Yesterday, I started my patrol by joining up with an LSF offficer--Fortunate.Son. He immediately informed me of a disturbance in the Pennsylvania system by The.Viscerator-ProjectX. ProjectX was attacking some a group of fighters and bombers which identified themselves as BoP|, or Band of Patriots.
LSF-Fortunate.Son and I kept some distance from the heat of battle to observe the outcome of the fight. I mean, why waste Liberty resources if some vigilante group wants to do the dirty work for us. Meanwhile, Officer Maggard joined up with us in Pennsylvania and we had sufficient numbers to handle the situation if it turned bad.
Unfortunately, it did. ProjectX took out one of their members, a BoP|Miffed.Lou. Time for fair play was over. We did not want to see anymore innocents get killed, even if they were some sort of vigilantes, so we quickly engaged ProjectX's gunboat. The battle didn't last too long. Several SNAC hits by Maggard and I, along with Fortunate.Son, finished him for good. Or, so we thought.
Pics of first battle with ProjectX,
Moving to NY, we happened upon, guess who? Project X again. How he managed to get his pod tractored to safety, purchase a new ship and actually beat us to the NY system is way beyond me. Especially since the battle took place right next to the Pennsylvania-NY jumpgate. Go figure.
This time he was joined by an accomplice, SirSlicey, both in gunboats. Must be the prefered ship of choice by all the pirates nowadays. Anyways, the battle took much longer than it should have, mainly because my targeting was nothing less than horrible. Ultimately, the three of us, finished off both SirSlicey and ProjectX (again).
Pics of second battle with ProjectX and the defeat of SirSlicey,
After that, we got word of a Rheinland ship spotted in Texas, so we hot footed it to Houston and checked the gates leading into and out of the system. We heard his taunts over the comms, but failed to meet up with him before he left the system. We did run into a Kusari trade ship identified as lamjacksego. He had in his hold, exactly 779 artifacts that he did not want to get rid of. Funny, he was surrounded outside the NY-Texas jumpgate, by no less than five lawful ships. One of them was the LNS-San.Francisco. What a poor decision he made when he decided to make a break for it. Those artifacts were blown clear to California.
Pics of the violation and arrest of lamjacksego.
Immediately after the destruction of the stubborn smuggler, we came across a member of the GST. Now, I wasn't sure what our policy was with them, but when I saw Maggard and Fortunate.Son engaging him, I followed suit and engaged myself. Funny thing was, he directed his attacks at me when I was the last one to engage him. I never seen so many missles and mines come out of one ship. They were flying fast. I made a valiant effort, but sadly my ship was lost in the battle, as was the LSF-Fortunate.Son. Thankfully, Maggard, I believe, pulled through again, and defeated him.
My understanding is that sometime later, GST declared war on the LPI. I don't know if it was a result of this particular battle, or some other conflict, but I posted all the facts I know of the encounter in my report. Maybe Officer Maggard can share some more details about the encounter.
This concludes my report on the events that occured yesterday.
Edit: Upon talking with others involved in the incident with the smuggler and the GST ship, I have come to realize that there was a connection between them. The GST ship was an escort, I believe, aiding and abetting the illegal traffiking of contraband items. Upon reading the declaration of war with the LPI, by the GST, I recommend heightened bomber patrols in Texas system, as well as fighter support in case of future GST escorts.