Rescuing Hostages
22 Sep 2019Anton Kring
The Silverbacks high command needs me to rescue some hostages, so today I will be doing that. I fly to Baijungu on my Krait Phantom to accept some missions and start preparing for the operation. I don't know when was the last time I rescued hostages, but it went terribly wrong, so I am not too confident that this time will be different. It is my duty though, and I won't let past failures prevent me from trying again.To prepare my Krait Phantom for the job I remove two 5D and one 3D shield reinforcement packages. The shields are going to be weaker now, but I need cargo space as hostages will be in escape pods when I scoop them up. If all goes well there will be 48 hostages in my cargo hold when I am done, from six separate missions. 72 tons of cargo hold space should be more than enough.
I will also get some limpets and a controller to break into the hatches of enemy ships. Kidnappers put hostages in escape pods when transporting them. It makes my job easier as I just need to pry the cargo hatch open for the escape pods to slide out of the ship for me to recover.
First Rescue
I am nervous. A suspicious signature in space is detected by my navigation computer. My Phantom drops out of supercruise to find a bunch of ships, including a Fer-de-Lance, already attacking my target, a Type 9 Heavy, and its escorting Sidewinders. I decide to go for the Sidewinders first, as they are busy fending off the attack, then I'll go for the attackers, and finally the T9 will be mine.
I take position behind one of the two escorts and open fire. Its shields go down. The Sidewinder tries to turn around to face my Phantom, but it is too late. I maneuver so it doesn't manage to land a shot before exploding. The next Sidewinder is dispatched in a similar fashion. Now all attackers are focused on the T9, who has a fighter out. The fighter and the Fer-de-Lance duke it out while I take out the other two attackers in small ships. Piece of cake.
The Fer-de-Lance's hatch breaker limpets attach themselves to the T9 cargo hatch and a few escape pods with hostages fly into space. I need to take the FDL out before it starts scooping them up or worse. I take aim and fire a few volleys to get his attention. The Fer-de-Lance is a formidable ship with powerful thrusters. It turns around to face me with a huge and four medium hardpoints. I feel vibrations and my instruments flicker as my shields are pounded.
Flight Assist Off
That dangerous pirate in the Fer-de-Lance doesn't know that I always fly without flight assist, so I can do some crazy stuff he is probably not prepared for. I get close and then do a difficult rotation to keep facing him while flying above and slightly behind his ship. It gets a big load of burst laser fire. Its shields go down. it boosts and manages to turn around and face me again, but its fate is sealed. I get close again, maneuver above it, and fire multicannons. We do this two or three times before it blows up.
My shields are weak now. There are some hostages lying in space getting dangerously irradiated by the nearby star. They won't last long if I don't do something. Instead of going for the T9 and its fighter, I decide to rescue the hostages out in space. I get four of them. The other four must be in the T9. I open fire and get its shields down. Then I attempt to damage its drives unsuccessfully. Its hull is too weak and I am afraid it will blow up before the drives are disabled. Time for hatch breaker limpets. The little drone propels and attaches itself to the bottom of the T9 like a furious space leech. The T9 hatch opens up and radar registers stuff coming out of it. Those are my hostages. I lock on a hostage and start flying towards it. The T9 does the same, It collides with my ship and then with the pod holding the hostage. The pod is destroyed. A hostage is now dead. I launch two more breaker limpets at the T9 and it drops more cargo. Before my shields are fully drained I decide to destroy it. Its fighter self-destructs immediately upon destruction of its mothership. I prevail.
No sign of the hostages in space though. There is a bunch of random cargo from the T9 lying in space. Mission failed. I only managed to rescue four out of eight hostages. The three remaining hostages were still in the cargo bay when I destroyed the ship. This sucks. I should have checked that the hostages were out in space before destroying the T9.
Redemption
I fly to a station to release the hostages and rearm. I then jump to the system where the next mission is to take place and find my target in space. It is part of a group of three Diamondback Explorers packing some serious firepower. By the time I'm done with the two escorts my shields are gone and my hull is taking damage. These missions are hard. That's why they pay so well.
I have to do this quickly. I fire a limpet and point defense takes it down. This guy has point defense. Fire another limpet, point defense again. Nasty. I maneuver below the DBX, turn around quickly and fire a limpet point blank, belly to belly, from perhaps thirty meters away. It sticks. Jackpot. A few seconds later the DBX poured all my hostages out into space and I fire upon it until it is destroyed. Hull at 17%. This was a close one.
I carefully scoop all eight hostages, with flight assist off. I don't think the hostages will be thrilled to learn that I did that. But I pledged to my Newton Gambit friends that I would not use flight assist, so that's how I do all my scooping. Let's not discuss safety. If it wasn't for my FA-off skills those hostages would not have been rescued at all.
With eight hostages safely stored in my cargo hold, it is time to go for the next 32. After repairing at a nearby station I jump into the system where my next target is. This time I find two Diamondback Exlporers. I take the escort out quickly. The kidnapper ship doesn't fire at me at all, but its point defense attempts to take my limpets down. Something is different though. As the pods are dropped in space, the ship launches collector limpets bring the hostages back, so I need to do a less safe version of faoff scooping to get the hostages in my ship before they get caught by the collectors. I manage to scoop the hostages slowly while the kidnapper escapes. He manages to hold on to one hostage. I go back to supercruise and chase him until I manage to rescue eleven hostages instead of the expected eight before dispatching this lunatic.
Next mission goes smoothly, all hostages are extracted before the single DBX kidnapper goes in supercruise. No escort was present this time.
Resistance
Just when I am about to perform my last rescue, I receive a troubling message. The details of the last mission were leaked to the enemy, and they have dispatched four ships to hunt me down. I should get a nice extra reward for shooting these ships down. They'll be coming one-by-one.
The first ship is an Anaconda flown by a deadly pirate. This is going to be fun. It interdicts me. I submit, and then we fire on each other, but my Krait Phantom in faoff mode is much more agile than any Anaconda, so I manage to keep my shields relatively healthy as I take it down. That Anaconda turns out to be one hell of a pinata. I take my time salvaging all I can from the wreck.
The second ship is also a deadly Anaconda. I do the same.
The third ship also a deadly Anaconda. I ran out of ammo during the fight and had to finish it off with only lasers. It dragged on and my shields are weakened. I manage to synthesize some good quality ammo rounds after the fight. That should be more than enough to take the last enemy down.
Now I am being interdicted by two ships: a deadly Anaconda and Federal Assault Ship. The leaked details about my mission ended up in yet another set of ears, and they sent out three more enemies to dispatch me. The first of them is now overlapping with the last of the previous group. I decide to focus fire on the Anaconda and take it down as fast as I possibly can. I manage to do so, but now all three rings of my shields are red. Fortunately the FAS will not be outrunning my engineered clean drives. I get some distance between us to wait for my shields to recharge before returning to fight it. It really helps that I have synthesized this extra-powerful ammo after the previous fight. The FAS is more maneuverable than an Anaconda, and it manages to land more shots on me, but I still take it down without depleting my shields. The next two Federal Assault Ships sent are dispatched one-by-one. Finally I can continue to rescue the hostages.
I arrive at the hostage site to encounter two DBX escorts and one carrying the hostages. I dispatch the escorts and send the hatch breaker limpets on the third one. It has both point defense and collector limpets, so it takes awhile, but not as long as before. All eight hostages are dropped in space but the kidnapper manages to escape. I scoop the hostages carefully.
When I reach Baijungu there are 43 hostages in my cargo hold and I get paid handsomely by The Silverbacks command. Things weren't going well at first, but I managed to rescue 47 hostages.