Shaken, not Stirred
05 Feb 2022Iridium Nova
Well, today was eventful. The shakedown cruise of the Hammer of Thor, my new Federal Gunship, had it's ups and downs. The ship performed surprisingly well in a superiority role at the Sawahinn nav beacon, which had been overrun by criminal forces operating in that system. The ship was able to secure the area long enough for a fleet of Canonn logistical ships to successfully retreat from the pirate trap. The shield is formidable but takes far too long to recharge for it's capacity, so that'll need work. The armor is beastly though, and the ship lives up to its traditional role as a space tank.The second leg of the cruise took the ship through the Kashis system, where we were monitoring a situation that was likely going to spill over into a neighboring system. Though that operation was already mostly complete, it made for a good opportunity to test the ship in a ring resource extraction zone. These areas are designated by system factions for mining. While it's possible to mine anywhere in a ring, most miners prefer to do it in the resource extraction zones because that's where the police will be. Rings are huge and the police can't be everywhere, so zones like this allow miners to be protected while they mine. Of course, if there's a lot of miners there, that's where the pirates will be too. And they'll be the bolder (or stupider) pirates who aren't afraid of the authorities. Which is why bounty hunters then also congregate in these areas. Funny how an entire ecosystem of humanity just springs up because some bureaucrat puts an arbitrary marker on a map.
This particular resource extraction site had been overrun by pirates. Some brave miners were still there, either hiding from pirates or holding their own thanks to their own escorts, but it was pretty much a pirate haven. These places are among my favorite places to hunt bounties because they're full of rats. In this case, rats refers to the scrub-tier pirates, usually the ones down on their luck or just starting out with cheap, entry level ships or stolen showroom models. Respectable crime lords usually avoid these places, but will occasionally send their henchmen there to find good recruits. Criminal organizations are always in the market for more cannon fodder to take bullets and beams for them. With a little patience you can pick out the henchmen in their anacondas and corvettes and gun em down for a good bounty payout. Some of those guys are worth a million or more just on their own.
The ship performed well but I was having a hard time finding any henchmen or decent bounties at all. I managed to rack up a few million in bounties just off rats before I finally spotted a good target. A real hench, with a bounty of close to a million, in a conda. He had a single escort, a viper mk 3, with a bounty of several hundred thousand. I guess I got greedy. I'd taken guys like that in the Falcon dozens of times before. Maybe I forgot that this ship was just an old military surplus ship, or I just really wanted to test my skills. Whatever the reason, I went for it. Sending the fighters in first to distract them, I brought to bear all the lasers this tank had to offer. A fierce battle erupted. Turns out the conda had some tricks of his own. Melting down the viper was trickier than it should have been, but in the end it went down. Unfortunately my shields had given out in the process. The fighting was intense. The guy fought like this was not his first rodeo. It very well might have been a boss and his crew for all I know.
That horrible cracking sound that comes with a breached canopy never gets easier to hear. I suppose I was lucky. The shot that took it out was a graze. Cockpits are made of tough stuff. That transparent glassy material is anything but glass. It's hard to break, but it ain't armor. It's designed to withstand the rigors of space, and has properties which allow it to remain intact even when subjected to extremes of temperature and pressure. That's why it tends to do some odd things with light under high stress. Many explorers have complained about the extreme lens flares and glare they get when trying to take photos of their asp in front of things, which happens as a result of the material adapting to the environment. Trust me, a bit of lens flare is better than sucking void.
This was the point when I learned why this ship had been retired. There were some odd issues with the equipment on board once it took enough damage. The armor was tough to crack, but once the canopy blew all kinds of weird things started happening. And that was my cue to get the hell out. Running away wasn't particularly difficult, as I had left that conda in worse shape than me. "You should see the other guy", as they say. Now I had to get back to safety. Frameshift feels strange when it's literally in your face. It's difficult to describe really, like sticking your face into a flux chamber in full spin, assuming you have a helmet on. Because otherwise you'd be dead. Also, with the canopy breached, the hud doesn't work, so navigation is a bit more complex.
Anyway, I managed to make it to the system's lone outpost, but my sensors were fried so I couldn't contact the station. A reboot fixed that but cost me valuable life support time. This was another flaw: minimal life support. Good old Federation cost cutting at work. Docking clearance rejected?! This is a freaking emergency. Turns out, I picked a really busy day to have a crisis. I was already barreling toward the station just as fast as a flying brick can go, so I filled the time by synthesizing more life support juice. Or not... Synthesis cancelled?! Apparently my ship still thinks it's taking damage - or something. The synthesis unit keeps failing. Well, there's another problem to fix. Yelling at the traffic control just got me put on mute and I could see ships coming in to land. Assholes. Involuntary EVA is a bitch, but that's what comes next. I'd been through this before, so I knew what to do. The kit was ready to go, but no matter how you slice it, it's a pain in the ass. One thing goes wrong and you're free falling for God knows how long, maybe till you die, which usually isn't too long at that point, or you get lucky and someone picks up your Remlok and rescues you. Fortunately by this point I'd managed to pull right up to the station. If they weren't going to let my ship dock, I'd just have to find another way in. Kicking away from the pilot's seat, I snatched up my trusty Manticore Tormentor and dislodged the rest of the canopy.
There was an airlock nearby. The EVA kit in this relic had enough micropropellant to get me to the airlock, so long as my remaining suit o2 was enough for me to get it open. It was, but I wasn't the one who opened it. A spacesuited figure with a wicked looking rifle shot me with a grapple and yanked me inside. I couldn't see through the helmet, so I had no idea who it was, but common sense told me it was station security.
What happened next was a flurry of frontier bureaucracy. I was fined for attempted unauthorized station entry, though the fines were reduced due to the emergency situation. I was given the usual lecture about how combat pilots should take responsibility for their own mortality garbage you get at some backwaters where the locals don't seem to understand that bounty hunters actually protect them from criminals (or they're pissy because they're working for the criminals). Paying them off was easy enough, more annoying than anything. The ship recovery was another story. You'd think it would have been easy. The ship was right next to the station, but no. The insurance company had to hire a tow from two systems over for God knows why, and charged me for the inconvenience. Then, instead of towing the ship to where I was, they took it back to the Canonn fleet carrier I had been using as a base of operations before the shakedown cruise.
Okay, fine. I can just Apex over to it. Good thing I'm made of money apparently. But no, wait, fleet carriers aren't on the list of Apex Approved Destinations. "Apex can get you there" my ass. Well, Apex got me closer anyway - to the station where I had parked the Shadow of Mercury, my covert ops ship. On the way I planned out the many changes and modifications the Hammer is going to need before I feel like flying it again. That's after the repairs of course. The Gunship isn't bad, but this one's got a date with a hangar full of mothballs for the time being. Now to focus on other projects...