Domino Effect
22 Mar 2020DrPillman
After the difficult times last week, the Workers of Gateway are in a peculiar state now: The Economy is ramping up fast again, and everyone is happy, sighing in relief after the struggles in Gateway, the infrastructure breakdown and narrowly averted retreat from LHS 2948, the just barely dampened outbreak in Farack. But yet, much influence was lost, and what assets they cling to, they do so by the last thread.
Especially LHS 2948 is kind of a mess. They regained some foothold, alright, but the somewhat aggressive expansionism of the Alliance Office of Statistics has pushed all other factions into one tight corner, influence wise. So of course, that is a recipe for free-for-all pub brawl, all the puppies are fighting over the scraps now. And as the Workers managed to keep a foot in the door of the last of the Non-Office Installations and are second in line at a "comfortable" 10% influence, that means they are almost constantly challenged.
Of course especially the federal corporations are all "if you can´t buy it, trash it!". With last weeks war just barely won, conflict broke out again almost instantly over the chemical facilities. How the Workers manage, I have no idea. I mean, ok, cash is flowing again, so they can afford security contractors like me, but still. There is a war to fight, and at the same time a frail economy asks for deals to be brokered, logistics to be managed, then the demand for spareparts, fuel, ammo...all the while family members go missing in the fray, or come back torn and dismembered. Yet they nod, and work, and smile and whistle. Sometimes Union Spacers are a miracle to me, They really are a special breed.
Talking of spare parts...ahemm... I am afraid I did my part to contribute in the demand for them. Fighting out at the green and red double moons is fierce. The Federals know how to give no quarters, I give them that. The way they fight, I suspect a number of Thargoid veterans earning a little extra to their retirement. On full reverse thrusters, shields gone, molten armor dripping everywhere, they dish out like there is no tomorrow when they could just as well turn and run. Kudos.
On my second tour, I came back, victorious, I dare say, in a trail of smoke and debris like a comet. Ammo gone, and 6% of my hull left. I was basically flying a mockup of a spacecraft...Long time since I was that careful in navigating the mailslot, touched down like a feather. Yet, miraculously, the hull reinforcement kit was as good as new. Only the panels over my shield generator and powerplant resembled swiss cheese rather than protection, the framework was unscathed. Damn railguns.
Well, any landing you can crawl away from was a good landing, they say.
So I had practically a new ship built in the repair bay, and headed out again. To be thoroughly pummeled again. They nearly baked me like a potatoe in tinfoil. It was very close to victory, when I just had to bail. I had to. I had ignored the cracks around the edges of my cockpit, the wafts of smoke from the internals, the complains of tortured metal from all over the ship, and the whine of the overstrained capacitors for some long minutes, hoping I could turn the tide with heroic stubborness. And get the bounty for that friggin Asp that just refused to break up.
The ship reduced to a red-hot third of what it had been, with 44 shells left in the MC belt, I hit "charge FSD" when the first cockpit window popped into the void, and the world suddenly went the deadly quiet of the vacuum. Keeping the bluish twinkle of hope from Higginbotham port in the middle of the jagged hole that had been my windscreen (no, I refuse to think about how close that round had passed my head), I managed to drop out in front of the friendly mailslot. Rarely had "The Alliance welcomes you, commander" sounded sweeter. Only the next sentence "Please make your way to landing pad one-niner" reminded me that the difficulties were not over yet. I was about to reply "stuff it, this crate is gonna drop where it wants to, I have no say in this". Instead, I found it very amusing, to apply for "rearm and refuel", when I wasn´t really sure if I could make it a landing pad at all, or if there even was a fuel tank left in the mess. As soon as the security clamps snapped shut, I didn´t even try for the jammed hatch, I simply rolled out of the open canopy to escape the acrid smoke that had developed as soon as the engine console had reignited when I reached the stations internal athmosphere. There were flakes of burned paint and pieces of scorched armor plate all over the landing pad. The thing had very nearly disintegrated on ground contact. Anyway, I had a stack of warbonds to cash in, at least, and a massacre mission to file.
From the professionally blank faces of the ground crew, I apparently wasn´t the worst heap of smouldering scrapmetal on their pad today.
Remind me to bring a bag of sweet rolls along for them on my way out.