I woke up in the early miday hours.
A headache said hello to the upcoming reality and i started to remember the past day.
All started with some maintenance Jobs on several Ships and Equipment. As a Mercenary to the bones you are always waiting for Jobs in risking your life for other peoples aims, while you simply need to keep your Equipment working in the meantime. In Battles everything around you is like a life insurance and need to be handled with care. All in all a more or less boring experience for a Saturday.
I checked the mounted Alien Guns and came to the result that they are working fine so far but since the last Simulator Trainings also the Missile Launchers was doing very well again. I stroke the metal of the Gun i unmounted from the Ships right Hardpoint gently with my left hand while entering the code of the EMP Launcher to be mounted. The smooth humming of the Equipment Robot mounting the Launcher reminded me on a saying - "Drink your last drink from the Evening in the Morning to get a clear head".
So i went to the Bar and ordered a Sidewinder Fang from the Keeper. He frowns and said something about not to drink and fly and that he hates to clean up the Bar after the latest excesses. I somehow promised to keep everything civilised this time and that this drink is medicine. He started to smile and...
...suddenly my Intercom implant was displaying a Holo Message right in front of me:
The tickers information stated:
>>>Intercom Message<<<
#3247
...Message directed to any available Pilot of the Knights of Mercy...
...under heavy attack...
...need backup...
...asap...
...willing to pay 30 Mil...
...respond fast, help...
<<< Add: Today we are offering our new and marvelousness Coffee product with Cardamine flavor: Contact any SBC Shop in Sirius for more informations - buy one and get two >>>
I skipped the next Adds with a sigh and damned those who are using unencrypted public channels for important Messages. Automatically without thinking about it, i starteted the Anti Virus Scan on my implants - remembering the last time i did not.
A few things happened simultaneously at this point:
I got a direct call from the Office saying: "Sir we accepted the offer, last located position is System New Berlin near Station Bonn - currently you are the only available Pilot around please find your outfit near Beam thirtytwo it´s programed for Station Mainz our nearest VHF is waiting for you. Good luck, you will need it."
I didn´t asked why i need luck in this mission because it was pretty clear for me that someone calling for help and willing to pay a good price will not pick flowers in the life tubes of Bonn. So i muttered an okay into my micro and went to the beam trying to organize a possible backup.
After my atoms was luckily reassembled correctly at the pretty old facility at Mainz i decided to make the VHF systemcheck while on my way to the assigned location. I pretty much hate traveling via Beams since i know how these installations are working. Once i reached Sytem New Berlin i got the impression that someone didn´t told everything and yes in fact, the solar radar was showing massiv protuberances which was effecting the whole system. "Great" i thought by myself now i have to fly manual since the combat implants will always being interrupted while connecting to the ship controls. Anyway, a Job is a Job. But under these conditions i would have better taken a Gun Setup rather than a Missile Setup - but who knows, maybe i can use it either way.
When getting in touch with the battle Groups i stopped thinking and started to act in routine. Gun Fire all over, Battleships around and a "warm energized Welcome" from the opposing force - Life can be cruel when earning some good credits.
My orderers Battlegroup made it this time - and i also had some laughs while some of them was teasing and joking around. The Police forces and dedicated Mercenary Group, which was using a Battleship - for which i said thanks to myself and the Missile Setup, lost when the relation of force went equal and above after a while - when luckily one of our Battleships, another fighter of us and a Smugglers Organization sided up with us - this way i was able to get at least some more as my expenses out of the battle.
The Battle stopped somehow when the local Police Force was worn down.
I docked my Fighter somewhere in the System where i was able to repair and get some Ammo. Because of the worse technical behavior of my controls i decided to reinstall some drivers of my grafical interface implant and took myself a short break while doing so. A restart of the System and the needed remake of grafic tweaks gave me the time to hail my wife and ask her for some more patience because i got the next call via secured Channels where i was told that a battle Group of us is fighting ASF forces near Station Yanagi in the radioactive Nebulas of Sigma-13. I asked myself how insane someone can be to fight in the middle of a scrap metal field sorrounded by radiation and speed taking nebulas making it impossible to have the ship controls working proper. Not to mention the mass effects.
Still being in the near with my Fighter i took it out of the parking area and went to space, well aware that even together with my ship i was going to have a hard time fighting outnumbered myself this time - for nothing in return but the computer driven +/- counting for a damn frag. Expenses for a System which is so cloudy that you do not even know what you are fighting for...
The next impression i had, when switching to the intercom audio battle channel (iabc), was something like: "hey - how?", "cmon where are you", "i can´t see nothing", "need backup asap" and many kill messages on the integrated transparent monitor of my ships front window, which was lately replaced by an energy driven one - instead of the transparent, ultraflat and hyperspace resistant, niobium version.
Routine and my battle implants started to take over again but this time it was a nearly hopeless situation where somehow also the effects from New Berlin took part in the battle - maybe Jumpholes are not that secure and can release effects from systems away. I needed about half an hour to be able to reach the docks of Yanagi while the ASF tried hard not to let our forces dock over there. Most likely one of the opposing Ships, an old Chimera, was tighten the effects from New Berlin. Somehow this Ship was in a time tunnel one or two seconds away from reality, so everything happened later to it with lesser effects on it. No matter how hard the battle went it changed when we commanded battleships to the frontlines and the before mentioned Smuggler Clan also went in it to even the odds.
At least it was a day full of fights, burning ships, wins and losses which ended in the early morning hours and started with a headache the Day after.
*This post is dedicated to all players loving Server sided RP.*
