The Liber-bug and the Molly

[Jimothy]

THE LIBER-BUG AND THE MOLLY

Gordon tries to help a Rhino pilot, and drags his brother into a fight he can't win


Part 1 - Gordon Skye - The Liber-Bug

Kusarians. Everywhere. I was assisting with the defence of Leeds, just helping the BAF boys. The stupid Kusars decided to try a gunboat against the Derby. Yeah, that worked. They lasted all of about 5 seconds. The fighters were a bit to fast for the Derby though, so I helped the BAF chaps send them packing. Well, throughout the number of skirmishes, I noticed a Rhino - little liberty-bug flying past, looking lost. I decided to chase after him and help the pilot, Remco, out a bit. I mentioned the whole war, and the dangers. How I’d even seen those Kusarian cowards blow up a zoner ship before. Just ‘cos they had some refuges aboard. So, a little libber-bug would stand no chance. I remembered an old shipping route my brother, Tyler used to fly in his Clydesdale, so I mentioned it to the Rhino pilot. I flew with him to Graves to pick up some Gold, then the plan was to go on to Cambridge to sell it to a research guy Tyler knew. He’d told me his name in his letters, and it would be quite easy to track him down.
As we approached graves, and alerted the station to our approach, a voice came over the comms. It sounded dodgy, and I wasn’t convince it was friendly. The voice, I later found to be coming from the Molly gunboat The Final Rush, offered gold ore. I declined on behalf of Remco, as Tyler’s contact on Cambridge only bought refined gold. It was as Remmy docked that I finally saw The Final Rush on my scanners. I flew closer to get a decent scan of the ship, and still not knowing who or what it was, I opened the comms line. Sounded like a molly to me, though he was masking the dumb accent with educated and well spoken words, it was still unmistakable. I anticipated just another cracked up kid wanting to act tough, so I joked at his expense, things about inbreeding and the likes. As we started getting heated, I signalled Remco to head for the jumpgate while I handled the Molly. Bad choice Gordon. Stupid Molly was in a gunny. Now, I’m a good pilot sometimes, but I’d be lucky to take down a gunboat. Being already within 2k, I decided to head out of there, and hoped that he’d leave me alone, despite my heckling. He began asking a few weird questions about the nature of freedom, and gave chase. I told him that freedom was about doing what you wanted do do, living how you wanted to. And he asked if I’d change my belief of freedom for him. I told him where to get off and continued fleeing. Oddly, he praised me as ‘worthy’ and broke off his pursuit.
I met up with Remco again just by the Dublin gate in New London, and we headed off to Cambridge. Aside from a few untrained corsairs attacking us by the London gate in Cambridge, the journey was uneventful, and Remmy sold the gold, and picked up some luxury food to take back to London.
On return to London, it turned out the food no longer fetches the same price it did when Tyler hauled it, and Remco wasn’t too happy. I decided to land my ship, and give Tyler a buzz, ask him to check with any of his contacts in Bowex about similar haulage that Remco could do to make some money.

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I was formerly know as Spiritar.

It's been a while.