Beginning my run today from Illinois, I headed for Planet Manhattan to post there and watch for Cardamine runners from the scrap fields. Sometime later, a GMG freighter, callsign Xabo, was scanned by myself and found to have Cardamine, coming from West Point. Myself and Navy fighter Ghost-1 pursued this vagrant to Pittsburgh, where we attacked and forced his ship down onto the planet. (PvP death after losing shield/nanos). Afterwards system traffic began to buzz about a force of Legion pirates that had begun a raid on West Point.
Responding immediately, I headed for West Point - and shortly after engaging some of the bombers harrying LoneOne and Navy Battleship Omaha a pair of Outcast dreadnoughts engaged, with fighter escort and dragging a token force of some kind of pirates with them, Mogo-something. They only had a few fighters, and the LaneHacker gunship MorbidManta also stepped in to assist the pirate assault.
After almost forty minutes of pitched battle, with both original LN ships destroyed and my own fighter taking heavy damage, I was forced to retreat. My laser cannons were pitiful compared to the firepower wielded by this pirate menace, and all I could really do was pin down a fighter's shields.
At Manhattan I began squawking for allied reinforcements. Two more liberty battleships, a cruiser, and a gunboat all responded and swarmed West Point, driving off the attackers after another twenty minutes of pitched fighting. In the end, most of the Legion fighters, a rogue Werewolf, and the Lane Hacker were all destroyed, but the Outcast fleet retreated with nary a bloody nose. Whatever drove them off, it wasn't LPI or the Liberty Navy....perhaps they got what they came for.
Later, returning to the Police Plaza, I encountered a pair of Xenos fighters attempting to make a Navy transport Pliik drop his cargo of Xeno pilots. Understandable, but they were still pirates and I engaged them as soon as they opened fire on the Pliik, after he dropped his cargo anyway. (// OORP: I think I might have violated the RoE doing this, at least the Xenos seemed to think so - I broke off after damaging one of their ships and left, rather than push the issue.) The freighter was unfortunately destroyed, since they were both flying Roc bombers and, while they don't pose much threat to a Liberator were more than enough to destroy a transport. This occured in the scrap field between the New York jump gate and Planet Denver. Nothing else of note happened on partol.
Striking the key for send, Desmond then promptly collapsed on his desk, too tired to even power off the holographic display.