PRIORITY: Medium ENCRYPTION: Medium IDENTIFICATION:Kadett Jakob Felber SOURCE:New Berlin, New Berlin system SUBJECT:First flight, 27.08.22
Hello everyone.
I will say right away, I never expected my first flight to be filled with tense discussions, frankly terrifying fighting, and nerve-pounding chases.
Well, I will summarize briefly. After I had run some basic tests on my Eagle, making sure everything worked for me, I figured I would try to remember everything from training and go for a patrol.
Within just a minute of launch from New Berlin, I received comms from Inspektor Daniel Artura, a big relief for me as I really wasn't so sure how to operate all on my own.
Anyway, I flew around a bit, with nothing unusual, before Ins. Artura reported contacts coming in from Hamburg. We rendezvous'd at the Dortmund junction, with two Red Hessian Army and an SCRA fighter hot on Artura's heels.
They held outside of the Dortmund defensive perimeter, and we spoke for some time, joined after a short while by Agent Lecuona of the BDM.
Unsurprisingly, the Hessians were keen to convince us that we were puppets of the military, that the BDM were conducting immoral experiments, and that we were generally working against the will of the people of Rheinland.
Their tone soon turned hostile, and in the end they were talking about killing all members of the Federal Police, Military, and Marinenachrichtendienst, and went as far to claim they would kill our families.
I must admit, I do believe the Red Hessian Army, when founded, likely had good principles in mind. I doubt the individuals we encountered today cared much for principles of any sort. It's clear they were simply filled with hate, and itchy on the trigger finger - something they themselves admitted.
As it became clear they would attack, Artura, Lecuona and myself went to engage them.
Unfortunately, within a minute of fighting, Lecuona's ship was put out by a mine and the Hessians received backup with another fighter. We were on the defensive, and I only just managed to grab the lane back to Berlin.
After some emergency restocking, I went to assist Artura again, while we had started to receive backup ourselves.
In the ensuing fight, the SCRA ship and two of the Hessians were destroyed, leaving only one.
I managed to get the killshot on two of them.
Still shaken, I went to pursue yet another SCRA vessel that had appeared nearby. I tracked him all the way to the Omega-11 gate via TLAGSNET, but failed to catch up.
After that, our little squad - Wachmann Steinmeyer, Inspektor Artura and me - got three TLAGSNET alerts in rather short succession.
The first was a positive for unlicensed human cargo, on transport Homdoll.Scrall in Stuttgart. It seems we just missed their disembarking on planet Stuttgart, though, as when we arrived the vessel undocked with a clean cargo of Synth Paste.
After a short talk, we had to let them go. The vessel was a freelancer-identified Heron.
The second was unfortunately very similar. A vessel with the callsign Sabrina registered a positive for artifacts, coming in from Omega-11.
Steinmeyer encountered the ship - a Samura Ryuujin-class train - in Baden-Baden's orbit, but again missed the apparent unloading of the contraband by mere seconds.
Again, we had to let them leave after a brief talk.
The final one was a ship with a variety of cargo, but one stood out in particular: unlicensed explosives. We saw the ship near Stuttgart, and I'm sorry to say I had the chance to catch it but messed it up.
For unknown reasons, it had moved to the second lane ring, where I exited to stop it, only to have it re-enter the lane. If I had stayed in the lane, we would have had it.
Unfortunately, this one new what they were doing: maneuvering their train for very quick docks with the lanes while taking them out behind, it wasn't possible to catch. It is assumed to have landed on Hamburg or docked on Altona, where we lost its signal. The callsign was Pegasus.the.Workhorse.
Anyway that is all for today, good day for our combat operations, bad day for catching smugglers. All in all I'm very happy with my new job!