Blog » X3TC » Way of the Gun Chapter 1

Posted by Kirlack on Saturday 2nd March, 2013   ·   2 comments

Prelude

Chapter 1: Moolah

Ah yes, money, the so called root of all evil. Horse shit if you ask me, but people rarely do. Unless they want someone made dead o' course and then I'm all too willin' to oblige 'em. So long as they're payin'.

Mayhap there's some truth to that root of all evil thing after all? Meh.

So, first things first, let's take a look at my nice shiny ship.




Okay, so she ain't so shiny, but she is pretty nice. She's fully tuned for speed which is a bonus, but she handles like a log and right now the cargo bay could only be described as...poxy. First job then is to get the rudder and hold maxed out. That means findin' work, and that means tappin' up the locals, see if they need my particular brand o' skills.

Aladna's a total bust though, nothin' here that suits a professional killer-for-hire, so I spin the Mamba about and burn for the east gate into Akeela's Beacon. Partway across the sector and I get a call from some dude at the flail missile fab wantin' someone to




defend his station. For less than 2k cred it's a bit of a joke, but I'm desperate so I take the job. Considerin' the size of the attack force I




ain't sure why I bothered. What kinda prick sends a single frakkin' Harrier to hit a station? Seriously, he could've unloaded those IREs at the super structure all day long and done nothin' more'n develop an inferiority complex. Suffice to say he lasted about as long as it took for my HEPTs to say hello. He even left me a firelance missile and a couple cells to pick up. You know it's a sad day when the leftovers are worth more'n the job itself.

After that I decided to head south into Legend's Home, and see if the OTAS corporation were looking for some hired hands. They're not usually too fussed who they take on for extra security duties, and they got a rep for payin' a good wage, makin' 'em a prime choice. Turned out they were hirin' alright, but only if I fancied protectin' one o' their convoys




back to base. Still bein' desperate for cash I took the job.

Oi. Why is it nobody's ever willin' to fill me in on the details before I agree to a mission? See, it's not until after I've signed up that they tell me this here convoy's en route from Thuruk's soddin' Beard. Yeah. The other side o' Hatikvah's Faith. If they think I'm goin' chasin' after one o' their freighters in an under armed, under tuned and under shielded ship, they got another thought comin'. I ain't gonna abort the mish as that'll just mean grief later on, but there's no way in hell I'm flyin' across a pirate sector when I got half the Boron kingdom and most o' the Paranid empire wantin' my head. They can come to me. If they make it that far.

With my business at OTAS concluded I undocked and headed back out into Akeela's. I was barely through the damn gate when my threat detectors started kickin' off. So I called up the sector map to




see what's what.

Oh shit. Pirates. That's bad news. Pirate bounty hunters? That's really bad news. Not for me o' course, I'm flying a Mamba. This idiot's trying to take me on in a bloody Harrier. Again. So I lock him up and shred him in short order. Hopefully that'll be the end of that. Like the fool goin' for the station kill he leaves me a firelance and some cells, so I scoop them up and break for the west gate.

Awww, man!




Another one? At least this one's not dumb enough to come at me in a Harrier. Nope, this guy's in a frakkin' Discoverer. What really concerns me though, is the fact they're showing up as bounty hunters. Just who were those marks I took out before Ferret screwed me over? I don't get time to mull it over before he's on me, but again my HEPTs take care o' him in no time and I move on into Aladna, where it seems




business is boomin', for me at least.

First up is another station




defence for the SPP. Seems my kills so far have earned me a bit o' rep with the Argon as near 10k is a decent payout. There's a pair of pirates comin' and guess what they're flyin'?

Yep. M5s. If this is the level of resistance I'm likely to encounter this should be a breeze. I could leave 'em to it for a day and the SPP'd still be there, but I don't. Why deny myself the pleasure of takin' 'em down, ya know? It's gettin' to be routine now though. Lock and shred.

After that I'm asked to take out another pair of fools wantin' to intimidate the local HEPT forge and this'n proves as easy as the last. There's some cargo crates to collect, but I'm busy makin' a deal for a patrol mission from here




down to Montalaar so I leave 'em for now. There's one more combat mission on offer, another station defence, for one o' the mass driver forges this time. So I deal with the two idiots in their, (sigh), M5s and wheel about just in time to pick up a pair of Xenon Ns wingin' their way across the sector. Guess that's part of my patrol duty?

Another quick lock up and kill and I'm down by the south gate where I pick up




those cargo crates. Oooh, wildfire missiles are cool, and there's a remote guided warhead in the mix'n'all, so I scoop up the good stuff and head into Light o' Heart for the next part o' my patrol.

All's quiet as I'm moving across the sector but just as I'm comin' up to the local trading station a small




wing o' Xenon show up lookin' for trouble. Well, trouble seems to be my middle name today, so I lock 'em up and rinse 'em out quick like. Thinkin' that's it for the sector I'm blazin' for the south gate when another




wing of 'em show up. So I head on in, take most o' 'em down and then spot, of all things, a


bunch o' Khaak scouts.

Now, consider' that I've only got the one shield, and that little wing of Xenon've managed to rip half of it off, I'm none too pleased to see the bugs. They move like a flock o' birds, all going together at the same target, which'll likely be me. Thankfully the local Titan's on hand and keeps 'em occupied whilst I finish dealin' with the machines.

Once again thinkin' I'm done for the sector I start movin' back south, only for two things to happen at about the same time. One, I spot another wing o' Xenon. Two, I get a missile lock warnin'. Unsure as to where the missile's come from I open




the sector map.

Shit! A Kraken? Oh man, I hope he ain't of a mind to be throwin' flails my way. It's only as I'm rapidly cyclin' through targets to try and find said missile that I discover, yes he is of a mind to lob flails at me, and now I gotta try to lock it down and manually shoot all them warheads outta the sky. I have 25Mj o' shields. There's eight warheads. They each do 5k damage....

They're closin' fast and I ain't got any missiles aboard that I'd trust for huntin' 'em down, so I pull away from the machines and concentrate on just stayin' alive. I got lucky though. The warheads were all grouped pretty tight together, so once I'd got a lock on one it was fairly easy to shoot 'em all down. Thankfully that was the only missile that bad tempered Boron threw my way, as any more'n that woulda prob'ly perished me good 'n' proper. Stickin' him up on one of my monitors with a view to negotiatin' at some later date I cruised back in, banjoed the rest o' the Xenon and took a wide detour away from yon frigate on my way to the gate.

Montalaar yields up yet more frakkin' Xenon needin' to be busted into atoms, and whilst I'm busy locking 'em down another group o' Khaak scouts show their




bug ugly purple snouts. There's not much in the way of sector support for me to call on though, so I'm gonna have to deal with the lot. Decidin' that the Khaak are the bigger threats I get their attention with a wasp missile I'd picked up after one of the rucks in Light o' Heart and lure 'em over near the trading station. Two of the four crashed into the super structure and the others got turned to shrapnel by my guns, which just left the blenders with the bad attitude. Unfortunately I got caught out by the two Ms, and whilst I put some significant holes in one, the other was pepperin' my shields with PBE fire. By the time I was done dealing with the first my shields were down to just 4%. Thankfully without the support of the one I'd ruined, the second proved no trouble and by the time I'd caught up to the two Ns down in the south end o' the sector my shields had recharged to almost 80%.

Note to self: beware Xenon, they like PBEs almost as much as I do.

My patrol mission hasn't ticked over yet, so figurin' there might be more waves comin' I nosed on over to one o' the local wheat farms and agreed to




another defence job. 70k and change will go a long way towards getting me a sorely needed second shield (as demonstrated quite ably by the machines), and some tunings. Exepectin' yet more idiot pirates flyin' M5s imagine my surprise when a Yaki Susanowa shows up!

Now, I got no ties to the Yaki, they can shoot at me if they want, that's cool, I'll just shoot back and usually I'm the one comin' out on top. Just how I like it. But if they're offerin' work I'm just as likely to take it as not, so killin' this one dude didn't so much as make me twitch. After that I got paid for the station defence and then I get the message




my patrol's up. Sweet, between all my jobs I'm up over 130k. Not bad for a girl in an under shielded ship eh? More importantly all the missions have pushed my rep with the Argon up to 'Trusted Ally', meanin' any tech I might need to get this Mamba ship-shape should be available to me. With this in mind I swung the ship around for the north gate and made a bee-line for the Light o' Heart equipment dock.

The dock didn't have any shields for sale, so I'm gonna have to try my luck over at OTAS. I made the decision to sell off the two HEPTs and bought four PACs instead, which netted me a total profit of around 110k credits, most o' which got soaked up maxing out the rudder and cargo bay. I figure I can take a target with four lighter guns as easy as I can with two heavier ones, plus the PACs higher fire rate and faster bullet speed will make hitting lighter targets a whole helluva lot easier. I noticed I've been missin' a lot of shots on that patrol mish, so this way round things should be better. I've decided on a name for the mamba, 'Assassin's Creed', and rounded out it's software with a trading system extension, special command software and a couple other bits that might come in handy, including the jackpot prize. The freight scanner. After that scare with the Kraken I also bought a healthy stock o' mosquito missiles. Just in case.

With my ship all but sorted I undock and make a break for the north gate into Aladna. Now considerin' that I ain't seen any bounty hunters fer a while I figured I was in the clear.




Wrong.

It's bad enough that I've got 'em on my tail at all, but with that many and only the one shield still I'm in a mite more trouble'n I'm comfortable with. Lucky for me the local military Centaur was on hand to engage 'em and a couple of wildfires I'd picked up from the wrecked Xenon thinned 'em out a little before that M6 helped me rinse 'em out. I've really gotta sort out these boys, and soon.

As I'm blazin' for the east gate I notice a job on offer at the special weapons complex, and this one's




right up my street. Not just a hit, but one with a sexy lookin' price tag attached. The only problem is he's down in Montalaar, opposite the way I wanted to be headin'. Still, for that kinda money I was more'n willin' to make the detour.

So I zip on down through Light o' Heart and pick up my mark, way off to the east of the Montalaar shippin' lane. I'm down to 5 minutes to erase him, and he's near 80 klicks away, so I engage the strafe boosters and make my way over there. It's tight, but with the extra speed from my strafin' at some ridiculous angle I make it with just under a minute to spare. He's flyin' a Falcon, so I let off a banshee missile I'd picked up to soften him up and then




close him down with PAC fire. I'd also found another gate out o' the sector that I didn't know was there, but it registered to an 'unknown sector' and that's prob'ly trouble I don't need today.

With that done I'm now considered an Argon 'Federation Guardian' and have over 400k cred to play with, so again I'm heading towards OTAS to see if they got any shields in stock. Along the way I pick up a hacker at the LoH shipyard who's offerin' to hack the Anarchy Port over in Hatikvah's. Hoping that'll be the end o' my bounty hunter woes




I pay him the 101k and press on. I was almost at the north gate when I spotted a Paranid freight transporter in an M4 and decided to hit him, just for fun like.




Awww yeah. A quick hop out and repair and I can sell the Pericles at the shipyard. When I check his hold though,




I get a little bonus. The extra 1Mj of shieldin' might make the difference between me livin' or dyin' if these bounty hunters are still after me, and the rimes can be bartered off at all sorts o' places, so I'll hang onto 'em.

The ship nets me another 256k at the shipyard, which is pretty good considerin'. With the extra ching in my pocket I jet off into Aladna Hill and come face to face with yet another




wing o' bounty hunters. Frak's sake. I'm not in the mood to muck about with 'em, so I zone in on the OTAS Boreas stationed in the system and let him do the talkin' fer me. He soon makes my point and I'm free to cross Akeela's, where another wing tries takin' a pop at me by the south gate.

This wing's more M4 heavy, so I snap off all but my last wildfire to at least soften 'em up while they're still 10 klicks away. In the meantime the small squad of M5s has reached me, but my PACs lock 'n' shred 'em before my shields even get to thirty percent. By the time the M4s catch up to me there's only two left, so I shred both o' them too and pick up another couple banshees and a few more energy cells.

I'm noticin' a pattern here. First off these guys are droppin' some damn handy missiles. Second they only seem to come out o' their hole when I'm in a border sector. Not once have I seen 'em in Legend's, Montalaar or Light o' Heart. Mayhap I can work reasonably safely if I stay inside the law fer a bit...but there's not much fun in that.

Eventually I make it through into Legend's Home, dock up at OTAS and snag not only another 25Mj shield, but also a triplex scanner, a docking computer and perhaps best of all, a jumpdrive. OTAS are none too pleased with me that their convoy didn't make it home, but seein' as how the Argon government currently love me there ain't much they can say. Heh.

All in all, it's been




an interestin' day. Now I'm off to see if I can't find a room for the night, something decent to drink, and maybe if I play my cards right, get laid.

Assets:

'Assassin's Creed' – Mamba
Fully tuned
2 25Mj Shields
4 PACs

445,948 Credits and a couple sticks of bubble gum

Chapter 2

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