By Maurice Merchant, Editor in Chief

18/9- A disturbing new report from the Colonial Marshals suggests that everything leading up to current tensions between Triumvirate colonials and the native peoples of the Newlands has been a lie.

Klaus Klaudhopper, a twenty two year old veteran of Crowndon’s Air Corps and ex-patriate from the nation of Rommsbach, was captured almost two weeks ago near a Marshals’ outpost fifty miles east of Fort Faulkner. Klaudhopper has several arrest warrants to his name, most notably for the murder of an Oligarch’s son in Rommsbach.

As reported last year by Adella Chatelaine, Klaudhopper was at some point being pursued by the Bandit leader Doctor Argyle Von Grimm. During his questioning, Marshals asked him about this incident.

Klaudhopper revealed that he’d been pressed into working for Von Grimm for several jobs. One of these jobs was the theft of the dragonfly aircraft used against Marshal forces during the siege of Fort Winstone.

Even more, Klaudhopper revealed that he was forced to pilot one of the planes, and that he in fact was the pilot of the plane that was discovered crashed along the Plasty Meridian in the spring. According to Klaudhopper, he’d been trying to escape, and the other pilot had shot him down.

To add insult to injury, Klaudhopper claims that Von Grimm never crossed the Meridian, and that the Bandit leader’s plan had been instead to skirt along the southern border with the Deadlands, heading east toward the ocean and a waiting ship.

If Klaudhopper’s testimony is true, then it would appear that the Colonial military forces’ attempts to gain entrance into the Territories has been for naught, and that the colonies’ current hostilities with the Territorial peoples’ is the result of a tragic mistake.

As for Klaus Klaudhopper, it would seem that he will elude justice once again. He escaped shortly after his testimony was given, in a manner almost identical to that in which he escaped during a brief detainment last year. In both instances it is believed he was aided by an accomplice, a tall woman with dark hair known believed to be named ‘Arufina’. (Perhaps unrelated, but this description matches that of the mysterious rifle-woman seen during the Point Hammond shoot out. Point Hammond is a mere four day ride from Fort Faulkner). As a result, the already considerable bounty on his head has been increased three fold, for an identifiable dead body.

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Author’s note: A version of today’s image originally appeared in this post. I wanted to update it somewhat, to explore the idea of wanted posters as a form of propaganda, or perhaps convey the idea that some joker had come along and defaced an existing poster.