The grind never ends...
01 Dec 2020Mina Angura
The instability in the mining and minerals market has not done Valanga and I any favors. Painite crashed. Other minerals are all over the place. CMDRs all over comms are complaining, speculating, scared... I can't say I blame them. Mining was never my favorite thing. When I graduated from training and got my first boat, nowhere in my dreams was I sitting in a belt, filling my old with painite while listening to Galnet news reruns. But the money was good.Damn good.
At least it seems the market instability has spread over into increased piracy activity. I haven't seen anything official yet, but the last few times I've turned in bounty vouchers from Eagle pilots with stomachs bigger than their eyes, I was paid out SIGNIFICANTLY more than the voucher promised. I'm not sure what the deal is with that, but it's happening everywhere. Rumor has it many miners and traders have turned to piracy in desperation, to continue living beyond their means.
I suppose the "living" part isn't an issue when we're turning them to space dust.
It seems cruel to kill people just trying to get by, but on the other hand, I've had my fair share of ships lost because some trigger-happy, impatient pirate didn't give me enough time to sort out some ore as a tariff. It's not like the authorities put out kill warrants on people for skipping a bar tab, ya know?
So I say, kill 'em all, and let... Well, I've traveled tens of thousands of lightyears, and haven't seen any evidence of any God, or any other higher powers for that matter. Just thargoids. But if there is something bigger out there, I'll let them figure out what to do with the souls of these guys.
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I've been sitting on some coordinates for a while. I think from one of Valanga's contacts, considering it's a region where there's rumored to be a lot of old Guardian sites. I might take a trip out there for a change of pace and see what this is all about once my exploration ship is done being worked on. My Asp X - my first dedicated exploration ship, the one I flew to and from Colonia in, took to Hutton Orbital for the coffee and the mug - had a bad run-in with a neutron star while I was trying to scoop some jetcone. The mechanics told me it was totaled, that it wasn't worth fixing, but it has too much sentimental value to give up on. I left it at Farseer's place a while back to let her apprentices tinker with and try to sort out in their free time - they seemed up to the challenge, and a few mil for things they would've done on their leisure time anyway? Win-win.
It should be finished up in a couple days, then another day or two to ship out to where I've been living around Muang. It's been fun working on my gunships with Broo Tarquin. Kinda makes me miss my days in the service... The work anyway. Once you get a taste of freedom having your own boat affords, you don't want to go back to taking orders.
It hasn't all been R&R though - I've been staying busy with administrative work. I've had a lot of security reports and procurement requests to sift through. I swear, it's like these researchers think we're made of money or something. I really hope I understand it one day, but for right now, all I see are a bunch of old relics. Are they electronics? Are they altars to some long-forgotten god? Are they just trash? I don't know enough to really have an opinion myself, but it excites them. It excites Val. Sometimes, helping people chase their passion is reward enough itself.
That said, credits don't grow on trees, and with the issues with the market crashes and all, we may be hemorrhaging money shortly if we don't find some cashflow.
It's a good thing Val doesn't give orders. More like, strongly encourages me to do something or she'll get annoyed and pouty. It's kind of adorable. You'd think an accomplished archaeologist and a hell of a pilot in her own right wouldn't pull the puppy dog eyes when you don't feel like running a load of relics to one of her research associates, but... It reminds me a lot of how Mom would get when Dad was late coming up to the station for the holidays, even though she knew damn well there was nothing he could do about it.
Difference is, I don't plan on going anywhere if Val pisses me off.
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Ah, christ, the scanners are going nuts. Potential pirate wing a few kLs out. Probably should go see what that's all about. This area is unstable enough without all these new rats mucking about. Better wrap this up and make sure my copilot Yana is awake to take the fighter out if need be. Fly safe out there, CMDRs - the water's a little choppy.
-M