[Roleplay] Can't Hit the Broad Side of a 'Winder
25 Jun 2021CrazyGolm
NAVIGATION BEACON, WOLF 397 SYSTEMThe [IDA] Rubber-Dubber sailed discreetly through the open space, its sleek and rounded construction giving an appearance not unlike a shark searching for prey. Indeed, this may have been the designers at Zorgon Peterson's intentions all along - they had surely known it would be such a successful craft among hunters of all trades. Hunters of the innocent flew it. Hunters of the guilty flew it. Hunters of the in-between flew it. Maybe the only hunters who didn't fly it were Raxxla hunters.
The Rubber-Dubber was a hunting ship, having been constructed as a long-range patrol boat. Its pilot had seen to it personally that it was outfitted for its task, armed to the teeth with powerful weaponry, yet blazingly fast for a ship of its class. It had originally been purposed for an operation in Colonia, the kind that its pilot wasn't proud of. It was a story for another day.
And its pilot had his own story to tell.
Commander CrazyGolm was a vigilante of the Independent Defence Agency. He was a veteran of numerous battles, very few of which would ever be known by the wider public. He was (for the most part) a law-abiding pilot, but he held views that sometimes set him at odds with other lawfuls, particularly the more 'pointy stick and pitchfork' types. He had helped others, saved lives, battled criminals, ended wars, messed up, argued with enforcers, and got shot at a lot, though not always all at once.
He was the kind of man who more often than not wore a helmet, though these days he got out walking a bit more and often wore a hat instead.
Now, he was using the Rubber Dubber's gadgets and mod cons for bounty hunting.
And to help him learn to aim fixed multicannons.
Golm sighed as the enemy Sidewinder's shields flared up again in reactivation. Its pilot, Helena Sigurj, was a wanted criminal of the cartel local to the system. Golm had previously removed its shields by a not entirely deliberate ramming manoeuvre. It had done more damage than his multicannons had.
The problem was one of accuracy. He had relied on gimbals to aim his multicannons for so long. Now he was trying to fire fixed ones, and most of his shots ended up hurtling off to see the many wonders of the void. It didn't help that fixed multicannons were rumoured as the hardest weapons to master.
Golm was rusty with the Fer-De-Lance. The little Sidewinder conveniently zipped away from Golm's sights again and again. Even when it was blatantly in front of him, he still managed to miss shots. What would've been a short fight with gimballed weapons or even fixed plasma accelerators became, well, a longer fight. The good news was that despite Helena's threats of impending doom, her shipboard weapons barely even scratched the Rubber-Dubber's shields. And even though so many of his shots missed, Golm had the upper hand in the duel... it might just take a while.
Eventually the Sidewinder's shields dropped again, but Helena decided enough was enough and charged her hyperdrive to escape. Fortunately the Rubber-Dubber quite literally had a trick up its sleeve, in the form of a FSD interrupt missile from its patrol days. Unfortunately, Golm's rockets missed, and his target got away.
Never mind. There would be other criminals for target practice.
And soon there was one. Golm actually managed to make a wanted Cobra explode, albeit with significant help from the Allied Police Forces (who forgave him even though he somehow managed to hit one of their ships without even targetting it). Still, his accuracy was somewhat better than against the Sidewinder, and bigger ships would make bigger targets. He even landed one or two missile hits, dealing significant hull damage, though the missile launcher would have to go it made him confused as to which reticle was which.
Learning to wield fixed multicannons would likely be a long path, but Golm would improve, and hopefully one day he would get there.