Back to form
28 Oct 2015Fastforecast
Isn't it amazing how easily we fall back into who we are? I did exploration and trading and made money doing both. I walked away from bounty hunting and anything that would require me to take a life, would require me to unholster my weapons. Until tonight.Tonight I was going wheels up after delivering 20 tons of food to an out of the way station and saw a nav beacon. It's been a month or more since I last visited one so I thought I'd go see how it was going. A few seconds after dropping into real space, my scanner reads "Wanted." 400 meters away, 12 o'clock, no shields, Type 7. Sitting duck and he doesn't know I'm here. Almost without a thought the Python bared her fangs and superheated plasma sprang from the 3 class 3 burst cannons and ripped him into shreds of titanium and escaping gas. It felt...right.
I did some more scanning and found the system is in a civil war and now one faction wants my head. My Python is sporting her pirate colors and is attracting attention, a few ships even took me to one ring but none stripped them completely. The thrum of battle sings in my veins and I am one with my ship. Her shield is my shield, her armor my skin, her cannons, missiles and plasma accelerator are extensions of my will. Almost 700,000 credits in bounty before I moved away from the battle and shut down.
This far from combat, in a star system, the chances of me being found are negligible. She's ice cold and a quick systems check of the weapons, shields and armor is showing no strain from the fight. The missile racks are still healthy and the plasma accelerator is still showing over a 90% charge. I have been lying. Lying about who she is, about who I am. The Type 6 in a distant hangar in Sol, with it's worn paint and scorched windscreen is a personality I do not recognize here and now. The Anaconda, that battleship of monstrous proportions and firepower it seems slow, trundling and stodgy. In the Python I am fast, I am deadly. Her pirate paint is the outward expression of my soul.
As I close my eyes in my bunk I think about the dozens of lives I took tonight and a smile comes to my lips and a thought to my mind.
"It. Is. Good."