A Yaki's Story DiD X3AP

[BankruptAssasin]

As one of the 160, I want to say I like this story and wish to see more of it. It had a rough start but it's been going quite nicely. On a side note, haven't "you" seen a Skirnir yet? They're definitely not propaganda .
PS: I don't know about others but photobucket refuses to be embedded for me. And it does not allow me to see the images directly unless I allow it to run every piece of code it wants. Could you upload the images to imgur.com?

--TDKPS

I tried imgur.com after your suggestion, for whatever reason the picture did not show, only the code imgur provide.

[BankruptAssasin]

Chapter 7 - Improving Relations

I am still working for the Terrans, the Nova i followed earlier has caused quite a stir, they think the Argons are helping the Teraformer ships and they have intelligence that backs up this story, the only problem is their informant is hold up in Argon space and they want me to go the rescue him, i am a little hesitant as i am quite friendly with the Argons and i have my stations and ClS Pilots but Lieutenant Jackson is in no mood for my problems, i am sent to Nathans Voyage where i meet a lieutenant Heywood, she is about as friendly as a Recluse on Acid, it turns out that Pearle, the person I'm here to collect and escort home has been captured by the Argons, Heywood has a suggestion and she asks me to follow her to a Teladi station in Grand Exchange, i followed for a while but got bored of here attitude and jumped ahead, randomly enough her pace quickened once i was already there.

When we finally met up again her contact was a typical Teladi
who was more than willing to help, but it would not be for free, we had to help him get rid of his competition, i am asked to go to Tears of greed and blow kill his "friend" once that is done i have to scan for a few ships and any carrying drugs i was to destroy, with that done he then tells me he can get me into M148 where Pearle is being kept which is the Argon Military home sector all i have to do is buy 200 teladinamium, typical Teladi, i do him a favor and i still have to spend money for information. I go to the Station and try to buy the goods, my problem here is that Skiron filled with e-cells, guns & some missiles it's quite difficult to fit anything else in, i would have to do this in DropShip, i buy the goods and make my way to M148 - when i arrive everyone is hostile i am ordered to leave but thankfully they are expecting a delivery of teladinaium, guess that Teladi knows his stuff, the only station not hostile is the Military outpost which is where i have to deliver the goods, with that done Hayward lands and then comes the madness, Heywood and Pearle escape and instead of jumping into their ship they decide to go the scenic root and airlock it, they said they could not get to the ship in time luckily i have some Cargo Life Support in the DropShip and can collect them, i was considering picking up Pearle and leaving Hayward to deal with the mess but the Terrans would not be so diplomatic about such things, now the whole sector is in uproar, i need to get to the Orbital Defense Station in Heretic's End i don't think i shall be back here for a while.

My money situations is still annoying me, i was able to capture 3 vultures while taking out that Teladi's competition, i also done some work for the split, they were not overly impressed by my earlier antics in taking those PPC but they give me over 1 million credits for a simple taxi mission and i am in the good graces with the Split again. I keep the high earning missions going to help my Missile fetcher ticking over when the Argons start feeling a little more generous and offer me a Thresher, talk about timing, i have to ask my Yaki friends for some more help but they are more than happy to do so, i must get round to buying that SPP, but i need a TL.

While dropping the Thresher off i get a com from a Boron called Po Po, he is flying a Boron Octopus, fast and nimble but it tickles me that he has shields on it, lets just say a space-fly cud put a dent in the hull. I open channels to see what he is looking, he is very young, barely out of teenage years, he is looking for some work and has asked me if i have anything for him to do, I'm not into taking on hired help but i remember being his age stuck in weavers tempest wanting an adventure, i too would have looked for a chance to get out and earn a living one way or another, plus i could do with having someone to talk to other than myself and this captains log. I tell him to sell his octopus and come aboard we have some work to do, we are going to put Timsup2nothin's design into action.

I don't know if i should keep the Thresher, it's a good ship, i have the shields for it in storage, i don't have all the weapons i would like for it and it will cost more than i have to even repair it, on the other hand i could sell it for 12 million and use that money on marines, ship repairs and buying stations, but the Thresher will offer further protection than Skiron Folk and could go toe to toe with a Q but my heart will lie with a Shrike & i aim to get one in the near future. Decisions decisions...

I get another call from the Terrans, they have more work for me to do, I decided not to tell the Terrans about Po Po, what good would it have done? All it would have done is given myself and Po Po extra paper work to complete and we have enough of that already drawing up our CLS network, if the did a cursory scan i would probably be in a couple 100 violations of Terran space law but i was helping them, not the other way round.

I am ordered to Asteroid Belt by general Ishiyama where Pearle is being debriefed, to my surprise it seems the Argons had nothing to do with the attacks and that the teraformers are being a little more selective over their targets hitting the Boron & certain split sectors which suggest that one of the many Split Families are involved, maybe that would suggest why I saw a Xenon Viper and Pearle seems to think that the Ryk or Zyarth families are the most likely. They have asked me to help with this by Dropping some Advanced satellites in Family Zyarth, Family Ryk & Zyarth's Dominion - Pearle will then monitor them for terraformer activity, i call in my Sat Dropper and take 3 of him, i jump to each sector which are quite large and plant all 3, i just have to wait on Pearle identifying the right area which he does rather quickly and informs me of some unusual activity in Family Zyarth, apparently some ships entered the area without using the gates, not unusual for me but apparently its important so i jump in and have to scan a couple of ships to find the jumpdrive components, i scan a couple of Caimens and strike lucky, i have to get the pilot to bail which is easy in a Skiron but he is charging his jumpdrive so its a race against time, he bails with only 19% hull, Pearle failed to mention the little fact that i will need to use this ship for the next part of the mission, I look at Po Po, he waves his tentacles in a don't even think about it gesture, i know i have to go, the Terrans still don't know about Po Po so i guess the captain will go down with someone Else's ship.

In the end i decide i have to go but before i do i have to deal with the local fuzz, 2 Mamba's decide they have a problem with me and the rep i gained earlier just got wiped out but I'm up 2 Mambas. As it turns out the Terrans want me to plant a tracking device on the Elephant in the same sector, I jump into the Caimen which has no shields, no weapons, it's hull is 19% and it's not that fast, i order the Po Po to keep the Skiron beside me and to protect me and make my way over at a snails pace knowing a coupe of shots and I'm toast, once the scan is made i get a hurried message telling me to quickly escape, but not quickly enough, a number of Teraformer ships come out of the Elephant and swarm around me and sky is alight with hell fire....

Assets
Skiron - Skiron Folk
Dropship - Chokaro
First Blood - Tenjin
Fetch "Falcon hauler"
Missile Storage - Mercury Tanker
Guns & Tech Storage - Mercury SF
Discoverer - Sat Drop

Nova x 2
Nova Raider x 1
Falcon Sentinal
Manta x 1
Mamba x 2

CLS TS ships + 3 random Transport Ships - Missile Fetching

Scruffin & Plankton Farm Complex (The wall) - Owns 2 CLS ships
Ore Mine L - Aladnas Hill - Owns 2 CLS Ships

Credits 9 Million + Change

[BankruptAssasin]

Chapter 8 - Teladi Network

Thankfully it was coming from my Skiron, Po Po was keeping me protected and to top it off i was in Transporter range i jumped into the Skiron which was a good thing, the Caimen was destroyed about 5 seconds later, the ships that came out of the Elephant nothing too serious, couple of ships i hadn't really seen before but they were no match for the Skiron.

After escaping i was told to go to Ocean of Fantasy and rendezvousing with the Terran Odin i was given my prize, a Cutlass, unfortunately i have moved onto M6 ships now but i strip the weapons of the Cutlass along with it's shields and sell the cutlass for some much needed credit.

The tracking device I planted helps the terrans track the Elephant to the Unknown Sector east of Zyarth's Dominion, i am asked to help with the assault, apparently the Terrans are looking for a Split scientist and he is aboard the Elephant, the only way to get to him is to board the Elephant, the Terrans have this sorted and are sending in three scabbards filled with marines which i have to cover, there is a huge swarm of Split fighters but i am told not to worry about them the Terrans will sort them out, all i have to do is look after the scabbards, the Marines board without hassle, the ships the elephant release are swipe away with Hept, Cig and PRG's, the marines blow a few charges but are unable to find out who is working for the Split, lucky for us a pilot in an Enhanced Jaguar has bailed and I have to collect him, I also grab the Jag as I have not seen many of these around and a number of split/terran ships that have bailed, hope the Terrans won't mind me having salvage rights. I have to drop the Pilot of at the Moon base which is a new one for me, I feel sorry for him, god knows what these Terrans do to people who help toasters and General Ichiyama pretty much confirms my fears and informs you that this could take a while.

My credits are still flying out, i have all my marines training hard and they are nearly ready, i want them all to be competent in all skills, so that's between 2-3* in everything until their fighting skill increases, the cutlass provided me with some much needed cash and the guns i am sure will come in handy, i haven't seen much terran stations selling the weapons and those that do have zero resources - a problem I'm not sure the Terrans are aware off.

I am so desperate for cash i even accepted a mission from the Paranid, I then went about pirating again and did a few missions for Terracorp, i now have typhoons, over 100 of them so i was able to take out the 2 Carracks and numerous bombers that spawned, probably cost me over 400k in ordinance for a 100k reward, not good business sense in anyone's eyes, and to top it all off the Auto pilot has decided to go kamikaze again, well Po Po is blaming the Auto pilot, i was in my office drawing up more plans for my trading empire which i have almost forgot about with working for the Terrans and left Po Po in charge, The crash has left my Skiron with 63% hull, which took the Skirons most important feature - speed, and to top it off i have bought 2 Kestrels as scouts, these were to lay sats and scan asteroids, hopefully looking for some nividium but both have been wiped out by the Xenon, a Q & a N.

I have decided to set up my own CLS network in Teladi space, the reason for this is i am planning for the future, i want a Shrike, it's not the prettiest thing in space but it does it's job well and to be honest i will be sitting in the cockpit and not looking at it, the plan is to keep the local weapon fabs supplied with the goods i will need in the future such as Guass Cannons, Energy Bolt Chainguns, CIG and hopefully in the future Hammer Torpedoes for an M7M. I needed a lot of TS, a lot of different kind of Ts for different features of the process, i capped a lot of Demeters, a few Boron Dolphins and bought a couple of Mercurys, I wasn't overly fused with the Demeter/Dolphin damage as these would be the traps, they were just going to sit in a station and buy the items when the price was right, the Mercurys were going to be the sellers so i needed speed and these would have to be bought or repaired. Expensive but if my calculation are correct i will make my money back quickly.

I also needed a HQ mainly for e-cell storage, this was to be 2 Cattle Farm L with production switched of, i know quite random but they are fairly cheap, hindsight is a wonderful thing i will find out later. I would also have a storage ship based there to hold any extra nostrop - all in all i had over 20 ships working for this 1 complex - 5 traps on the weapon fabs, 5 on the surrounding SPP, 2 in the Flower Farms, 2 in the Sun Oil Refineries, i then had 1 e-cell supplier to each of the flower and sun refineries, 1 supplying flowers to the oil farms, 2 supplying nostrop to the surrounding stations i needed, 2 supplying Ore plus a couple extra doing other things i needed. I give the HQ 3 million to spend, i would make money by selling the excess stock to the EQ docks at average price after buying them at 1 below average price, this does not sound like much but 1 below average in a gauss cannon is a big deal. So far the surrounding stations are being serviced properly and are working well, the only issue is that the AI randomly keep buying before it hits my threshold which is annoying as they usually buy only if it cheaper than average price so i keep losing the goods, i may need to change tactics a little.

This little exercise has sent my funds spiraling and the only thing i could do was sell my Thresher, this give me a nice 12 million credit boast but i was seriously thinking of using it, I also had to start pirating again which got me some extra 1gj shields and thankfully Terracorp have another mission for me, another delivery of missiles which i already have so I'm up another couple hundred thousand, there is nothing else for me to do at the minute, Terrocorp have no missions and i don't fancy doing anything for the Terrans, I'm still thinking about that Split i handed over to them, even the Paranid in the Pirate belt from Farhams Legend to Hatikvahs seem to have dried up so i take the opportunity to fine tune my Teladi business which is very tedious, i have spent a few hours at this and i still keep missing out, i may have to contact the author Timstp2nothin and see if he can recommend any improvements.

Po Po has been invaluable, although quite young and naive he is also very smart, he chipped in with ideas for the CLS network, he is also managing the hiring process for the CLS Pilots, he has been able to use apprentice pilots for the Traps seeing as i don't really need the smartest to do 1 simple task, he is saving me money but he has also arranged for some Logistican Pilots to do the bulk of the work meaning i can reduce the amount of pilots and ships needed.

He has also began asking me questions about who i am? he has seen me kill for Terracorp, seen me deliver goods for Terracorp and other random missions, he has seen me help the Terrans, has seen my face when i know whats going to happen to the Split i give to the Terrans, has been around when i "borrowed" that Thresher from the Argon, has been with me when i have done Taxi missions, has been there when I was pirating and has now helped with getting my trade empire off the ground, his questions are all valid and has confirmed to myself that i have be pulled in every direction with no real end goal insight.

As i consider his questions i realize that i don't know who i am anymore, some part of me has irrevocably changed inside, I set out as a simple trader, since then i have been forced out of necessity & greed to do things against my nature, I took on contracts to end peoples lives, i have forced people unwillingly to join my marines and i have attacked ships to steal their cargo, maybe by helping the Terrans, Terracorp and anyone else who asks for my help I am destroying some kind of evil now and preventing some greater evil later and just maybe by doing this i will earn some kind of redemption.

Assets
Skiron - Skiron Folk
Dropship - Chokaro
First Blood - Tenjin
Fetch "Falcon hauler"
Missile Storage - Mercury Tanker
Guns & Tech Storage - Mercury SF
Discoverer - Sat Drop

Nova x 2
Nova Raider x 1
Falcon Sentinal
Manta x 1
Enhanced Jaguar x 1

CLS TS x 27 + 3 random Transport Ships - Missile Fetching

Scruffin & Plankton Farm Complex (The wall) - Owns 2 CLS ships
Ore Mine L - Aladnas Hill - Owns 2 CLS Ships
HQ - PTNI - Own 23 CLS Ships

Credits 13 Million + Change

[BankruptAssasin]

Chapter 9 - Marines Away

I get a number of quick messages all at once, it appears the Money Boxes on legs have finally finished their training, i have decided to restrict their training until they know which way to point the guns. They have 2* in all stats with some even higher, the reason for me not putting them in to full training is that it costs too much money and i don't want to waste a few million on a marine that dies within 2 seconds. Those that survive and fight skill increases will then be put back to training, I am also going around looking better fighting marines once my money situation improves.

Po Po has informed me that we have a possible target in Split Fire, he has took it upon himself to have all the satellites we have placed inform us when a Capital ship appears, the program he says is called the Satellite Early Warning Network designed by Cycrow. It is a very handy program, the only thing is he hasn't got it completely sorted, my message box is getting full and the voice on the machine is really annoying, i think he needs to set the settings better and to be less frequent. But the annoyance pays of with a Heavy Nemesis, but when we attempt the boarding the Marines all all bail out, the hull is too badly damaged, it must have been in a battle before as the hull was at 23% before hand but the greenhorns must have really shot it up, I'm just glad they didn't manage to shoot each other up, all 8 marines bail and i quickly swipe them up.

Next was another Nemesis, this went very smoothly and all my Marines survived, had 45% hull and still had it's jump drive but unfortunately it came with no goodies, i then found an advanced Chokaro, this one although smaller cargo hold it can hold 6 fighters which is more than any other TM, but again the Hull has been damaged and i don't want to risk it with green horns. I then begin to get smarter and start targeting TM's, the reason for this is that they don't have enough power to do me any real damage, they are still slow and they only have 2 decks for the marines to fight, what better way to train marines? and now the Split don't like me and the Paranid even more so, i have managed to board 7 TM's without a single loss in my Marines, either i have been very lucky or these Marines are exceptional and with this thought i already signed their death warrant.

I was looking for something other than a TM, M6 are handy but can pack a punch, M7 are awesome but again will be hard to board, a M7M would make a brilliant addition to my fleet and means i would only have to send a boarding pod and forget about space walking, I discussed this with Po Po and he agreed, although he was hesitant to try it with just this bunch but we agreed our next target would be an Ares, the Paranid M7M like the one that is slowly making it's way through Split Fire. It has an escort, i launched a Hammerhead at it in the hope the shock waves would wreck the escort but the escort shot the missile down, to my disbelief nothing happened, i thought the missile would have exploded anyway, maybe it was a dud, i launch another one but the same thing happens, unfortunate for me but i did learn something , PBG is really good at missile defense. I guess we do this the hard way, i go in and start peppering the Ares with Hept and the escort start hammering me but the Skiron can handle what they through, I'm wary of the PBG welding Perseus's but with me roiling out Dragonflys, wasps and thunderbolts the escort does not last long, but when i look for the Ares it is near the south gate going into Paranid territory, Jumpdrive charging evasive maneuver from the Ares, i scanned him earlier and he had only 2 Torpedoes which he proceeded to launch at me at the beginning of the fight, that's the good thing about these, once they out of missiles they are pretty useless are a sitting duck, i laced him with fire then switched to only 1 weapon to keep the shields down, i called in the manta who had another 5 marines trained and i sent the marines from both the Skiron and the Mata over, 13 marines, the first deck only 2 died, the 2nd & 3rd deck i was worried as i was only left with 5 marines and on the last deck i had 2, they were able to hack the core and i am now the proud owner of an Ares and to top it all off it came with 2 2gj shields still intact and 45% hull - the only downside is that i lost the majority of my strike team and i would need to buy and train a new batch.

I am now on a Marine hunting exercise and have decided that i will pay over the odds if the Marine is a good fighter, this will hopefully increase the likelihood of them surviving, i will also look at targeting TP ships, i can then convert the passengers into marines - they wont be the best but they can be meat shields for the good ones.

Some of my Marines that i had before were now finished training, they were not the best n fighting and i think they are the ones i converted earlier, but they now have some decent stats in each department, these will get trained in fighting by boarding TM's only, they would not survive anything bigger but what i have noticed is that I need all the marines trained in hacking, i have had a few problems with hacking the core on some tm's due to an advanced firewall.

The road to redemption is long and paved with good intentions sometimes hidden within evil deeds....

Assets
Skiron - Skiron Folk
Dropship - Chokaro
First Blood - Tenjin
Fetch "Falcon hauler"
Missile Storage - Mercury Tanker
Guns & Tech Storage - Mercury SF
Discoverer - Sat Drop

Nova x 2
Nova Raider x 1
Falcon Sentinel
Manta
Enhanced Jaguar x 1
Ares x 1

Scruffin & Plankton Farm Complex (The wall) - 2 CLS ships

Ore Mine L - Aladnas Hill - 2 CLS Ships

HQ - PTNI - 23 ClS Ships

Credits 12 Million + Change

[BankruptAssasin]

Chapter 10 - It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, was the Earth.

It has just struck me that I have not visited my Ore Mine in Aladna Hill, I have left everything to Po Po to organize although with him helping with my boarding exploits I have been thinking of looking for a dedicated complex manager. I leave Po Po to look after the Skiron and I jump in my Enhanced Jaguar, I have been looking for an excuse to get in a have a test drive, I arrive in Aladna Hill and open up channels with the Ore Mine

"Ore Mine L Alpha this is Capt Rudnik requesting permission to dock".

“Docking Permission Granted” came the response over the channels, "Welcome to Ore Mine L Alpha Captain Rudnik"

I manually drive the Jaguar in, I don’t trust the auto pilot to steer me safely into a massive asteroid, having flash backs from my earlier incident. I am greeted in the hangar by Sala Mndr, the manager of the Ore Mine, He is an old time Split, the kind I think like to eat “Boron” soup, considering that it was Po Po that was in charge of hiring I was a little surprised, we sat in his office and he attempts to amuse me by telling some facts about mining in general,

"To gain access to the Ore it is necessary to remove all waste material. There is often more waste than Ore during the life of a mine"

"Did you know that after Nividium is mined, 63% of it is used in Jewelery, 21% in credits, 15% is used for industry while the final 1% has been used in dental work?"

Interesting facts, I learned something new today but I was on a tight schedule so hurried along our conversation

"I will get straight to the point, I need production to increase over the next few days and I don't want any of it sold"

Sala Mndr looked at me with a bemused look on his face

“I understand that this is an unusual request, but it is something I need to happen”

“May I ask why?”

“You remember Po Po?” he nodded yes “well I have asked him to help with increasing money, he seems to think the Goners will be looking my help soon and that they may need a large quantity of Ore”
“You seem to trust this young Boron, maybe a bit too much”

“I have no reason not to; he has helped me in numerous ways, helped me in designing a trading model, has helped with my military exercises and off course has helped in the hiring process of my factories and ships”

“Ha, you and I are very different you see Captain, I don’t trust anyone, its best working for yourself, it means only you can betray yourself. Your orders shall be carried out, I will call in the freighters, if production is to be increased we need extra energy cells”

"It will only be for a few days, do what you think is necessary”

I am just clearing the Hanger Bay door when Po Po contacts me,

"What you think of Mr Mndr?"

I thought of a word to describe him but the only one that came to mind was “Random”

Po Po chuckled to himself “he does take some getting use too, he does not like the Boron, this he freely admits but he is one of the best Ore gatherers in the Universe”

"I'm am on my way back, did you have anything to report?”

“There is a message on the computer screen from the Terrans, looks like they have another errand for us to do, on another note our Teladi Network has not took off as we thought it would”

“Not to worry, we will get in contact with Timsup2nothing and see what he suggests; I should be with you in 2 hours, Rudnik out”

I had been thinking about what Mndr had said, had I put to much trust in Po Po? I mean he just showed up one day asking for work and I accepted him on a whim, should I push him on the subject based on the warning from an old hating Split?

I get back to my Skiron and check the message, apparently Ichiyama and Pearle have "extracted" the information from the Split, I thought i heard the word extracted drew out a little longer than it should have been, the guy in charge of this whole mess is called Mark Winters, he is known by the Terrans from before the terraformer war and is thought that he has been cryogenically frozen over the centuries and is based in a colony lost in the war called Aldrin, they have got the jumpgate signature and have asked me to join them there. I was glad the Terrans got back to me when they did, jumping Paranid TM's has been a little repetitive and i have a failed a couple now, and to make matters worse the Paranid have now taken to having me as an enemy even in Pirate sectors and have blown away a couple satellites and even 2 Blastclaws on me, a little frustrating to say the least but understandable, they have donated quite a few ships and tech to me.

The Terrans have given me a side mission in Mars, they have also give me 20 marines, i looked at them, some are OK while some are really just meat shields, what really surprised me was that they were Terran, Split & Boron and i think one of them was the Split i handed over, i wonder if the others were in a similar situation? I was ordered to use these to board a Vidar, quite random being asked to board a Terran ship in Terran space by the Terrans but i give it a go anyway, the Marines do a good job, they all survive and the Vidar is at 45% hull, I have noticed that in 3 of my boarding attempts the hull is left with 45%, I’m not sure if that's intentional or not.

I send the Vidar and the scabbard the marines came in to Omicron Lyrae, the Vidar is a good ship especially against bigger prey but fighters tend to be too fast for the Terran weapons.

I meet with Jackson in The Moon, he is in a Tyr battleship, a scary sight for those that cross it, although i think the Terran ships look almost as bad as the OTAS ones, some say the Teladi are lazy in their design, but these Terran ships are horrible to look at. He gives me the coordinates to make my own way. I stock up on thunderbolts and then make the jump, you never know what you’re going to face and when they hand you a Vidar before hand your mind starts to race. We jumped in expecting the worse and we were sort of correct, there was no enemies in sight but the sector was the biggest i have ever seen, and we see a massive rock right in the middle of the sector, bigger than any planet i have seen, and just to give you the scale of things i am asked to recon with the stations, the stations look close but the docking ports are over 100km away, the whole sector is just full of massive objects.

On my way over to the nearest station a new kind of ship appears, it's a Springblossom or so the signature says, the encyclopedia has it built in and it's an M6 class ship but pretty much the fastest there is, i guess the developers got fed up traveling over 100km to each station, I don’t blame them. Jackson has ordered the fleet to intercept but the Springblossom has already came to a halt and a Human of all things hails us, here we were expecting AGI Inteligence and we meet Humans, he claims to be the commander of Aldrin Defense and they have been using Terraformer technology that never changed into the Xenon but it has been stole by the elusive Winters who now controls the Terraformer CPU ship. I am ordered to patrol the area while Jackson has a chat with the Aldrin government, Po Po was almost as speechless as i was, there is me complaining about patrolling Terran sectors and now i have to patrol the single biggest sector in the universe, my anger is about to reach boiling point when a stroke of luck happens, the Xenon come to me, i don't need to patrol anywhere and the Xenon drop like flies, or they at least malfunction, i had to call in DropShip and load the L's and #deca.defa's in 3 times, it's at times like these that i wish i had the advanced Chokoro.

While i was off kicking toasters butts the Terrans have went and found the Terran CPU ship, as everything else it is absolutely massive and again i am given another Marine boarding team, i launch them when the shields are low but halfway through i get a message saying the shields fried them, the Terrans had stopped firing, bloody idiots, lucky i hadn't spent my money on training the marines, I think the Terrans sabotaged me as they ended up taking control with their own marines.

Jackson contacts me and asks me to transport the Aldrin dignitaries to Earth. I dock in the station and pick them up, i have had to hide Po Po, and I don't think the Aldrin dignitaries would be happy sitting in the cargo bay. As it turns out Earth is very well guarded, the Autopilot steered out of the way and into a no go zone, the Terrans quickly warned me to alter my course under threat of inialation i wonder what they are hiding? I took control and quickly docked with the help of the docking computer; i get congratulated by the Terrans and given my First M8 Bomber, a Claymore. I am now free of the Terrans even though they never captured Winters but i can travel peacefully to any of their sectors, i have also been cleared to buy any of their ships depending on reputation, I wonder how good that Springblossom really is....

I take stock of what i have got from while working with the Terrans, I was given Four Rapiers, One Advanced Discoverer, Two Scabbards, 20 Marines (30 including the sabotaged ones) A Vidar and a Claymore, not something to be sniffed at plus i was able to cap a large number of ships along the way, it also brings my total marine count to 47 - a lot of training already started and money is leaking like oxygen in space. I decided to cash in on the ships i capped in Aldrin, I kept 1 L which was hardly damaged but stripped the others an sold the carcass, it has brought my money to a respectable level but still not to what i would feel comfortable with.

Assets
Skiron - Skiron Folk
Dropship - Chokaro
First Blood - Tenjin
Fetch "Falcon hauler"
Missile Storage - Mercury Tanker
Guns & Tech Storage - Mercury SF
Discoverer - Sat Drop

Nova x 2
Nova Raider x 1
Falcon Sentinal
Enhanced Jaguar x 1
Ares x 1
Vidar x 1
Claymore x 1
L x 1
Manta x 1
Express Hauler
Scabbard x 2

3 random Transport Ships - Missile Fetching

Scruffin & Plankton Farm Complex (The wall) - 2 CLS ships
Ore Mine L - Aladnas Hill - 2 CLS Ships
HQ - PTNI - 23 CLS Ships

Credits 12 Million + Change

[BankruptAssasin]

Chapter 11 - Goner help the Goner's

I am officially bankrupt, i have less than 1 million credits and the marines are sucking in the credits, i have had to scrape the bottom of the barrel and start selling of the loot i captured along the way such as 12-13 FBL's which nets me a few million, I also start selling some of the useless missiles and some other gear such as the mobile drilling systems i capped, i kept 5 out of the 10 in case i want to do some remote mining.

I also start to pick on the Paranids again, they have destroyed a number of my property now and i want some revenge& they have a habit of carrying shields and other stuff i can sell and they do not let me down. I managed to get a few to drop their missiles, crystals, Mobile drilling systems, ammunition, FBL's Pac's, Hept's - all this makes the Paranid mad but it helps with the bank balance, i check my storage ships and see that Guns & Tech storage is worth over 27 million alone, the DropShip carrying my recent spoils is now valued at over 19 million. I also start thinking about taking on a few boarding ops, i can go for another Ares, these will generate more than enough cash to pay for the marines and maybe even help pay to fix the Vidar, I end up following one across a few pirate sectors, i did a cursory scan and seen he had over 400 hammers and 50 flails, i have had my missile fetcher jumping all over looking for hammers and he has returned empty handed, actually a better description would be that he never left to fetch some as the universe is completely dry, even the Teladi one I'm feeding, it's resources are full but it is not producing. This was a perfect chance to get some, he had a sizable escort with him so i waited until he was through the gates and then started launching Thunderbolts & dragonflys, i took out a substantial amount before they even realized what was happening 5 Hades bombers, 5/6 fighters and a few scouts.

The Ares is on to me in the next sector and is using the Hammers for fun, every time i shot them down another 3/4 would come at me, this went on for a while and he was down to 200, but he was close to Paranid space and i had no way of stopping him until he run out of missiles, i had to let him go, this was frustrating as i used practically all my thunderbolts on his escort and it was all for nothing. I then spot another Ares in Clarity's End, I jump in to investigate and see he is packing another couple hundred of Hammers, Po Po suggests that things are just not going for me today but on my way back to friendly waters i see a lonely Hyperion Vanguard, i have read about this ship and that it may just be the best M6 class ship, i have a Skiron and it's pretty awesome so the Hyperion must amazing. Load the last remaining Thunderbolts and of they go, i get it's shields down enough for boarding and then release the noobs, all goes to plan, all marines survive and i transfer over my Jumpdrive and jump the Hyperion with 19% hull to Light of Heart while i trek over and pick it up again, Po Po suggests that i start working for the Goners, he has heard they need some help with a temple or something and since i have nothing else to do i head that way.

I jump to Elysium of Life and Osamu Avens on the Goner TL the Ozias contacts me asking for some help, i have never really cared that much about religion until recently, i have killed more people than i care to count and i have stolen more and more, maybe working for the Goners will help with my redemption, plus they are offering decent money in the first mission, Avens is responsible for the construction of the new Goner Temple, he informs me that he has already hired someone but they never arrived back with the resources, he is pained to think what happened to them but he must carry on, the temple must be built.

Low and Behold they are looking a large quantity of Ore, Avens wants me to gatherer 2000 Ore and 200 silicon, i understand why his other contract didn't come back, he couldn't be bothered delivering an obscene amount of Ore but i have an Ore mine and Po Po was right, i wonder how he knew they needed so much?

We would require a bigger ship than the Skiron to deliver such a quantity of Ore, i relieve the burden of the CLS pilot and do the deliveries myself, the 200 Silicon is easily bought and everything was delivered promptly to the Goners in Elysium of Light.

The Goners are delighted with my progress and Jani Hall, another Goner offers me some future prospects of work and asks for another shipment of 2000 ore and 1200 teladinaium, another easy mission and another easy fortune made, the Goners sure do have a lot of money to throw around, what religious organization doesn't these days?

Osamu Avens informs me that they have no more work for me at the moment but will be in contact once they are finished with this shipment.
This gives me enough time to decide where to go next, Po Po suggests that i return home and start doing some work for the Yaki, you know sometimes i think Po Po is my guilty conscience, i decide that he is right and that i will need TL, I was going to order a commonwealth TL to jump in but they would be cut to shreds by the Yaki even if it's working for me, but this will set me back at least 20 million credits, i fancy 2, the Elephant due to its speed and looks but it can't carry the same as something like a mammoth, but the mammoth can only carry a small selection of fighters compared to the Elephant, the other is a Ryu, the Yaki TL and i know from experience that the Ryu is an awesome ship that carrys a good load and has room for 8 ships, i think this is my goal, i want to buy a Ryu. Thinking about the Yaki reminds me, I have not seen one single attack on any of the Commonwealth races from my brethren unless they enter their sectors, i wonder where the Armada is and what it's actually doing?

Assets
Skiron - Skiron Folk
Dropship - Chokaro
First Blood - Tenjin
Fetch "Falcon hauler"
Missile Storage - Mercury Tanker
Guns & Tech Storage - Mercury SF
Discoverer - Sat Drop

Nova x 2
Nova Raider x 1
Falcon Sentinel
Manta x 1
Enhanced Jaguar x 1
Ares x 1
Vidar x 1
Hyperion Vanguard
Claymore x 1
L x 1
Express Hauler
Scabbard x 2

3 random Transport Ships - Missile Fetching

Scruffin & Plankton Farm Complex (The wall) - Owns 2 CLS ships
Ore Mine L - Aladnas Hill - Owns 2 CLS Ships
HQ - PTNI - Own 23 CLS Ships

Credits 4 Million + Change

[BankruptAssasin]

Chapter 12 - Paperwork

I was able to contact the Author Timsup2nothin via Email (EgosoftMail) and he has told me to be patient, I'm not the most patient person in the world but i was willing to listen to him but i think we had set up wrong in the first place, i wasn't making money as fast as i thought i should have been so what did i do? i spent some more money trying to fix it, this money came from abandoned ships which i have found from Nyanas right down to Merchant Haven, Pirates, Xenon and traders, either way they brought my funds up to 8 million, i then did a reshuffle of ships.

I have 2 ships sitting in the Tech Fabs - EBC Forge, Gauss Cannon Forge (although i may change this to the Heavy weapons forge in PTNI) Flak Forge, Squash Mine, CIG & Hammer Torpedo, 1 will be a trap who buys the goods at 1 below average, the other will sell the nostrop i bought earlier, what happens here is that i have a ship that gathers the nostrop from my nostrop traps and stores it in my storage tank, the distributor then loads it from the storage tank and then unloads it at each of the selling ships at the tech fabs who have instructions to sell at 111, seeing as i am controlling the local distribution i can wait out for the 111 comfortably and still make the sale.

I also have my E-cell gatherer selling the e-cells to the Nostrop and Flower farms, he loads them from the e-cell traps and sells them at average price, any that he has not sold go into the HQ at which point i have another trader who loads these e-cells and sells them directly to the tech fabs.

I have increased my HQ ships to 30, and i hope to start bringing in the money i need and i also hope my traps start buying the goods, i will keep some of the tech but i can also sell them at average price to a equipment dock so i will be making money on them also, i have just finished this long and tedious task, and like i said before i was left scratching my head - i hope Timsup2nothin reads this and gives me any extra pointers.

On my travels i came across a few ships i want to keep, first of all a Teladi Kea, a decent M3, slow but is a Tank with its 125mj of shields, but i quickly sell it when i come across an enhanced Kea, faster, same shields and almost twice the cargo hold, a very useful M3. I also picked up a couple of Expresses and a few vultures, i was also attacked my a "Mob Boss" in his Carrack, thankfully it was in Argon space as i was given over 500k for the kill, my shields hit 12% but that was because i crashed into the Carrack, it didn't leave me much goods other than some less than useful missiles and this has been a few times i have destroyed a Carrack and it only dropped a few missiles, I wonder why they don't dropped the 20 odd IBL & CIG they carry?

My Marines have started finishing their training, i have a load of 4/5* fighters but also some 2* fighters, i put the better fighters back to training and then bring 8 marines in my Skiron, these again only have 2* fighting but they are all 3* overall, i then begin looking for targets and find a Helios that was easily boarded but left 6% hull, i then went for a Nemesis in Clarity's End, he had and escort of 3 Hades bombers, 5/6 M3's ranging from Medusa & Perseus, and a number of m4/m5, i was 40km out and launch 3 Thunderbolts at each target, this helped thin the fighters out and i was left with just 1 bomber who was practically finished with just 4% hull and a couple fighters that again had their hull damaged, i scanned the Nemesis and seen it's hull was polarized, i took his hull down to around 80% but nothing worked, i launched the Marines who started complaining about the hull, 4 went for a swim while the other 4 got on board, just a matter of time and hopefully my 4 guys get it done, i had no reason to worry, the 4 marines secured the ship with zero losses, i transferred the Marines back and give it my jump drive plus some extra shields, i jumped it to LOH shipyard and got dropship to bring me an extra jump drive, i was getting ready to leave when what drops through the north gate? Another nemesis battle group, i again thin out it's fighters and this time the Nemesis is not carrying any anti boarding tech, but it does have some nice goodies inside such as 4 ISR, 5 CIG and a nice hold of missiles including an unhealthy number of firestorm torpedoes, i pepper the shields away and when i get it in position i launch the marines, this time all marines enter and i have a 2nd nemesis, with 1 Pac on board, bit disappointed but i now have a pretty decent m6 that will be good on sector patrols, i follow the nemesis to LOH shipyard and then transfer the goodies from Nemesis 1 & 2 to my Hyperion, i sell Nemesis 1 as it's hull is really badly damaged, i only got just over 1 million credits for it, but i used this money to help repair some of my m3's.

I have been thinking of promoting Po Po to captain, he is quite keen on that Nemesis but it needs repaired a little before i go about offering promotions. He has also been invaluable to my boarding exploits, i was fairly new to the boarding business but Po Po was barely out of school when we met, when i asked him about this he just told me that although young he was a Marine, his parents were marines and had pretty much brought him up in the marine world. this answered a lot of questions i had regarding him, how he always had a plan, why he insisted on buying the best fighting Marines and why he spent so much time with them.

I have also began thinking of hiring some protection in the form of wings, Solano's or Kestrels as my fast attack wings and use Nova Raiders as the heavier hitters plus the Falcon Sentinel/Hauler as mobile bombers, the reason for this is that a few battles with large number of fighters has proven annoying and dangerous, those Paranid really love traveling in large numbers, all this will require resources which i will go about starting on in the morning.

Assets

M3
Falcon Hauler "Fetch" x 1
Tenjin "First Blood" x 1
Nova x 2
Nova Raider x 1
Falcon Sentinal
L x 1
Enhanced Kea x 1

M6
Skiron - Skiron Folk x1
Vidar x 1
Hyperion Vanguard x 1
Nemesis x 1

M7M
Ares x 1

M8
Claymore x 1

M5
Enhanced Jaguar x 1
Discoverer Vanguard x 2
Kestrel - "Sat Dropper"

TP
Express Hauler x 1
Scabbard x 2
Manta x 1

TM
Chokaro "Dropship" x 1

TS
Missile Storage - Mercury Tanker x 1
Guns & Tech Storage - Mercury SF x 1
3 random Transport Ships - Missile Fetching

Factories
Scruffin & Plankton Farm Complex (The wall) - Owns 2 CLS ships
Ore Mine L - Aladnas Hill - Owns 2 CLS Ships
HQ - PTNI - Own 30 CLS Ships

Credits 6 Million + Change

[BankruptAssasin]

Chapter 13 - Expand & Rebuild

I take on a few easy and quick missions, my reputation with the Split & Teladi is getting better, im up to Comrade with the Split & Company Owner with the Teladi, a couple of simple Taxi missions and my funds are already beginning to look well. I then start passing through the Pirate sectors looking for scan freight missions, i find one but i also come across a number of Paranid weapon & high tech traders, i take out a few and manage to get some to bail, Split Fire is littered with goods, time to call in DropShip and his Falcon Hauler to work and collect the goodies.

I take on a few other random missions, taxi, deliver goods, follow employees, and i ave come across a few luxury passenger transport missions to visit a number of sectors, i had to pass them up but my do them myself some other time. My marines have started finishing their training and are itching to get their hands on some Paranid, well the argon Marines are, the Paranid ones seem hostile to me which is fine by me, aslong as they do thier job they can be hostile all they want. I send Po Po over to the Equipment Dock in Argon Prime where the majority of my marines have been trained to see they are getting on, he reports back that some of them are ready for their first boarding attempt while others still need more training, but as it turns out i need them sooner than he or i would have liked.

I was looking for my kestrel in my property console to get him out dropping more sats and scanning for roids, Po Po suggested that he heard rumors of a Nividium rock in Scale Plate Green, when i seen an error in the screen, the Falcon hauler was missing, i check my missed messages and low and behold my worst fears are realized, Fetch & Dropship have been destroyed by a Paranid Hades and Ares, i jump to the sector to investigate and see the task group in the middle of the sector, i jump missile fetcher to me, he has been jumping around picking up some thunderbolts for me, it's costing me a bomb (excuse the pun) but they are worth it, i am considering having my own complex. I haven't had much time to prepare for this so I'm a little under prepared, usually Po Po is in charge of such operations but as he was in my Manta in Argon Prime and me being a little upset (The Chokoro was filled with Missiles, Weapons & other tech) so i took matters into my own hands, but Po Po has decided he will join me so missile fetcher is on his way back to him to transfer jump drives, while thats happening i start rolling out the Thunderbolts, i unleashed over 50 of the little white lights of hell fire, i target the heavy hitters such as the Hades, Medusa's & Perseus's, the Ares has not shot at me yet so will leave him be for now, i have to admit the Paranid have an unhealthy fascination with PBG and there M3's usually carry them in abundance, the Thunderbolts do thier work but only a few get in, PBG is fantastic Missile defense but 2 Hades are down, 2/3 M3's down and now im firing Hept, CIG and missiles for fun, the Ares is close by but not doing much, a quick scan and i see zero missiles on board, thats good for me, but he does have his hull polarized which is not so good for my marines, the rest of the escort goes down fairly quickly, i do take a few licks of PBG fire but not enough is coming at me to really trouble me too much.

I then begin to smash the Ares sheilds down, a few typhoons and concentrated fire is good at that, especially when they have nothing to shoot back & are sitting still, i turn my turrets off as i want to control the fire myself, i launch my 8 Marines and realize it wont be enough, 2 die fairly quickly on the first deck, Po Po has just arrive din sector and has already released his 12 marines, the manta is only 40% hull so is very slow, i was lucky again that the Ares was so close to the N Gate, the Ares was successfully captured, although it cost me around 10/11 marines, I transfer my jump drive & jump it back to Argon prime for scrapping, Po Po is not very happy, i stole his jump drive and told him to travel back to Argon Equipment dock at around 20m/s. I jump back to Argon prime and strip the Ares of Marines, i needed to put one back in training as there was 9 on the Ares as the Skiron can only carry 8, the Ares netted me 23 million which i was very happy with although i was less happy with losing my Chokaro and the very rare Falcon Hauler.

I started selling my loot in Guns & Tech storage, it was completly full and now worth over 30 million credits, i loaded up 15 FBL's, another 5 MDS, a few extra missiles and a number of other tech i had no reason to keep, this along with the sale of the Ares brought my total balance to 35 million credits, it will take me 29 million to repair that Hyperion which would leave me at square one, i nearly go for it until Po Po reminds me of my need for a TL class ship, i was about to jump to Senators Badlands but i took on 2 more missions, 1 was to run a Split to a station in Red Light the other was to return a Hydra INSERT PIC HERE in Power Circle, now this i have to do, i was looking for a Hydra not to long ago but got the Skiron instead, i think i will need to take a closer look at the Hydra, plus Po Po's tentacles seem to have grown harder when i told him about it, i felt a little uncomfortable watching him especially when ink started to drip out.

I called in missile fetcher, he transferred his jump drive over to the Hydra an i transferred over the E-cells, the Hydra was then transferred to the Yaki Ship yard, i then jumped with him while Missile Fetcher took the long trek to Home of Light to pick up a new Jump Drive, whats the benefit of using the Yaki? well any commonwealth race is instantly attacked & since this is the 3rd ship i have borrowed without leaving back to the Argon and i have only lost reputation once, the Argons report it to the Police and they send in their ships, they are neutral to me and start attacking my Yaki brethren, they must think the Yaki are stealing their ships, i don't really care, at the end of the day my rep with the Argons is still at the highest, i'm getting free ships and the Yaki love nothing more than protecting their sectors.

While i am here i may as well get that Ryu. I agree it's not the best, it's Fast but can only carry a little more than the Elephant.

Assets

M3
Tenjin "First Blood" x 1
Nova x 2
Nova Raider x 1
Falcon Sentinal
L x 1
Enhanced Kea x 1

M6
Skiron - Skiron Folk x1
Vidar x 1
Hyperion Vanguard x 1
Nemesis x 1
Hydra x 1

M7M
Ares x 1

M8
Claymore x 1

M5
Enhanced Jaguar x 1
Discoverer Vanguard x 2
Kestrel - "Sat Dropper"

TP
Express Hauler x 1
Scabbard x 2
Manta x 1

TS
Missile Storage - Mercury Tanker x 1
Guns & Tech Storage - Mercury SF x 1
3 random Transport Ships - Missile Fetching

TL
Ryu x 1

Factories
Scruffin & Plankton Farm Complex (The wall) - Owns 2 CLS ships
Ore Mine L - Aladnas Hill - Owns 2 CLS Ships
HQ - PTNI - Own 30 CLS Ships

Credits 15 Million + Change

[BankruptAssasin]

Well that's it, i took on a mission for Terracorp to assassinate a Split in Red Light, little did i know it was a Tiger Frigate i was taking on, i lob an unhealthy amount of Typhoons and every other missile i could, the Tiger went down and i was all happy, but the Argon Titan/Cerburus Battle Group that's appeared at the east gate didn't get the memo that i was in fact employed by one of their corporations and decided to take an even unhealthier view of me.

Bottom Line, don't work for Terracorp!!!

Thanks to anyone that took an interest in this, hope to be back again sometime when i come up with a good idea.

[carolinay]

I came late, but fantastic writing! But I didn't see many actions happening near, say, Grand Exchange (ok, GE is too big a sector ) but I didn't read stories happening there or near Cardinal Domain, or even Queen's Harbour. I like those places – my hub is even linked to Queen's Harbour! But I don't play DiD, am just a humble merchant setting shop in many sectors with many big self-sustaining 2xSPP XL to feed my other factories. Too much emotion for me, I think, and I could make a new game. Your story reminds me that my reputation (every station except Xenon, of course, is friends to me) can be boring. I am friends with many pirate bases because of the marines, lol.

[BankruptAssasin]

Hi Carolinay,

Thanks for reading it - I really enjoyed playing this & i'm pleased you liked the writing - I was actually thinking about starting this up again - Not too sure if many people are still reading the DiD's.

I have to ponder to start a new one, i really do enjoy the Yaki section - Gives me a little more scope to play with.

[Sabrina Bergin]

Thanks for reading it - I really enjoyed playing this & i'm pleased you liked the writing - I was actually thinking about starting this up again - Not too sure if many people are still reading the DiD's.

I have to ponder to start a new one, i really do enjoy the Yaki section - Gives me a little more scope to play with.

I think readers are by nature shy, I notice that no matter how much I write I get few if any comments yet the hits on my stories keep rising.

Of course it maybe that in my case they don't like what I write, that will not be the case with yours B.A. Well not if they have any sense.

[BankruptAssasin]

Hi Shaun,

Thanks for your comment - Very kind of you.

Like I said to Carolinay, I wouldn't mind starting up a new story - I haven't actually played in a while & i have no idea which mods I'm running on the game I have installed, so it would be a matter of uninsalling & reinstalling the game and mods again which is putting me off lol.

[Sabrina Bergin]

B.A.

You might get an Idea of what mods you have by looking in your game control interface and seeing what you have hot keyed.