The Onionhead Runs
29 Nov 2015NeilKD
As I said in my last entry, I got involved in running Onionhead out to Xelabara from Harvestport in the Kappa Fornacis system. I managed to do 6 runs carrying 8 tonnes of Onionhead at a time, but only got credited with 5. Stupidly, the first time I went out there I sold my cargo BEFORE registering for the CG. How dumb was that?!Anyway, when I decided to get involved, I gave up 16 tonnes of cargo capacity for a 4A Fuel Scoop. That still gave me 164 tonnes available space in Cutty Sark's holds. Old George, my Chief Instructor at flight school, always used to say "Never sacrifice survivability for profit. You can't sell that extra cargo if you're dead." I could have put in a smaller scoop and had more carrying capacity but I reckoned that the less time spent sitting in a star's corona the better.
Kappa Fornacis is conveniently close to LFT 37, only about 35 ly away, easily within Cutty Sark's range but I fuel scooped at every star along the way just to get back into practice. I was carrying a full load of Marine Equipment from Onnes Gateway, not for sale at Harvestport, most of that was destined for Navigator Market in Xelabara. There was no way I was going to fly all that way with empty holds! When we got to Harvestport I sold 8 tonnes of ME and bought my allocation of Onionhead. Then I entered Navigator Market / Exalabara into the navigation computer.
171 light years, 15 jumps in a fully laden Imperial Clipper. Then Cindy and I went through the route, jump by jump, star by star. The navigation computer is a pretty dumb beast and will quite happily take you into a region full of t tauri stars, or others where you can't fill the tanks, so we checked to make sure we wouldn't get stranded. Another one of Old Gerorge's sayings "Always check the paper before you sit down." Apart from the obvious context, I took that as a reminder to make sure I had everything I needed before starting a job. It's kept me out of trouble more times than I care to remember. Anyway the route was gold, scoopable stars all the way.
Long range flying can get boring very quickly, exit from hyperspace, ease gently into the corona until the scoop starts functioning, hold the heat levels at about 60% until the tank is full and then accelerate away and line up the next jump. Rinse and repeat. And again. After about the tenth jump we suddenly had a bit of excitement. Cindy was dozing in the left hand seat as I lined up for the next jump. I always like to let the ship cool down to no more than 40% before hitting the FSD. The Interdiction Alarm went off. Cindy awoke, eyes wide with fear. " Relax Darling." I said, "This is a normal part of trading these days and I'm ready for it. Now strap in tight and don't touch anything."
I had already pulled the throttle back to zero to submit to the interdiction. "It's probably an idiot with a Viper and an over extended ego. He's about to get a nasty surprise." As soon as we came into normal space I reset the power levels from Cruise (3 SYS, 3 ENG) to Combat ( 3.5 WEP, 1 ENG, 1.5 SYS), deployed my weapons and selected the fire group with the KWS on the second trigger. If this idiot was going to interrupt my trip I was going to make some money out of him. I locked on to my enemy and the sensors confirmed my guess, a Viper. Oh well, some kid was not going to be coming home to mommy tonight.
He opened fire as soon as he was in range. I wasn't worried; Cutty Sark has 6A Sheilds, more than adequate for anything he was carrying. I manouevered him in front of me and set the KWS to work, then I let loose with my main weapons, 3C Beams on gimbals. I love those guns. They boiled his sheilds away even before the KWS had finished scanning so I eased off a bit, just kept pinging him to let him know he was in trouble. Then I changed fire groups and openned up with the Multi Cannons. The Viper's hull shredded and the ship exploded. I didn't wait to see if the pilot had ejected but swung around and set course for the next star while the ship's computer evaluated the Bounty we had earned.
Not too long after the encounter with the idiot in the Viper, Exalabra system appeared in the HUD as the next jump. I cleared the star and set course for Navigator Market where I sold our cargo and signed up for the CG. In the wrong order. Duh!