Today I had an uncomfortably close brush with the law, from which I narrowly escaped with my ship intact.
I had been testing my automated combat navigational systems in Cortez earlier today and had found that to succesfully navigate asteroid fields at max thruster I needed a specially designed high-definition ultra high framerate optical sensor.
Not finding exactly what I wanted at Mactan, I figured the Junkers might have one lying around amongst their miscellany of salvaged gadgets and knick-knacks.
So I made my way over to Rochester, carefully avoiding the use of lanes and gates to keep my profile to a minimum while traversing heavily patrolled Liberty space.
This almost turned out to be a very big mistake.
I did arrive safely at Rochester and somewhere amongst their characteristically Junker-style (read: dis-) organized collection of assorted, well, junk mostly, I eventually found exactly what I was looking for.
Fortunately they had no idea what the item I had carefully removed from its former casing inside the stripped-down wreck of an experimental LSF light fighter really was and they were willing to part with it for not even one hundredth of its actual value.
Glad about this relatively easy success I boarded my Dagger, fired up the engines and requested clearance to undock from Rochester, planning to head back to Mactan where I had all the equipment at hand required to install my latest find.
But my good mood was short-lived when upon exiting the airlock my sensors immediately picked up a hostile vessel.
I tried to power up my cruise engines and make my escape for the Colorado jump hole as quickly as possible, but of course it was already too late.
The vessel, which turned out to be a bounty hunter staking out outside Rochester, identified itself as [Core]Firesilver, demanded my immediate surrender and entered pursuit.
Obviously not very eager for an extended visit to Sugarland I did not comply but instead tauntingly asked him how he managed to know the location of the Junker base which had remained hidden from Liberty law enforcement for so long, while dodging and weaving through the debris field, avoiding every cruise disrupter missile he sent after me, aided by the evasive manoeuvres I had painstakingly programmed to be as erratic as possible, but mostly aided by sheer luck.
His only reply to my query was "From the bounty hunter files".
I was dumb-struck.
So the bounty hunters had information about the location of Rochester. How long have they known? Why have they allowed it to exist? Did they find it by accident, or foul play? Or worse, are the Junkers and bounty hunters secretely conspiring? It suddenly struck me that none of the Junkers going in and out of Rochester during my visit there had had any run-ins with this bounty hunter, but as soon as I cleared the airlock he had been sitting there, well within sensor range of the base.
This was not the time for contemplation, though. The bounty hunter, who heavily outgunned me, was still hot on my tail and any second now my luck would run out and he would have me at his mercy, which was not a very welcome prospect.
I decided that, instead of trying to get all the way to the jump hole, my best bet would be to circle back to Rochester and send them a distress-call.
The call was answered and as soon as I returned within range of the base it opened fire on my pursuer, as did several Junker vessels which were in the area, which alleviated my concerns for a Junker-BHG conspiracy somewhat, although not entirely.
Soon after, a Liberty Rogue patrol also arrived in the area and opened fire on the suddenly heavily outnumbered tresspasser, who apparently then decided it was not worth the risk and took off.
I docked at Rochester again to catch my breath and a much needed drink to calm my nerves, but decided not to hang around and return to Mactan as soon as possible to report this incident.
Seems to me it would be advisable to steer clear of Rochester, or any Junker bases for that matter, until the source of this leak (if this is indeed the case) has been pinpointed and satisfactorily dealt with, as well as all related data erased from the files of law enforcement agencies.
Max Zorin out.
...encryption.in.progress...hack.terminated...
Max Zorin - Pharmaceutically enhanced engineering of automated combat routines for shipboard computer systems.
Strength: Programming microchips to dodge big rocks. Weakness: Dodging big rocks.
![[Image: LHTechnician.png]](http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e15/rnathanmorris/LH%20clan%20images/LHTechnician.png)