G Ryder The Road to Riches
19 May 2021G Ryder
The interior of the Cobra 3 bar was at its normal level. That is light enough to see where you were going, but dark enough so you could lose yourself in the shadows if solitude was your thing. A gaggle of System Security pilots, young and noisy, bustled up to the bar, demanding immediate attention. She smiled to herself as she leaned back in to the semi-dark of the booth she liked to occupy when she was in her home station.Even though she spent more time out in the black than anywhere else, it was always nice to return home. She had been born on Founders World and her parents had been System Security before they settled down planet side. For her returning to Shinratra Dezhra and Jameson Memorial was about as close to home as she got these days.
With space travel in her blood, it was only natural that she was drawn by the magnetic pull of heading off world and forging her own path. Like her parents, she had flown with System Security for a short time, saving as many credits as possible from her percentage of collected bounties until she had enough to purchase the obligatory Sidewinder. With paper thin hull plating and shields that went offline if she sneezed near them, the ship was no Elite killer, but it was space worthy and a steppingstone to get to where she wanted to be. There had been a few different ships after that, a Hauler that had been okay for exploring the local systems, then an Asp Explorer which enable her to travel a little further afield. The early days had been spent mapping worlds in the Bubble, no new discoveries, which wasn’t surprising, but there was always someone who would pay for cartographic data.
Using the Asp as part exchange, she had purchased her Python and the galaxy of choice had opened up for her.
Starting small she had opted to ferry cargo from system to system, trying to second guess the markets on places she hadn’t visited before. A chance meeting with an asteroid miner prompted her to kit the Python out for deep core mining, and following the tip off the miner took a trip out to a hot spot he had found, and after some time and a little effort three quarter filled her hold with Void Opals, the profits of which, she put towards fitting out the Python with better equipment. Her second run out had filled her hold and she stepped down the path towards becoming a Trader.
After Void Opal mining, she had tried Low Temprature Diamonds, core mining again to start then laser surface mining, before moving in to Painite.
Getting interdicted was an issue, but after the first few times of having to drop some of her cargo, avoiding the would be pirates became easier, picking out high security routes and sacrificing high end markets of favour of the nearer ones helped avoid the worst of the would be thieves, and slowly her wealth built.
The arrival of her graduation to Elite status in Trading allowed her access to Jameson Memorial and her first chance to return home after her long sojourn living in her ship, and making home in whatever system she happened to be in. The trip had been started with trepidation, and ended with more anti-climax than anything, home not being the place of tranquillity, she remembered.
After a short time there, she had spent a little of her gathered credits on a Diamondback Explorer, intending to head out on some of the long-distance explorations she kept hearing about off the older veterans that visited the station occasionally. Not knowing anything about deep space exploration, she had left the station and headed off in a random direction, jumping, scooping, scanning each system until she came across one that hadn’t been tagged as discovered. That was when she realised that being ‘first to discover’ didn’t really mean anything until she returned to civilisation and checked the data in, only then would the system be logged as discovered by her. Feeling a little disappointed, she had pressed on, the next two systems also being virgin territory. That had been when she realised that her fuel was low and her choice of scoopable stars was running out, so she turned around and headed back towards home once more, the lesson learned that it was possibly better to head towards the centre of the galaxy than away from it.
Feeling slightly by her failure at deep space exploration she decided to spend a large quantity of her amassed credits on an Anaconda with a plan to outfit it for combat. A plan that was shorter lived than her exploration adventure and the Anaconda remained in dock half finished due to the new lure of engineering. Word had come to her of a woman named Felicity Farseer, someone who could tune an FSD to have a longer range. For the next few months, the DBX became her home as she travelled around the bubble, visiting engineers who could offer the know how to tune modules and collecting the required materials to carry out the modifications.
Putting her new found knowledge to good use, she picked up a Fer-de-Lance, supposedly an excellent choice for combat operation, engineered as much as she was able then earned the credits back hunting pirates around the various resource extraction sites around Shinratra Dezhra, even tasking on some of the bounty missions posted at the Memorial mission board. Steadily her combat rating climbed, she knew she was never going to be a god in combat, she just didn’t have the skills for that, but she could hold her own when needed.
Once more boredom knocked on her cockpit window. Looking for something different she fitted out another Python and took off to ferry passengers around on Space Tourist travels, but even though they paid very well the tedium wore her interest down fairly quickly and the bright lights of the Federation Navy beckoned. Many courier missions and a couple of promotions later and it was time to see if the grass was greener on the Imperial Navy side of things.
Annoyingly it wasn’t and she returned home and looked back to the unfinished Anaconda. There had been a story circulating that it was possible to engineer one to exceed an 80 light year jump distance, and that seemed like a challange.
After a trip to Deciat and a few follow-on excursions to different systems to investigate and source materials, she manged to get the FSD on the Anaconda fully engineered, even going to the lengths of having all unnecessary parts removed to save mass. Following that there were more trips out to engineers, getting to know them and learning anything she could about ship systems and how to improve them.
With every conceivable modification completed, the Anaconda finally edged out of Jameson Memorial, still in its standard colours the largest ship she had piloted made its way out for space trials. The power distributer was so scaled down it couldn’t carry enough charge to attain full boost to the engines, and the shield generator was close to pointless, but it flew. That said she was still short of the eighty light year jump she had heard about. It was time to look into Guardian technology. Relics of a long dead race that could further improve the range of her project. Doubling the space trials with the search for long lost relic information, she journeyed out to areas of the galaxy she hadn’t ventured into before.
Guardian technology it emerged, wasn’t as easy as collecting materials. Firstly, landing the space whale that the Anaconda was near the located ruins had been a real trick and had taken an age to find a large enough flat area to touch down. Then there had been a few incidents with automated defence drones, which fortunately she managed to deal with, suffering only marginal damages to her SRV. Working out exactly what to do at the site had also challenged her skills, but utilising the information she had gleaned off several pilots, the data was finally acquired and the Anaconda had lifted away from the planet, leaving its footprints in the dusty surface for the next adventurer to discover.
Now with a newly crafted FSD booster fitted, her Anaconda crept closer to the target she had set herself.
News dribbled into her of a group of engineers over in Colonia, one of which worked wonders with stripping weight off life support systems. It seemed a little mad to make a twenty-two thousand lightyear journey just to speak to one engineer, but after imbibing in a few too many drinks, the Anaconda left Jameson Memorial once more, skipping through the stars in the vague direction of the distant system. Of course, when she sobered up the idea didn’t seem quite as sensible, but it was a journey into the distance which was the purpose the ship had been modified for. At least now she was thinking straight, she planned the route slightly more efficiently so at least she wouldn’t run out of fuel in some unscoopable system.
It had been a wild, mad idea, but after week of constant travelling, Jameson Memorial was once again hailed for a landing request. The Anaconda could hit over eighty lightyears in one jump, scoop fuel like an alcoholic in happy hour and would run most of the ships systems off the downgraded power system. It still wouldn’t boost and carried no auto repair or SRV bay, but it was close to being finished.