A man in his mid thirties storms into the cleric's office, obviously irate.
'Can I help you sir? Squeaked the small clerk.
'We're about to see young man!'
While attempting to deliver the a cargo load of Engine Parts to New London the trade vessel "Dirty Elephant", a Mammoth class freight vessel, was approached by a BAF patrol (Ens.Richards, and Lt.Cdr.Hunter). The two BAF fighters read a Samura IFF on the neutral trader and demanded he halt. He complied. Before the matter could be sorted out to the satisfaction of the Trader (Tobias`Bridge) the BAF pilots demanded he drop his cargo and leave. Tobias`Bridge attempted to discuss the matter further as he still maintains that he has no such IFF an the cargo was not contraband. Without provocation the order was given to fire on Tobias`Bridge (who had at that point made no attempt to run or any aggressive maneuvers.) The officers at first caused his shields to fail and then continued firing until the Hull of the vessel was at 10% and threatening to collapse. Tobias attempted to restore power to his shields and leave the area to prevent hull breach, but was fired upon again.
BPA)Duncan.Mguire arrived at that point and requested the BAF officers cease firing on the non-hostile vessel. The BPA officer confirmed Mr. Tobias`Bridge's claim that he had no affiliation with Samura Industries at all. The matter was concluded at length at Planet New London where another BAF officer (BAF|Ens.A.Goodman) Confirmed that the Trader had no IFF flags and was not in fact a "Samura Spy". A compensation of 500,000 credits was issued by the commander in the system and the Trader was allowed to leave the system.
[x] Requested Inquiry
[ ] General Grievance
DO NOT MARK BELOW THIS LINE - FOR OFFICE USE ONLY
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'That should settle the matter sir!'
'Settle the matter?! SETTLE THE MATTER?! Your bloody BAF needs to throw out their IFF readers and maybe ask the Queen for some money to buy better quality equipment for her ships! .... or MAYBE the BAF shouldn't open fire on civilian trade vessels!!!!!!!'
The man stormed out again causing some the papers on the clerks desk to flutter up and cascade across his desk onto the floor. The clerk looked at the papers on the floor and sighed.
'Bloody excitable yank.'
Papercliped onto the bottom of the report is the following note:
Based on my investigation into the version of events, this unfortunate incident was based on a misunderstanding and unlucky coincidence, possibily involving either a faulty scanner on the part of one or both of the BAF ships, or else a temporarily malfunctioning comms device on the part of the trader. Either way, Lt Commander Hunter was under the impression that this man was a Samura agent, an impression later confirmed to be manifestly false.
If I may, I would hazard that this poor judgement on the part of Lt Commander Hunter may have been related to her suspected consumption of alcohol onboard the Luxury Liner Olympus shortly beforehand, under the pretence of checking the whisky for cardamine traces, an event during which the OSC vessel's Captain also reported her to have attempted to make off with a barrel of whisky whilst impersonating Miss Samantha Windsor (Logs attached). I refer both incidents to the BAF Discipline Officer, Lord Sir Reginald Notworthy III.
As for the trader who filed this complaint, I consider the 500,000 credits which I already took the liberty of forwarding to him to be adequate compensation for his grievences.
John Richards enters the office, grimacing as the man behind the desk gestures towards his watch. Richards was, of course, late.
"Lieutenant Richards, the first piece of paper work I deal with after your promotion is a grievance filed against you? This isn't good news at all."
Richards wasn't prepared for this, and it takes him a moment to gather himself. "We actually read those? Ack. I just tell people to file grievances if they're being terrible boors. What's it about?"
The man behind the desk drops the paperwork infront of Richards. "Ugh, hell of a lot of bumf," Richards tries, but the man is as dour as they come.
After leafing through the document, Richards gives his own account.
"All right, we can see this man was in a highly emotional state as he recorded this grievance, so perhaps he's overreacting a little. Since it seems this is being handled civilly, I'll give you a quick paraphrase of my debrief of the event: I was on patrol, on Lieutenant Commander Evyn Hunter's wing, in Leeds. We'd just been called back to assist the Commodore outside Planet New London, and as we approach the jump gate to the New London system, we see a Samura IFF'd trade vessel heading towards it too. Requests to stop were ignored, so we followed the vessel through. I came through the gate last, and both this trader and the lieutenant commander were stationary and talking over the communications. The trader denied that his IFF was squawking Samura. Lieutenant Commander Evyn Hunter asked for my confirmation that I too was reading the ship's IFF as Samura. I replied in the affirmative, so as I see it, that was beyond reasonable doubt, and there was a high chance that the man was lying to us. Still - trader ID, Samura IFF, Liberty ship. It didn't really all add up to me, perhaps it was just a malfunction. I logged my reservations with the lieutenant commander, but as Samura are hostile nationals, she decided we couldn't take the risk of letting him run free, instead insisting that he return home, sans cargo. He refused to comply, so I was ordered to open fire. I do not relish firing on civilians, not least because it is the police's job anyway. Once again, I registered my reservations, but I followed my orders, because I have full confidence in the abilities of Lieutenant Commander Evyn Hunter. I only fired on the vessel with my debilitators, because, as I said, I didn't really want anything more on my conscience. But, as you can note below, the lieutenant commander was careful to make sure the ship was not destroyed, as this was not what we wanted. Luckily, a police officer on his beat came through London, and I called them over, more than happy to place a civil matter in the correct hands."
"Here is my gun camera picture of the same moment as the one included in the report. As you can see, he is showing Samura IFF, I am trying to reason with him, only my debilitators are active but even they are not trained on the target, and my superior officer is issuing an order to not kill the target."
Richards suddenly noticed the additional notes paperclipped to the end of the report. It looked like all the blame was heading further up the chain. He respects Evyn Hunter, but if this is how things were going to unfold, he wasn't going to put his career on the line. 'Ah, the anonymity of mediocrity,' he thought to himself, 'although this could all change now that I'm a lieutenant myself'. Thinking on his feet, Richards delivered a single additional statement to the man behind the desk.
"If you'll take a look at those logs the Commodore himself has supplied, you will see, again, my reluctance to even have the pretence of lethal force when dealing with civilians and civil matters. If everything was working as it should, the military wouldn't have to be engaged in such matters."
The man behind the desk drank it all in. "Right. That'll be all."
Richards turned for the door. "Quite." As he left down the hall, he still couldn't believe people actually read those damn grievance reports.