Small Hunt

Police central at Manhattan to Silver_Arrows patrol ship in Colorado: "Central to patrol, we have here an emergency situation, do you copy?" "Roger, prepared to receive a message, switching to a coded channel" came reply in a few seconds. Police fighter has just undocked from Battleship Rio Grande and its cruise engines were activating, when silent "beep" announced incoming message. It was report about the pirate attack - pirate known as Vulkan ambushed one from IOC traders in Bering. Unusual was, that this trader has not only reported this accident, but he also set a high bounty on a pirate. "Interesting" has thought officer, "to have a 'free of charge' mercenary assistance could come handy". Police ship entered trade lane leading to New York and officer started check incoming data about the pirate ship known course, his potential next victims and he also checked for mercenaries which could be interested for a small bounty hunt ... considering later affairs was this hunt everything else as a "small" one ...

Once officer reached Bering was clear that his target knows that he is being chased. Distance between them slowly decreased but this progress was painfully slow. The pirate ship course led through New London to The Corridor and from there up to pirates strong ground X-3043. But this time no one answered the pirate call, so he decided to outmanoeuvre his chaser in Neophobos. But the officer had at his disposal very detailed system map and soon after pirate jumped to Vespus he followed him tightly. After search on trade lanes he met at gate to X-3043 known mercenary Moorhuhn. He was looking for the same target, so made a chase-agreement was quick affair. Next to this appeared in space another officer known as APE and pirate started to have less and less choices for free escape. Was only a matter of time when he will need to fight, but this one was dangerous. Hunters were well aware that theirs numbers give them only a bigger chance to force him fight, but was no guarantee that they will be the winners at the end.

... to be continued.

The first sign that this hunt may last much longer was, that pirate evaded lock in Neophobos when he first damaged the officer APE ship. In meantime when was police ship repaired at Battleship Pollux, pirate escaped to Omicron Theta and from there he moved to Sigma-17. There he was locked again, but he again escaped while was previously damaged police ship almost destroyed. Rescue team from the Kurile has needed no less as half hour, to extricate pilot from the ship wreckage. Pilot itself was unharmed, but delay get him temporary out of the hunt-area which has moved to the Liberty space. Silver_Arrows officer was almost in touch with the target in Texas, but it was in the moment when was leaving the trade-lane. He saw his target only 9k away, but the pirate ship cruise engines were fully activated. Radar on the police ship was soon after empty again, the chase have continued. Pirate had decided, that is the right time to end this hunt and headed to Sol system. Normally it is an end for any chase, but what the police did not know was, that pirate forget to bribe coalition officer on the Earth. This small mistake was later proven as very important. Officers were already prepared to stop this hunt, when on group channel arrived message from one DP clan mercenary. He was with his ship, which was equipped for nomads hunting, on Deliverance battleship and willing to join the police operation. Silver_Arrows officer accepted this offer, but he knew, that the mercenary ship equipped only with guns will be hardly good enough for defeat this concrete pirate. On the other side mercenaries often risk theirs life for money and the bounty set on pirate was high enough. Next to this in any fight can happen many unexpected things. But not now, the pirate has left mercenary ship with damaged engines behind and jumped to Styx. Silver_Arrows officer was at that time still more as 150k away from the Deliverance battleship, but when he arrived there, he had on his computer info that the target is still in Styx. This was very uncommon, so he decided to rearm and refuel his ship on Deliverance and continue with chase into Altair sector. The pirate tried to outmanoeuvre his solo persecutor in Gladius, but this time it not worked ... was hard to say if this was some form of blind luck or whatever else. Officer first wanted go immediatelly to the Sovetskaya gate, but then he changed his mind because was weird why his prey did not go there long time ago. He decided to stay in cruise speed in area around the gate leading back to Mandar, and completelly avoided all incoming nomads ships which were desperately trying to destroy every human ship. Was needed some time but then finally the police ship radar again showed target at distance around 13k. Too far away to offer the exact vector, but officer's estimate that the pirate may want go back was proven as correct. In Mandar was police ship 9-10k behind his target, in Styx it was "only" 8-9k. Last chapter for this action was written again in the Sol system. Police was around 7k back and pirate ships had set course directly to Earth. Officer on the group channel had informed others about theirs actual position and vector, and with full concentration watched distance between ships. He did not had enough time to notice what exactly delayed the pirate, ... but suddenly was the distance only 3k. Three fast fired CDs stopped the pirate ship cruise engines and last fight has started. This one was really crazy ... missile packages roamed space in both directions all the time, space was full of CDs, CMs, gattling projectiles and green warsy lasers. Officer in one moment decided for risky maneuver, while he let recalibrate computer controlling the missiles. His ship hull was slightly damaged during this, but his missiles were again correctly tracking. Soon after was one from the missile-strikes successful and the pirate ship ended in a cloud of debris. Was time to head to the Earth. Short check revealed how tough this last fight was - ammo for missiles was at 1/3, only very few CDs remained and all these only for one from the three CD launchers and no CMs. "... not much was needed, and it all could end the other way around" thought briefly officer. It was very long day and he looked forward for spend all his rest time on old Earth.