Tales of an old n00b - part 2
22 Jun 2020Runjikol
3306-06-20Official LHS 154A Nationalists contacted me on FTL-securenet for a data run to CC ERI WIDI. Seems my rep is growing. There was an active RES nearby with lots of stupid pirates getting shot up. Scav'd some nice conductive polymers among other useful things. Visited material trader and scaled up some parts, at a heavy loss to me, towards getting Multi-Servos for my railguns from Todd The Blaster McQuinn.
Railguns and frag cannons upgraded by Todd. Liz Ryder lets me know about one Hera Tani who does power plant upgrades. She won't deal with me unless the Empire acknowledge me as an Outsider. Welp... how does that happen? I'll figure it out later. There was a mission on the board to scan a data point at an installation that was offered to me because of my data delivery for the nationalists. I take it, can't be too hard, right? Sneak up in the SRV scan the point and drive off. It was just that so they offered me another one. This time at 8 time the credits. OK. This time the SRV gets shredded by an array of perimeter turrets and I'm back in the python in orbit with a 1000cr galaxy-wide bounty. Small mercies it's not a kill warrant. Flying around like an aimless again I finally locate a factor who can let me clear this off the record.
While I'm there I ask around the docks and find out that there are two "best ways". Evacuate Empire citizens from damaged space stations or go to an isolated star system like Ngalinn where almost all the contracts are to one place and stack them up. I like the idea of helping people so I went to the station. Should have checked my charts because it was a long way from the arrival point; 380Kls.
To fit out Brasscoat I had to visit 5 different stations to get available economy passenger cabins. Once done I jumped out to HIP 9141 and supercruised 380Kls to Hayashi Orbital. The place was a mess. It was burning and sparking and I'm surprised they let anyone in that deathtrap. Still, people had to get out. At the passenger lounge it took only a few swipes on the computer to find a full complement of passengers. Four destinations in an hour. Some thruster-plug thought they should interdict me. No time for that. Thankfully the refugees didn't complain and they were all delivered. The Empire liked that but I had to chase more contract turnover to get what I wanted so I could visit Hera Tani.
Ngalinn was quite distant so I sold off the cabin modules, generated some cart's (cartographic data sets) and when I arrived there was 12 contracts I could stack to Mainani. At Mainani I stacked 6 on the way back and did this circuit three times. Their contact offered me a naval action contract. Although my python is above average it's not a shield-tank like a Razorback fed-corvette. I'll avoid getting in a fight where I'm outnumbered wherever possible. The Empire now considers me an Outsider and I made a profit on the fuel, repairs and docking fees. Sold off the cargo racks that were in storage at Peckollerci and put in a different set.
Hera Tani wants 50 containers of cigars. Not normal ones. Kamitran cigars. That's going to be a long trip. Especially now that I'm back in HR 5813.