Itto Kaii, Jiro Taiyouji, reporting. These are from the patrols a while ago... Nearly passed the deadline for these, gomen, but you'll make do, I am sure.
First two cases are to report my failure to catch some smugglers, and to inform you about their identities, so you'll be on watch for them.
Cho Okamura-san from the secondary forces usually helps me in my patrols lately, and these were one of those times when we were flying together. We received complaints from the GMG miners in Okinawa, reporting that the group known as Junker Marauders raid their mining operations usually, and use Kusari systems to fly to safety. Me and my wingman Okamura-san then worked to cut these Junkers' possible escape routes.
I found a couple of their Junker Frigates by the Kepler Gate in Shikoku, and scans showed them full of stolen Helium-3 as the GMG reported. They didn't listen to my directives, and jumped to Kepler. We followed through.
As the gate was crowded, we lost one of the frigates on the other side, but managed to keep the other one from charging its cruise engines. Some banter went on, as the junker tried to persuade me that his cargo is not stolen. But I had enough proofs, and I still remember their ambush they prepared to us in Tau 23 earlier, so the junker gave up trying to talk his way and thrust towards the safety of Ames.
Okamura-san and I were both flying chimaeras, and our fire power was not enough to breach the frigate's hull until it reached to the base... So we had to give up the chase there.
Kind of the same story for the next suspect, Goletta di Palermo, an BWT, cardamine smuggler. My ship was just not enough to take it down until it could reach beyond our operation zone. Found it by the Kepler Gate as I was returning from the earlier chase... Was simply ignored and outran.
As I was flying back home, I have found a gathering close to Deshima Station. It appears that our new wing leader, Teta Nakamura-san, is a lot more successful at catching criminals than me. She caught a GMG slaver party with the assistance of two secondary forces captains, and persuaded the GMG to drop the slaves. After the heavy fine was received, they were let go, and the slaves were taken to the safety of Deshima station by the captains.
The rise of smuggling operations taking place in Kusari made us form a temporary task force in order to work against it. We decided to ruffle some feathers, fly through the possible smuggling routes, gather up intel, and to discourage anything that might want to use those routes.
KDS-Kirishima, KDS-Hiei, KSP-Bokken, Nakamura-san and I took part in the operation. We scouted through Oita first, as we received reports of these smugglers using there as a key to Honshu and Sigmas, and when pirates need to retreat from their raids of GMG assets. Whatever shifty looking transport or fighting craft we saw, we fined and directed out as we flew through Oita. Then split up into two groups to keep the inner Kusari covered better.
Pilot of the Bokken had better coverage of the tast force in his guncam shots, sadly, I somehow misplaced them...
Nakamura-san and I formed one of the groups. We flew to New Tokyo and kept the bottlenecks in check. It didn't take long until an FA transport fell into our net. It didn't have any cargo, but its pilot was so willing to tell us how he murders the gaijin in so many different ways. After having admitted to being a murderer, we wanted to take him into custody, but of course he refused, and started to shoot us, so we shot back until the transport blew up.
Afterwards, the rest of the task force caught a Boxew train in Honshu in formation with a GMG gunboat. They alerted us so we could cut their access to New Tokyo. Apprehended by New Tokyo-Honshu connection, they had to stop and listen to our explanations about why the Bowex vessels can't enter Kusari, and how the GMG paramilitary can't do so, as well. After some banter, they were both escorted out of Kusari through Sigmas by the rest of our task force, while our wing had to call it a day.
All from me for now. Itto Kaii, Jiro Taiyouji signing off.