What a day
09 Jun 2021Felagi Flinx
So im a trader. Out of neccesity, not desire. What do i desire? To see the deep black. I dream of Ishams's Reach, Saggitarius, Colonia, all of the deep dark far offs.......But trading pays the bills and keeps the Dream alive. Then it finally happens. Im sitting in the lounge at my latest port of call flipping through long range jump data and dreaming of equipment i cant imagine scrapeing the credits for together. And i have an epiphany. You dont need all of the credits all at once. My uncle had a passion for racing SRV's, bought one and spent 5 years tinkering on it before even entering his first race......why cant i do the same? i mean ive saved up enough, im careful, and after the recent Tritium boom i have over 200 mil in the bank against a rainy day, definitly enough for the Anaconda i just saw on sale for 10% off, and ide still have plenty left to cover my insurance premiums, keep the hold of "Hrugnir" (my type 9 heavy) full of cargo and still making money. maybe every so often upgrade a bit here, or when i have a windfall get Felicity do do a bit of tinkering to its drives.....Why should i be the one to always scrimp and save for a dream that may never happen and be miserable for it? I dial up the broker immediatly, offer credits up front and within the hour i have her title, free and clear! i arrange to have the Hrugnir shipped back to Deciat and make the two jumps there. Im a little nervous as ive never manually docked an Anaconda inside of a station (only done sims on carriers....the in depth software was much more expensive) but i make a point of knowing how to manually dock every craft i fly. And then it happens. Im so focused on my approach vector and ignoring the proximity alarms screaming in my ears from passing through the mailslot (note to self, research what a mailslot is and figure out why they call it that) that i dont see the type 10 right over me. The pilot must have been frantically trying to cancel his auto dock as i passed between him and his landing pad. Between my inexperience at the helm of an Anaconda, and the auto docks slow reaction times.......well it wasnt good. My insurance broker said the best way to handle this without the risk of port authority jumping up the fines and the docking fees was to ship the wreck of my 'conda out for repair. What he didnt tell me is that the 10er was totaled and the station had a bounty out on me for "willfull destruction" and "Fleeing to a Non- Allied system" (additional note to self, find new insurance broker, will pay more for honesty) Naturaly i travel with my ship to oversee the repairs and refit, and realize i cant make the 11 jump trip to Deciat with the setup as is. and this is where i make my critical error. I buy a fuel scoop. I buy an A7 fuel scoop. A 23 million credit fuel scoop. A 23 million credit fuel scoop that leaves me with enough for a medium profit cargo haul.......but not my insurance deductible. I make the jumps back to Deciat, this time i engage the docking computer and im waiting for the handshake to complete so i can pay whatever fines i may have had.......and im scanned and every port authority ship and internal gun trains in on me and opens fire......Now im a fair trader and i may have had a docking fine or two in my day, but i didnt know i had a bounty, let alone what the reaction would be. i was there to turn myself in and pay it for the voids sake! i turn 180 and manage to get out of the station, jinking all over the place taking more hits than im avoiding just trying to put enough distance between me and the station to go into frame shift and figure out why all these formerly nice people were now trying to kill me! i hear those sweet sweet words of "Frame Shift Drive Charging" when i feel the whole ship shudder under me and the FSD goes offline. I Glance (stare with disbelief) at my consol and i see that my ships overall integrity is at 21 percent. I divert all power to engines and punch it, throwing her into a roll and then killing all drive and go into silent running. With most of my ship gutted im not building heat to quickly, but im watching the scanners very closely......and the temperature still keeps climbing. By the time the last ship in the area is gone i am down to 17 percent, FSD at 0, THrusters at 0, and 13 kilometers outside of the station. I turn everything but my life support off as i havnt figured out how to reboot and repair sysytems on this ship yet (and i doubt i could canibalize enough working parts to do it) and start shooting out messages to anyone that owes me a favor......when all two of those say they are deep in the black on a run, i start begging favors. Finaly i get someone that can come out with a few repair limpets, they get me up to the point where a sneeze wont shatter the hull of my ship and i am able to initiate a repair sequence on my thruster and the drive. with those powered up i launch myself out of the system before anyone notices me and and haul to the first safe port for repairs. And an Interstellar Factor. By the time this was all said and done I had 3.7 mil left in the bank, not enough for the deductible on the Hrugnir, so i had to take a gamble and put it all into cargo. with less than an 8th of my hold full and 4,782 credits to my name i made my first trade run......Thankfuly i was able to make my insurance costs back on that one run, and had to fly with a light hold for a few jumps before being able to fill him to the brim. The moral of the story? I NOW HAVE A SWEET ANACONDA TO MOD FOR DEEP JUMPS!