Comm ID: Officer Cho Sprinks
Subject: Patrol Report
Date: 15.06.818 18:00-22:20 SMT
Location: Fort Bush, New York
After Action Report:
Patrol start: 18:02
Today I wanted to retrieve my fresh Roc class bomber for my SWAT outfit. After undocking from Planet Denver, I immediately noticed that two other LPI were around and joined communications with them: Colin Sinclair and our new recruit Lilith Maganti, who were just interrogating the probable smuggler in Illinois (check Reports #953 and #954 for further information on that particular incident.
At 18:15 I had finished registering my vessel properly with LPI and moved to Illinois, where Sgt. Sinclair supplied me with a nuclear mine launcher and we did some sparring so I could get a feel for the slow Bomber cannons as well as the SNAC.
At 18:30 we received said call from the LCBO in Pennsylvania (as also stated in report #953) and moved to assist.
When Sinclair had to leave us, I took lead in the negotations to have some hostages (Liberty Police and Navy) released. I agreed to trade 5 Liberty personnel against 3 Liberty Rogues, still remaining 9 valuable prisoners in my cells. This deal was done as he agreed to leave the system on the spot. We didn't really trust him, so we escorted him to the Asteroid field where we let him go at 18:55. In the meantime, =LSF=Nikasha.Jinko and =LSF=Excalibur had joined with us as backup.
On our way back to Philadelphia, we received a surprising reading: A SCRA vessel, Insurgent class, just cruising above the planet, named "Simon.O'Hare". When he spotted us, he immediately wanted to flee, but I managed to disrupt his cruise to stop him. He did not listen to our calls to cooperate and halt his ship, but rather tried to continue running into the Asteroid field. Scans also showed he was carrying captured Bretonian capital ship captains as hostages. We of course demanded release.
At 19:00 he offered us to negotiate at 5k distance, which we agreed to. Negotiations proved very difficult with the suspect, so Agent Jinko offered to take lead alone and try to calm him down. He was very jumpy, and as soon as anyone approached a single 0,1k (even when on 5.7k) he got the same distance away again.
While Agent Jinko continued the negotations, I set up our forces and gave orders on how to react in a worst case scenario. Agent Excalibur and Recovery_Three, a secondary fleet Gunboat that had joined us used the delay to tactically move around the suspect to block off every possible path of escape.
At 19:15, negotiations proved futile due to the ridiculous demands of the suspect and uncooperativeness , as the suspect just charged up his cruise and tried to make a run for it. Apparently he used the time to plot an escape path well, as in the end he had a 3k headstart when we were in pursuit, despite our tactical positioning. we quickly managed to close up all to him thanks to the Formation cruise controls, but he managed to make it to the California Jumphole in the debris field. We decided to press pursuit and immediately followed. He fled all the way through the Tahoe Cloud towards the Magellan Jumpgate. Officer Maganti used the tradelane from California Minor to the Jumpgate to try and intercept him there, but with the heavy use of countermeasures and overriding standard docking procedures he managed to slip away once more at 19:24. I was reluctant to continue pursuit, but the LSF agents didn't want to give up so we all continued pursuit into Magellan. I was first to jump, and apparently the gate had some holdup problems after that so the rest of the task force was delayed a bit. The suspect used the lane towards Freeport 4, but dropped out earlier and headed through the asteroid field, apparently to the Leeds Jumphole, which coordinates were revealed to me by the LSF agents. I updated them on the location, so they could catch up better. The Insurgent, believing to have me as his only enemy (remember, I was in a Roc), then arrogantly decided to drop the chase and confront me in combat at 19:26. I didn't mind that and kept him occupied quite well, disabling shields and even managing to crunch his hull quite a bit, when reinforcements arrived again. As soon as he noticed that, he started dropping an endless line of countermeasures, trying to cruise away again, but our swift reaction and numerous cruise disruptors quickly disabled that possibility. He still didn't confront us, just running away using thrusters and making it almost impossible to effectively intercept him thanks to intermittent ion spikes in the system. As soon as it became clear he wanted to go to Leeds during the chase earlier, Agent Jinko contacted Bretonian authorities so they could prepare a warm welcome for him. At 19:30 he left Magellan into Leeds.
We went to return to NY as there were reports of Rogues.
At Planet Mojave, however, I noticed a Junker called "Drunken.Young.Dan" sporting a vessel of the Pirate train class. I informed him that his vessel is not tolerated in Liberty space, but as he seemed genuinely surpised by that, I allowed him to proceed to his destination where he should either change the vessel as soon as possible or leave Liberty, not without informing him that another encounter with him in a Pirate Train or Transport would be VERY costy (see Section III, subsection IV in Laws of Liberty for this apparently not well-known law).
At 19:40, a routine scan while moving to New York revealed an Armored Transport that was carrying 2000 units of Gaian Wildlife. I ordered him to stop immediately, but he proceeded to New York anyway. There I had to disable the lane to get him to stop and comply. In the meantime, Recruit officer Monorov appeared and offered backup assistance. I lectured the smuggler Eagle_19 on his fault, fined 2 million credits and ordered him to proceed to West Point Academy with me afterwards to unload the contraband there. He paid the fine just fine and docked at West Point under my supervision, but then did not follow the order to undock again so I could verify his cargo hold was clean of contraband...I'm positive the West Point security will take care of that. We closed that issue at 19:50.
When proceeding to Fort Bush, we stumbled upon a firefight at the Manhattan-Fort bush lane. The various rogues, Xenos and secondary navy involved ended the fight quickly as the appearance of our task force quickly led them to turn tail and run off into the asteroid field.
A weird rogue thought it to be funny to stick around and pester the LNS-Successor dreadnought that remained in the area, breaching the security perimeter multiple times and even ramming the vessel as well as disrupting tradelanes. Multiple orders to stop that and shoo off were not followed, and when he bumped the LNS-Successor again, its captain had enough and ordered the gunners to take him out. He probably thought him flying a teeny tiny CSV as well as sporting the "Spacefarer beginner" sticker on his bumper would grant him immunity, but being a Rogue nullified all that anyway.
At 20:20 we picked up Recruit officer Travors at Fort Bush who then proceeded to register his Liberator vessel and his ID with the LPI Guards, while we reacted to a call for help from the California of some transports' escorts who spotted 3 Rogue vessels. I had docked my SWAT vessel and returned to the Liberator and then Lilith and me headed out to California. While we were moving, the reports got worse: 4-6 enemies total, 1 Hellfire Legion vessel and one 101st Outcast. I deemed it wise to call for backup at that time.
When we arrived in California at 20:28, we found multiple bounty hunter vessels, including the ones who called for our backup. We joined forces and waited for another hunter to arrive. In the meantime, Sgt. Sinclair had scrambled and was moving to Cali too.
At 20:30 Maganti and me docked with the Lane and proceeded to the scene to scout ahead and give detailed intel to the rest of the taskforce. At first we didn't find them along the lane, but Maganti spotted them 10k below the plane. A quick survey revealed their true numbers:
A VHF Sabre Outcast - Joseph.Abusaid[101st]
A Bomber Barghest Rogue - LR-No.Hysteria.No.Fun
A VHF Sabre Hellfire Legion - [HF]Shia
A unknown Rogue vessel - LR-Dengoru-D
The rogues immediately took off when we arrived, and as they were already engaged in a firefight with the LNS-Braveheart and the LSFC-Caladan, I called the taskforce to move in pronto, while not losing many words to try to help the heavily battered capital ships out. I'm not sure why they thought it wise to confront such strong numbers of bombers and fighters with a Battlecruiser and a gunboat without calling for fighter backup...we had no idea they were already engaged in combat there before we arrived...
Sadly, the LNS-Braveheart was already severly damaged when we arrived and another unlawful, so Eduardo.Quin, a Falcata bomber pirate, managed to take it out of the sky half a minute after we engaged in combat.
The combat mainly ensued with the 101st Outcast as HF-Shia stayed out of it and just watched, while all the other criminals had either fled or backed down. The traders and the Bounty hunter escort left us too and proceeded on their trade route. A lawful mercenary named John offered us assistance, but we told him to stay out of it, for his own safety. He ignored that and engaged on his own at 20:42.
At 20:45, he was taken out by Eduardo.Quin . At the same time, Sgt. Maggard responded to the call and scrambled from Fort Bush to our assistance. Another criminal, "Vengeful", who I sadly don't got any data on during the heat of battle, was taken out by Sgt. Sinclair at 20:47.
At 20:49 the Liberator of Recruit Officer Maganti catched two nukes simultaneously and only the advanced ejection mechanisms saved her lifepod from being shredded like her vessel.
At 20:52, Sgt. Maggard arrived and joined us. In the meantime, Eduardo.Quin has decided somewhere during the battle that it would be wise to join the fray against our liberators with his Falcata, so we designated him prime target.
At 21:04 we had his supply of bats&bots depleted and half his hull stability breached. Apparently, this caused a bit of panic on his part, starting to drop Nuclear mines like candy. Only, he didn't think that through, really. While we had no problem evading those in our Liberators, he himself drifted into two of his own mines, setting them off and crushing his vessel immediately...
At 21:05, Sgt. Sinclair's Liberator was shredded when he had some internal system interference when using the comm systems, causing him to catch some full salvo of the 101st.
As it was becoming another one of those endless chases between LF and VHF, we mutually agreed to call it a tie at 21:20 and call it a day, as the fight was getting boring due to the ion spikes and his constant evading.
We went to return to Fort Bush to log it, when we heard report of Victoria.Lesley, that unlawful merc from the last patrol and decided to patrol New York quickly to see if we can find her. We didn't find anything much, so we did another tour of Pennsylvania.
Just when we wanted to end our patrol at 21:37 on Philadelphia, we received comms from Officer Anna Wolfe, who immediately reported 3 Lane Hacker vessels at the Colorado-New York jumpgate. Obviously, we had to respond and moved there ASAP. Intel on ship types wasn't avaible. When we arrived at 21:43, we had the intel first-hand...two Lane Hacker Gunships (Azazel and Australopithecus), one Bomber (Willie.Stroker). As they had multiple civilian and Liberty personnel on board, we demanded their release. Stroker however had to engage cloaking device after a couple of minutes (//excused himself beforehand, emergency), but simultaneously another Falcata, named "UFO" showed up, carrying two Liberty personnel. Australophitecus had already run off and left the area.
When we demanded the release of the hostages, he started insulting us and tried to escape using the New York Jumpgate. Bad move. We decided to help him with the decision and opened fire, but he already was in the docking procedure. At that moment, I heard the "Shield failed"-Alarm and just split-seconds my hull burst. Azazel, who hadn't said a single word in his gunship sitting idle by, had thrown out an "Engaging" notice at 21:53:43 and had me eliminated at 21:53:49...I have no idea why he felt the need to engage at all, as we were interogating the pirate UFO and not the Lane Hacker Azazel at all.
As my lifepod was returned to Fort Bush, I opened S5yp3 channels to call for additional support, and Sgt. Masket responded immediately, moving to the scene.
At 21:59 the three Liberators had dropped the shields and started nagging at the hull of one of the gunships, causing it to turn tail and run away.
The issue was resolved at 22:04 when the other gunship run away.
On returning to Fort Bush, we saw a mercenaries going crazy on lawfuls, assisted by some Xenos.
Namely the following mercenaries are to be regarded as enemies of Liberty:
Kaze.Dagon
Nathalie.Callahan
Golden.Feather
They took out the LNS-Raleigh and at 22:17 managed to take out Wolfe as well. Maggard and me gave them a chase, but it became clear we had no real chance of taking out 3 fully-equipped, albeit mediocre-skilled mercenaries supported by a Xenos...
We had some fun ridiculing their poor aim with our Liberators, but decided to reposition to Manhattan at 22:21 where we docked and signed off for the day.
Sorry, I don't have the nerve and time right now to assign the 33 guncam shots to the specific entries in the report, so here you get the whole bunch of them: Guncam Recordings 15.06.
Please remember to go through the slideshow backwards to have the pictures in the correct chronological order!