Chapter 2: Little fish in a BIG pond.
The Nova handled like a nightmare compared to the Pegasus. At a speed of 49 m/s and with a turning radius the size of a small moon it took me forever to fly to the shipyard in Cloudbase Southeast.
After I docked at the station I found my way to the local ship merchant. A large fat Argonian male sat behind a worn desk. The tiny room that he called his office stank of sweat and body odor. I wrinkled my nose as I stepped to the desk and offered a handshake to him.
"What do you want?" We asked without accepting my handshake.
"I am selling a ship, the hermes in bay 23." I replied, more then slightly irritated by his attitude. He replied with a grunt before pulling up my ship's stats on his computer.
"Not much to look at is it?" he said, "I can give you, umm... 450k cr for it."
"Not much to look at!?!" I asked in disbelief. "That ship will out run everyother ship in this dock! I spent over a million credits in upgrades for it!"
"Well that's the best I can offer, now I see your other ship the Nova? Now if you want to sell that I can give you 1.5m cr for it." I couldn't believe that he was trying to under cut me so bad, but I needed the money to upgrade the Nova so in the end I sold him the Pegasus and stormed out of his office.
After an hour or two and a couple hundred credits at the local bar I found my way to the ship mechanic. It took me a while to find him, but finally I found him underneath the engine of a Discoverer.
"Hello? Are you the mechanic?" I asked. With a twist of his body the slim man spun out from under the ship and then jumped to his feet.
"Hi! Im Kyle, what can I do for you?" Finally someone who knew how to treat costumers.
"I have a Nova Sentinel over in bay 15. I want to beef it's engine up as much as possible."
"Not a problem, man. If you got the dough I got just the engine for you. How's about 35k credits and i'll make her purrrr. You want any firepower?" Weapons and shields did seem like a good idea.
"How much?"
"I'm selling PACs for 70k a peice and 25mJ shields for 85k each." I knew that my pocketbook couldn't handle much at those prices.
"Give me 4 Pac's and 2 shields, it'll help if nothing else."
"Can do bro, I am also running a special on extensions, you want some?"
"Yeah give me anything that will help in a fight, and I'll need a trade extension too." I paid the man, noting that I had just over 500k credits left. I went back to the bar and threw back some more drinks before heading to bed for the night.
The next day the mechanic called up to my room to tell me that he had finished working on my ship. Apperantly he had stayed up all night working on it. I just wanted to know what drugs he was on. Leaving the station I headed for Elena's Fortune.
<Warping to Elena's Fortune>
Exiting warp I headed for the military complex, but halfway there...
"Boss, I got contacts, 5 pirate fighters being chased by what looks to be half the argon navy." Checking my scanner I saw the pirates, making a bee-line towards the west gate.
"Time to test this puppy out!" I flipped my ship around and accelerated towards the pirates. I topped out at 125m/s which was a lot slower then my last ship but I was still beating the argon navy to the pirates. I angled toward the last ship which was slowly falling behind the others, a Blastclaw. Coming into range I fired my guns stripping half of their shields away with the first salvo. The Blastclaw turnd hard towards me firing HEPTs as I barrolrolled to avoid them. Twisting my ship to come up under the belly of the blastclaw I gave it another burst destroying it's shields shields and damaging it's hull. Thinking that I had him I lined up the kill shot and... Boom! The blastclaw blew into stardust as a missle from the navy inpacted it's side right before I could pull the trigger. I sighed as I watched the rest of the pirates getting eaten up navy missles. Glancing down my HUD I notice that my shields are completely depleted.
"Hey Gizmo, did we get hit? I'm not showing any shields."
"Ah no boss, you didn't install any."
"What!?! I paid the mechainic at the shipyard to install them!"
"No boss, I checked the bill, there were no shields ordered." I couldn't believe that he had forgotten about the shields. It was a amazing that I hadn't been hit and blown to peices. Shaking my head I flew back to the Military outpost and bought a triplex scanner before heading back to the ship yard to confront the mechainic.
<Warping to Cludbase Southeast>
"Oh man, I forgot about those!" The mechanic said "I'll make you a deal and cut the price down to 85k a piece since I put you in danger man."
"That's what you wanted for them before." I said dryly
"Is it? Oh well that's the price then.. I'll load two of them on now"
I was feeling poor again when I left the station, this time with my shields intact. My wallet was down to 318k. Heading west I flew through the ore belt, Cloudbase Southwest and finally to Empire Mines, Paranoid space.
<Warping to Empire Mines>
"Hey boss, aren't we at war with the paranoid?" Gizmo inquired as we exited the gate and stated exploring.
"Yeah but a couple of years ago they signed a pact allowing traders and civillians to go back and forth. Leave the war to the Navy and all."
"Umm Boss, we got a contact. Single Xenon N just came through the gate behind us." I turned the ship hard trying to get the N in my sights, however the faster, more agile scout ship easily flew around me and headed away from me before a local paranoid ship blew it up with missiles. "Hey boss, why don't we ever use missiles?"
"Have you seen the price on those, they cost way more then they are worth! Especialy for how much we are getting paid right now." I tried to explorer Empire mines but with how slow the nova flew I soon got bored and turned back around.
<Warping to Cloudbase Southeast>
"Help! We need help! Pirates are attacking the station!" A cry came over the radio from a near by Chip Plant. Racing towards them I find a single Pirate Harrier shooting ineffectivly at the station's shields while a swarm of missles circled around it. I slowed my ship down to a stop and set back to watch the fireworks show. Then to my amusement the pirate bails out of the ship only to have a missle intended for his ship run right into him. After I stopped laughing I looked back up to find the harrier still floating in space with no missles around it and the Navy flying off to the north.
"Umm Gizmo... who owns that ships now?"
"Well boss by Commonwealth law it is now free to claim." I didn't even let him finish before I popped the hatch off and threw myself towards the harrier. A little bit of spacesuit flying later I was latched to the side of the harreir hacking my way into it through an access panel. After trying myself a few times I pluged Gizmo into it and watch in awe as the hatch to the harrier popped open and I was given command access to the ship. Smiling to myself I fixed up a couple dints in the armour and told Gizmo to sell the ship at the shipyard in Cloudbase Southeast.
"Umm boss, about the stuff on board, what do I do with it?"
"Have someone strip the ship first and then sell it. That lowlife who buys ships probably wouldn't even give us anything extra for the equipment." Getting back in my Nova I headed to the ship yard myself.
<Warping to Cloudbase Southeast>
Trying to find the mechanic was a chore again.
"Hey Gizmo how much did we make off that harrier?"
"We made 550k credits off of everything, boss." I stumbled a little
"That much!?! That is way more then the pegasus and the harrier wasn't even upgraded."
"Well boss, I guess I'm just good at negotiating"
"Yeah well from now on that's your job." Finally I came around the end of a mercury to see a pair of worn boots sticking out from under it. I bought 5 more PACs for my ship rounding it out with a full load for just 350k... it made me feel sick, but I knew it would be worth it if it came to a fight. I still had some cash in my pocket so I made my way to the bar before heading to bed.
---
Assets:
520,000 Credits
Nova Sentinel
2-25mJ shields
9 PACs
Note:Well Im back from vacation so get ready for some good reading.
@Moon: I have Frankie flying around like crazy.. already done some pretty cool stuff, kinda suprised me I half expected him to get blown up the way I was using him.... trying to stay in character and all
LEEROY JENKINS!!! I have about 1 page of notes left before you meet him.
@everyone else: I need wingmen! lol I have several ships in game labled as 3, 4, 5, ect that need pilots.... we already determined that gizmo isn't a fighter..... or I think I did at the start? when we first meet gizmo maybe? I dont remember
If ya'll like them I keep including them when my brain rolls them out... and I think it adds spice for my character to have nightmares lol
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