Reflections on my first year as a Commander (3308-3309) Part 1: Getting My Footing
24 Feb 2023Victor Osiris
I wasn't sure what I was expecting for my first year as a Commander in the Pilot's Federation, but nothing could have prepared me for the realities of this past year. I joined the Pilot's Federation mainly as a way to get better, more profitable opportunities in my trade as a Bounty Hunter and Mercenary. I made okay money completely freelance, but the amount of people willing to deal under the table with a no-name merc is small, and many times opened me up to scams or jobs designed to kill me in the end. No loose ends. No paper trails. You get a good sense about people and their job offers real quick, or you die, simple as that. With the Pilot's Federation though, everything's official. More money, more security, and the amount of people willing to hire for their dirty work is as numerous as the systems in the Bubble.Quickly moved from my standard-issue Sidewinder to outfit a speedy, but fragile, Eagle. Prior to my time in the Pilot's Federation, most of my hunting was spent on foot with a gun in hand. It was a different beast entirely with my hands on a throttle and stick, taking out marks in the void of space. As such, many of my early days as a Commander (and the resulting insurance costs) were funded by taking missions and contracts for ground work, or signing up for a local war. After enough time though, I learned the benefits of being in a small, fast, and agile ship, learning to leverage my maneuverability against larger ships by pinning myself away from their hardpoints, while continuing to burn through their shields and hull with my small, but effective weaponry. This carried on even after a relatively quick upgrade into the much beefier Viper Mk III.
My piloting really took a turn though once I bought and outfitted my Vulture: the Starscourge-I. The bounties and assassinations just started racking up and up and up in this beautiful machine. I could sit in a Resource Extraction Site for hours, winding through the asteroids, just waiting to jump at the chance to lay waste to a company of pirates trying to prey on the mining squads. Was the first time I also managed to get an Interdictor outfitted to pull my mark out of supercruise.
The Starscourge and I hopped from system to system for a time, only settling into places for any length of time for as long as plentiful and valuable opportunities remained there, and moving on once they dried up. That was until I came to the system LHS 20, where I settled for an extended length in Ohm City. The system is highly Federally aligned, which appealed greatly to my anti-Imperial tastes and my indifference to the Alliance. The opportunities also never seemed to dry up, and there were prime Pirate hunting spots just a short flight from the station. Soon enough, I found myself to be close allies with the local Federal factions, which built my name up with the Federation enough to begin climbing through the ranks of the Federal Navy. While LHS 20 served me well for that time, once I got my ticket to Sol, I packed up, made any final amends and took care of any loose ends, and made for the birthplace of humanity.