Year 26, Day 148
This week, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that it had successfully completed a freedom of navigation tour of the Arvala system. Confident in the military prowess of the Second Fleet, a lone ATR-6 was spotted navigating the system of Arvala on its way to Arvala-7 in the hunt of criminals that it had been tracking for weeks.
Once spotted, DX-9 escorts from the nearby Corliss & Co. governed planet were launched to assist the CIS in its hunt for the criminals with regular scans of the system to ensure no traps were laid down by the criminal gang.
“Wherever criminals try to hide, the CIS will hunt them down and bring them to justice” a military spokesman said. Some though have raised questions about why the CIS committed a single gunboat to the endeavour instead of deploying a taskforce to the system. When queried on this, the spokesman replied “We know from recent tests that the ATR-6 is one of the best and most versatile gunboats in the galaxy. Why do we need to send in a fleet of ships when a single ATR-6 managed to traverse the Arvala system before being identified by local governments? It’s clear that we were taking a surgical process to dealing with these criminals, sending in a whole fleet might have caused them to flee the system and set us back weeks of work.”
Considered restricted technology to most in the galaxy it is believed the CIS has a considerable stockpile of these ATR-6 gunboats with more on order. After completing its objectives, the ATR-6 left the Arvala System and is now en-route back to Binquaros where it is believed the pilot will be debriefed and awarded the Medal of Navigation for their brave acts in combating criminal gangs.
The Second Fleet operates in the northern CIS territories and is based in the Binquaros system. Politicians within the CIS have raised concerns that information had not been passed onto the southern fleets and instead went outside of its jurisdiction to track down the fugitives. Officials from the Second Fleet have not yet commented on the situation. However, one source close to the MoD who wished to remain anonymous said that no one was aware of the situation until high level officials were notified. These claims have been dismissed by the MoD as fake news and the spurious claims of the media against the heroic endeavours of the Second Fleet.