F*ucked
08 Nov 2018Gatimũ Kamau
CMDR’s Log, 3304.11.8, Sol Calendar; We got f*cked. Or more accurately, we allowed ourselves to get f*cked....Got a job in the middle of system hopping from a representative of the Mother Gaia corporation for the retrieval of the black box of an apparently unregistered transport via our ship's comms.
In retrospect, we should have been more cautious given the clandestine nature of the request. But we were foolhardy. Plus the money was good. Very good. We had become cocky in our ability to handle a situation. And pride always comes before the fall.
We jumped headfirst into the system we were directed to go to and we almost immediately found the black box. Shiny. Our long range sensor suite alerted us the the fact that there was something amiss, but as I said, we were overconfident. So...still shiny. We dropped out of supercruise, redistributed available power primarily to our weapons and engines and exposed our hardpoints. Reasonably so. We were confident, not stupid after all. But no sooner than did we spot the "package" and opened our cargo hatch to initiate retrieval did we realize exactly how toxic the contents of this black box were.
We intercepted a last-second bit of discord over our comm scanner that basically alerted me to the fact that we were about to find ourselves in the sh*t.
...Then said sh*t hit the preverbal fan with snakes pouring out of the woodwork.
It all happened so fast that I could vaguely make out what we were dealing with. But There were at least 15 contacts on the Defiant Afrika's radar. I saw what looked to be a Viper of some manner cross in front of me that I attempted to lock onto flying wing with two Cobras. But as I did, we got blindsided by ship deployed fighters. That's when I noticed the look of utter fear on my wife's face. Over the sound of the on board computer informing us that our shields had already collapsed, I saw the silhouettes of not one, but TWO Anacondas. We were hopelessly outgunned.
I tried to run but were were mass locked. Whether by the planet we were in orbit of or by the battleships I know not. But it wasn't important anyway. Within seconds almost all of our subsystems and modules were destroyed. Weapons, thrusters, the central drive, life support. Everything. There were multiple hull breaches. Fires. We were dead in space...
Everything after that is a terrifying blur.
Long story short, our lives have been set back. We lost the black box and the contract payout. We lost our reputation and influence with Mother Gaia and the Federation as a whole. And we lost 5,000,000 CR to the insurance cost of getting the Defiant Afrika back into working condition. AND to add insult to injury we were forced to take a data run job to Katzenstein Dock in 36 Ophiuchi to make up for our losses; (which is basically akin to making a run to Hutton Orbital since it's 0.14 Ly away from the system entry star).
It's fortunate that the force that attacked us was only interested in the black box and not our lives. It was a hard learned lesson...but at least it didn't cost us everything. We can't make the Federation dial back on what it wants, but we can get better equipped and trained. And at least we didn't loose our lives.
As soon as is humanly possible, we're heading into some conflict zones.
It's high time we got in some serious OJT...