Bounty hunting...and running
29 Nov 2015Tiger61378
A few days ago I got a message from the Expert System, asking that some pirates be eliminated over in the next system. Hmm...14 of em, and 300k bonus plus the bounties? Sounds like a great time to go hunting and make some cash, since I'm still trying to outfit the RDS Centurion. So...load up the SCBs, make sure the Chaff is ready, and set course. When I arrived, there was a distress call from a convoy of Type 6s...the poor space cows were getting swarmed by pirates in small ships. Made for some very nice hunting, with 8 pirates dispatched in about 3-4 minutes, although the pay was lousy (Cobras and Sidewinders are really hardly worth the pulse laser energy, but at least I saved a trade convoy). Once the convoy was safe, I figured that it was time to head to the nav beacon.As I arrived, my first "customer" was a hapless pirate in a Hauler, who seemed to think that chasing and shooting at a Type 9 was a great idea. I quickly made it clear that it wasn't so smart by introducing him to the void. After that, I trolled around looking for pirates to eliminate, and the hunting was good. After my 11th kill though, things started to go badly. First, a Fer de Lance appeared, piloted by a bounty hunter. The guy didn't seem too interested in me (unlike his friends who I'd already been playing tag with off and on the whole night), but he DID seem interested in a pirate Python that I had just noticed. That's the point when it all went badly. I scanned the pirate, opened fire, and suddenly had a bounty on MY head. Lovely...just as a wing of security Anacondas appears....and of course my 400cr is FAR more important than the 200+k Python I'm chasing after. Hmm...wait...how do I have a bounty? Oh...the FDL is a hostile now...he must have decided to cut me off as I was diving in. So...time to do something fancy. Pop a few SCBs, pop chaff, realize that my SCBs are out, set course for Mundigal (not a system I should be visiting normally but its safe from this crowd), realize my shields are down and my hull is taking a pounding, retract hardpoints, canopy is starting to look a little cracked....jump. About a minute in witchspace, and I'm lined up on Fukushima Vision, the anarchy platform I use to hunt the Sirius Corporation's goons.
And, speaking of Sirius, one of their goons DID decide to come for me. So...my bounty over there is 5,400cr. higher, and the Emperor gets another 30 merits towards her expansions. Once I finished the poor sucker off, I landed at Fukushima, made my repairs, checked my bounty (the 400cr had expired), and headed back to the same nav beacon to finish off my last 2 victims.
Well....made for a somewhat lucrative night. Turned in about half a mil in bounties between the 3 systems I visited, another 300k from the Expert System's job offer, and not too much in repair bills. Now to turn my attention to HIP 16607....its under threat now and may fall out of Emperor Arissa's control, so I guess I've got some work to do to prevent that!