Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:49 am by MATT002
y Rogues had in fact put together a rather ingenious contingency plan for an attack of this sort. Ever since they'd suspected that LSF reconnaissance units had discovered Buffalo, it seemed they'd been hoping for an attack manned by battleships. Some very skilled Rogue pilots had, it emerged, hijacked a cruiser,and, most embarrassingly, the Connecticut. We had no choice but to surrender, so now we're the ones in captivity. How ironic, as my father used to say at every possible opportunity.
From the little the crew have told me, we're still in New York, but I think we're headed to an abandoned Liberty Navy Jump Gate to Magellan, an Independent Worlds system bridging Bretonia and Liberty. I wonder what we'll find out there.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Mactan Base, Magellan
Current Net Worth: $60000
Dated: February 15, 805 A.S
Well, it looks like I'm no longer on the lawful side of things. We went through the disused Jump Gate, and met up with some ships belonging to the Lane Hackers. The Lane Hackers are quite a group, a powerful criminal faction who monitor and disrupt Trade Lanes in order to seize valuable cargo from corporate transports. They have established many bases in strategic locations – like here in Magellan. They serve as a go-between for many other criminal factions. And after two weeks, I was about to meet a leader of a very powerful criminal organization – the Outcasts.
The Liberty Rogues do a lot of work for the Outcasts, and really are mere servants to the mysterious pirates. Not much is known about the Outcasts and they aren't telling, but it seems they have a home in the mysterious Edge Worlds. They produce the narcotic drug Cardamine, which they have taken so much of they are now completely dependant on it – their very genetic makeup relies on the drug. The Liberty Rogues are heavily into Cardamine, so in exchange for the drug they serve as the Outcast's Liberty branch. All the assets the Rogues captured at Buffalo are clearly being turned over to the Outcasts.
Wearing a strange mask designed to keep him in with a full flow of Cardamine, I met Miguel Benitez, son of a powerful Outcast leader, Don Benitez. He told me that I had a lot about me. He thought that I might be of some use, and so he offered me a job and a new ship. I am now in the possession of a Liberty Rogue Mule freighter, stocked high with Cardamine for smuggling to New York, and I'm being escorted by two Outcast light fighters, Daggers. My job is to get the drug to Manhattan without getting my cargo detected and stolen by the Liberty Police Inc., but I also don't want to act suspicious. It's a hard job, but it pays very well. Cardamine is cheat as dirt (due to the elite IW drug smugglers around Magellan and its sister system, Cortez)around here and top-dollar cargo on Manhattan - $1500 a unit! This is where I hit the motherlode.
I never thought I'd be doing this, when I left home in Manhattan. Strange how things turn out. But there's something infectious and exciting about the Outcasts, and perhaps being captured at Buffalo wasn't so bad after all. I could really make something of this. I mean, I've already planned out my route – go through the disused Jump Gate into the Badlands, land at Buffalo if I need to (they shelter a lot of smugglers coming through Liberty), then up the Trade Lane from an old abandoned Badlands research station, hurtle past the Navy base at West Point Military Academy, dodge any LPI patrols, and dock at Manhattan. I can hardly wait!
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Mactan Base, Magellan
Current Net Worth: $80000
Dated: February 22, 805 A.S
Well, I made my first smuggling run. Miguel personally introduced me to my two escort pilots, Juan D'Leith and Sashelle Kloren. They were Independent World veterans, and made a point of being polite to me, saying that they would guide me all the way to Manhattan and that I could take as many or as few risks as I wanted. We had disguised our neural signatures so that it appeared we were simply an eccentric Deep Space Engineering convoy – that wouldn't save us from a a cargo scan, but we wouldn't be shot at on site.
So we headed through the ice fields of Magellan, and Lane Hacker pilots showed us to the disused Navy Jump Gate. It recognized the Lane Hackers as hostile, but the guns had long ago been shot off this thing by enterprising Junkers (a criminal group who like to salvage loot and sell it on the black market. Headquartered at Rochester Base in the Jersey Debris Field, New York, there's nothing you can't get at a Junker base. Also, any criminal can land without fear of conflict – unless you are a Xeno, a group of criminals based in Ouray Base, Colorado, who treat absolutely any other faction as hostile. There was a lot of information at the News Monitor on Mactan.) so we ignored its bleeping and continued to the Badlands. The Rogues at Buffalo showed us the quickest route to the West Point Trade Lane, and we were off.
I think a few Liberty Navy patrols thought that it was odd seeing a convoy coming from the Badlands, but we just stuck to flight procedure (and our cruise engines)and headed towards the Trade Lane to Manhattan. Things looked bad when a Navy patrol suddenly decided to scan our cargo, but it was too late, we were in the Trade Lane.
We developed a clever ploy between us as we headed for Manhattan: only I would land. My escorts would hold back in orbit to wait for me. This made it appear as if we weren't afraid of having our cargo checked, so no-one took any undue attention to us, though we were still at risk. Nevertheless, the only craft scanned were the escorts, and they were not carrying any cargo. Soon, I was selling illegal goods to the dealers on Manhattan, for a tidy profit. I practically sang on the way back to Mactan.
On Mactan, Benitez called to see me. He sat me down, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “Freelancer, Cardamine wasn't the only cargo you were hauling today. The Outcasts left a small explosive in the bay of your ship. Your escorts were on the alert. One false move, and you would have joined the ranks of those foolish enough to mess with the Outcasts.
“But now I know I can trust you. I know that you put body and soul into your work.” Here he rose and extended a hand. “Welcome to the Outcasts. I am privileged to have such a skilled pilot on my side.”
So. This...should be interesting.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Battleship LNS Connecticut, Manchester
Current Net Worth: $400000
Dated: April 1, 805 A.S
No, this isn't an April Fool, my net worth really is that high! My profits have really shot up since I joined the Outcasts. I think I have been doing really well on these runs. My worth speaks for itself!
However, Miguel contacted me on Mactan and told me that he thought my famed piloting skills (skills that had brought me to Buffalo and the Outcasts in the first place)were better employed elsewhere. He told me a little of the Outcast's history, surely a sign that I am moving up in the organization! Apparently, the Outcasts originated from the lost sleeper ship Hispania, which was badly damaged on its trip from Old Earth. And apparently, the Outcasts are not the only criminal group originating from the Hispania, the powerful group the Corsairs are also of Hispanic descent. These ties have bred intense rivalry between the two factions, in the biggest inter-criminal war in the colonies today.
That is why I am being transferred to Omega-5, one of the Border World systems around southern Bretonia. Omega-5 is another famous criminal battleground, the site of the fierce war between the Corsairs and another, almost as dangerous pirate faction: the Red Hessians, of Rheinland. Omega-5 is a system centred around two bases: Cadiz Base of the Corsairs, and Ronneburg Base of the Red Hessians. The two bases are protected by lines of weapon platforms and minefields, and the space in between these defensive lines is no-man's-land: the Hammen Hole.
Miguel's father, Don Benitez, now the most powerful Don in the Outcasts after taking over control of several large Cardamine plantations in the mysterious area that is Outcast space, has expressed a desire to tip the balance in favour of the Red Hessians, both to take the Corsairs down a peg and to curry favour with the Hessians, opening up valuable links to Rheinland. So Miguel has offered to take the captured Connecticut over to Ronneburg, with me and several other expert pilots aboard (I think some of them are the LSF commandos from Buffalo!)in order to break the stalemate in Omega-5, once and for all.
I wanted battle and excitement, and I think I'm about to get it. We are proceeding through Bretonian space via the hidden Jump Hole network.
I will write again, once I have seen the battles with my own eyes.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Battleship LNS Connecticut, Omega-5
Current Net Worth: $400000
Dated: April 15, 805 A.S
Well, we've limped into Ronneburg. We ran into a little trouble on the way: the Bretonian systems we travelled through, New London and Cambridge, have generally been considered Corsair territory ever since the faction expanded into Bretonia, and while other factions left us alone in deference to us being in a battleship, the Corsairs are fearless pilots and the patrols we ran into fired on us. We fought them off, but our point-defence systems took a battering from Corsair missiles. Then, we limped through a Jump Hole into Omega-3, the start of the Omega Border Worlds.
Things got a little hotter as we took the nearby Jump Hole to Omega-5, because it conveniently dropped us on the Corsair side of the Hammen Hole. If we'd tried to cross the Hammen Hole the Corsair defences would have fried us, but we knew that the Bretonia Police Authority and Bretonia Mining and Metals didn't have much of a presence in the system and so we skirted the edge of the Hole. The few half-hearted corporate attacks thrown at us were easily beaten by our heavy guns, and so we docked at Ronneburg.
Our big mission comes tomorrow. We've to throw everything we have at their line, the Connecticut spearheading the effort, in a desperate attempt to break through. It won't be easy, since we have to get through minefields, weapon platforms, Corsair fighters and Cadiz' automatic defences, but it just might work. So here I am, in the thick of it.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Ronneburg Base, Omega-5
Current Net Worth: $1000000
Dated: April 16, 805 A.S
Well, all I can say is that the 80 Years War between the Rheinland Military and the Gas Miners Guild has got nothing on the battle we just went through. The Battle of Omega-5 has been given a suitably bloody ending.
We were into the action as soon as we even launched from Ronneburg. A routine Corsair raiding party had circumnavigated the Hammen Hole and had caught the Red Hessian's off guard. Normally, such a move would have disarmed the Hessian war effort for weeks, since it was a raiding party of 30 Corsair Legionnaire fighters against a tired spare squadron of 10 Hessian Stiletto Border World craft, but the hidden factor was that the Connecticut and its escort had just launched into battle. A few hurriedly launched rocket-propelled countermeasures, to take care of any heavy ordinance headed for Ronneburg, and gun barrages later and it was all over. The operation proper was ago.
Our plan was to reach straight across the Hammen Hole and straight into the Corsair line, a giant armoured fist to smash Corsair power once and for all. It was a strategy that has bloodily failed in many an ill-fated trench warfare conflict recorded in the history annals of Old Earth, but we had a Liberty Dreadnought on our side. Like the tanks employed in many of those same Old Earth wars, we had a secret weapon – and we needed it.
One of the riskiest parts was the departure from the Hessian line, since it left Ronneburg open to attack. In order to get the Connecticut safely through we had to deactivate the minefields protecting the Red Hessian lines. Fortunately, most of the Corsairs' offensive strength that day had been exhausted in the previous raid, and here at least luck smiled on us. There was no attack.
The few Corsair patrols we met in the Hammen Hole fled from us, and it soon became clear why. The fearless Corsairs were not afraid of assaulting a Liberty Battleship, but they had something special in store for us. On the other side of the Hammen Hole lay a similar defence to ours: a powerful minefield. The battleship couldn't cross through that. But I was famous for my prowess at disarming enemies, and so I was launched. My task was to clear a 3 kilometre-wide pass for the attack fleet.
It was long, tedious, and dangerous work, but all the mines were the same, and eventually I settled into a rhythm. The Corsairs, ever scornful of their old enemies the Outcasts even while recognizing their skill, didn't bother collecting any additional intelligence after their initial patrols, so I came under no attack at all. The last part of the field was tricky, since I was in range of Corsair weapon platforms and knew that fighters would be on their way since I'd showed up on their scanners by now, but I sped up my work, activated my cruise engines and fled back to the Connecticut.
I stayed outside and a little way ahead of the fleet, since I had to escort them through the mines. Thus I was the first to fight the huge number of Legionnaire fighters that attacked us. However, we were ready, I fell back behind the protection of the capital ship's guns and fighter squadrons and we were soon clearing through the flights of Corsairs.
It was almost poetic to watch. While we were steadily smashing through the Corsair defences, heavy bombers broke off from formation and dropped heavy payloads of torpedoes at the weapon platforms, and then at Cadiz Base itself. It really was working! By the time we got there, the once fabled Corsair stronghold was in no condition to stand up to our heavy guns. Cadiz Base fell.
Me, and all of the Outcasts, are ecstatic. I have a special reason to be: what with the loot I picked up and the huge rewards Benitez gave us all, I have now made my first million! Business is certainly lucrative with the famed Outcasts! We are heading back to Ronneburg. Benitez says he is going to stay to oversee the repairs to the Connecticut, and then he has something very special to show me. At this point he lowered his voice, and whispered in my ear “The Edge Worlds, freelancer.”
I wonder...am I going to see the legendary birthplace of the Outcasts?
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Freeport 9, Omicron Theta
Dated: July 1, 805 A.S
Current Net Worth: $1000000
I'm halfway through the year of freelancing I promised myself. A lot has happened since my career started, six months ago on Manhattan. I became a well-known pilot with Liberty Police Inc., inspired a Liberty Security Force raid on Buffalo, was captured aboard the Connecticut, became a smuggler for the Outcasts at Mactan, was part of the fleet that ended the Battle of Omega-5, and now I am deep within the Edge Nebula, where only the best pilots go. Well, actually it would be more accurate to say that only the best pilots come back.
Omicron Theta, where we are now, is owned by a neutral group of people who run all kinds of bases out beyond colonized space. They are called the Zoners, and they are allied to none and have no enemies. They run a collection of 10 Freeports around Sirius (although Freeport 7 apparently vanished in mysterious circumstances)and anyone can dock at these stations. It's a motley bunch that gather in the bar here: Outcasts, Corsairs, Red Hessians, a hated group of anti-criminals from the Bounty Hunters Guild, and even one rogue pilot from the Liberty Navy.
The view is amazing from here. For miles around, all you can see are Zoner weapon platforms, the odd Zoner trading convoy, and the vast expanses of the Edge Nebula. You truly know you are beyond the colonies when you reach this forsaken place. It is awe-inspiring.
Out here there are no Trade Lanes, no Jump Gates. Travel is slow, done through Jump Holes, which can often destabilize, causing a temporary halt while the travellers wait for the Hole to became stable again. We are waiting for one such Hole, out in a secret location which will apparently take us to Omicron Alpha, the secret home of the Outcasts.
We will reach it in a few days. I simply wanted to record that I had very much reached the halfway point of my journey.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Planet Malta, Omicron Alpha
Dated: July 8, 805 A.S
Current Net Worth: $1200000
And here I am. A system mentioned only in the kind of furtive whispers which carry across a crowded bar to impress anyone who might be listening; and to which I used to listen avidly as a child. Omicron Alpha, as far to Standard North as you can go without exiting Sirius.
Accessible only by a remote Jump Hole out in a dangerous asteroid field, Omicron Alpha is centred around the beautiful Planet Malta and its moon, Mallorca. Outcast patrols are centred around this base, and despite the lack of Trade Lane fortifications and suchlike that the colonies employ, an enemy would be very unwise to attempt an attack on Malta, given that all the Outcasts fly Sabres, very heavy Border World craft, and given the comprehensive defence platforms around the Jump Holes into the system.
Benitez tells me that the Outcasts have two main problems in this system. First is the Bounty Hunters Guild, who are always a problem, since many of them used to be criminals and thus know how criminals act. Flying their own Hammerhead fighter craft, these hunters are paid by the police of the colonies to fly to Omicron Alpha through the neutral system of Omicron Theta and eliminate leading Outcasts. Near to Malta the Outcasts are safe, but the Hunters maintain a presence around the borders of the system.
The next problem is rather more mysterious. Out in the Siniestre Field, an asteroid field covered in dangerous radioactive matter, is an Outcast tomb, scattered around a strange Jump Hole. The trouble is that not all the Outcasts in the tomb died elsewhere – several of the tugs towing the ships out there were killed by mysterious ships, the like of which have never been seen before. Furtive whisperings in Malta bars (the same sort of whispers I used to hear back on Manhattan)suggest that these ships are alien. The Outcasts call them “Nomads”, since they can't determine their home. No Outcast that has travelled through that Jump Hole has ever returned.
Benitez assured me that the Outcasts could defend themselves from such threats, and we landed on Malta. Benitez reported to his father, the influential Don Benitez, ruler of several Cardamine plantations, and ordered me to meet him in the bar afterwards. This is how I finally learned the secret history of the Outcasts.
The Outcasts are a group of survivors from the lost sleeper ship Hispania. When the Alliance and Coalition fought their desperate and hopeless war on Old Earth, the Alliance constructed the five sleeper ships Bretonia, Rheinland, Kusari, Liberty, Hispania. That is basic history that every schoolboy knows. They also know the stories of the colonies that derived from the first four ships – but they do not know what happened to the Hispania. The Hispania was damaged before takeoff, perhaps by Coalition sabotage, and the survivors were stranded, far from Earth and Sol, and far from Sirius.
The damaged hulk managed to get as far the Edge Nebula, but then the passengers fell out, and took two different courses of action. One group evacuated the ship via the escape pods and landed in Omicron Gamma, where they colonised Planet Crete. They were the Corsairs, and since they became one of Sirius' most fearsome criminal organizations and sealed off Omicron Gamma little is known about them to the Outcasts. But the other group stayed with the Hispania, using the last of the life pods to found Planet Malta. The ship still drifts in orbit, a rotting hulk around the Outcast's bright new colony.
On Malta the Outcasts discovered the narcotic substance Cardamine, which they began to take and harvest in large quantities. That done, they established an economy of sorts, built ships and sent out space travellers. These pilots became mysteriously sick, and returned to Malta, where they died in an emergency ward. The Outcast doctors were baffled. By chance, they made a genetic scan of one of the pilots – and found that his DNA had been radically altered by the Cardamine. He, and all the Outcasts, were and are dependant on the drug, like men on air or fish on water.
Thus, permanently alienated from society, the Outcasts set out to smuggle the drug into each of the four major colonies, and grow fat off the profits of their trade. The rest is Outcast history.
There are not many people who know the secret origin of the Outcasts and of their rivalry with the Corsairs. I am quietly proud to be one of them.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Planet Malta, Omicron Alpha
Dated: July 9, 805 A.S
Current Net Worth: $1200000
Miguel Benitez invited me to drink with him thus morning. The bar on Malta is one of the strangest places I have ever seen. Though they don't need them at home on Malta, all the Outcasts permanently wear little tubes attached to their faces, to keep them healthy with a consistent supply of Cardamine.
Benitez has been to see his father, who is apparently very pleased with the progress he, Benitez Jnr. , made while away in Liberty. With the victory in the Battle of Omega-5, the Outcasts have been granted haven at all Red Hessian bases in Rheinland, and, even now, shots have been exchanged between the Outcasts, and the Rheinland Federal Police and the Bundschuh, a political idealistic movement based in the Frankfurt system. Cardamine is being smuggled throughout every base in the Rheinland House, and Outcast profits in the area are already skyrocketing.
Jubilantly, Benitez also explained to me that was a pro-female terrorist group in Kusari, the Golden Chrysanthemums, who use Cardamine as part of their “ritualistic
subculture” and it is also slowly being adopted by rebellious members of the Blood Dragons, another Kusari terrorist organization closely affiliated with the GC, since both groups regard the current Shogunate as illegitimate.
“With our work,” Benitez exulted at me, “The drug Cardamine has spread into all four major Houses. And anyone who starts taking it can never stop – they would literally die if they tried! And I must say, you, freelancer, have played a huge part in it.
“Our wealth is vast. The lowliest citizen on Malta would be considered comfortably middle-class on New London! And there are more glory-seekers like you, Mr. Danelles, so we have the resources to deploy in any theatre we need! Which is why I can give you the power to choose your reward, and your next assignment.”
I considered this, but really it was not a difficult choice to make. The thought had been at the back of my mind since the first day of July. I told him I had only decided to explore the stars for a year, a trial run, as it were, and that by January I hoped to find a why to be back on Manhattan with my family. So I have been given the obvious assignment: I am to fly a Border Worlds Dromedary freighter on the long run from Malta to Manhattan, smuggling Cardamine one way, and carrying Consumer Goods on the return trip.
An exciting journey, up through Rheinland under cover of the Red Hessians, through the Independent Worlds system of Bering, bridging Rheinland and Liberty, and a dash through Liberty to deliver my cargo, then a slightly more relaxed journey back discreetly avoiding Corsairs. I am to go disguised as a freighter from Border World Exports, a Bretonian company who often undergo trading runs to and from the Border Worlds. A nice little earner, as the Bretonians say.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Freeport 5, Omega-41
Current Net Worth: $2000000
Dated: August 2, 805 A.S
Well, here I am in the Omega systems again, having completed the first leg of my long journey. I got here by means of the Sigma systems, a loose collection of systems on the border of the Edge Nebula. It would have been quicker to head directly for Omega-41 via a Jump Hole through Omicron Gamma, but Omicron Gamma is the location of Crete, the Corsair homeworld, and that is not a good place for either an Outcast or a Bowex pilot to be. So instead I went through Sigma via Omicron Beta.
Omicron Beta is a small system held tightly by the Outcasts. My escorts showed me to Ruiz Base, an outpost of the Outcasts and the main base in this system. A collection of Zoners travel through here every so often, but the Outcasts keep a close eye on them. No other factions are allowed in this system, it being used as a fortress against Corsair assault forces.
From Omicron Beta to Sigma-19, through another Jump Hole. Here was the place to stop acting like an Outcast and start acting like a Border World Exports trader. Sigma-19 is controlled by Kusari companies Samura Heavy Industries and Kishiro Technologies, who set up navigation buoys and space stations to guide traders through the nebula, and these two companies should have no problem with Border World Exports. So we kept within corporation territory, and ran like the scared traders we were supposed to be every time an Outcast patrol passed our way.
Kishiro Technologies had set up a Jump Gate to Sigma-17, so we took the route though there. Strange activities had been taking place in this system ever since the mysterious destruction of Zoner-occupied Freeport 7, which provided the perfect excuse for us to try and get out of the system as quickly as possible. We excused ourselves, and soon we were out of lawful territory once more, and through the Jump Hole into Omega-41.
Omega-41 is a strange and deathly sight. The star collapsed many years ago, and turned into a neutron star, polluting the entire system with radiation. There are mine fields, fighter wrecks, asteroid and meteor fields out here, every obstacle it is possible to find. We docked at Freeport 5, where the Zoners hurriedly vaccinated us against some of the symptoms of radiation sickness, and reviewed our plan. In a few days, we set out through the Omega systems into Dresden, a system with a high rate of Red Hessian activity. Corsair activity in the Omega systems has decreased since the destruction of Cadiz Base, but they still maintain a base in this system where most of the Omega-5 survivors fled. We must be careful.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Vogtland Base, Dresden
Current Net Worth: $2000000
Dated: August 20, 805 A.S
Well, getting here did indeed present trouble, as the Corsairs run a lot of patrols across the Omega-11 Jump Hole from the well-stocked Leon Base. Our Bowex disquise was no use here: what was stopping the Corsairs from firing on an innocent trade convoy? The fact that we were disguised Outcasts they would simply regard as a bonus.
My escorts were in better fighters, since the Sabre Very Heavy Fighters are renowned throughout the Sirius Sector, but it is said (though not in earshot of an Outcast)that the Corsairs are better pilots, and besides there were more of them. Flying their Centurion Heavy Fighters, the skilled chipped away at my allies until we were forced to activate our cruise engines and run for it. The enemy pilots had cruise disruptor missiles on hand to slow us down, but I dropped a few decoy countermeasures and fled to Omega-11.
Omega-11 is almost as dreary a place as Omega-41. The star here isn't dead, like the one in Omega-41, but it's definitely dying, and while the Von Rohe Belt to be found in this system is the most lucrative diamond mining operation to be found in the colonies, it is plagued by unexpected and deadly radiation storms that catch unprepared freelance miners off guard, causing the area to be littered with debris from destroyed ships engines. Now that the bloody Battle of Omega-5 has come to a close and the Red Hessians have begun the long process of cleaning up the battlefield of the Hammen Hole, Omega-11 is littered with the most shipwrecks anywhere known to man.
However, the radiation means that corporations and criminals seem to leave the area alone, so without further distractions we proceeded through another Jump Hole into Dresden. The Jump Hole there is conveniently close to Vogtland, a Red Hessian hideaway. The Red Hessians practically control Dresden and conduct daily raids on the few corporations mad enough to venture into this system of southern Rheinland. Rumour has it the corporations have given up pretending and are letting the Hessians control Trade Lane traffic, though the image of a vicious Rheinland pirate as a traffic warden fails to stick in the mind.
Today, though, it appears that the Rheinland Military are trying to reassert their authority in this system, because moments after we'd touched down on Vogtland, a large attack force was sighted assaulting the base. Now we have a dilemma. If we play the part of the helpless traders captured by the criminals, the Red Hessians will look on us as betrayers and the Military will scan our cargo, exposing copious amounts of Cardamine. But if we engage the Rheinlanders, our cover will be blown and we will have to ensure no Rheinlanders survive to report our disguise – and they are bringing capital ships along. I'll get back to you on this one.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Freeport 2, Bering
Current Net Worth: $2000000
Dated: August 22, 805 A.S
Well, I think we might just be out of that one. The attack on Vogtland turned into a desperate melee, both sides simply blasting away and running and shooting and hoping against hope that their side would come out on top. The Hessians realised our considerable plight and we decided to leave our original ships on the base and enter the battle as Hessian fighters, in order not to blow our cover. We were given slightly downgraded Border World heavy fighters, Stilettos, and were sent out into the fray, just dodging a couple of torpedoes heading for the docking bay we'd just left.
The attack was being led by the South Rheinland Fleet, headed by the massive RNC Odin. Remembering my applauded skills for disarming an enemy target in order to leave it vulnerable, I drew my escorts up into a tight formation and burst through the Rheinland fighter formation, all guns blazing. Using powerful Vengeance lasers to strip away the fighter's shields, we headed straight towards the monstrous battleship, peeling away at the last second to avoid a barrage of heavy guns fire from the front of the battleship. Then, we skirted along the top, harried by point-defence systems and anti-fighter guns. But the Border World fighters were designed well by Outcast engineers on Malta (the ones less addicted to Cardamine)and we were able to return in kind, stripping the Odin of her turrets, leaving her bare and defenceless. Spirits soaring on adrenalin, I reported as much to Command on Vogtland.
We were ordered back to screen Vogtland Base from the Rheinland Valkyrie heavy fighters. We split up, engaging in tense dogfights with the well-designed Rheinland craft. But we survived long enough. Launching from the docking bays still functioning we could see several Hessian bombers equipped with the best torpedoes Rheinland piracy could acquire. Bursting easily through the failing enemy fighter screen, these bombers launched several Sunslayer torpedoes straight into the engines of the Odin. Its death was a beautiful sight, as critical reactor overload in the engines announced itself with a burst of fire, which spread quickly up the ship until the whole structure crashed open at the middle.
We landed back on Vogtland to a flurry of congratulations, and fortunately for us not all of them were from Red Hessians. Hearing the news, envoys from other factions were soon arriving, bringing resources to help fix the damage to the station's docking bays. These envoys were from the Unioners, a terrorist group which often strikes at the Rheinland corporations and shipping groups, such as Republican Shipping, and the Bundschuh, the political dissidents that have been declared enemy of the state by Rheinland and now wages a war of attrition from the Frankfurt system. Upon hearing of our plight, the Unioners offered to escort us to Bering, the Independent Worlds system between Rheinland and Liberty, where they own some territory.
Thus it is that me and my escorts are now back on Freeport 2, on the Legal trade routes. It won't be long before I see Manhattan, in a different capacity.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Planet Manhattan, 800 A.S
Current Net Worth: $2500000
Dated: September 10, 805 A.S
Back home, to the thriving metropolis of Manhattan. Except that this time, I wasn't flying in a privileged Orbital Spa and Cruise Lines luxury liner, headed for the grandest mansions the colonies' most economically powerful state had to offer, but instead a harried smuggler, disguised as a Border Worlds Exports trader, touching down and heading for the shady areas, the criminal hangouts and the suspicious casinos.
Yet another obstacle encountered us at the Liberty border. Since the capture of the
Connecticut, that fateful day in the lives of so many Liberty Security Force officers, the criminals in Liberty had become decidedly bolder, and so security, particularly at the borderline with the Independent Worlds, had been increased. There was no way that we were using the Jump Gate to Texas without subjecting to a series of cargo scans. Fortunately, our Unioner escorts had forewarned us of this and so we veered off the Trade Lanes and took a Jump Hole to Texas instead. In a way, it's a good thing Dresden was attacked: if it hadn't been, we wouldn't have met the Unioners, and thus would have had to make a quick getaway at the gate.
We encountered another small hitch upon arrival at Houston. One of the security improvements within Liberty space is that Houston has been secured by the fearsome LNS Mississippi, and a Liberty Navy patrol was launching just as we were entering our next Trade Lane. Just as we were approaching, my commlink dinged and I heard the clipped tones of an LPI pilot informing me that I was about to undergo a cargo scan, and would I please cut my engines, but then fortunately the Trade Lane spat into action and we were hurtling towards New York.
We were supposed to have halted while the scan was in place, but I don't suppose one Bowex convoy more or less mattered much to the pilot. Perhaps he has been worked to the bone already. I understand that that can work against a military organization.
And so, we landed back on my homeworld. We skirted the rough areas of town, and managed to get quite a good price for 275 units of narcotic fresh off Malta. Tomorrow we set off with assorted goods for Malta. Soon I will be going home for good, and while of course I've enjoyed all this adventure, I won't be sorry to return to the good life. It's not as if smuggling isn't lucrative.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Freeport 2, Bering
Current Net Worth: $7000000
Dated: December 25, 805 A.S
Ah, Christmas Day. I'm not especially religious in this day and age, despite the enormous amount of old cathedral imitations my parents insisted on dragging me around, but I and most of the sort-of-atheists who celebrate the 25th of December do so because it is just one day where you can celebrate, eat yourself stupid, and give each other bath salts amid terribly counterfeit cries of “Oh, I've always wanted
Divinely Scented Moisturising Cream manufactured in the East Leeds Smog Cloud!”.
Even the Zoners on Freeport 2 celebrate it, though in a base as diverse as a Freeport the celebration is a little odd. There isn't much eating, eating to excess being unhealthful on a long space journey, and I didn't know many people on Freeport 2 and thus was sadly lacking in bath salts and badly knitted sweaters.
Of course, the main reason is that in six days – I have calculated it most exactly – my year of freelancing will be up, and I will return to Manhattan and the good life, with $7000000 to my name! I started with nothing, and it is rather refreshing to know that I earned that money myself. The Sirius Sector most certainly is a wealth of possibilities. I visited Freeport 2 for a reason: Zoners, being a neutral party who will trade with any faction, legal or illegal, will always be willing to hack the records of any faction they are paid to hack the records of, and improve the reputation of the payer. It was in this manner that I managed to bribe myself back into respectability with Liberty Police Inc., the Liberty Navy, and the Liberty Security Force, and so I will be able to return to New York by the legal trade routes, riding in my own Christmas present from Miguel Benitez, a Border World Very Heavy Fighter, a Sabre. He told me that I was a pleasure to work with, that I would always be granted access to Omicron Alpha, and then turned away without another word.
In six days I will be back in my home of New York. I will close this journal then.
Neural Net Log Personal Entry:
Location: Planet Manhattan, New York
Current Net Worth: $7000000
Dated: January 1, 806 A.S
And that's it. My year of freelancing, exploring the stars and hiring my services out to all manner of diverse factions, is over. I started out with next to nothing on Manhattan, by my own design, and became a respected patrol pilot for Liberty Police Inc, was part of an attack on Buffalo Base by the Liberty Security Force, was captured and brought to Magellan, saw the end of the Battle of Omega-5, learnt the secret history of the Outcasts and the Corsairs, visited Malta and the Omicron systems, and became a Cardamine smuggler to Manhattan. Now I have an amazing amount of money to my name, and if any other potential freelancers read this journal, I would urge them: follow your dreams.
I may go out to the Edge Worlds again. The Outcasts were pleased with my service, and there is the mystery if the strange “Nomads” to unravel. But for now, I will relax home on Manhattan, telling and retelling the story of a freelancer.
Edited by - MATT002 on 8/12/2007 12:43:09 PM
