Stardate: 330506261200 -- Happy to be alive!
26 Jun 2019Mdmaniac
Every pilot worth his salt likes a good scrape but.... damn, I nearly didn't make it out of that one! I was on the third round of collections for 11th Squadron - black boxes... with a little something fishy but whatever, the pay is good enough you don't ask too many questions - the first two were easy! Umbroges, then Tocopa. No problems at all, just a quick scoop and high-wake out to the next system. The third lot was somewhere in HIP 14614. Turns out it was over 90k ls from the arrival point and I've already got a hold full of black boxes so, of course, my head's on a swivel and my Plasma Accelerators are charged up ready to go.Long story short, I get into the Degraded Signal Source for the pickup and just as I start collecting. I get set upon by a wing of 5 - FIVE - who wants what I have and, it seems, my life to boot! Luckily, I already had my Expert pilot, Xavier, in the fighter because I don't think I would've made it without him. I faced down the Anaconda while he took on the Eagle, 2 Sideys and a Taipan. I felt a little bad at leaving him with so many enemies but I figured if I could take the heat of that Anaconda's weapons off him, he'd have a chance. Well, he could only fight one-at-a-time so guess where the rest concentrated their fire? You guessed it... Boy, was I glad that I didn't offload that extra Shield Cell Bank, let me tell you!! I used them all!!
At one point, my shields were gone but thankfully, it seems they mostly had thermal weapons so I kept fighting. That damn Taipan, though, had Plasma Repeaters and once it got a bead on me I was down to 3% hull. I managed to disengage and I thought about abandoning the fighter and waking out but, damnit, I had to finish the mission. My shields were back and Xavier had managed to take out the Eagle before losing another fighter himself so I re-engaged that Anaconda and finished her off! I don't know how that pilot managed to evade so many of my PA shots but several times I hit her with all three barrels as well as both Rails. No ship can withstand that punishment for long and, luckily, she took the Taipan with her! Xavier cleaned up the last Sidewinder and I've never been so happy to be alive! Besides, I'd trained Xavier up from the lowest of the low into a respectable pilot and I didn't want to lose him like that. Ships can be replaced but good help is hard to find.
I managed to get to a station (with my illicit cargo) to rearm and repair before going back in search of those last two black boxes. Had to face down a T10 when I did find them, mind...... but got help from another group of pirates. I don't know why they didn't attack me, too. Maybe my reputation is starting to precede me?