Close Encounter

Pyramid, on a reconaissance mission.

In the depths of Klogori system, a fair distance away from the Orfrold jumpgate, a small, Tristan-class frigate slipped out of warp, then began accelerating away from the gate.

Pyramid was Erbo’s latest creation, a frigate built for the task of scoping out these low-security systems.  Its weapons were little more than an afterthought; its primary defenses were speed, maneuverability, and stealth.  Its microwarpdrive system made it faster than a shuttle for doing these mapping operations, and its cloaking device would allow him to survey asteroid belts and assay their mineral content without attracting the unwanted attention of Angel patrols–or pirates.  And, in case of disaster, it was easily replaceable.  In fact, stored at the Ralpha Dogs’ West Metro offices in Amo, three jumps away, were enough spare parts to assemble two more copies of the frigate, right down to ammunition and capacitor charges.

Still, Erbo preferred to play it safe.

His tac display indicated that he was approaching the 150-kilometer threshold from the gate, beyond which warp drive would jump him directly to the gate in seconds.  He shut off the MWD systems and brought the vessel to a halt, just over a hundred fifty klicks from the gate.

“Store present location as ‘Klogori GS Orfrold Alpha’,” he ordered the computer.

“Done,” responded the computer.  Erbo sighed, knowing that the job here wasn’t finished.  After having criscrossed and recrossed the system to locate adequate “deep safe” spots, and standing off from the jumpgates to make “gate safe” spots, now there was the task of making “station safes” that would allow him, or other Ralpha Dogs pilots, to warp to a station and dock there almost instantly.  And Klogori, for its size, had a lot of stations.

An urgent warning from the tac display caught his attention…another ship was attempting to lock target on him!  Quickly, he entered the command to warp Pyramid to one of the deep safe spots he’d just located.  The ship shuddered under the impact of a missile launched by his antagonist, and the shield status quickly blinked down to 60%, but Pyramid was already aligned with its warp vector and accelerating out of the vicinity.

The deep safe spot would offer some protection, but not for long; as Pyramid dropped out of warp, Erbo was already issuing instructions for another jump, this time, directly to the jumpgate leading to Hadozeko.  After completing the warp and jumping between systems, he sought shelter in one of Hadozeko’s stations.

Now he had time to think more closely about the incident.  Of the other pilot’s name, he could remember only that it started with “snake”; he had also not been able to see what kind of ship was attacking.  He’d caught a fragment of a transmission from the authorities, informing the other plot of his “criminal act” and activating the sentry guns surrounding the gate.  Of course, if there was one thing that had been drilled into Erbo’s head during flight school, it was: “Put not your faith in sentry guns.”

Upon returning to the Klogori system, Erbo saw no trace of the other pilot.  He continued the mapping mission…only occasionally stopping to glance over his shoulder.

Mission?? Never Easy?? Sometimes and sometimes NOT

The music totally different from that of her better half, plays through her speakers around her, as she and Erbo head out yet again on another level 2 mission out of Tollus.  The same mission they failed at the first time, but learned fast from that mistake.

She keeps in contact with Erbo over the comlink as they head into the very hostile and dangerous deadzone space in Tollus.  As soon as they entered the space she swiftly switches on her invulnerability shield and takes aim for the acceleration gate as order and swiftly turns her afterburner on full speed.  As we made our way across the space to the gate the pirate rats swiftly start taking aim at me, and if it wasn’t for that invlnerability shield I’d have been toasts within minutes of entering the space and making my way swiftly across the empty space keeping watch on her shields and more.

I hear Erbo over the comlink say that he’s getting slammed hard, and I know from experience that his shields got taken down faster then mine did.  By the time I reached the gate a few secs or so after Erbo hit it and took off through space, my shields were down to I’d guess about 30 or 40% left on them, and then the gate catches me and swiftly pulls me out of the dangerzone.  I breath a sigh of relief as I escape near death, lord knows how many times during this mission from previously done.

As I make clear and into space, I call over the comlink to Erbo to ask his status as we book it out of there and back to the Tollus Station that houses the Repulican Tribunal, to turn in this part of the mission, and as soon as we dock, Erbo turns in the first part of the mission, and then the second part of the mission deals with a rogue mining company that had taken up Tollus space without the appropriate permissions.  We said sure, piece of cake.

As we undock the music again continues to vibrate and play throughout my speakers and my capsule and ship as we head to the next leg of the mission.  We take off and enter the next mission and the next deadspace zone out there, and the mission for this one was to try and access the acceleration gate to see if it had been locked down by the rogue mining company.  Needless to say no sooner we hit the space we get a very unkind message from the minig company that tells us to turn our ass around and get out of there for we were not welcome.  We ignored the message and aimed for the acceleration gate, and as we got within meters of that gate, the mining foreman told us you were told to get your asses out of here, you didn’t respond and tried to access the gate.  The forman calls in the dogs and mercenaries and guns/cannons popped up out of the black space and came at us, the objective was met and we booked out of there fast.  We didn’t get hit to bad in that round and made it back to the station and turned in that one and got paid for it.  Then comes the third and FINAL part of the mission.

This mission dealt with us having to go within a toxic gas cloud that was used as a waste dump by the many back in the day.  We figured it would be easy enough, so we took it and headed out for the final leg of this mission.  We exited the station and as soon as I was clear, Erbo warped us to the space that was disignated as this waste dump cloud.  Boy talk about toxic and ugly, it was green, and no sooner we warped into the area, it seems our warp engines set off explosions, and wave after wave of explosive gas and debris hit our ships, we turned on what we could to help ease the damage on our ships, and headed straight towards the acceleration gate with afterburners full throttle.

I had on my invulnerablity shield and started to fast track, Erbo still is faster in reaching that gate then I am, but I at least didn’t lose my shields, but by the time I hit the gate and warped out of there my shield was down to about 15% left, before it would have run out and the explosions and debris would have started eating away at my armor and fast.

We warped out and come to a research area and were greeted by a voice from the research facility, that said Welcome and it seems you made it out of there with no problems.  Best head on back now and report what you’ve found out.  With that we warped back to the Tribunal and entered the station and turned it in.  Erbo was making some wisecracks about the Tribunal should pay to send the ships through a wash after going through that.  I just laughed and shook my head as we entered into the station and docked.

With that mission behind us, we relaxed for a few before we took on some more missions, and we did a few more, and the last one we done was low and behold, the same one we went through earlier.  Oh we weren’t complaining, we know the pay is good for this one, so off we went and repeated what we’d done earlier and after finishing the entire 3 step mission, we called it quits for the night and shut down and fell into a restful sleep in our pods, and before Erbo fell into a restful sleep, he tapped into my music, which is Native American Music of the old, and we both fell asleep, him to not dream and me to dream.