Captain's Log: Meeting with an Elite
17 May 2021Pon Pon
Well, looks like my time in the Empire is going well. I've reached the rank of Lord fairly quickly, though Dukedom seems a ways away still. Regardless, I just have to keep my nose to the grindstone, and good things will come.More interestingly, is that I made a new friend just the other day, CMDR Chrono. They flew out to meet me in Ngalinn, and we hopped over to Bayah to mess around for a bit. Being both in Eagles, we had a bit of a race, then decided we'd go for a spot of combat. Now, I was a bit wary about it, but with them having been in a founder's system when they first popped up on my comms, I figure they're at least a single Elite. Well, that and their few billion credits tipped me off that they're a bit more experienced than I. We didn't really talk about rank much, but it was clear who the senior and who the junior was. Not that I'm opposed to learning from those more knowledgeable than me, though! That's what I spend most of my time on GalNet doing anyways.
Anyways, them having come to me, none of their ships were in Bayah, so we had a bit of time to kill. Mobius Enterprise sells SRV hangers, so we kitted our ships for surface action and supercruised out to Bayah A 3. Unlike the last few times I went surface prospecting, this was on a planet relatively near to the star, and I actually found a landing point surrounded by flat land! Nothing like those dark, mountainous moons I've prospected on before. I had a blast just zipping around on the planet's surface, without worrying about flipping thanks to the relatively flat terrain. We even had a decent haul, a couple metallic asteroids and spots of legal salvage. Around about when the other CMDR's ships arrived in Bayah, we found some sort of crashed pod, a scanning point.
After finishing up on the planet's surface, CMDR Chrono pulled out their Federation Corvette and I jumped into one of the hotseats. We flew around in some combat zones, and I got to get a feel for combat from the relative safety of a ship-deployed fighter. Not much to say there, to be honest; I'm a freighter pilot, not some hotshot marine or pirate. Yeah, blasting ships was fun, but I couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on. Who was winning? Who was the enemy? Who am I? (OK that last one I pretty well knew, but you get the idea) I made a little in combat bonds, but seeing as it was getting late I decided to call it a night and bed down in my T6's sleeping berth in Bayah. Just today, I flew back out to Mainani to continue working for the Imperial Navy, so that I can continue increasing my rank with them, though I might switch back to trade once I reach Baron. Having flown the Eagle for a bit longer, I'm starting to enjoy the sheer speed it can get, and so I've been considering buying the Imperial Clipper. I hear it's not the best for trading, but still quite workable as an armed trade vessel. Besides, I'm only planning for it to be a stopgap, so I can get to the T9 faster. Then again, if I have high enough profit in the Clipper, I might stick with Guatamaya, skipping the T9 entirely.