Well then.

Can’t say I really expected this outcome, but here we are. I’m sure most of the readers here are aware of Aria Jenneth’s overly dramatic and hideously dishonest poking of the Clown, which resulted in him getting the bit in his teeth and deciding to murder another million of my people in his confused terror. The follow-up being… exactly fuck all, instead spending her time sitting docked in Baviasi conjuring up more lies and deceit and trying very hard to whore for more attention meant that the work cleaning up her damned mess fell to the Minmatar. Namely myself and the only one in the Amarr Bloc who seems to be willing to put the damn work in, Samira Kernher.

It’s an odd feeling, teaming up across such borders but there we are. Her at least I can somewhat trust to follow up her words with action. I suppose her being the only one to put in four consecutive years of effort against him speaks for themselves. With her cooperation and knowledge of his habits, patterns and compatriots, I could put my employees and agents to work. Wherever he and his compatriots surfaced, they’d find eyes waiting for them. Soon enough, our vigil was rewarded. Clytoneous – the “brother” of the clown – dropped into the unassailable default corporation and undocked his Providence class freighter in Penirgman.

Let’s go back a bit, though. There’s only so much you can do to another capsuleer who’s intent on this kind of murder spree. If he wants to use another citadel, the only way to prevent it is to catch it early enough that you can destroy it during the ‘fifteen minutes of terror’ at the beginning or end of anchoring. Once it’s active, anything within is safely “protected” by Upwells safety features. All you can do then is destroy the place and force them to move their operation elsewhere. The people involved are beyond rescue either way.

This time however, Samira Kernher adviced that he most likely wanted to perform one of the freighter and anchorable can destructions in space. This is also rather difficult to deal with, especially with the freighter in the default corporation, but it’s still doable. You will run the risk of the people dying in the attempt, but the odds are a damn sight better than the zero of the citadels. If he keeps the freighter in the default corp, we can’t destroy that ourselves but he will have to make the cans vulnerable if he wants to destroy those. Suffice it to say, our options were limited to “salvage what we can, save who we can” or “destroy everything and hope for the best.” Still, both are better options than doing nothing, the SFRIM way.

The freighter was tracked all the way to Kahah, a Khanid slave market and was there put under perpetual surveillance. The clown himself was also watched closely at all times, as I, Samira Kernher and a significant amount of employees set up a long and endless vigil. It paid off. He got into his pod and beelined to Kahah in a Sacrilege fitted with a cloak, allowing him to mwd+cloak trick his way as we put pressure on him the entire way there. Days of surveillance thus punctuated by two Minmatar in their respective T3Cs nipping at the heels of a clown running for all he was worth, followed by an even more intense vigil.

PIRAT having me wardecced complicated matters and muscling through camps with Machariels, Vargurs, Stilettos, Daredevils and more was vexing, but manageable. An Orca and Charon was also moved to Kahah in order to provide quick and safe means of extracting any people we could save if he started his “ritual” with freighters and Freight Containers, as well as a third T3C pilot working with me. However, the goal here was to stop him from enacting it altogether, so this meant a long sleepless vigil of the system and station, combat probes at the ready and any activity from the clown would almost assuredly mean his destruction. I am impressed by Samira’s will and patience, as I haven’t seen anything of that sort from anyone else in the Amarr Bloc in years. She has the makings of a fine patient hunter, and the fire growing within her is certainly that of a Matari.

It would seem the vigil worked. Quite well, in fact. Better than we expected. The clown noted our patience and strength, and eventually interpreted us as the answer he was looking for. Long story short, he handed over roughly 1.2 million of my people and left in peace.

One million two hundred thousand men, women and children. My kin. My people. Aria’s actions and deceit would have damned them to a horrifying death as she and SFRIM chose to do nothing after causing it in the first place. Samira Kernher’s strength, persistance and will led to their salvation.

It’s been a while since I last dealt with this large a number all at once though. Back then it was the result of trading a thousand Amarr civilians enslaved by criminals, for a thousand of our people for each one of them. A Thousand to One. The freighter was pretty immediately put into use, transporting all of them – eventually – for a total of 144 freighter jumps to the facility I had already put up to treat and process the Freed Slaves from the Liberation Day antics. The sheer volumes of people stretched that facility to the breaking point even after a hurried expansion and I suspect it’ll take days more before all of them are comfortably cared for. Food and supply shipments for Vitoc, medical supplies, vastly increasing the amount of caretaker and security crews and such have been arranged but I suspect I will have to keep a very close eye on the situation. Over a million people will almost certainly mean significant problems over the coming weeks. A population like that will quite naturally decrease and increase as people die and are born, and ensuring dignity and care is afforded in both cases is a high priority.

This has certainly accelerated the timetable for Project Mekhios. Once this current wave of PIRAT, Marmite and RIOT aggression wanes, it’ll be implemented and by then I should have gotten arranged treaties with Electus Matari and others to help safeguard it, and they can be the recipients. Smuggling this many past Immigrations and Customs though? That’s going to be one hell of a job. There’s going to be at the very least a week of Jump Freighter transportation, and then who only knows how many Blockade Runners pushing into home space.

I know the cowards and deceivers among Amarr Bloc are going to take the credit for these events eventually. It’s pretty much what they do, a whole lot of nothing followed by a whole lot of words trying to twist the narrative. There’s still thousands of people unaccounted for from their latest pretenses but for now it doesn’t matter. These people will be free, hale and hearty, eventually. This time I can ensure there are no traitors destroying entire freighters of them, and this time I have the resources and facilities needed to treat and process them in perpetuity if need be. A thousand to one, back then.

Today… a Thousand to None.