Lasers and Larceny
22 May 2024Darius BlackWolfe
21 MAY 3310 - LOG ENTRY #2Well, hell. I guess there ain't much point in havin' a logbook if I don't use it. Not a lot to tell this time, but I'm sure I'll probably put more words into telling what little there is than is strictly necessary, but who cares? It's not like my personal logbook entries are sitting on some central database where other folks can read 'em.
Anyway, this one'll be kinda scattershot, regardless.
The other day I was feeling a bit feistier than usual and set my scanner to pick up weapons fire signal sources. Things were going pretty great; Managed to hit several small battles in quick succession, rescued a small transport (that popped smoke without so much as a fare-thee-well) and fried up some wannabe pirates with even less experience behind the triggers than I do.
Then I hopped into the last one, where it was something a bit bigger than my usual Eagles and such; a Krait. Scan said the pilot was still just a harmless rook, so I set my sights on him.. and realized he was coming my way too, pretty quick, right about the time I pulled the trigger and rammed into him. Shields were down, but otherwise doin' fine; I got them fast-charging shields; a little light on the power, but for the most part I ain't missed it much. I came back around after getting one shot into him at point blank, only to find him right there again! After a couple more impacts, neither one of our shields were doing much of nothin', but my cannons, while nothing special, do a pretty fair job of putting big holes in hulls so I came back around again.
By this time, he was about as sick of playing bumper ships (that's reference to those old-timey amusement parks, for you that ain't so keen on keeping up with old Earth cultural phenomena) as I was, so we circled at a more respectable range. He was a lot faster than I would have expected, but with the maneuverability on my ship tuned to a fine degree, I managed to avoid getting too many more shots on me, while putting plenty more on him. That was when my vision flashed and my ship started making some not-so-fun noises, reporting damage to my canopy; sure enough, I could see cracks spidering the edges. The thought of turning tail definitely occurred to me at this point: No one's ever called me a hero, even back in my grunt days, but the last time I tried to run from a fight, all I ended up doing was giving them plenty of time to shoot me in the ass until I got to see how well my escape pod worked. Not an experience I was keen to repeat, so I kept dogging him, blazing his shield off every time it would come back up and pumping cannon rounds just far enough ahead for him to run right into 'em.
When I saw the flash of his engines overloading, it was the sweetest sight I'd seen in days. There was another pirate nearby, but he seemed busy enough with the local authorities that I decided to let him be, and scooped up what I could salvage from my foe. I even managed to get his escape pod, which is funny as hell; before I dropped him off with the authorities for processing, I got a look at him; he glared at me and said some things I'm frankly glad I couldn't hear through the glass. Hey buddy, I could have left you out there, just sayin'!
Anyway, that was enough derring-do for me for one day. I decided to land and poke around a local settlement, while they repaired my canopy. But wouldn't you know it, I'd hopped into an Imperial-controlled system, and while I'm as good as any when it comes to going along to get along, those uppity Imperials have always rubbed me the wrong way. The fact that they allow slavery to flourish isn't winning 'em any points in my book either, though I hear, uh, what's her name... Auvigny Duvall or something? Hell, I could look it up, but I ain't gonna. Anyway, I hear that she's campaigning against it, so if she ever comes to power, that'd be okay with me.
Anyway, point is, while poking around, I got one too many snide remarks and decided that these hoity-toity bastards could afford to lose a little bit of stuff. Nothing they'd miss in the long run, but it'll help fill out the coffers and maybe get me what I need to upgrade my Maverick, so that's what I call a win-win. Anyway, I was poking around in a place they probably shouldn't have let me wander, but they looked right at me and didn't say word one, so I wasn't gonna tell them. I knew I was pushing my luck, so I went ahead and cut one drawer open and grabbed the few things that were in there before beating a hasty retreat... but apparently, I wasn't quite quick enough. I heard that high-falutin' accent mention an alarm, and it was time to book.
Now, some folk are fine with killin'. I try not to, if I can avoid it, which is why you'll see me pick up the escape pods of sumbitches that go around pirating, even if they don't deserve it. So there wasn't much to do but turn on the shields and run.
Funny aside, because I actually remembered it just as I was running out toward my ship, bounding along in the fraction-Gs.. Don't go jumping on other ships when they're taking off. I did that about a week ago, wanted to see if they'd notice me and abort the takeoff; turns out, they do not, and the upward thrust is enough to ring your bell and leave you unconscious on the pad. Luckily for me it was another low-G world, or the fall probably would have killed me.
Anyway, so I'm jumping over crates and fences without even needing to give it a touch of the jets when it occurred to me that heading for my ship wasn't the best option. Thankfully they didn't have any anti-personnel gun emplacements, but the anti-air guns, the skimmers and the angry commandos on my ass would definitely do some damage before I got the Hostile Witness off the ground. (Ask me how I know!) so I cut a sharp left and ran for the hills. Last time I did this I ended up going off a cliff in the dark, but I suppose that's a story for another time. Today was broad daylight and relatively smooth terrain; which meant the skimmers could hound me for a good distance. I managed to duck behind a rock long enough to key in the dismiss sequence for the Witness; Getting away on foot wouldn't do me much good if they impounded my ride.
I think I juked just enough times, because when I came out from behind the rock, I saw skimmers zipping around like angry bees on the far side of the landing pad, presumably looking for yours truly. I didn't give 'em any time to realize the error, and I just kept running and bounding for all I was worth. Jumping is good on low-G planets, because you keep most of your forward momentum and get to save your breath. Once a backward glance showed the settlement out of sight, I slowed down and summoned my ship again.
As I was leaving, I requested docking permission; Strangely enough, they weren't too inclined to give me safe landing (expressed in uncharacteristically blunt language for those arrogant Imperials) so I laughed it off and headed for the sky. Guess I'd be finding a new place to rest and refuel for the night!