Dang station brats! Ok, so I stop at the main station in Soorte. I was only in Starbugs for maybe 5 minutes to pick up a quick refill for the caffeine cylinder for my ship's galley. There had been some station brats hanging out in front of Starbugs. You know the type, where they try to get you to buy them some caffeine even though they're obviously under-aged? I just ignored them and brushed on past and didn't think anything of it.
But when I came out, I found out the little blighters had tagged my ship!
I went in and complained to Starbugs management, but of course I got no joy from that. "Happened in a public docking zone sir, not actually on Starbugs premises", yadda yadda.. So I went to the station security office, and they had one of their boys come and look at it. He said that "Vakume Danserz" was not the name of any gang he knew of, but that he had made a note of it. I asked what we were going to do about it, and he told me that maybe they can remove the paint at the station maintenance bay.
So I pay the fee to have my ship moved over to maintenance dock and they look at it and tell me that they can't remove it, because apparently these kids have managed to get hold of some of the molecular bonding paint that is used to put on the ID numbers that are being required in some places now. He could paint over it, but it would come off as soon as I made a planetfall or got hit with some laser fire. He said the only way to actually fix it will to be to get all the affected hull plates replaced. I asked him how much for that, and he tells me he doesn't have the parts in stock. Come on, what sort of station repair bay doesn't stock parts for a Cobra MKIII???
He also "just happened to notice" that the umbilical for my front laser had some signs of damage and of course he saw the one emergency hull patch from a furball a couple weeks ago that I hadn't gotten repaired yet. So I had to get those fixed before he'd issue me a new safety inspection number.
When I argued against the bill for all that, the station security officer showed up and gave me a little talk about how the fees from the safety inspections support the station and etc. While he was talking, I saw one of the kids who had been outside Starbugs dart past. I pointed him out, but the officer said he hadn't seen anyone. They're probably all in it together as a scam to fleece spacers, anyway.
I still wasn't real happy about the whole situation, so he suggested maybe I'd like to go down to dirtside and take it up with an official of the planetary government. On Soorte? No way! I have no desire to get labelled as a "dissident" and end up mining wood with the rats in a labour camp. Not that dirtsiders give a trumble's indeterminate orifice about what happens in the up-and-out anyway, but you really don't want to try and stir up any trouble in star-systems like Soorte.
So if you're ever at Soorte station and you see some kids hanging around, don't take your eyes off your ship, my friend, not even for a minute!
Now, I grew up on a station too, but kids were different in my day. We wouldn't have dreamed of vandalising a spaceship or trying to harass people into buying us caffeine. The whole Ooniverse is just going to crap these days, that's what it is. Giles only knows what it's going to cost when I find a place to get those hull plates replaced.
(Thanks for the inspiration!)
<Faints>