Got my stocks ready on Freeport, prepared some Cloaking power cells and coffee reserves, as a backup. Hit the bar early to see what was going on, if there were some hearsay to look into, or some trailed rumours to follow. Nothing. Launched, all prepared for my voyage. Freeport was clear. Performed some systems checks before i headed out, cause what good is finding a malfunction halfway in the middle of nowhere? Sensors gave a light ping; Revenant. A brief exchange of pleasantries, and a chat about Theta before the Freeport team alerted everyone around the station that there was an imminent ion storm
Not the greatest start to the day, but at least i was not in Omega 41 already. For sure i would have not found out and been caught out in it. As it stood, i was able to dock and remain on the Freeport. Of course it’d be nice to watch from Freeports bar. Armed with a coffee and my notepad, i watch and wait for the storm. Twenty minutes pass. Half an hour. Still nothing. When will these predictions be accurate? I mean, look at Kepler. How many years late? Still nothing. Maybe it was just in a different sector.
There was, however, someone seeming quite shook up. A Zoner. They told me one of their transports had gone dark abruptly, in the system. Sat down and talked with them, told the Zoner i would go look for them, just needed a last known location and a direction of travel. They only were able to give me a last known. But its good enough. Launched and went out. Left my cloak. Charges and supplies at Freeport. No need for them with a simple rescue mission. Well. It would have been simple if it weren’t for the fact the ship was destroyed, and the debris was watched over by a nomad… one of the larger variants…
Of course, it made its move towards me. I had enough time to run, but. I felt… an anger. That i didn’t before. Someone who was just living their life, trying to earn some credits… killed. For the first time… i felt like Fighting. I felt a rage build that would only be sated by either mine or their death. Targeting systems primed, evasion patterns planned and ready for execution.
All nomads are painful to fight and down… this one… it had manoeuvrability… and seemed to be able to punch through my ship easily. I wasn’t going down without a fight, though. The more-familiar flashes of my own armaments connected, over and over. The nomad didn’t seem to be affected. Just… focus, Jack… focus damnit! Work your core efficiency, remember what you practiced. Its probably the most important time to remember all which you’ve trained with. When it looks like its actually hurting… dump the core on it, get in close enough to not waste it.
Several minutes of intense combat, spare shield cells and repair bots were gone, coolant was leaking. The Nomad seemed to tire of my will to want it dead. Its firing became less frequent. Until… well. The organic vessel seemed to… detonate in some fashion… quite spectacularly. Blue caustic slime plastered one side of my cockpit and i could only imagine the state of my ship. Readings and sensors were utterly fried. The atmosphere seemed to be heated up quite considerably. I needed to get home. Alls i had access to was manual controls. Whole ship was just…. Dead. Spose i better hope that after my heroic deed theres enough to get back to Freeport…. Though i also… feel…
