The surgeons did their best but in the end there was just too much damage, this is one engineer that's never going to walk right again. That's the bad news. The good news is that the investigation team from Norfolk have concluded it was sabotage, not negligence on the part of any of my boys. Course, I coulda told them that if they'd asked, I guess there's still no arguing with a Navy doc.
In the circumstances, Personnell weren't unreasonable, although hearing the words 'Unfit for shipboard duty'... well, lets just say it hurts still. They bumped me up to Commander 6 months early, then gave me a choice. Not that flying a desk was ever really a choice.
So here I am, medical discharge papers in one hand and an advance on my pension in the other, calling in a favor I never thought I'd need.
It's taken me a few runs out here, but I think I've figured out why DSE sends novice freight haulers out here to Leeds. I'm pretty frackin' sure all the old timers must be sick of the sight of the place, it's got to be the most depressing looking system I've ever been in.
This is the 4th.. or is it 5th..time I've been out here at LD-14 and I can honestly say the best thing about being here is that I get to leave again.
Ah, enough maudlin talk, the old girl's almost loaded. She ain't much to look at. Rhinos never are, but then I'm not much a pilot. We're getting along just fine.
I'll say this for the Bretonians, they know how to build a ship. Maybe not ships of the line, but liners.. now that's a different story.
I was heading through California heading for Leeds, again, when I spied one of their Royal yachts coming the other day. And not just any Royal yacht, THE Royal yacht. If I ever wanted to be a Bretonian, it was that moment.
(Of course, that moment swiftly passed, 5 minutes in Leeds saw to that.)
I assume it was on a diplomatic mission of some kind, but that didn't stop out beloved Rogues. Oh no, they had the brass neck to try and tax it. Her Royal yacht Captain, or whatever his title is seemed most perturbed, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
I was kind of sorry to see the old girl go, she was a good ship and served me well. Hopefully she'll do the same for her next owner.
It had to be done though otherwise I'd be shuttling between here and Leeds for all eternity, not a fate I'd wish on anyone.
Well, anyone perhaps except a certain pair of Junkers.
After the credit transfer was complete, I didn't have enough left to take on a full load, I ended up with just over double what my Rhino could've carried instead of the nearer three times my new Camara could've carried. That and 81 credits to my name.
I hit the tradelane to Fort Bush, still getting aquainted with my new ship and perhaps paying less attention to what was going on outside than I should have. A lesson that was swiftly learned when the aforementioned pair took the tradelane down and demanded my cargo.
With no sign of the LN or LPI anywhere in New York, I didn't have much choice, not in an unarmed Camamra against any kind of fighter. Losing my entire cargo would have been disasterous, so I tried to bargain with them, suggesting they only took as much as they could carry.
That was when I realised one of them was flying a mining ship. Cargo lost.
For a while after that, I thought I was going to have head back to Pittsburgh and try and get my old Rhino back, but some small fortune prevailed. Docking on Fort Bush to report the incident, I managed to scrape up a few thousand credits and pick up a part load of oxygen. Needing to get the best price I could for it, I hit the tradelanes, heading for Bretonia.
Which is where fortune smiled on me. I guess I was shook up from the incident outside Pittsburgh, but for whatever reason it was, I ended up in Cortez rather than Magellen. I didn't realise this at the time, just headed blithely off to the jump hole, always a welcome relief from the monotony of the lanes.
In retrospect, I have no idea how I could have missed the fact that Freeport 4 had both moved and turned into a rather close approximation of Curacao but I did say I wasn't much of a pilot right? I guess I'm not much of a navigator either.
It wasn't until I realised that no, this really wasn't Leeds I realised what I'd done. The system I found myself in seemed pretty quiet though, so I decided to take a brief look around before tracking back on myself. Fuel, fortunately, was one thing I did still have plenty of.
It turned out there was a station in the system, Junkers, ironically enough, these much more welcoming than the two ruffians I'd met earlier. Not only that, they needed my oxygen and were willing to pay for it. No fortune to be sure, but enough to get me back on my feet.
