Unguided, 2: A Beautiful Place to Riot
20 Feb 2021Meowers
( 17.02.3307 - 20.02.3307 )
( Komotae - Nevermore - BD+19 2511 )
While all the eyes of inhabited Galaxy were turned to a well-spun Rochester and Federation conflict, I was hustling around my own little concerns, deliberately ignoring that loud gun party, despite the lucrative possibilities of mercenary work on the spot. Looking at the particulars, it was much like turd versus turd for me. Okay, Jupi is definitely some outstanding arrogant bloated moneybag with wet dreams about his own shiny kingdom with puny docile serfs, so I can see what black-and-white kind of worldview allowed Feds to get so much support there. They accused Jupi of 'violating the morals and purposes of Federation blah-blah-blah' and placed a target on him and his followers, making hundreds of mercs think that they're doing the righteous stuff while making money, thus effectively retaining influence, power and numbers of obedient working population in that region, keeping Federal bigwigs on the same level of control and luxury, if not even higher. No way I'm getting myself bogged down into these games.
Was completely worth it, you know. Now there's a little cosy variety of how to occupy that big hardpoint under the belly: 'unremarkable but effective all-rounder' Beam Laser, 'absolute hammer of doom' Plasma Accelerator and 'hell I don't know where I can use this' Multi-Cannon. Still pondering about trying out Frag Cannons in smaller slots to rip 'em up close, however, it's time to take my mind off of gun tinkering. Now, even when the Federal muppet show came to a much predictable end, there's still a choice of ways to give this outfit a test. And to make combat rank soar, finally. Although no pompous titles will buy you a mastery, it never really hurts to have one if you can.
Marshmallow is a decent battle spacecraft indeed, as she meant to be, surely able to leave some destruction in her wake, though I never felt like pulling a trigger for the sake of everyone who can afford that kind of service, is my way to go. Maybe I'll never be a 'true mercenary' keeping myself so selective, but hey, the Milky Way is a big piece of space, so it's easy to find yourself a suitable type of rump-kicking amusement.
And one was found, almost instantly. Literally one jump from the place where I decided to stick around for a while. It was the Nevermore system, where the Revolutionary Nevermore Resistance, a local rebel party, was waging a civil war against Nevermore Gold Advanced PLC. Primary reason seemed hell of a classic - profits were dropping, but the establishment still had a few more fancy business-class liners to buy. And then people down there suddenly decided that they aren't so much happy with the fundamental company ideals like work instead of night sleep and shredded cockroaches instead of food. Yet the system name, Nevermore, gave this whole incident a deep, excitingly tasty fatalistic tint. Anyway, the place itself has views worth fighting for.
(Four stars of the Nevermore system)
Well, if you want me to turn some corp hounds into a schnitzel without any other corp enjoying a benefit from that, you don't have to ask twice. When I arrived in the system and planted my feet on the neutral grounds, the Pinto Ring station, to fill myself up with tea and frontline summaries, opposing parties stood their grounds pretty even. This war just had broken loose, maybe a day or two ago, with nobody still having the upper hand, although there was an action going right near the Borel Enterprise, a station under mutineers control. So there I go and try pushing the foe away from the front door. First combat zone was merely 17 Mm away from the station, so people, probably, were able to watch the show using simple optics. Perhaps, somebody even looked at me, grinding down the ranks of enforcers, going back and forth to exchange another supply of ammunition for a load of scrap metal, and, maybe, make the victory a bit closer.
(Marshmallow departing from Borel Enterprise for another mission)
That close location gave me a good jumpstart - I've been scrambling for one sortie right after another, arriving at the combat area in almost no time. Soon after I threw myself into another battle, grabbed a few of first local wins and put my checkmarks on a mission board, adversaries sent me a message that described their 'deepest disappointment' by current situation, in the most official tone possible. They advised me to stay clear of their 'operations'. Well, you're free to try. Yet another bunch of messages, actually, contract offers, were more peculiar.
(Interesting contracts)
Someone from the RNR command decided to, um, reduce the passenger traffic of groups that weren't involved in conflict. Maybe they thought that now they have a little army of me, running all their orders without a second guess, or it was a kind of 'extremist wing' willing to pursue their separate interests, yet hiding them under the veil of war, amidst the chaos. Nonetheless, I didn't dig any further as any other scuffles and disagreements of this faction weren't much of my interest. That's a clear 'no', guys, you might've confused me with another hired goon or raging zealot who'd like to do your messy wetwork. Currently, I'm not in the proper mood to tell some random Mr. or Ms. Doe and a pack of children that they should ride a hearse instead of a bus, because someone else from their family had served the wrong master.
Anyway, the bottom line of Day 1 was my promotion to Expert (and going a bit forward), some cash from missions and combat bonds and a good kind of exhausted feeling after a dozen battles won, leading to the first day that counted towards RNR domination over the battlefield. Day 2 of this campaign started pretty much at the same point with closest combat zones clearly visible from Borel Enterprise, at the orbit of a planet with ongoing terraforming operations, and a few more scattered throughout the system. Yet I decided to change my pace a little, accepting something that sounded like a stolen military plans salvaging Spec Ops Mission with a trip to Komotae and back. However, it turned out to be the most unpoetic Spec Dumpster Shoveling.
(Cargo canister, full of military plans)
Hey, did you just drop this? Their precious plans were floating amongst derelict containers with water, garbs and cheap half-stuff food, as if they ordered a dump truck and then its drunk driver saw an asteroid and tipped over. That was the first odd thing. Second, these guys not just had some plans, they had 4 containers of military plans! My, so to speak, most descriptive military plan was a schematic drawing of a boot, accelerating towards an arse. Oddity number 3: nobody came after me, neither at the, um, mission-specific dumpster location, nor on the way back.
So, let's get back to frontline business. Utilising a familiar and uncomplicated strategy of picking out and dealing with the heavy-hitting opponents in the first place, and then roaming around the field, laying down fire on already engaged and probably damaged smaller ones for a quick kill, I was able to sway the odds in some more battles. That kind of approach also allowed me to stay away from relatively serious trouble, whilst giving even the most mediocre allied pilots a chance to do something in the background, and keeping any incoming enemy reinforcements at bay, outnumbered, sometimes tied to difficult one-vs-several engagements. Yet there was a share of sloppy moments, like one particular bunch of rioteers unable to do anything valuable more than yelling curses and getting dropped one by one. Or adversaries sending in the Spec Ops team which, for some reason, instantly acquired a lock on me, focused their fire and ignored all the other distractions, forcing me to retreat. Or some allied nuthead boosted towards me into a straight collision, that ended with his ship badly crippled and my shields offline.
And that's how the Day 2 went, with rebel forces now clearly having an advantage, my kill count ticking and combat rank almost reaching the next, Master level. Day 3 began with a visit to the MCC 686 system: had to refill simple raw materials supply to keep the onboard synthesiser loaded up for the most possible case of running out of autocannon ammo in the middle of a skirmish. Have to keep the pressure on and soon this conflict will be over, and sure as hell I'll do - there's a cause, combat bond and mission payouts are sweet, comforts of a full-scaled starport instead of some shady outpost or a frozen hole in the ground, nice views and plenty of work to finish. By the way, how did they get their hands on a whole starport? That's not your average rebel hideout, that's for sure.
(A profitable contract)
Day 3 began with something that looked like a panic amongst NGA bosses, they decided to go all-out maybe, I've encountered increased numbers of hostile heavy ships like Anacondas, Pythons and T-10s in a couple of battles, more than they send usually, and therefore my promotion to Master rank went faster. Big belly means an easy target! Maybe just a coincidence, but I don't complain. And, to make this amusement even more brilliant, some halfwit in a funny pink jacket appeared on my comms and said that they sent some 'Special Agents' to 'deal with me'. Hey, that poor F-grade pilot guy on a Federal Dropship was good only at texting me some rude stuff. He gloriously 'intercepted' me right in front of a station, when I was about to dock, then immediately turned tail, realising how much he screwed up and he doesn't have enough guts to break the 'no fire zone' regulations. So I crawled right behind him, in little more than a hundred metres, to make sure that he's feeling itchy, secretly hoping that we leave the station perimeter that way. Nope, he got lucky at the last second, jumping away. And why was it a Fed ship anyway? NGA is marked as an Alliance corp. No employed goons left willing to fight, had to go out and hire a man off the street?
Then this hostage situation. I took a hostage rescue mission just because of a feeling that it was the right thing to do, since they didn't want to offer any reasonable cash for it. Apparently some rowdy youngsters, caught and imprisoned for throwing rocks at a classy-glassy corporate building. But hey, if I were a rowdy youngster who got captured while participating in a wide-scale riot and then held hostage in a cargo container laying on a worthless planet, I'd be happy to find myself being rescued by some weird lady on a combat spaceship. So I've ordered to equip Marshmallow with an SRV for this one particular run and went to the nearby BD+19 2511 system, tracking a signal that led me to the planet surface, eventually getting a clear visual on the crash site. Containers with hostages were scattered around a bruised and burnt SRV, there were some Bootleg Liquor containers nearby too, and nobody left alive to be accused of driving intoxicated. Time to get them home. Both the hostages and the booze kegs.
(Investigation in progress)
Having heard all the grateful words with a rather weary than blushed face, I went back to where the battles roared, effectively turning the third day to the revolution's favour. Though the three-day fatigue was already hampering my performance a bit, I've noticed that my firing accuracy and reaction sharpness had decreased, there still was much to be done. Had to leave two battles of, maybe, eight or nine that I made that day, because of hostile Spec Ops giving me an especially hard time in one and running out of ammo and synthesiser materials in another, but, mostly, there was a heavy rain of corporate ships debris and some victories scored.
These Spec Ops wings... I may be as good as two or even three of their pilots, but considering the situation of combat already going on for some time, my ammo and shields used up a bit, opponents swarming around, four of them engaging at once is usually a little too much. So at this time and this mastery level I prefer to let them be dragged deeper into the main battle, maybe let their formation loose down in the heat, and then attack those one or two who strayed away. In one-on-one fights they are not as powerful as they think, more like usual combatants on a bit more upgraded ships, chock full of shield booster batteries. Taking more time to put down, but not an exceptional threat. But charging at four of them wildly, yelling and - boom! pew-pew-pew! boom! - and then emerging from a skirmish with a bloodthirsty grin of a winner is surely a milestone to achieve. Let's work on that one.
At the beginning of Day 4, I had made a bit of progress towards combat rank promotion and the revolutionary party enjoyed having a solid upper hand, but the conflict wasn't over yet. However, there was one more thing. That pink jacket halfwit who contacted me before and threatened me with his mentally-deficient 'agents' turned out to be a big shot at NGA, and now he changed his strategy. He placed a counter-offer, telling me that he's willing to pay more if I start shooting mutineers instead of his enforcers. Hah. You can buy white collars in cubicles and bouncers in bog standard ships, but not me.
Victory was near, I could feel her sweet warmth with my own skin, and this feeling had me energised, fading away all the weariness, making my eyes wide open again. Once at the station, rearming and refuelling, I filled a bucket with fresh water, poured it over my head and then shook my hair violently, with splashes all over the place. It must've been some uncommon show, but I was feeling mighty awesome and awakened at the moment. In a matter of minutes I was already in my element, tearing the frontlines apart, laying down destruction on what's left of the opposition. There was no time to waste, but a perfect time to melt with lasers, shred with cannons, wreak havoc on their ranks, put them down one by one, blazing through explosions, fire and jagged metal. The grace of a second breath.
They left me scarred - I left them shattered.
(Marshmallow and her battle scars)
And finally everything was over - I was at the Borel Enterprise, preparing for another sortie, activated the nav panel to plot my route and there were no zones with ongoing combat. Not a single one. The Nevermore system was peacefully silent. I checked on the Starport Services Board and, yes, the war had stopped, the Revolution won. Corporation had withdrawn, losing a big part of weight and support in the system, my efforts were not in vain. I got up from the pilot seat and looked through armoured canopy glass, feeling that my arms had suddenly become heavy, all the sounds around me dampened, thoughts had become slow, vague. Minutes ago my blood was boiling, I was ready to rush into the next battle, to tear and raze, and now I'm standing silent, staring at the crowds.
Those people, who lived here and who keep living here as I depart, part of them celebrated the victory, another part simply kept their usual job, what will they do now?
History of humanity saw many riots and revolutions, successful or not, and a notable part of them ended up with people being unable to handle their hard won advantages. Those who raised arms once to fight, lived for the day of victory, had little idea of what to do next, their moment of glory was earned on the battlefield, anger and thirst for revenge and justice were leading them through the flames of war. But when peace finally comes, there's a need for people who know how to build, not to destroy. And it is the moment at which people are often being deceived and misguided again, by ones who led them or by ones who reached the top, getting their benefit from the war. But there's always a chance for a better ending. Let's hope they don't lose it.
(Marshmallow leaving Borel Enterprise)
And my work here is done.
* * *
Next part: #3: Taming the Beast
Next part: #3: Taming the Beast