Tales from the spacelanes...

[Cody]

Maybe that's what they were fighting about?

Hadn't thought of that. I can't deny that there'd be a bit of a to-do if I encountered another Spindrifter.

[GadflyBee]

So I'm in  this roughed-up second-hand Mining Transporter -- but I treat her well, and she pays me back in kind, don't you worry -- coming back from tapping alloys out of  the shells of ice they've collected around themselves, in a small asteroid field around the inner orbits of Zaonce. Twelve tons of metal in my hold, and it's time to haul it back to the main station to dump my wares. 40 credits clean per ton aint nothing to sneeze at, not while the market's still asking for it.

I hit the torus back toward the main station, but kept my weapons activated -- sure,  it slowed me down a bit, but it had been a long day and I felt I deserved some time to myself. I popped up a kids' show I'd pirated off the 'net and leaned my chair back as the stars streaked past slowly in my peripherals.

So yeah, I was a bit ticked off when I lurched out of torus with a yellow dot on the front edge of my scanner. I gave a preemptive spit towards those FRICKING rich-jerk miners with their FRICKING fancy-as-all-heck Cobras that always steal my junk before I can pick it up (give 'em a warning shot across the bow and they back off, though. Heh.) Or worse -- one of those JERK KIDS with a fancy new Mk. III, test driving its pulse laser on MY FRICKING ASTEROID FIELDS. I SWEAR I'm gonna kill one of those kids someday. I've PRACTISED for it, even --  in the sims, you know.

It was neither. Some Moray Star Boat, chilling for some reason off the beaten track. And she'd brought a Krait-friend. Whelp, time to detour outa their mass-lock range. I COULDA been spending this time paying attention to my show, but I guess I gotta keep an eye on the screens and navigate or something. What a drag.

And then my status indicator turned red as they start fricking GUNNING for me.
TWO of them. FRICK. "Freedom for Zaonce! Payment for the Martyrs!"

Now, I have no beef with the rebels. God knows I hate getting stiffed by the Corporation's BS ~Docking Fee~ as much as any working woman, nor do I take too kindly being shoved into eighth-queue-slot behind a buttload of Purples who couldn't find the bay doors without a Docking Computer.
But this is My. FRICKING. CARGO.
And I am NOT a fricking piggy-bank.

I swerved wildly, weaving in and out to inch closer. If it worked in the sims, then MAYBE? I could hope?
I got close enough to chip at the Moray's paint with my mining laser -- the Krait opens up, and my view lit up in blue sparks as my forward shield struggled to dissipate five hits in as many tenths-of-seconds. A BEAM LASER? SERIOUSLY?
I switched targets.

I took two more hits coming in -- and boosted forward-and-down, dodging a missile from the Moray by the thinest hair -- then started tangoing at close-range with the Krait, like a pile of garter snakes in heat. Points to me there -- the time it took to realign between shots gave me enough time for my mining laser to cool for another shot, while her beam laser wasn't doing much more than a pulse with all the shots she could squeeze out. And the Moray hitting her partner half the shots didn't hurt much. That's what you get for firing off into a melee -- fricking rebel kids, all talk, no skill.

I drew sparks from the Krait, then pulled off one more shot and missed the third. And then my console beeped and my bucked lurched as the Moray's SECOND missile found home. I checked my status -- miraculously, all of my equipment functioning 100%, but my rear shield was down, energy banks drained, and that FRICKING B***CH HAD BLOWN UP ONE OF MY PLATES OF ALLOY! MY! FRICKING! CARGO!

I squeezed off another shot into the Krait's spark-trailing engines, and she went up in flames. One down -- and the Moray was out of missiles.

My rear shield was shot, but the FORE -- weave and down, swerve and forward. Plug her and dodge, and keep. On, Coming.
She started sparking and tried to run. Another day I might've let her, but another day I wouldn't have had a SMOKING HOLE WHERE MY FOURTY FRICKING CREDS SHOULD BE.

One. Two. Three. Lined up and taken -- I've bulls-eyed splinters away from bullying Cobras at the same distance.

Final score -- Me and my Mining Transporter down one ton of alloys, 0.2 LYs of witchspace fuel, and some dents and scorch marks that I won't be able to scrub off of the Tardigrade in a hurry -- and their Moray and Krait are two new burned-out scraps of over-confident steel floating halfway between Zaonce Astrum and Zaonce Prime.

I laughed the whole way home. Even through a dogfight with a Pirate Adder who didn't get the message:

STAY.
THE ****.
AWAY.
FROM

MY.

****ING.

CARGO.


... WHAT? You think I'm making this up? I swear to God it happened, don't you roll your eyes at me! Alright, get down here, we're headed to the sims, I'll SHOW you what I can-- no, I DON'T need to sober up first! You shut your mouth now, one more smirk and we'll take this dogfight outside, don't think I'm joking with you---

[Disembodied]

Hi GadflyBee, welcome to the boards! Great tale, too … chalk up two more martyrs for the People's Front of Zaonce! (or maybe the Zaonce People's Front, or Popular Front of Zaonce, or …) Do you know, I heard this one time, from a friend's shipping agent, and he'd got it straight from the secretary to the second-in-command of the Zaonce GalCop backshift, that the PFZ - one of them, anyway, I forget which - was actually the result of a viral marketing campaign gone rogue? Some brand of running shoe, "Rebels" or somesuch. Sold a whack-ton of shoes, sparked an armed insurgency. True story.

[GadflyBee]

What a yarn, Disembodied -- Capitalism's a fricking trip. It's stories like that that make a spacer almost willing to believe those flipping "Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction" accelerationists.

Heck, I used to care about those big Ideals things -- I flew the Red and Black proudly, and don't think I've forgotten what Solidarity feels like.

But now -- gimme a solid hull to call my own, a solid Blue to tap with, and that boundless black horizon.
Home.

[Cody]

Aye, good tale - welcome aboard!

[hoqllnq]

Nice story, GadflyBee
Enjoyed reading it.

Made a note to never mess with your cargo.

[UK_Eliter]

I just had an exiting time! I deliberately misjumped into interstellar space, and had an exciting battle with wave after wave of Thargoids. I surprised myself by fighting really well - until attack from many sides, I used my ordinance well, my lasers (on all four sides) well, and kept cool. My ship is iron-assed, but still, against multiple cruisers, a battleship and its escorts, a Guardian, some Controllers, and many warships and swarms of tharglets, I think I did well. There were some navy helping me to start with, but by the end they'd gone or been destroyed.

Actually, the end of the interstellar fun was me fleeing in a bad state back to normal space. Some bugs pursued me. I destroyed them, despite being a parlous state - by this point, my scanner was flashing on and off and half my equipment was destroyed or damaged. And then . . pirates arrived. The system was an anarchy. While engaging a bunch of pirates I accidentally fired a Q-mine - I hadn't meant to because I had no injectors and indeed no witchspace fuel. I discovered - having giving myself up for dead - that in a fast ship, travelling at full speed from the moment of drop, it is possible to outrun a q-blast (and one secondary blast that I saw), without injectors.

Eventually, having waiting for my shields and energy to regenerate, I made it to the main station. There was a large furball! I ignored it, despite receiving a few shots, and docked. Net profit from the interstellar battle and minus the repairs available at the station: 5000 credits. However - and this does mean that fighting isn't a way to get rich - the total repair bill, when I can get somewhere that will do it, will be north of 50 grand, I imagine. Still, there are ways - navy stations and bonds, hacker outposts - of getting repairs cheaper.

Marvellous stuff!

[Getafix]

Wow! What a rush!

[RockDoctor]

I just had an exiting time! (... fun times ...) However - and this does mean that fighting isn't a way to get rich - the total repair bill, when I can get somewhere that will do it, will be north of 50 grand, I imagine. Still, there are ways - navy stations and bonds, hacker outposts - of getting repairs cheaper.

It's at moments like this that Repair Nanobots (1000Cr/ ten pack) start to show their worth. You might want to jump off into a convenient quiet system (T9 or higher, IIRC) and devote a few hours of game time to investigating unknown beacons, or searching for shed cargoes. Give the repair nanobots time to do their work.

Who maintains Repair Bots? Thargoid. There are a couple of irritations to it, specifically that you don't know what is being worked on at the moment, and there's no way of prioritising, say, your Military Shields over repairing the Ship's Cat. But its useful enough as it stands.

[UK_Eliter]

Ah yes, the nanobots! I had the repair system installed, but I was out of bots. Or the repair system itself was damaged or destroyed.

> and there's no way of prioritising, say, your Military Shields over repairing the Ship's Cat

Is that cat robotic, then? Still - and sorry moggy - on the plus side, if you have the cat, then it might get damaged instead of your military shields.

[Norby]

The situation is imaginable: you simply was unlucky enough that your cat got injured when slept on the shield, so bots must heal it first to get access to the shield.

[UK_Eliter]

Ha! What versatile hand-waving bots! My cat is always sleeping on the shield-generator (it's warm). Or rather she is when she's not fighting with the trumble. Actually, the cat is half-trumble herself; she's the product of a bizarre witchspace accident involving her mother, a trumble, a Thargoid attack, and some radioactive catnip.

[RockDoctor]

Actually, the cat is half-trumble herself; she's the product of a bizarre witchspace accident involving her mother, a trumble, a Thargoid attack, and some radioactive catnip.

Normal space cat then.
I'm pretty sure that when I had a cat loaded, it went under the nanobots knife at some point. You accessed it by the F3 "Equipment" screen, and remove it the same way.

[mike1six]

"Survival of the fittest." "Sink or swim."

We're all familiar with these phrases, and the meaning behind them. I got better acquainted with them today.

I'm a jack of all trades. I've done just about everything except slave-trading. Not touching that bloody ever. My ship is... Probably an interesting choice. I fly a Miner Cobra 3.

"Mike," I imagine you asking, "Why in space would you fly a mining ship if you're looking for trouble?" Well, it's simple. Big ol' cargo bay means I can rig up a fighter bay and stuff a few Raiders in. Working smarter, not harder. Well, sorta.

Turns out, Raiders don't do too well when you're right next to a sun. And being that close, yellow alert means the dummies won't dock, so they cooked themselves rather than come home after I ran into a few deep space pirates while skimming.

"Cool story bro," you might say. But it's not over. See, I was skimming cause I like to scoop fuel while I'm crossing a lot of systems. In this case, I'd just picked up a mid-level bounty in a bar in Xexeti system. Little podunk Anarchy in the deep south of G1. My track for this bounty took me up and to the west before I had to curve back south.

Now, I've made a lot of credits, got some real nice gear. Self-repair, scanning and SniperLock, milspec lasers fore and aft. So after losing my Raiders, I wasn't sweating too bad, kept pushing. Get to the system I need, and it's crawling with pirates. I go to work. One particular furball I'm backing up some honest folk. Mighta accidentally winged one. I ain't feeling murderous to clean folk, so I ain't gonna splash em. Boy did they try to splash me though. I got out, but they knocked out most of my scanner gear, although they were kind enough to miss my Police IFF. The system I'm in is pretty low-tech and my self-repair is outta charge, so I can't fix my gear here.

Screw it, I ain't gonna let this mark get away. I'm gonna need that cash to fix all this. So back out I go, with my usual tech advantages gone. All I got is a Fast Target Selector, a Tracker upgrade to my compass, and good ol' Eyeball mk1.

This guy's got buddies. Ooh boy. First engagement, I try to guess which one is him. Nope, got one of his pals though before I scooted out. Shields back up, dive back in. Ah, there he is, tagged him with the tracker this time, splashed a few more, scoot again. Little tougher this time to lose em, good thing I managed to tag him this time. Lose the heat, go back in...

That rat witched out! Ya little [long string of internally monologued expletives here]! This will not do.

I follow him. Come outta the hole to find him dangling his fat butt right in front of my face. Naturally, I'm blasting my laser right up his exhaust. Pop goes the weasel! Aw yeah!

Waitasec. Oh. Oh no. Nose up 180 and lean on the injectors, cause that fat little so and so dropped a freakin Q-bomb!

Whew. Made it. Heh, his two remaining buddies didn't though. And my Raiders woulda definitely got caught too, seen it happen before.

Think I might be done with bounty hunting for a bit, so I set course for Xexedi with a D, nice high-tech Confed Rich Industrial right next to a Poor Ag. Packing an Ore Processor and a laser mount switcher means I can do some nice peaceful mining on the way there.

Make it back safely. Huge sigh of relief. And hey, I hit Dangerous in all that commotion!

[mike1six]

Another day, another three hundred cred. This particular fugitive was particularly despicable, though.

Recently, I've made a move to another trade run, Isence-Zarece. This story takes place in Isence, a TL9 Rich Industrial Multigov. I'm expecting a fair bit of resistance, so I jumped in with only some precious metals and gems in my safe to trade. First target I find is a bloody Anaconda Carrier. These boys are tough, but I've splashed em before. Took some doing as always, lot of time spent overheating my military lasers, lotta work for the repair system. Finally take him down, scoop his capsule, and fire off a tug drone.

Then my blood runs cold. Anaconda Carrier fugitives are usually carrying some kinda contraband, so I expected some kinda dirty cargo Galcop would be taking once I hit the station. Narcotics and firearms don't particularly bother me.

This son of a Thargoid was running SLAVES. 39 people turned into little better than robots.

It felt like a minute that I sat there in shock. Something had to be done. I glance over at my manifest. Only one thing in the hold, the escape pod I'd just scooped.

Didn't actually take that long to make my decision. Sure, I probably could've gotten a pretty good bit of cash for his sorry hide on top of the three hundred for his ship...

Nope. Force of habit had me hit R to make sure I had the right cargo. "Ready to eject Slaves," my screen tells me, earning a dark chuckle. "Slaves ejected."

I look out my back screen. As I line up the aft laser, I chuckle again at how he's trying to run. Then I light his pod up.

"No, please," he said, or something like that. I wasn't paying too much attention. Too busy making sure I poured enough energy in to vaporize his slimy ass.

In space, the last breaths of a slave trader don't even make a poof noise as his pod pops and the dust and fragments expand rapidly. Good.

I scoop up the thirty-nine poor souls who'd suffered under this man and his like and haul them back to the main station. I splashed a few more pirates on the way in. A few escape capsules almost got popped too, but I scooped them.

Once I hit the main station, I gladly waved a Galcop officer down to take those poor folks out of my hold.

Don't trade slaves. I'll fragging melt you with a smile, free of charge.