Ups and downs
11 Apr 2020DrPillman
I hadn´t told Florence of the recommendation, because naturally, I wouldn´t know what would come of it, and when, having received nothing but a "message received" autoreply from central administration, and I wouldn´t want her to have days of suspense followed by bitter disappointment.Frankly, I hadn´t spoken to her in person at all for a couple days, and our communication is anyways 95% bone dry "down to business" - professionalism, which I came to appreciate. Our team bond is almost entirely nonverbal.
Anyways, we developed the habit of taking turns to pick the location for the morning briefing, and when I woke up to the message beep yesterday to read "what about panorama deck at 0900?", I only thought "Ok, that´s a pretty posh spot for a change, but why not?" It´s not as if we are down to chewing our boots at the moment.
She already waited at a window table, smiling, with two huge mugs of premium, real-bean black coffee and a bag of sweet rolls, and a tiny, distinctive, round silver trinket on her necklace, that, I have to say, rather tastefully complimented her jet black flightsuit and platin blonde crew cut.
"Listen", she said, ripping open the bakery bag and turning it my direction, "I was thinking on the way, if we take these three famine-relief mission, that we can fit in the T9's bay at once, and start our tour that way, see, we can also take some data around on the tour, plus pick up some pretty decent cargo between stops 2, here, and 3, there, that I am sure will get a good price at stop 4, from where it is only a tiny hop to this point, see, there is a boom, and we can get the required deliveries all in one place and be home before the stations orbit even gets to the dark side, watcha think?"
Shrouded in cinnamon roll-coffee-tastegasms, I could only smile back, nod, yes, that was a pretty optimal shift plan (not that shift plans belonged to her duties at all). "Splendid", she winked with a smile, "see you at pad 32 by 1100, then", and I could see she was very happy, very grateful, and damn proud.
We undocked 1105, Florence tucked the trinket into her collar, I gently floated the green pancake through the mailslot, and we embarked on what promised to be a beneficial milkrun day, for both us and the Workers of Gateway for Equality. Legs 1 through 3 were just that. Dock, do the paperwork while ground crew changed the load, cash in, be on our way again.
Until the enemy alert came in on the last leg, when we were burdened down with 656t of various high-priority goods for the last jump, and the transmission promised 540 000 crds bonus pay per frag. That screamed "Angry Anaconda" to me, it didn´t bode well. All my spidey senses tingled. Nataly, Nataly, what did you get yourself (and the Workers) into again? It wasn´t some pursuit or intricate ambush, the onslaught came suddenly and brutally almost immediately. No matter what I did, I couldn´t get out of the interdiction cone. They pulled us, and started hammering our shields while their vessel was still tumbling from the drop. Florence left the hangar under fire, and I could already hear armor flaking off while my hardpoints were still unfolding. With my ship melting away under my butt and Florence´s marker only changing from red to yellow and red again, never reaching blue, and system´s security nowhere to be seen, all I could do was try to run, but they had us locked. I had to have Florence brutally unjack the Telelink and kiss the SLF goodbye, and we just made the jump on 30% hull, Forence panting with Adrenalin and squinting from the headache of emergency de-linking. Only to be immediately jumped again by an opportunistic Federal Assault. I saw green blips popping up, so I decided, we could just fight it, if only for our ego. The bounty wouldn´t even cover the repair bill.
Allied Systems Security showed up with 2 condors, like, what the heck, thanks for nothing.
We limped into the next station with a meagre bounty and a smouldering 6% of our ship. We sat in silence while the Grease Monkeys did the best they could, taking a breather. Florence had her hands on the desk, but I could see her elbow shaking. That had been narrow.
And the Anaconda was still out there.
We waited a little, listened in on station news about pirate activities, or any apprehensions made. Nothing. Ok, what choice did we have? Let´s face it. I floored it out the station, jumped, and kept the pedal to the metal to have that little speed advantage coming out of the jump, just cleared the next stars corona, lined up with the target station -BAM- there it was again. We somehow got free, the speed helped. And got jumped again. And again. Got caught and pummeled, but this time, we managed to actually hit back enough to scare the Conda away. Only to be jumped again by the same guy not 3 min later, in a brand new Anaconda, while we were still licking our wounds. No way could he have repaired that quickly. He had to have his ship swapped in the next system. These guys meant business. The ressources they apparently had secured to bring us down were frightening. They wouldn´t ask for some cargo, they wanted us dead. Us, or the starving Workers, or preferably both. What on earth...
The Aegis' shields melted, as did the T9's. I noticed Florence come to with a gasp and a jolt when the fighter vaporised, then the cockpit window cracked. No green blips on the radar, only screaming alarms and smoke, then nothing.
We awoke in the next station, Search and Rescue had picked us up. The ensurance had claimed all of todays earnings. We had lost the cargo. We had to go out again, get new cargo, deliver, cash in. Had to. We were almost broke now, and it wasn´t regular commodities, it was emergency goods, famine relief. Florence's collar was still wet from the tears of frustration that had been frozen together with her in the escape pod.
It was a rough ride. We took a long detour, bought at some remote place, didn´t buy any additional stuff, to keep the ship light. But we made it. Barely.
We were too exhausted for relief , let alone joy. When Florence went for a shower, I signed up for solo duty. She needed rest, and I had seen our account balance, and I wasn´t gonna have any discussion now.
I took the new FDL for a spin, some low-grade bounty hunting to get familiar with the fixed heavy cannon, and it all went pretty well, except the FDL heating up in no time from the double beam lasers and railguns. Gotta review that outfit.
I regained some confidence, got cocky, signed up for follow up missions. Bring down the head of the posse. Ok, I can do that, it was only back-station ratpack, anyway. He went down suspiciously easy.....then came the message " Ehr..that´s awkward...wrong target, the real boss is still about in this and that system, says our contact..."
Ouukaayh... * sigh*....
The real boss was no joke. I found him, and he went for me, full throttle, in my face. I broke engagement, he pursued, wouldn´t let loose. Waited for me outside the repair yard and went at me again, jump away, come again.
I had no choice.
I had to swap ship to the engineered Mk II.
And I had to call Florence back from her bunk to duty. In an emergency. Now. After this hellride. Not the perfect situation, not the right time, not at all.
But this guy was gonna have me, and maybe a win would do her some good.
She was very pale, and very silent, but she did it, and we got the guy.
We docked, and she stared at the desk, silently nodded without blinking, slowly rose from the seat, steadying herself on the comms panel, and I noticed her banging her knee on the railing when she climbed out of the ship.
I had never seen her like this.
I am worried. Like, seriously worried.
I have to do the long exploration tour now. Alone, in a single seater. It´s the only way to send her on holiday that´s not gonna make it worse.