Time Flies When You're Having Fun
04 Jul 2020Katya Mandu
Finally decided I should start an "official" logbook. Sure, I have my various notes and the data in the ship's computer to remind me of where I've been and what I've been doing but it's not quite the same thing as putting my thoughts down properly. As I currently am docked at Yang Hub and have the time at the moment, it seems as good a time as any to start logging things.It's hard to believe it's been over three years now since the day they gave me the news that Old Bill had been killed by pirates. I still remember how numb I felt as I climbed into the Devilcat and headed out to clear my head, not really caring where I went. That old Sidewinder sure wasn't much to look at but she got the job done and was all I had. When I'd made enough to buy a Cobra and later traded it in for a Viper, I still kept that old Sidewinder. Old Bill had such a look of joy in his eyes the day he gave her to me that I just didn't have the heart to part with her.
The first time I climbed into the cockpit of that Cobra I was thinking "I'm cruising in style now!" and was quite proud of myself. Looking back now I have to shake my head and laugh at that. I was making a decent living with the Cobra, running courier jobs and doing a bit of trading here and there. Then one day I was hauling a load and shortly after I dropped into a system I was being interdicted. Being my first experience with such a thing, I panicked a bit at first but finally managed to calm down and focus on trying to avoid the interdiction. My inexperience in such things showed though and I felt my ship start to drop out of supercruise. The past few days had been rough as I'd been thinking about Old Bill and I wasn't in a good mood, so when the jackwad who'd interdicted me contacted me demanding my cargo I told him what he could do with that thought and throttled up and hit my boosters, thinking I could maybe outrun him. When that first shot hit my shields though, I felt the adrenaline kick in and it was like instinct took over as I prepared to fight. It is still all quite a blur and the next thing I knew he was exploding in a ball of fire in front of me.
Feeling rather stoked, and maybe like I'd gotten some payback for Old Bill, I continued on to the station with my load. After I sold my load I did some checking and found out the guy had had a decent bounty on him. I was quite excited after I cashed it in as it was more money than I'd ever made doing courier jobs or hauling cargo. Thinking I'd maybe found my calling, I started traveling from system to system, hanging out around nav beacons and collecting bounties. Things were going well and I eventually traded in that Cobra for the Viper. The upgrade to the Viper proved to be a really good move as I was doing quite well at collecting bounties and even managed to get in on the action by helping to keep the area around the nav beacons clear so traders could safely bring in some much needed cargo to a couple of different systems. Now having several million credits to my name, I was feeling pretty good about life.
I'm not really sure what possessed me and led to my buying the Asp Explorer. I was making steady money running bounties with the Viper but I guess maybe I was ready for a change of pace. Once I had the Asp properly outfitted I headed off into deep space, thinking of how exciting it would be to be the first person to gather data on some remote system. It didn't take me long to figure out though that I'd have to travel out quite a ways from the bubble to find a place someone hadn't already been. By then I was also starting to miss the action and the thrill of the hunt from doing bounties so I decided to head back with the small bit of data I had collected. Once back I slipped back into old habits and running bounties with my Viper.
I'm not really sure what brought us to Wolf 406. "Us", lol. sometimes I have to remind myself that my "crew" is really just some ai packages I picked up here and there for my ship. I guess as I'm only at a station long enough to resupply and cash in bounties that maybe I spend far too much time out and about to where they are the only ones to talk to and I tend to forget they aren't actually people. Anyway, I guess when I first docked at Hamilton it seemed as good a place as any to call home and base my operations out of for now and I made arrangements to have the Sidewinder and Asp transported there.
Bounty hunting was still going well for me but as I'd had my eye on getting a bigger ship with more versatility than the Viper, I realized I needed to do something different to bring the credits in. I refurbished the Asp for hauling cargo and set about looking for a solid trade route. It was about this time that the Brewer Corporation released the Drake-Class Carrier and the sudden demand for tritium was a huge boon for me. It wasn't long before I was able to invest in a Krait Mk II. At this point I realized I was going to have to do something about the jump range of the Krait so I refurbished the Asp once again and head out to a system where I'd heard a Guardian site had been located. It took me a bit of work to figure things out but I now had access to fsd boosters and got the Krait set up for trading and ready to find a solid market. It didn't take too long to find a good market and next thing I knew I was investing in a Type 9 and really able to take advantage of the tritium market. It really wasn't too long after that I realized I had over one billion credits in my account. I had to look twice to make sure it was correct as I'd never imagined having that much money. I was also quite pleased when I received notification a few days ago that the Pilots Federation had awarded me the rank of Elite as a trader and had granted me access to Shinrarta Dezhra. I definitely will have to go there for a visit and also take a look at the Jameson Memorial I've heard so much about.
The past few days I've been back to running bounties again as I check out the capabilities of the Krait, freshly upgraded and outfitted for combat. So far I am quite pleased with my investment. As I've been contacted by some Engineers I'm thinking perhaps I should meet with them and also look at acquiring access to more Guardian equipment to beef things up a bit. For now though, I find myself sitting in the station at Ross 129 as the turnaround from the nav beacon to Yang Hub is much quicker than that of Hamilton. Not to mention the RES points reasonably close to Yang. While bounty hunting is definitely in my blood, I will be keeping an eye on the tritium market and knocking the dust off the T9 now and then. Though I do find trading a bit tedious at times, I have to admit that I do like the profits to be made. I may even set her up for mining some day as I've heard a tidy profit can be made doing that. I have been debating on what to do with the Asp though. While I don't want to travel too far away from the bubble and the action of the hunt, I have thought about catching a ride to Synuefe EN-H d11-96 and maybe setting out from there to do a bit of exploring. Who knows, maybe I'll even pay a visit to Colonia. Time will tell I guess.