To Call a Traitor
07 Mar 2016Brenner Soriah
Stardate 2202-3302, 0030Commander Brenner Soriah, logging again after what has been far too long. Of course, I knew when I started that I wasn't going to be able to keep up with these logs. I digress my own shortcoming. As always, much has happened for me to log here. Total hell, to be honest. I'd best get started.
After reviewing the last log, maybe there isn't as big of a gap as I thought, but it sure feels like so much happened. Operation Checkerboard launched cleanly with the Hutton Truckers taking the spotlight as our prime partner for the duration. The high increase in traffic through our newly won station of Onnes Gateway led to a massive surge in its economy. Citizen spending was through the roof along with the profit margins from many companies that call the space city their home. This lasted for nearly a week and a half, strengthening our influence to reaches unlike before in the history of the Paladin Consortium. With our newfound control, we took our first major act to offer freedom and repatriation for all the Imperial Slaves in LFT 37. It was this that caused the Independents of LFT 37 to see the rising threat to their control of our home.
In an underhanded trick to sabotage our efforts, the Independents party initiated an economic blockade to cut off essential life needs to Onnes station, and performed a filibuster on all political paperwork related to the slaves release. While the Paladin Consortium has the manpower and influence now to fight it, we aren't able to do so alone. The station was built up based on agriculture, so we could provide the people their food, but water became another matter. The supply is sustained with water purifiers shipped in by multiple surrounding systems, which we now no longer had easy access to. The richer and more well off would easily be able to afford getting ahold of them, but the newly freed ex-slaves were in no position yet to fend for themselves, and were suddenly without clean water to drink and wash with.
It was here that I made my greatest achievement yet. Working with the leadership of our allies and our own organization, I brought together some of the largest factions of Pilots. First, the Diamond Frogs, whose massive numbers were swollen with pilots well vetted in large scale operations. Then the Hutton Orbital Truckers, the heavy haulers of the galaxy and our biggest allies. Dark Echo, bounty hunters and pirate killers, whom we've performed multiple escort operations with. The DaVinci Corp, an organization which was birthed near the same time as us and has grown by our side. And of course, us, the Paladin Consortium. The shining beacons of resistance against the lawlessness in the bubble. With these five great powers of the universe together, we gave birth to the Galactic Coalition for the purpose of affirming our power and returning LFT 37 to the Paladin Consortium, with talks of making it a more permanent alliance in the future to act as an international peacekeeping force to rival the three great factions. Before the Coalition could see the light of the Universe, it needed to make it's great debut in LFT 37. But what was to be its maiden christening was to become a baptism by fire...
The Paladin Consortium wasn't so foolish as to gamble the lives of its people based only on pride, and so made the call to every pilot for any assistance they could provide in a community goal. The risk associated with such an appeal is that it was open information to everyone who could turn on a datapad. This included the scum of the universe who killed and raped and pillaged for their own sick twisted sense of personal power. I brought Operation Checkerboard to an official end and launched the final phase of my plans to regain control of the Paladins home system. Dubbed Operation Liquid Freedom, each member of the Galactic Coalition had a part to play in supporting bringing aid to the ex-slaves of Onnes. We needed lots and lots of pilots to move tonnage into LFT 37 to create a stock with which to draw from until we could become the major party in the system. We could rely on many of the independent contracts to perform this task, along with the Hutton Truckers and a few of our own to assure its success. Coalition forces were needed mostly for patrol and escort operations.
The first twelve hours following Operation Liquid Freedom's launch were silent. Seeing no kinds of hostility, I moved into a hauling role and worked with CMDR Meishell, Cheesewhichz, and Shadow from the HOT to bolster the incoming cargo. I managed to move twenty THOUSAND tons of machinery, which placed me in a secure posture as one of the top ten commanders for hauling goods. It was then that every portion of hell from the galaxy took a visit to our doorstep. Self proclaimed pirate lords from all over the bubbles came in together, as well as multiple factions taking stakes to see us not make our rise to power. Kurt Ansa, the Earth Defense Force, and the Varangians were among them, along with several CODE agents, the entirety of the Smiling Dog Crew, and various other wannabe ne'er-do-wells. It wasn't just pirating; it was a full scale invasion of our system. It even came with a declaration challenging our rule and calling US terrorists. I can only laugh at the poorly made PR against us that only the ill-informed and naïve would fall for. Still, that didn't change that we had to defend our home.
I had thankfully built up my cash reserves just enough to fully fit the RES Brisingr for combat, bar a hull upgrade. As per usual, I have uploaded her schematics for public viewing. I consider it my challenge to my enemies, if they want to try to make her fall. Once I brought her out into the conflict, I felt very invincible. With the majority of our personnel already out in supercruise, I remained at the station in a patrol format, with only our unnamed traffic spy as company. I greeted and warned traders of the dangers of the system, while simultaneously ensuring they completed the final portion of their haul safely, while our paid ally kept scanners to full to be my eyes for anyone of ill repute. We spotted several ships of suspect, bearing cargo scanners, torpedoes and other high impact weapons with no shields and idling in the cold; I believe that my presence deterred them from taking any action. After a time, I had one of our newer commanders, Nicole Pappa ( unrelated to the big smurf), take over my patrol and I took to supercruise. I could scarcely believe the kind of traffic we were receiving. Granted, we were always a busy system. Any time in the day, you could spot one or two traders moving through. But this? Fourty plus ships moving through FTL space at any given moment? I was mind blown.
Without any time to sit in wonder, my scanners were already passing through anything that wasn't a standard trader. Before I could get through half of them, I was interdicted by someone with either no brains or a big grudge against me. I don't remember the names anymore, it was too long ago, but I remember it was a trio of FDL's. Both parties already knew what the other wanted, and I opened up the hardpoint hatches on the ship that had dropped in to my fore. The lasers were the first on point, strafing the metals of the shieldless ship. She dropped signal and began running cold, disrupting the gimbal targeting systems. I dropped lock and pointed guns forward, manually homing their lances in on her hull. By now, the two huge plasma accelerators had finally elevated to an exposed position, and I held my finger over the secondary trigger. The stealth FDL was being too dodgy for my tastes, and I switched targets midrotation to avoid being kited. This one had shields, which meant she wasn't planning to drop my gimbals lock right away. I started firing on the fancy little ship, activating the first of my reserve shield banks and venting the boiling coolant out into space to keep the ship cool. Thinking to get past my lasers, she maneuvered in to sit right on top of my hull, and made the biggest mistake possible. I swapped weapon groups and fired a pair of shock mines, pushing her up and myself down from the detonation. As she moved up, twin balls of plasma roiled across her shields and wiped out the system. Deciding to get a little retribution as well, I thrusted down on the aft thrusters and up on the fore, flicking my nose up to scrape across her underside and compromise half the lower deck. The FDL retreated, wounded and afraid, and I turned my attention back on the other pests plinking away at my shields. They had enough time to lower me to one ring again, to which I responded with another cell bank. The skirmish's outcome was already determined by now; two on one and I was back to full shield strength again. I followed up with another stellar volley of plasma and laser fire into the stealth FDL, who had conserved on heat sinks while my attention was drawn away. Down to 75%, he turned to bail out with his friend following as cover. I chased them the short kilometers with more fire before they widened the gap between my ship and theirs. With my opposition successfully routed, I charged the FSD back into supercruise and returned to port amidst the chaos to refit. I am a man of habit and caution with a saying. "Proper preparation prevents piss poor performance."
Back into the fray and searching for targets, I actually had a chance to look around for once. Fer de lances, cobras, federal assault ships, types of all sorts. Even the stray cobra or sidewinder. IFF signatures allied, hostile, and unaffiliated were all over my systems as I checked each individual pilot. My next target was someone whose name I didn't even care to remember his name. A Federal Assault Ship that was in the process of anchoring to a trade ship became my primary focus as I brought myself along to follow their flight path. I saw he was in a wing of 3, but numbers have never really daunted me unless they have more than a 3 to 1 ratio (with me alone. Depending on my wingmates, I might reduce that number due to lack of confidence in their abilities). It took me a few moments, but I dropped in on the low wake signature they'd left behind, to find him already firing on some poor type 7 that was doing work for my faction. I didn't even bother with the warnings. A boost from my engines pushed my nose against his backside and took his attention away from the hapless victim while I deployed my weapons once more. His wingmates, another stealth FDL along with an orca that I had warned earlier, came to his side now, and the familiar feel of a fight was on once more. I was originally focused on the FAS, but he went stealth as well. I am too experienced to let myself become distracted with a target I can't hit. I swung my nose up to what must have been a greener pilot in the orca, because he'd made the same mistake as the earlier Fer De Lance and tried to turn my ship into a landing pad. Shock mines detonated in close proximity to my topside, pushing us apart and preceding the ripple of the two burning balls of fire roiling over and through his shields. I pushed a little extra power from shields to the weapons for a faster recharge and stung off a second volley that left a gaping hole through what is normally a limo of a ship. Crippled and not even a threat to have begun with, I pulled away to lay down firepower back onto the FAS. Leaving power evenly split between weapons and systems, I guided my superheated weapons into his hull and whittled him away, firing off banks and heat sinks as I needed to. The orca wanted to play the hero when he didn't need to and came back to intervene with my shots. I shrugged mentally and let him take the death he desired, pummeling him into nothingness. Down a wingman, the remaining pirates desperately tried to stay on my blindside to no avail. I know my ships too well, and how to keep guns on target. The fight didn't last much longer and they decided to make the jump to whatever system they needed to repair in. I didn't see them in LFT 37 again.
Another restock and I was once more unto the breach. This time, I laid my eyes on another ship of the same class. CMDR Smokeweedz in a Federal Corvette. I already had his affiliation under Smiling Dog Crew, and saw he had a single escort of an FDL. SDC are well known for their multi-wing ganks. I wasn't able to really afford more than a single rebuy, but I held no fear to that which we swore to fight as Paladin. Charging the system, I fired a tether into his FSD and started the tug of war process. I already knew the battle for supercruise was only a delaying action for his partner to move in range to come into normal space with us. Sure enough, we dropped down. Sparing no time for pleasantries, both parties deployed weapon mounts and engaged each other. My first blasts rippled over the verdant shields of Aisling Duval, and he replied in kind with a pentad of lasers. It was fairly obvious where he placed his desires for power. With plasma and lasers being fired back and forth at each other, we both circled, trying to maneuver into positions where the other could not shoot. I managed them briefly a couple times; small moments of respite where I could boost the charge of my weapons before returning full strength to my shields. The battle was not short, as each shield would begin to flicker and then glow with the charge of shield banks being fired. Counting them in my head, I was winning the battle of attrition when a third and fourth wingmate joined him. This was a little worrisome, 1 v 4 against pilots that I knew had some level of competence to them. I broke my engagement and started to boost away as another four of their crew fell in space with us. 8 versus 1 was disgustingly clear that I wasn't winning anything. I changed my navigation systems to jump to the nearest system, fired my final shield banks and heat sinks, and began random jumps. I wasn't leaving anything to chance, on the off hand that they pursued me into new systems. Thankfully, I saw no sign of them, and was able to make dock in peace in Andhrimi to resupply. It was frustrating, only because I knew I was winning the battle before he called in extra help. They'd take the victory on that one, only due to sheer numbers.
Battles like this and many more came. Most of them ended with one party limping off, and the other returning to station for rearming. Including the Orca, I count four kills that I alone could claim through the five days of patrolling I performed. Many more were victories where the opposition was delayed either in being occupied with me, or being forced to retreat for repairs and refitting. Come the fifth day, I had fallen down into the top 10% of commanders, and postured myself to hauling again, making the final push to deliver for the community goal. I ended at just shy of 35,000 tons of machinery delivered to our station of Onnes, more than likely as the tenth highest commander. I knew at least two other paladins were in the top ten with me, along with three Orbital truckers. The other four were as a mystery to me. Still, we had completely maxed out our petition values ahead of schedule despite the fierce opposition to our goals. I can honestly say it would not have ever reached such a level of success without the Galactic Coalition.
I hold a value to my chest. "In life, there must be balance. Every victory comes at a cost, every happy moment accompanied by sadness." This one would prove to be no different. In the final moments of the community goal, all was not well within the ranks of the Paladin Consortium leadership. There had been rumours for quite some time of a conspiracy against us. An overwhelming number of the "Council" (as our leadership are called) believed that the Diamond Frogs had hired CODE and other ne'er-do-wells to invade our system. I was always suspicious of it, but without any sort of proof, I wasn't about to pick sides. I left it be so long as it did not interfere with the Coalition and our alliances. There came a point where the tension boiled over the pot. A DF agent was assigned to assassinate several Paladins after we presumptuously attempted to 'train' them in PVP, where they were clearly more experienced and adept than us. This brought the 'conspiracy plot' to bare as 'evidence' was presented (in small quantities, and not openly) to Big Pappa, where he took it without question and decried the Frogs and cast them from our system; the system THEY had helped us to win. The fires lit to bring a split in the fledgling Coalition, I had to act very quickly in order to salvage the alliance. I began my own investigation in earnest, the details of which are to remain locked within the leadership and my own mind, and found my own evidence disproving the conspiracy and those that backed it. Upon vehemently unveiling my opposition towards the tinhatted foolishness, I was silenced and removed from the leadership chatroom. At that point, I saw it was beyond any of the other leaders or myself to reel in the insanity, and so I released a public message to the rest of the membership stating that their leadership was taking them down a bad path, at which point I was removed from the Paladin chat entirely. I continued to lurk and watch over the state of affairs for the next couple of days, remaining hands off as a martyr while they sorted out the fallout. From here, the order of events has become fuzzy to me. They conducted a heavier investigation and found that the evidence supporting the conspiracy had been forged. Multiple leaders stepped down from power, including Big Pappa. On multiple occasions, I was questioned, called a traitor, abused, and completely mistrusted. Even after it was found that I was right the entire time, the ONLY opposition and voice of reason, I was left on probation, and completely forgotten about. Not a single apology from the heinous parts of leadership that accused me of betraying my own organization, the one that I had worked SO hard to build up. They stood upon my shoulders, and claimed I was trying to destroy them. Only Big Pappa, Marshall, and to an extent, Smoelken, tried in any way to bring me back into the folds. I told them what it would take for me to return. It never happened. So I formally and officially left Paladin leadership. In my mind, why should I support a people who I have helped so whole-heartedly, only to be stabbed in the back?
For now, I remain a Paladin, if only in name. In my mind, even I have begun to question if I am a paladin anymore. More than once has the thought crossed me to leave completely in disgust of that which I once loved so dearly. I still hold onto it, though at arms length. Following a systems malfunction (HDD drive partition corruption), I was forced to retire to the station for several weeks while replacement electronics were delivered. It was very bothersome not to have my throttles at my finger tips, not to feel the engine thrumming along my back, not to have my eyes enhanced with the various information displays that kept me alive in combat. I continued to watch the communications in public of how the Paladins developed in their restructuring following the upheaval. Listening to the battlenet as they continued to cry out how one or two commanders gave them endless trouble, I hung my head in disappointment. There was good that came of it, but not nearly enough to balance out what had befallen the beloved faction I had worked so hard for.
When my systems were finally back, customized to my liking, and purring to go, I somberly took up the throttle again. The heartbreak of betrayal still stings me deeply, even as I first brought my ship out of the docks once again. I wonder if I'll be able to find the passion to fly again. One thing is for sure... My heart isn't golden as it once was, and it is very doubtful to ever be again. And my dreams to become someone great seem to have come crashing against the rocks as others drag me down. This won't be my last log entry by far, but future ones may not possess the same zeal and color as those that have come before.
Until the next one, may your swords stay sharp and may you soar on dragon's wings.
Commander Brenner Soriah, signing off.