The Colonia Bridge Chaos
08 Oct 2021Aylin Ouyang
So earlier today, I saw an alert from the Pilots Federation about the Brewer Corporation planning the Colonia Bridge project, which meant to make the effort of going out to Colonia, some 20k LY away, easier with megaships littered along the way to offer support. What caught my eye is that Brewer Corporation is offering payment for materials, and well, I decided to take a look.Sure enough, they were offering some top credits for the materials indeed, especially for Thermal Cooling Units. The prices they were asking were right up there with my most profitable trades. I immediately took a look which systems had them for sale near Alcor, where Brewer was collecting the materials, and the first hint of the scramble lay in that many systems were last reported to be low in TCU stock. I checked the alert and realised it had gone out more than 12 hours ago; it looked like the first wave had stripped the most obvious supply stations dry already.
I managed to pick out Eratosthenes Ring in Azaladshu as a system with a reported low stock level, but likely enough for me to fill the cargo hold of Cubeo's Gift. It also had the advantage of some really low prices, so I set off to the system.
Arriving at the station, one of the senior station staff looked at me at asked if I was going to Alcor. I said yes, and he just smirked. When I pressed him, apparently there was a rush of pilots earlier in the day. MacDonald Settlement in Alcor was not going to be pretty.
As expected, the old hands at this were right. Arriving outside MacDonald Settlement, I was greeted with chaos. Normally I'd take a few minutes at most to receive docking clearance and dock, but it felt like ten times longer, what with all the extra ships. Space is huge and lonely, and normally I don't see too many other pilots, but this time it felt like a hive of activity for once.
I made the delivery, and was well-rewarded for it. I was laughing a little as the numbers came in on the data pad. This was so profitable. Time to find another source of TCUs! I opened up the trade networks to have a scan...
As luck would have it, 78 Ursae Majoris has a number of refinery stations and outposts, and the outposts appeared to be well-stocked still. I guess most pilots took their larger ships and avoided the smaller outposts, leaving them less touched by the ongoing mad rush. Good for me!
The next several hours went pretty smooth, if slower than usual. Going back and forth the two systems yielded an astonishing amount of credits, though there was some chatter about pirates in-system. I hope I don't run into them. Still, the rewards are nice, and I hear there're further rewards based on the contribution achieved by individual pilots...
Re-reading the alert, it looks like Brewer will be doing this for a week, so I guess that's what I'll be busy with. Time to get hustling!