omegas hinted the opposite. Including multiple representants of the Zoners, which however do not speak on behalf of the Zoner Communities.
The news of a possible NEMP-strike arranged by an independent Zoner entity have spread like a certain christmas picture of Jessebelle Fillian of the Core two years ago on the neural net and the entire system is alarmed. Captain Vertiga scheduled a retreat to the Omega-2 system the moment the conflict breaks loose. His statement: "We're allied with the Zoners, who provided us with all the logistical support we needed to escape from the Core and upgrade the Apahanta to the ship it is today. We are, however, also allied with Bretonia, who despite of being at the brink of losing the war with Gallia, still have provided shelter for us and a permanent free passage through bretonian space as well as access to all bretonian shipyard facilities. I can't tell which of these sides is a better investition in the future. Because of that, we will not side with either of them and observe from the distance, remaining neutral. Should the Corsairs and the Order decide to side with the Zoners, we'll not engage them as long as they don't engage us. With other words, nothing changes and we'll engage cloak the moment we see something suspicious on the scanners. Sorry, ladies, but if you were looking for battles, you chose the wrong ship to live on."
Let's hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. This might be the beginning of a war in heaven.
- Sombra
Post-Edit: We might need to review a few passages of that report, Sombs. You know what I mean.
After Captain Vertiga's and Commander Aguilar's short trip to Los Dragos to help with the evacuation of the Hot Gear headquarters, the Apahanta left the Omega-49 system for a short trip to Bretonia, to keep an eye on the current situation.
We knew already about the Hypergate Construction Site in the Poole system as this rather large structure - twice as large as a regular jump gate - is hard to miss. Even harder to miss at this point is the jump hole anomaly the gate creates! A shining beacon visible from far away. While we don't know where exactly the jump hole connection leads, we can be sure of it being somewhere in Liberty, as Battleship Ottawa - two years ago stationed in the Ontario system, according to our archives - is stationed here to protect the gate. We assume Liberty by-passed the gallic blockade in the Cortellan buffer region by using this new connection, thus being able to bring multiple battlegroups to the New London system.
Captain Vertiga implied an early return to Omega-49 as the intervention of the Red Hessian Army and the personal presence of Generalmajor Annabell Heinrich in the orbit of Gran Canaria need to be investigated.
Reminder: Sombra returned with a whole bunch of extra stuff from the last shopping tour to provide plenty of materials for Secret Santa. Make sure to make use of it!
Did you know the Liberty Navy managed to get their hands on a Valor-class battleship? We know for sure since yesterday! Drone Operator Eva Lynn Lübich took the Seductive Rover in the New York system for a short tour through the lanes and stumbled across the LNS Normandie at Fort Bush, laning towards Norfolk Shipyard. Lübich forced an early exit out of the lane at the sight of half a dozen Hellfire Legion battleships sieging a prison station close to the off-limit area behind Norfolk, where the gate to the so called Alaska system can be seen from the distance, surrounded by a dense minefield.
The Normandie, commanded by an audibly french woman that didn't introduce herself, closed in to the siege but did not interfere but simply observed despite the presence of multiple Hellfire Legion warships accompanied by Battlegroup Harmony capitals. For about ten minutes the ship remained in place, allowing only minimal small talk between the present parties before vanishing with the help of a cloaking device. In the meantime, an Outcast Sabre and a Lane Hacker bomber arrived at the scene, shadowed by an LPI Gunboat. The latter was forced to vacate the area at the sight of too many hostiles.
The drone observed the siege for a while from a safe distance until Lübich got bored and decided to bring the drone back. Hellfire Legion, Battlegroup Harmony and a Liberty Navy Valor? The Captain couldn't help but comment on the gathering of defectors with a smirk.
One of our drones picked up unarchived signatures in the Omega-55 system this morning. Becky Gray operated the Handsome Rover and decided to investigate the unknown signals in the Kattegat Lava Asteroid Field. It turned out to be an installation, heavily defended. Upon closing in, the eight anti-capital weapon platforms and the cruise disruption tower began to react to our drone, yet thanks to the dense asteroid field, the distance of our drone to the installation and Becky's skilled manouvers, the drone survived without taking any damage.
Captain Vertiga decided to investigate the site, so we jumped to the Omega-41 system and used the Omega-55 jump hole. Arriving in the heavily contested system, the ship engaged the cloaking device. The Apahanta carefully moved into the lava asteroid field from the back end and carefully made her way closer to the installation. Our powerful scanners indicated a lack of breathable atmosphere as the life support was complelety offline.
The Captain ordered to moor with the station while remaining cloaked, to prevent the defensive grid from ripping us apart. Wrapped in EVA-suits, Captain Vertiga and his away team entered the station, confirming it was devoid of any life. Doing the standard sweep, the away team secured the area and aimed for reaching the central computer core of the installation, managing to turning it back online to access the database and archives. According to Vertiga, about one petaquad of data was transfered to our ship, while the Captain made sure nobody else would get their hands on the database. During the transfer, the away team pilfered multiple Cult of Technology Drone Remains as well as still functional armaments.
Not wanting to waste more time than necessary in Omega-55, the Captain ordered to unmoor when everything was transfered. "I fired a few shots with our old but gold APM rifles at the consoles and the data core. Then we installed a bomb in the server room. Should the Coalition manage to enter the station, they will probably think the Core was faster and maybe even causing the station to become abandoned. Should the Core find it, well, they'll just see that either one of their own teams was busy on the station or they think it was one of APM's costumers. Pretty sure nobody will ever find out about us having been here."
At this point it is still unknown why the station was abandoned. Our science team will be busy for weeks and months browsing through all the data, though.
Attention! You probably already wondered why Captain Vertiga and Counselor Ryan did not return from Planet Gran Canaria yet. On their way back to the spaceport, Captain Vertiga was shot multiple times by an unknown attacker. The Captain managed to eliminate the person in question, however was rushed to the closest hospital as he was suffering from major bloodloss. Counselor Ryan is unharmed and remains with the Captain until he is stable enough to return to the Apahanta.
According to the Captain there is no need to be worried about him. We will welcome him back soon.
Captain Vertiga and Counselor Ryan have returned from Planet Gran Canaria, just in time. Still suffering from his wounds, he's been given into Dr. Carr's care, who will make sure the Captain will be back in action before christmas.
That being said, we are leaving Omega-49 now as Bretonia has begun to invade Gran Canaria with, according to Admiral Kaze Dagon, 1.800.000 bretonian soldiers and declared Omega-49 a restricted area. Captain Vertiga ordered to move via Poole and Cambridge to the Omega-3 system, refuel at Freeport 1 and then hide in the Omega-2 system.
We will remain there most likely for the duration of christmas. Miss Hookier will return from her shopping tour this evening and join us at Freeport 1, and it is very likely Miss von Westefeld and her child as well as Dr. Thallia Thorn will celebrate with us as well. At this point, please don't forget Secret Santa!
Today we stumbled over the giant wreckage of a Crayterian Carrier, namely the Helios. For the time being, we will remain in the Tau-29 system to observe which parties are running salvage operations here. Chances are, so the Captain stated, we might send our own team over there to take a look at it. The most interesting equipment probably was already pilfered, nevertheless it will be a rare opportunity to see a crayterian capital ship from the inside.
Scheduled for the time after the Helios expedition is a jump back to the Omega-49 system, where Captain Vertiga wishes to observe the situation in the warzone. With our knowledge about the 49 periphery, we will most likely remain undetected.
Our drone in New London recorded a battle today right infront of the planet. The combined forces of Nomads and their human allies launched another direct assault at the defense perimeter. Bretonia's defense was coordinated by the HMS Sovereign under the command of Captain John Kathri and received assistance from Forlorn Hope mercenaries, Crayter and Liberty while Corsairs sided with the Nomads, Maltese and Commune to take advantage of the already weakened bretonian side.
Despite the Nomad forces having eliminated quite a number of defensive assets, the tactical play of the HMS Sovereign and her escorts managed to eliminate the threat in an amazing dance of hit&run manouvers of bombers and long range assaults from the Sovereign. A victory Bretonia needed!
![[Image: fkmJbpt.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/fkmJbpt.gif)
![[Image: i8sxu8V.png]](https://i.imgur.com/i8sxu8V.png)
![[Image: AHIg7iP.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/AHIg7iP.gif)
![[Image: 5cO2W4O.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/5cO2W4O.gif)
![[Image: zM2LLAC.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/zM2LLAC.gif)
![[Image: CmaDA2L.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/CmaDA2L.gif)
![[Image: JNBEiNU.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/JNBEiNU.gif)
![[Image: OhdHmr7.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/OhdHmr7.gif)
![[Image: cXaooBq.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/cXaooBq.gif)