mixed feelings
19 Feb 2020DrPillman
I decomissioned Ada Lovelace. Yup. My trusty, bulky, godugly, marvellous brick of a T7-freighter. She served me well, she never let me down (except for that faulty docking computer going nuts because of the aging shield transformator, but, come on. That was just a loveable twerk of hers). She never got caught when I didn´t want to. Not even by Anacondas, not even loaded down with 308t of commodities. She could turn on a dime, was a pretty good runner, too.
And she made a pretty penny in her time, I never knew what cash flow was, until I took boom delivery contracts on her bulk. And now I took that exact money she earned me, and betrayed her with it...sigh. Silly, I know, but still. I somehow must have fallen in love with the khaki brick.
The opportunity presented itself. I figured, if I ever wanted to fly an Anaconda one day, I either gotta go big, or go home. I got cocky, took a decent-looking wing-contract on my own...18 tours, doable.....except it wasn´t.....awful turnaround times, no decent cargo for the way back without huge detour, pirates...a drag.
After uncounted hours and like 8 tours, I almost gave up, but the fine would have put me back pretty hard.
Then I came round the shipyard. And spotted a shiny, new T9....hesitated. Read the specs again. Hesitated. Figured, I could just buy it...if I sold Ada in the process, and save some of the gear...and did it. Only 5 more tours, and all the shiny credits would be mine....
Needless to say, I got totally obliterated by a pirate vulture coming out of the very next jump. Sure , I mean, 700+t of shiny high-demand cargo jammed into a stock T9, with a first-timer on the horns...is asking for trouble. Silly me. Serves me right.
So. Nice.
That, of course, left me between a rock and a hard place...Unreplaceable cargo spread out in the void, ship wrecked, contract busted, fined, insurance company literally calling my in the bathroom...nice going.
I was now officially broke. I wouldn´t have been able to even pay the insurance a second time. Except I wasn´t officially broke, because I never told anyone. I couldn´t risk being indebted to shady fixers like so many times before, not with this kind of money at stake. I had grown used to adding a few digits on my regular balance sheets.
What to do? I had spent my fair share of life among miners, so the low man´s survival instinct kicked in: Go to the next bar, picked solely for the best beer-per-credit ratio, solemnly work your way from vertical to horizontal, get up still cushioned with hangover, keep a stiff upper lip and go, break your back.
I worked various parts of my anatomy off in my Python, until I could see the silver lining again. The T9 sat in the dock and collected dust, just to mock me. I could almost see the fat grin on its ugly pancake face. I was about to name it "Toad", but then got all sentimental and went for "Ada Lovelace II". Which doesn´t really sit right, but I am also afraid of changing it again. I was just short of saving money to buy a new T7 once again, and call that "Ada Lovelace II", but that didn´t feel right, either.
Anyway. After some time, and a lot of module replacements, greasy eyebrows, squeezed fingers, backalley negotiations (you don´t want to know), and Nimble kicking a toolbox across the dockyard out of frustration because some super-self-invented special fitting just wouldn´t fit, the toad was in halfways workable shape. Still flies like a pancake, thrown slowly, but the sheer volume of cargo started to pay off. Prices at a station would drop after a single delivery. I got practice at the controls, sold the auto-lander for collector limpets, the supercruise assistant for a fuel scoop, increased my range....
What started as a half-desperate, half-joking, half-arsed idea turned out pretty decent: I turned the thing into a flying mining facility, and decided to break luck by sheer stubborness and go and find enough Painite to finally seduce Selene Jean into buffing my armor, to relax a little while hauling 600t of gold the next time.
The first trip cashed in a solid 6,5M, including 40t of Painite. There was a future again. Being used to fly as a self-reliable self made man had me never even contemplate paying a security contractor on a regular basis, but, still weary from that initial catastrophe, I made some quick calculations, and started to nervously circle the crew lounges.....When Florence appeared in a dark corner. She had that haunted look of desperately broke freelancers I had worn myself for the last weeks: jittery, paranoid, like a starved mouse. Ready to do anything, but too poor to risk getting ripped off. She looked so desperate, I figured there was a real chance she was getting sold to slavery shortly after registering in the waiting lounge, so I approached her. We talked over getaway ramen. Her résumé (if real) was as impressive as her recent bad luck. I asked her for her favourite SLF to work with, she said: "Taipan Aegis F, hands down." I said: "Guess what this invoice in my pocket was for?" We went to the counter together, contract ready to register, she bought a new toothbrush from the upfront money I gave her, and was already waiting on the launchpad when I came back from the bulletin board.
For some tours, she had next to nothing to to, and I almost regretted the Expert wages I had signed her up for, but it was better than flying alone. Feeling that little safer alone is priceless. We made some training routines on the fly, to develop some communications routine, get used to procedures (probably more for me than her, but she was decent enough to not mention), and I could see, she was good. Really good.
Then came her moment, when a fully beefed-up Cobra Mk III had a go at us right at the jump point: She was out the hatch faster than I could yell "Bandit 5 o`clock high!", and already blasted away while my hardpoints were still unfolding. Not only did she fly like the devil and shoot like Calamity Jane herself, she was careful to always trick the bandit into the firing arc of my belly-multicannon once she had brought the shields down. And although stupid me almost killed the two of us with my own mines I had tried to drop into the Cobra´s path, the attack didn´t last long. We shared the bounty over nachos and root beer. I apologized for the mine mishap. She grinned: " I saw it coming, trader pilot brickhead. Drop a mine on your own head like a pro! I just got close enough for some scratches in the paint on purpose, just to rub the lesson in!"
And that was when the teamwork really started.