One heck of a mission kill.
02 Feb 2018Random Chaos
On a 3-day pass I received for my contributions to the [REDACTED] campaign, I found myself in Federal space the other day, helping a wingman with a side project of his that somehow involved shooting up a bunch of independents. It paid adequately, and helping friends is how you keep them, or at least, that's how it'd work in a better universe. Things were going well, and the Acheron's guns were making short work of everything that the opposition could throw at us, especially with support fire from one of those Farragut-class cruisers that our side had brought to the fight.I should have known better. Anything that seems too easy is a trap, and the cake-walk became a duel to the death with the arrival of a Majestic-class Interdictor. A medium-sized corporation in Federal space having their own cruiser or bribing someone in the Navy to bring one to their party is something I can kind of understand, what with how corrupt their government is, but where in the hell do a bunch of no-account wannabe aristocrats in Federal space get an Imperial cruiser? It boggles the mind, but there she was, with the word Formidable scrawled across the side in letters as tall as my ship. I'll admit, I almost bugged out right there, the thought of cashing out and heading home to enjoy the rest of my break had a certain appeal, but the two cruisers were more focused on each other than my little frigate.
Although a lot of new pilots tend to believe otherwise, a smaller ship can contribute to such a duel of titans. Capital ship power systems are an order of magnitude more powerful than anything in any fighter or corvette, and also generate an order of magnitude more heat, which is dealt with via a series of heat sinks scattered across the hull. It's an effective solution from an engineering standpoint, but also an Achilles' heel that leaves an underescorted ship vulnerable to attack from fighter squadrons... or a single frigate, if the crew is sufficiently mad.
It took five minutes of frantic action, skimming the hull of a ship that could smash mine into tin foil with ease if she ever focused her attention my way, but few of the Formidable's gunners ever took a shot at me, what with the more threatening Federal cruiser hovering in their sights. I can only imagine that they must have realized I was a threat after it was too late, and the inside of their ship was starting to feel like a sauna. When the last heat exchanger went, the Formidable frame-shifted away, and given her severely-damaged hull and the catastrophic failure of her cooling systems, she was declared a mission kill.
Something good ended up coming out of this for the Empire after all, as the crippled Formidable returned to the yards a few days later, limping along on a single jerry-rigged heat sink. With the help of my flight recorder and testimony, her command crew won't be able to play innocent, and will soon be facing charges for dereliction of duty, absence without leave, and stealing their ship.
As for me? I got 150,000 credits for my share of the kill, and it's going to be a pain having to explain to every new Legionairre just why I now have the outline of a Majestic-class Interdictor stenciled among my kill markings.