The Home of the Purple Rats
17 Apr 2016Jim Beaumont
Merc lasted about 2 days in the black, he was needed back in his systems. The Energy Industries had moved out to another system, and so he raced back to assist in putting a sure footing in place and establishing good roots. So that kept him occupied for a while. Oppo, well no surpise that he got as far as nowhere, he never even set out for Beagle point. The start of a nearby Community Goal dragged him away, to provide cover for the traders against pirates. But also, he’s looking at putting his roots down to, and looking for a system to make his home. So the three of us were doing our own thing for a few days.Myself, I had a plan to get the WP moving out of 10-11 but first I needed a break from the economic boom period they were experiencing. The WP themselves were probably enjoying the raise in fortunes in monetary terms, but I wanted them to enjoy greater fortunes in owning more system space. And only one way to get that started. War.
The Commies have themselves in 5 systems now. Home, Odu, 10-11, 802 and Merc’s first expansion system , Subi. Subi lies in the wrong direction to get to Duta, and I’m not going to push the WP to end up in war with Merc either, so that place can just sit. Home and Odu are relatively close, as is 802 but 10-11 is on a path to Duta, and so that is the expansion I needed. As so where to start a war. Not wanting to jeopardise Odu, I wasn’t going to start one there, nor obviously the home system and so 802 it was. For the first time, I was running missions for an opposition faction, gaining them some system influence until they reached a level where it triggered a power struggle and War. It caught the WP by surprise I think, and when the war started I hit the CZ’s to fight on the WP side of course. It finished the boom as expected so all we had to do was win the war for the WP and it was job done. I alerted Merc to the war, and he came over. A good thing too. The CZ’s were chaos, much harder to fight as the defenders and not the aggressors. We came into the zone as a wing, myself in my FAS and Merc in his Vette. We took a good pounding on the first day, having to retreat back to the station for repairs far more than we have before but we did make a good number of kills too.
It took 3 days of effort to win the war but won it we did. The WP raised its influence in the system beyond any level previous, securing its future there, ending the boom and leaving 10-11 and its expansion ready to progress.
I returned to Odu after the 3 days, and got into the Cabral Python to go off for three or four days while the WP got themselves organised and moved out of 10-11. I decided to take a long route and go trading in some rare commodities. I pulled out a map which had a list of systems trading rares, and worked a route that would send me round the bubble for a while. I’d hardly set off when Oppo got in touch about the CG he was at, saying it would be a nice earner to ship some Robotics into if I fancied it, while he would continue acting as cover. So I made my way to the CG via a new rare route and started moving the Robotics. After a couple of shipments, I got myself a Hauler taxi back to Odu, and picked up the Corte-Real Anaconda, more cargo space equals more profit. I’d shipped about 4000 tons when I finished for the first night. I was expecting to be waiting for 4-5 days doing the CG.
Not so.
I woke the next morning, and looked at the Galactic Map and it’s political data, only to find that the WP had expanded and moved out of 10-11 that morning. But where? Was it where I was expecting them to go? Dam this map. While it tells you they’ve gone, it won’t tell you where and you have to trawl local systems looking for them. They weren’t to be found in the system where I expected. No, only one better than that. They had gone straight to the home of the Purple Rats, and one step from Duta.
The game is on.