Payday in LTT 2667
16 Jun 2022TheDaviot
After the windfall from the Golconda tritium run, I've been outfitting a small flotilla to help with my helping the Misfits. A Dolphin for low-risk cargo or passengers, a Type-7 for those large cargo runs or shipment contracts, a Viper for cleaning out local pirates, an AspX for sharing the views with other commanders or cargo where the Type-7 can't land, and for everything else, my pride and joy, the Atrox, a Diamondback Explorer—after a bit of love (and engineering), she has enough armor and firepower to stare down a Vulture and legs long enough to jump 40 light-years a hop. The Putamans aren't bad folk, but hearing the exaggerated Imperial dialect at Stephenson rubs me the wrong way.With the Misfits over their bruises from their recent war, I saw quite the mission opportunity: a request for 42 tons of palladium for a greater than 8-times reward. Checking Galnet meant it would be a trip in the Lamia's Boon—the AspX—as the Sakamata didn't have the cargo space and the Type-7 couldn't land at the small orbital outposts shipping it. One jump to Aldrin Landing in Yamasan to pick up my palladium...and they had only half the amount I needed. The locals referred me to BPM 72121 for the rest. Great.
Now, for the affluent in the Bubble, "nameless" systems still with a stellar catalog number are the backwaters—collections of airless moonlets dimly lit by red dwarves or sub-stellar dwarves, sparsely inhabited by hardscrabble spacers who spend half their creds on gravi-meds so their spines don't collapse when they visit a rotating station and preyed upon by endless hordes of pirates. Most of the time that's baseless exaggeration, but 72121 is about as close as it gets. Two M's, a Tauri not-quite-star, 100,000 souls on a good day, and a whole lot of airless, low-gravity rocks. I'd been to Cori Port before; it's one of the closest places to LTT 2667 with factors who will net-in foreign bounties, but 72121 isn't a place to visit for tourism, and definitely not with a million cred of palladium in your hold. The system is rich in metals and cutthroats, but poor in everything else, and except for a few locals magistrates (styling themselves after Imperial-inspired feudal lords), a 9th Legion rep, a miner's guild, a very-nervous-looking Putama rep, and the local pirates guild (cleverly and officially named "The BPM 72121 Pirates"), the list of station factors who gave up on the system dwarfs the list of those too stupid or stubborn to leave.
Only a 470 Ls hop to Cori Port for the rest of the white-silver and twice I dodge interdiction. As I slow to drop from supercruise, some clever facker interdicts me again, and the ship UI immediately assumes I was submitting, a mere 0.1 Ls from the station. A shiny Viper Mk IV slams into view with a crazed voice on the open channel that welcomes my imminent death without the formality of a cargo scan. The scanner shows "Toca the Rogue", a local pirate with a grudge against the Misfits. Two weeks ago, I'd be limping out of the fight with 40% hull and on suit air. This time, I have reinforced shields, military-grade armor and hull reinforcements, and Blaster McQuinn's custom multi-cannons. Pips to shields, let the V of the bounty scanner converge, and then unleash the laser hardpoints. The Viper wants to joust, but I pursue, the A-grade thrusters of my bigger snake keeping him in range. On his second pass, his shields pop and the autoloading Class 2 gatlings start picking apart his hull. On the third, Toca starts to charge a jump...and gets dusted before his FSD charges. Fifty thou from the BPM 72121 locals and 350,000 bounty from the Misfits for one less rogue. A minute later, I'm at Cori Port, waiting for a Fer-de-Lance to exit the outpost's one medium pad so I can dock, and six minutes later, I'm docking back at 2667 with the palladium.
Payday.
