Personal Log

Stone Temple/Ekoo’s Stop – Between my continuing non-flight duties to the order and recent political turmoils, I had found little time to be in the cockpit for the last few days.  As usual, the Cartography Holo in the Stone Temple control center showed that beacons had not been maintained.  Calling up my Ranger, I headed to the Hangar Deck.

I was not feeling particularly lucky this day, so I decided to forego installing my treasured level-three Artifact Engine Booster.  I had ended my last flight — a couple of days before — as Honor Guard, which meant that I was still registered as such.  It was just as well – in case I ran across any beacon tuned by Oct of Sol factionalists.

Other than Zealot’s Refuge, the only sectors I tuned were in Quantar space.  A DDZ pilot had taken care of all Hyperial space — tuning and claiming every sector.  Someone was running through sections of unreg, Solrain and Octavian space turning everything green in their wake.  It was not an unpleasant sight.  The only sectors remaining notably “un-green” were in Amananth space. [i]Perhaps I’ll get them later[/i], I thought.

Once I had completed my maintenance tour, I decided to try out a Monsoon equipped with Peelers and Vantages.  I had never been very adept at using ammo, but GrimGriz had been extremely enthusiastic about his results.  I waited impatiently as the Monsoon came up the lift to the Hangar Deck.  I scrambled up and into the cockpit and began preflight.  It felt alien — as if I was flying someone else-s ship.  I had not even flow this ship enough to properly “break-in” the seat . . . it still felt stiff and new.  I checked all of the equipment, having to truly think about each configuration to be sure it was et up properly.  I sent instructions for the servo-drones to remove the installed FeatherFires and replace them with a combination of Peeler and Vantage mortars.

Once the servos had cleared the lift area and a quick power grid check showed everything at “nominal”, I closed the canopy and engaged the launch sequence.  My body pressed back uncomfortably into the unfamiliar seat as my ship was ejected into the busy Quantar crossroads sector known as Ekoo’s Stop.

I wanted to test this new gun load-out on some mid-sized flux, so I headed through Ring View to The Gurge, where you could usually find a few snails.  Although the snails fell pretty quickly to the mortar load-out, I was uncomfortable with the very slow refire rate of he these guns.  Face it, you’re a laser-user I said to myself.  Cleaning up the remaining squids in the sector, I hopped back into Ring View and headed towards Ekoo’s Stop and home.  A quick scan of the sector showed just one ship — a TRI Marshals’ tow.  We hailed each other and I set my course for Ekoo’s.

Suddenly, a green blip appeared on my radar.  I did a quick scan, discovering that the blip was Miskugun — and infamous criminal.  He immediately set a course for me, but was nearly 30k away so I simply added some afterburner and kept cruising toward the Ekoo gate.  I did [i]not[/i] want to engage this guy with these mortars.   After a bit, he broke off his pursuit, knowing he could not catch me.  Unfortunately he headed straight for the tow and proceeded to immediately make a $500k “Pay of Die” demand.

Damn! I cursed out loud, as I flipped over and headed back to engage with the unfamiliar ship and the uncomfortable gun load-out.  There was no choice — I could not jump out of sector while Miskugun practiced his extortion!  Not surprisingly, the fight ended in a pod ride back to Stone Temple — but at least I had given the TRI Marshals’ tow time to get away.

As I was getting out of my Monsoon escape pod, I heard a familiar voice in my helmet.

“Reporting in for duty.”

“‘Lo RIDIC,” I said.

“Ambro,” said RIDIC, “I humbly apologize for some of the opinions I have expressed on the Brotherhood comm-nets over the past few days.”

“No need to apologize,” I replied.  “Opinions are rarely a problem.”

“Nonetheless, I present myself as your servant . . .”

“Stop groveling, man!” I said, laughing.  “But I could use a hand out here with Miskugun.”

“Launching from QC now.  Is Stone Temple well supplied with Phoon gear?”

“Completely.”

“Ok,” said RIDIC.  “I’ll meet you at Stone Temple so I can home there/”

A few minutes later, RIDIC and I were burning toward Ring View in search of Miskugun.  After seeing Ring View was clear, we headed for Connexion, figuring he may be lurking in unreg space.

“There he is!” yelled RIDIC, “Sitting in Gurge gate!”

We both turned to and burned towards the criminal.  He disappeared back to The Guge as soon as his jumpdrive capacitor recharged.  Seconds later, we were charging into The Gurge gate, anticipating a gate-camp on the other side.  But when we were though and shook off the jump disorientation, we saw Miskugun speeding toward Evening’s End.

RIDIC and I engaged afterburners but Miskugun was flying a Typhoon, too, so we made up only minimal ground.  Unfortunately, though, by the time we got into Evening’s End, Misku was nowhere to be seen.

“I’m going to dock and refuel,” said RIDIC.

I stayed back and watched as RIDIC docked.  Just as RIDIC’s ship disappeared into the docking tube, my shields began to flare and dissipate.  I hit the throttle and lit an afterburner, turning as tightly around the station as I could at the velocity.  “Damn, Misku jumped me,” I yelled.  “Don’t know where he came from.”

“Launching now,” said RIDIC.

I had temporarily lost Miskugun — and when he saw RIDIC reappear from Evening’s End station, he headed for the Gurge gate at top speed, RIDIC and I hot on his trail.  When we materialized in The Gurge, we were only about 6k behind Misku and he did not appear to have Flashfires.  He would have to engage us.

Almost as if he was reading my thoughts, Miskugun slowed and flipped to engage us.  Since we were Phoon-on-Phoon and two-on-one, I went for the straight-on joust.  I loosed a Purgatory about 5k out, but when I was approximately 2400k from Misku, I suddenly got a missile lock warning and then BOOM.

When I recovered from the short blackout that accompanies just about every pod ejection, I swallowed back my momentary nausea and yelled at myself — and across the comms, “DAMNED STUPID FLYING!  SET MYSELF UP PERFECTLY FOR THAT NUKE DB!  WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING!”

The comms were completely silent.

“RIDIC,” how are you doing?

“Not good.  He’s got me defensive and I have no Flashfires . . . . . . I’m down.”

“I’m sorry, RIDIC,” I said.  “That was my fault — my stupid move.  That’s just embarrassing, losing to that guy 2 on 1.”

Once my pod was reinstalled in a new Typhoon chassis, I set up the re-equipping orders and then exited the cockpit, heading for my quarters.  I was not typically a sore loser after a fight, but after the experience with Miskugun, I decided to call it a night and resolved to hit the simulator for a bit the next chance I had.