May 30th 3302. The day I almost lost the Virgen del Rocío
31 May 2016Torrente
Man! I gotta love running jobs around Paras, but yesterday I got ambushed and I almost lost it all. The Python, the Virgen del Rocío, I purchased it on Diaguandri, on September 25th 3301. Soon it’s gonna be a year I’ve been flying her, intermittently as I got a Clipper, sold it back, and then the Anaconda, that’s been giving me lots and lots of credits ever since.But the point is the Virgen is always been a tough girl. I was NEVER destroyed on her. When I was flying on the T6, the Fatboy, I lost 4 of them to pirates… Ended up selling it, but eventually, out of nostalgia, bought it back.
I’m very much thinking of outfitting her to mine. Paras is quite the mining hotspot after all, no?
In any case, yesterday I was handling my deliveries, and even visited a very cozy colony on Kartamayana, Hayashi port. Against my better judgment, I landed on that rock with 2 tons of Tobacco on my ship. Now mind, in Kartamayana, for some reason, tobacco is been branded illegal. But… You may be forgetting who’s telling the story: Torrente is a helluva smuggler. And only the buddy Judder Man may claim to have made more than me smuggling.
But tobacco wasn’t the issue, it wasn’t even the final destination for the drop. I just picked a few tons of minerals, a faction in Paras has hired me to source, and started my way back to Paras.
Not even a minute after I left port, a message from the employer: “you got these pirates on your ass”… And boy, were they packing.
An Anaconda and a Federal Assault Ship. I could have taken them on separately, really. The Virgen does pack a punch, plasma accelerators, twin beam turrets… But under those odds, standard procedure is “run the hell off with the goods”, basically.
Boy, I was never more proud of having point defenses installed.
One of the ships, probably the FAS, that I couldn’t boost away from so easily, had Dumbfire missiles. None of those nasty bastards hit my hull. But… They did take a toll on everything else. Thrusters almost totaled, FSD had to reboot a couple of times, and I had Paras at my six, so no chance of a high wake jump. With the canopy at 30%, my only chance was to return to Hayashi, risk being detected, and get repairs.
Thankfully, I managed to sneak back in no problem (Torrente!) and put local lawmen on the alert (which, drove even less attention to my ship). Back in Space I managed to jump just before being interdicted by the enemy flotilla, and reached Smoot Station on Paras, where I could deliver part of the goods I needed to drop.
The bastards had tracked
me down but they didn’t count on two things: the Immortals have great station defenses, even on outposts, and good King Elenar has invested in ANACONDAS to handle security on high-level threats.
I fired a bit enthusiastically and earned me a fine, but otherwise, those two were absolutely no match. The rest of the trip to Wilson Orbital was uneventful. Earned me a nice, large drink at the Wilson Bar.
All in a day’s work.