Nearly Losing My Defender...And Another Fleet Addition
27 Aug 2019Scubadog
Good command decision, or boldly stupid? You be the judge. I'd just pulled into Jaques to cash in some bounties after several hours patrolling the compromised nav beacon in Tenjin and I received a wing request from a commander I'd run missions with before. Adding about 4 million credits to my account had me feeling pretty good, even though I was tired when I was slipping through the mail slot. I decided to acknowledge the request and see what was up.
Apparently there was a large group of pirates being bad over in Desy and a couple of commanders wanted to increase their chances of success by upping their numbers. Since I was in my Defender I thought, sure why not? I quickly joined the other two and I came to realize there were actually several missions on the docket. And Desy only has outposts...no stations to handle large vessels. But, hey, we can handle this, right? And it was fine for a couple of hours. We'd swoop in, find ourselves outnumbered roughly 2-to-1, but we clearly outclassed and outgunned them. About 12 or so successful encounters later, I had logged nearly 100 million credits worth of bounties and rewards.
And then I got stupid. Cocky and stupid. I wasn't paying attention to where my wingmates were going, and I found the next drop point for our prey. Thinking they were right behind me, I dropped in on over fifteen ships that included two Corvettes, and Anaconda and a couple of Chieftains. I barely got the words "RED ALERT!" out of my mouth before every one of those ships started layin' into me. I immediately started evasive protocols and threw chaff in their faces while I deployed my fighter. They ate that up in mere seconds. I managed to take out a Chieftain before they reduced my shields down to nothing but a memory and the smell of burned electronics. I found that turning flight assist off really does nothing for you when you literally are surrounded. I looked like a ship trying to fire a Death Blossom like in that old movie "The Last Starfighter". But with decidedly less significant impact on the enemy.
Still no sign of my wingmates, and I've got no shields, modules failing all over the place and I can't boost enough to get clear of all of them. I turned FA off again and hit boost one last time, hoping inertia would work for me. And it did, sort of. The damn FSD won't fire! THE DAMN FSD WON'T FIRE!!!!! In spite of both module and hull reinforcements galore, I now have no FSD, no shield generator, no thrusters and hull dropping quickly to 19%. I'm coasting. Hull's at 10%. I desperately claw for my systems panel and smash against the REBOOT icon.
This is the strangest feeling, let me tell you. It's almost dead silent. Except for my labored breath on life support, the crackling of destroyed electronics, and my ship's systems trying to reboot. Oh, and the unceasing barrage of lasers and projectiles against my ship. I'm just waiting in the dark here to die. It's going to happen, I'm sure of it.
Then my ship panels begin to come to life and I get a quick glimpse in the flickering display that I'm at 8% hull. Closing my eyes, I hit the full throttle and afterburners....and away I go!!!! As I'm picking up speed, enemies still on me, I hit the FSD again. The unmistakable and welcome sound of a jump drive spinning up quickened my breathing. I'm at 7% hull--why haven't those cretins reduced me to a lifepod by now--and I gained enough distance that I could line up for a high-wake jump out...and I'm outta there.
Moments later I was dropping out of supercruise outside of Jaques Station. I look at my systems panel at all the damage. Merciful heavens, SO much red! Both my Thrusters and my FSD show ZERO. How the hell did I get out of there at ZERO? I goose the throttle and, to my surprise, I limp to the station. I figured I had to break wind just to create enough thrust to get through the mail slot. I touched down on the pad and nearly choked at the 1.2 million credit repair bill. But I survived to cash in that nearly-100 million credits I earned.
After sanitizing my soiled command chair, I jumped back to Colonia Dream to get some rest. But not just yet. For some reason, I felt I wanted to just treat myself. I pulled up the shipyard display and my finger paused over a Dolphin. It's not like I need another ship. Clearly. Why not spoil myself a bit? Dolphins are cheap enough, and they fit on a small pad. So, I did it. I confirmed the purchase.
I made short order of upgrading most of the modules and doing some remote engineering. All I have left to do now is visit the local engineers to apply some experimental features and I'm set for some very comfortable cruising. No purpose, no agenda. Just cruise. I've added The Ceti Lapsa to my fleet, totally unnecessarily.