Another Day in the Black II
28 Sep 2018WilliamReace
Well, day two out here getting my osmium for that delivery. Notice some guys coming through every once in a while, but still pretty silent out here. Freeze dried chicken, it's alright; stations with warm food are so much better than this never expires for a thousand years packaged stuff. Then when you least expect it, there's always someone to come along and think they are entitled to the cargo you've been spending the time to collect. This time it's a lawless Adder pilot, no point in bothering with names, either he'll be back or he learned his lesson. By that of course I mean, his ship exploded and my shields weren't even knocked down 33%. AND I gimped my clipper by fitting that mining laser and not making it part of my combat weapons firing solutions.
Seriously though, I didn't even barely move. The engines were running, sure, but my speed was a lousy 2m/s and sure he was orbiting me; but I had no trouble keeping up. I got a few ship parts out of him, nothing I was in dire need of, but spares all the same, are good to have. I can't imagine what would have possessed him to risk that score, nothing in my cargo was even worth 100 grand and he didn't want everything, just a mere 2t. Obviously his brains were lacking in several mathematical categories to risk that combat lesson.
Well, like all good things, they must come to end; so the next good thing can start.
Of course it figures, you spend 6 hours getting 27 tons of the ore, to then spend the next hour looking for the last 3/4 of the last ton you need for the requested supply of it! And get ambushed by a sidewinder looking for your cargo hold for a quick buck. If my clipper were any larger, I'd be LAUNCHING the sidewinder for a fighter! How come these guys are always so lacking in brains, I will never understand how they arrived at these poor decisions.
Outlaws dealt with, cargo safe, time to return home with full bill of lading, ha ha.
Took four jumps to get back, instead of three, because asteroids don't yield just 1 kind of mineral, but that's good for everyone.
I really need to figure out a better way of keeping these CMDR's logs. Spending all day in space is going to leave a lot of blacked out titles.
Anyway, trip home was uneventful, no ambushes on the way, and that much closer to my next imperial rank. That cutter is still just a glimmer in my eye, but that glimmer is getting brighter every single task completion!
Time for a shower and a hot meal from the station facilities while my ship undergoes some thorough systems checks. Micro meteors are still a threat when you are flying around in an asteroid field. Better to be sure there's no holes then to fly back out and have the immediate pressure change from station to space sucking me out of a tiny hole. I'm sure we all remember the Aliens movie!