I'd been hanging around Arranmore for a few days now. I'd got friendly with the locals and they were beginning to recognise me, a little too much for my liking. I decided it was about time to move on, although they pay good for Corsair and Bounty Hunters, I guessed that the outcasts would have better paying and more challenging work for me.
I'd never been into Outcast territory before, so I wasn't completely sure what was awaiting me, but my Barracuda had done me good until now, I didn't see much reason to upgrade it and squander my first hard earned million on something else, not yet at least. I knew that one of the safest ways to get to the Sigma Systems was to head through Kusarian territory and head up north, the local law might not have been too pleased, but the Dragons had been good friends before and they don't forget good friends.
I travelled without incident from Bretonian Space and decided to take the short-cut through Tau-31, hadn't been there before I thought way not, I'm not exactly in a hurry to meet anyone. Looking around, I saw miles and miles of Ice, I wasn't impressed, but the huge desert planet hiding in the distance out of the way and hidden appealed to my sense of curiosity and I headed in.
En route, I scanned some wrecks around the place, some old Kusari HFs. I never pass up the chance for a good haul, and these hadn't been touched. The fact that they sat in a minefield, an old relic from the Battle of Harris. I grabbed the first few, but some mines started tearing up my ship, so I fell back and repaired on Harris. I went back out and collecting the rest of my trophies, then sold what I had on Harris.
I stopped by the Ship Dealer for a quick browse but what I saw interested me. Interested me a lot. He had a big X-Shuttle, the type I'd seen when I was a boy, the type piloted by a guy who left the station with one more big wad of cash in his sweaty grubby hands. I traded in my Barracuda, which up until now had served me very well, but I was moving up in the world. Or so I thought.
I left Harris and before I'd cleared the Docking Ring, took fire from a Kusari Naval Patrol, and of course the kind inhabitants of Harris helped them out. What I the pig of a Ship Dealer hadn't told me was that the X-Shuttle handled like a Shopping Trolley with and Asteroid in it. I couldn't dog-fight like I was used to, spitting at the Kusarian patrol's shields would've done more damage and my shields were slowly being brought to their knees by the sustained fire from the Patrol, the Docking Ring and the Battleship Macduff, which while not being happy about letting Kusari Naval Patrols invade their space were even less happy about an Intelligence target land on the planet they were supposed to be protecting.
I made a run for it, bee-lining for the Tau-23 gate and evading Bretonian and Kusarian Patrol's the whole damn way. The BMM controllers on the Jump Gate Construction Rig weren't best pleased to be seeing me, but they didn't fire on me, which is more than can be said for some of thier more trigger happy pilots. I'm fairly sure they had me tailed while I got my ship fixed and bought some more supplies, didn't want me causing any trouble on the station, they knew my reputation, even if they didn't show it.
Bretonia and Kusari territory were definitely out of bounds for the while, while the calmed down. Lucky for me, I managed to get a guy in the bar to tell me about the Tau-37 Jumphole, only cost a few hundred credits, although I'm sure he was happier to see me leave the Bar than about the credits.
I bee-lined for the Jumphole and bolted, I knew the Bounty Hunter's would've got wind of where I was and that five of their finest hadn't came back after hunting me. I hit Tau-37 running, and followed a Train Convoy to Freeport 10. I met a couple of Outcast pilots just launching as we arrived and they offered to show me the way back home as they put it. I thought, 'Why the hell not, they've got enough **** wired to blow me into cold dead space without any opposition from me. They must want me for something'. So I followed them along the scenic route to the Omicron Alpha Jumphole and followed them through.
I don't think I've ever seen a more foreboding system, as beautiful as it was, the huge sickly green nebula put me in mind of a huge insatiable dragon my father told me stories about. The Outcasts warned me against entering the cloud, not least because they buried their dead there but because burial parties are usually buried with their charges, the remaining Nomads were known to patrol the cloud and never left any survivors.
We landed on Malta and the pilots showed me a good time, which almost ended fatally for them and ended fatally for three scrubbers who tried to relieve me of my heavy, burdensome wallet. I wandered Malta during the night, something which the local Security Force does only when there's trouble or when there's a pack of them. I rarely slept these days, I'd never been a heavy sleeper back on Glasgow growing up up, but the Nebula, which was as visible from the round almost around the clock put me in ill humour and haunted the corner of my eye, like a lost lovers ghost waiting for me to cross, so that we could spend the eternity I promised together.
I heard that some Bounty Hunters had been roughing up the local shipping sniffing me out. I checked the boards and sure enough three of four jobs had been put up in the last few days looking for Freelancer to show the unwelcome guests the door, or airlock, whichever was deemed most appropriate. Well they wanted me, I needed some extra graft and my two pilot friends said they'd follow me out to "keep an eye on me". But I think they were bored of associating with the pub scum and needed an excuse to get some bigger guns mounted anyway.
I flew out and met the Bounty Hunters. I'd spent too much time in Bretonia fighting rookies and Instructor, I'd forgotten exactly how much hardware a high echelon hunter could get mounted and bring to bear on a mark. Suffice to say, if my Outcast friends hadn't arrived, my Hunter friends would've been a few million credits up, each. We dealt with the rest of the group and the cavalry that inevitably showed up when things weren't going well and collected the reward. I kept all of it, my friends saying farewell before we got to the client. Last I heard of them they were rotting in a Rhienland prison, caught smuggling Cardamine and Synthetic Weed on Baden Baden and all the money in Sirius wouldn't keep the Rhienland Military from making an example of the pair.
That's when things started going real bad for me. I took more jobs, and tried to plunder the Outcast burial ground, much to the displeasure of the Nomads, and on several occasions returned to Malta with either much less of a ship than I left with or indeed in my escape pod, having had my ship shot to **** by aliens or pissed Bounty Hunters. I bought a new ship, an Anubis class at Kurile on one of my brief excursions of out Outcast territory while exploring.
Eventually it got to the point where I had a hundred thousand left and I had decided to head back to Arranmore, the heat in Bretonia would've cooled down enough for me to travel safely and news that I'd wasted and sold Bounty Hunters would never reach the Authorities back down there. I decided to trust in my computer and left the auto-pilot running as it followed it's course back to Arranmore. Big mistake. Although Bretonia hadn't heard of my dealings in Omicron Alpha, and the surrounding systems, the Kusari Navy was all to aware of what I'd been up to and they remember that I'd fled from them. They were particularly hung up on the fact that I seem to have defended myself.
I wasn't paying attention the the specifics, I was drifting in an out of a drug induced coma when I entered Kusari Space and they first shots thundered into my shields. As far as I could remember I'd from Sigma-19 into, ****, Honshu. When I'd stared dumbly, half blinded by sleep a few hours ago, I hadn't even registered that the computer was going to take my through Kusari Space. Only when Kusari Imperial Navy fired on me had I realised what had happened and that I was up to my eyes in it.
Rather than fall back and lead Kusari Military personnel straight to Malta where they'd exact punishment on the general population, I opted to make a suicidal run throughout Kusari territory and hopefully make it out the other end with my hull still around me. I made the run, straight past Aomori Station, Planet Honshu, Yakawa and straight into New Tokyo. Before I'd even docked with the Aomori to Honshu Trade Lanes the Navy had been placed on full alert and Capital Class Patrol's had been launched.
As I made the first Trade Lane hop, I felt the familiar feeling of Adrenaline and Andorphines kick in, but something else had crept into the back of my mind, fear. it's not often at all I'm afraid, but I was in the heart of Kusari, with the whole of the Imperial Navy and every lawful faction and Bounty Hunter in the area looking for me. I knew I wouldn't make it to a prison, I'd "struggle" while being apprehended. I charged on regardless.
I just ran, I never fired a shot and avoided critical Trade Lane junction when possible, preferring to slow my escape, rather than risk a station full of HFs and VHFs baying for my blood. I made it through Honshu and New Tokyo battered, bruised and low on Batteries and bots, but still in one piece and I nearly cried when Kyushu's Docking Ring cleared me for landing, someone had forgotten to transmit them my wanted status, or maybe comms were down. I couldn't care less, I had the opportunity to get the drugs out my system, repair my ship and re-stock my Battery and Nanobot cells.
I slept the drugs out after paying the Ship Dealer to get my ship fixed. when I went to get my Batteries and Nanobots though, I was met by two squads of Giretsu soldiers, Kusari Military Special Forces. The Ship Dealer had told the authorities and was stood there pointing at me, shouting, "That's him, that's him there in the bla---", I shot him before he finished the sentence. The bullet entered his left temple and shot round the inside of his skull before bursting out the right rear quarter leaving a hole big enough for a fist to fit in. His blood and brain tissue was decorationg the usually pristine Battle Dress of the Giretsu commander, I loosed two more round in the general direction of the massed soldiers and hid in behind an empty cargo container.
In the ensuing fire fight, I was hit in the shoulder and the chest, my flak-jacket protecting my from the more lethal effects of the incoming fire, but it still hurt like nothing else in creation could. I killed a soldier with a lucky shot between his helmet and neck guard but didn't have enough ammunition or time to continue with this. Fire fights attract all sorts of unwanted attention.
I ran back to the launch pad and took off. By this time, Kyushu's control knew who I was and opened fire on me, as did the Battleship Haruna which had brought the Giretsu soldiers and it's Gunboat escorts. I ran, barely escaping the hail of fire as I sped away through the trade lane having used the last of the my supplies to hold my ship together. As expected the Nagumo was waiting for me, but had launched it's fighters to Kyushu too late to intercept me and having none left to launch, could do little more than take pot shots at me as I fled the system and Kusari Space.
I ran through the Tau-29 and Tau-31 systems without stopping and avoiding the Trade Lanes which had marked me as hostile, the Kusari Navy's doing no-doubt and entered Leeds. The sight of Glasgow was a welcome one for sore eyes, new home looked older, like the maintenance crew's had left and only the civilian population was making the effort to keep it together. My scope alerted me to the presence of more Kusari naval Fighters on an intercept course. they must've wanted me badly, because they'd risked war with Bretonia by sending their patrol into Leeds to apprehend me, but I simply ran again, straight to dock one of Glasgow Outpost and left the station defences to hold off the aggressors.
I restocked, having just under $70,000 left, and made my way directly to the Dublin Jump Hole. I passed into Dublin and made for Arranmore. I got into a tangle with some inexperienced Corsair pilots and since my last visit the IMG, and consequently the Battleship Hood, had classified me as Hostile and opened fire once i got in range, but they never hit anything. The final leg of the journey was in sight, the final trip through the Arranmore Minefield would leave me scot free, and although not without difficulty and even though I was almost defeated by that final obstacle, I docked with Arranmore and began to rebuild my bank account.
[OOC]
Sorry about the story being so long, I wanted to get it over and done with before I forgot the details. Don't worry there won't be a sequel. Really I just wanted to add some depth to my RP character, which I use for my normally anyway. This is based on the exact same run that I made earlier today, I did leave Omicron Alpha through Sigma-17 and Kusari back to Arranmore and I did do it all, with the Kusari Navy, Bounty hunters, IMG, Gians and some more all trying to shoot me down. All the space-borne parts of the story are true, obviously with some artistic licence, and the ground fighting between my character and the Giretsu was made up, but only to explain why I left Kyushu without refilling my Bots and Batts quota.
Feels free to post comments, suggestions, spelling/grammatical errors. I'd appreciate the feedback
[/OOC]
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