At about 2130 SMT+1 yesterday (27/09/818) I received and responded to an emergency transmission originating from Planet Houston, Texas, requesting immediate backup against a Rheinland invasion force
consisting of two battleships, a Cruiser, and an unknown number of gunboats and fighters; when I arrived at
the scene in the Oakdale about 14 hostile ships were idling in Houston orbit, waiting for one of the sides to open fire with their
capital ships; at the time our odds were looking rather grim, with a single Dreadnought, a Cruiser, two
gunboats including myself were in holding patterns at Houston awaiting reinforcements. The two or three
fighters on our side had already engaged the enemy, and were outnumbered about 8 to 1, so we couldn't wait
much longer and finally decided to open fire on the two Battleships at long range; we easily took out both
when a our reinforcements consisting of two or three dreadnoughts arrived at the scene; we suffered no
losses in the process.
At this point, the scales were quite rapidly shifting in our favor, so some of the capital ships left and resumed
guard duty in the other core systems. I personally stayed and attempted to assist the fighters and remaining capital ships against the remaing Rheinland force, consisting of about ten fighters. This went rather well, and
I scored a kill on one of the fighters; I was, however, rather close to going down on multiple occasions; I and
my crew, would, in fact, have had to eject if it wasn't for the capital ships that sent me some nanobots now
and then. Unfortunately I got some reports regarding friendly fire at the end of the engagement: Apparently firing missiles into large furballs with friendlies in 'em wasn't such a good idea. Oops. Nobody was seriously
injured, though.
The Everest from Ageira also did a short stop at Houston during the engagement, stopping at Houston so
it's escort could catch up; they told me they were doing some "lane maintenance" in Rheinland space.
-
Next morning, after a break on Houston for refuelling and repairs, I did half an hour or so of embargo duty
in Texas. The only embargo breaker I got was a Border Worlds transport, the "Beijing", carrying Superconductors heading toward Rheinland Space. He refused to respond to all hails, and, after giving him
a good lot of warnings we (the Oakdale and a Navy officer named "The Sureshot")... Well, he fled, so we didn't do anything. God damn it. If you ever see him in space, tell him that he owes us a five million fine for
embargo breaking.
After that I saw two Cruiser and a Dreadnought flying into Houston and the captains of the respective vessels
ejecting; I have no idea why they'd do that, but I picked them up and dropped them off at Planet Manhattan,
where I ended my patrol.