Viper Strikes, Part 1: The Retreating Commander
10 Dec 2020Sirius T. Dog
I flew my Viper around the Nav Beacon, scanning every ship I saw. Deciat has never had many wanted commanders, so it was quite a boring session. I finally found a wanted commander: a Sidewinder! "This will be an easy target," I thought.
Boy was I wrong.
I missed the critical detail that the commander was in a wing. As I fought the Sidewinder, their wingmate stepped up to fight. "Keep your eye on the target," I thought to myself. The Sidewinder wouldn't be that hard to take down, and once I took the Sidewinder down, their wingmate would retreat, right? Nope.
The Sidewinder was too quick and small for my Viper MkIV. My three gimballed lasers never got sight of the ship.
When the tables turned, I set my weapons pips to max, and held the trigger!
The capacitor unloaded itself on the Sidewinders weak shields.
Except... they weren't weak.
"Hahaha, must be an upgrade," I nervously thought.
Here I was, sitting in my nine million credit engineered Cobra, that had been able to take down Kraits and Pythons. And here was a Sidewinder, a freaking Sidewinder, out-maneuvering me. I kept trying; I wasn't going to retreat.
I finally got them in my sights again, and kept them there. No amount of chaff was going to stop me. I kept fighting, even as COVAS screamed at me that the Sidewinder's wingmate was ripping my ship's internals to shreds. "It's just a scratch, I'll fix it back at Garay," I thought.
As my fragment cannon unloaded it's lethal blows, and my beam lasers pounded on the shields, I stayed unable to do critical damage.
Finally, the Sidewinder gave up. I heard COVAS say those devastating words: "Frame Shift charge detected."
"NNNNOOOOOOO!" I yelled in my cockpit.
I chased after the Sidewinder until they warped. Their wingmate had also retreated.
I cursed under my breath as I looked for other ships.
Every single ship did the exact same thing.
Every. Single. Ship.
I decided to head back to Garay Terminal. I got over 700k in bounties, so not bad!
Next time, I'll try a different system without the commanders that retreat as soon as they lose their shield.