MINING AND COMBAT WOES
07 May 2021Shredwick
So I'm at some station after a haul in Bondranses, I forget the name, and there really isn't anything there that appeals to me. Sure there's a few courier jobs but I'm not a huge fan as, at most, the pay for each run is in the 40K range, where a full cargo hold over the same distance can net upwards of 200K, at least at the level I'm at. I've upgraded my hold to hold up to 36 tons, which, compared to holds in the Krait MK2 or the Python, is pretty small. All the more reason to save up my cash for a better ship.\But I needed something to do, and it was either take a courier job to somewhere else to see what they were offering, or dip my feet in mining. I'd mined a couple times before, but it was never my preference. I'd soon remember why.
20 units of Bromellite for over 2 million, plus there was a gas giant with icy rings in the system. Couldn't be too hard, right?
I'd forgotten that the puny rocks only had small amounts of material, and my refinery wouldn't process them until I'd had enough for 100% of a unit. I'd gone through my entire supply of prospecting limpets by the time I had three units, and I still had 17 more to go.
That was the point when I remembered how much I hated mining.
Things are a bit easier now. Inara radio plays through my speakers, and my computer checks for updates whenever I hit a relevant port, so at least I didn't have to come up with more creative ways of dulling the sting of boredom as I stared at giant ice rocks and poked at them with my little mining laser. I didn't have collector limpets, so I had to manually guide each little rock into my cargo scoop. I found myself thinking about buying a second data storage unit just to pirate shows and a second monitor to watch them on to help pass the time.
Over the course of several hours I'd finally managed to amass 14 of the 20 units of bromellite I needed for the two jobs. Then I get a message from an old friend. Commander Ace Kuri. We'd flown together quite a bit back in the day, but lost touch recently after I "retired."
"Good to see you flying again, Shredwick. Want to wing up? Kill some pirates or something?"
It was an excuse to put off more mining for a while, so why the hell not? I thought.
We met up in LHS 1163 at Hunziker Terminal, and we found out that that system was going through a bit of a civil war between the Federation backed confederates and the independent Law party.
"Wanna kill some feds?" he asked.
I care about either side. They were both probably shitty anyway, but the pay to kill 7 fed ships was over 4 million, which would only help me get my ass in a MK2 or Python sooner. The mining could wait.
So we gave it a shot, and boy, was it like hitting a brick wall. Our MKIII's weren't doing any noticeable damage to any ship other than the smaller Asps. I'm not sure if it was our (my) weaker weapons or the other ships had some serious armor plating, or a combination of both, but we only got a couple kills before we had to bug out or risk being destroyed. There were several close calls, between both of us. Now I've been in combat before, but I've never had my ass handed to me so readily before. I must still have some rust to kick off, or I'm getting old. Or both.
We decided to say "screw it" on that. We'd have to spend as much as the reward on ship repairs just to stay in the fight. Maybe some other time. Back at Hunziker there was a pretty easy assassination mission we took, and split the earnings for. Not a whole hell of a lot of credits, but it was nice to not fly solo for a bit.
Fatigue started to set in at that point, perhaps the excitement of being in and out of combat was starting to set it, so I decided to rack out at Hunziker for the night, letting Ace know that he could call on me at any time.
Well, back to mining. I'm never doing this again.