By Delta Sweetwater
Special to CNS

After the events that led to the destruction of Shadow, more and more voices condemn the actions taken by the Alliance. Recently the United Systems Directorate released an official statement condemning the bombing of Shadow as a “terrible and unnecessary act of violence”. Furthermore, the USD held a press Conference on Acriobrea regarding the happenings on Shadow and presented another survivor of the nuclear apocalypse.

Lt.Col. John Collins, Officer of the United Systems Military: Ground Forces was on the surface on November 7.th and was caught in the conflict. “I was on leave and spend some of my free time on Shadow, together with a friend of mine when I saw bright flashes in the sky. I knew on the instance that it were re-entry vehicles from Orbital Weapons. We were in the center of the town and I shouted to get out asap.” Colonel Collins said.

On the question how he survived he said “I was wearing a power Armor at this time, I just had completed the refreshment training every power armor wear has to make and didn’t removed it when we landed on Shadow.

We all ran out of the town, into the direction of a river. Shortly after that the nuclear warheads detonated behind us, so we hit the deck. We later took cover in a abandon looking bunker and hid in there. 24h later we crawled back to the surface and could establish a commlink with a freighter that was in orbit and we got picked up.”

The story sounds incredible and but was certified by the Official USD Spokesperson: “We have a detailed report and we have several eyewitnesses that can certify the report and we should not forget the Data collected by the Power Armor inbuilt sensors.”

Still that raises some question: how can an Lt.Col. of an foreign power simply be take its leave on Shadow and take a stroll through the town wearing Power Armor? Was he really just with a friend, a civilian or is there more than meets the eye? And who are those eyewitnesses and what freighter picked them up after 24h?

One question could at least be answer, how the Colonel could survive the high radiation: “The PA-M45 Advanced power Armor type “Enclave” has full NBC protection for a period of at least 4 weeks if necessary” The Colonel said.

The United Systems Directorate (USD) is a unification of several star systems in the Aurora out arm, with a federal government style system which is located at Naruni Prime. The ruling bodies are the High Council and the Senate who compose the main ruling body for the separate sector administrations.

Having been neutral for a long time, this change of positions is quite a surprise and may relate in cold relations between the Alliance and the USD. At this time, the true power and potential of the USD is unknown and The Alliance has yet to react on this statement.