Piracy Increasing On Commercial Routes
May 11th, 2492, Cocoon Station, Grant Jones
For the longest time, piracy has always been an issue in one way or another. But usually, piracy was reserved to low traffic commercial lanes that weren't under constant watch, and the pirate methods were never sophisticated: Track down a ship, aim at the engines, board it, and leave with their bounty. Sometimes these episodes were bloodier than others as the bodies of the crew would be found drifting in space for days after the attack. However, an increase in this activity has several key players concerned.
Most recently, the RCS Orion, a fast freighter with capacity for 350 tons of cargo, was attacked by an unknown pirate organization. The Orion was making a supply run from Luna Colony to Venus on behalf of the Regal Corporation, but it never made it to Venus. According to the Regal Corporation, the cargo was intended for a mining effort on one of the largest settlements on Venus. However, and after the estimated flight time expired and after not hearing from the crew or the Venus Spaceport for arrival confirmation, Regal Corporation requested the aid of Arc Systems to track down and locate the Orion, as well as finding out what had happened to the cargo, and the crew as well.
After a complete investigation, Arc Systems concluded that the ship was near Earth when the attack took place, the communications on the Orion were jammed as the pirates approached, the crew was killed, and the cargo was digitally scrubbed and taken on its entirety, the Orion was left adrift until it reached Earth's gravity field, as it was pulled and finally crashed on an inhospitable zone. The Orion is considered to be a complete loss, and due the digital scrubbing on the cargo, there is no realistic way to track it down.
Arc Systems brings special attention to the methods used by these pirates, as they seem to be too sophisticated compared to previous attacks, which inevitably asks the question: Are pirates getting bolder and better equipped? If that's the case, who is equipping them and financing operations like this? The stolen cargo is valued in nearly two million credits, and seeing how common is mining in the Sol System, it makes it easy for such equipment to be moved and traded without issue.
Arc Systems recommends to all the corporate logistic departments to start investing in security contracts with specialized security corporations, as this kind of attack may become more and more common as time moves on.
Grant Jones reporting.
