The Confrontation
That day came once again, all kind of traders were like usually blinded by the profit, and they were hauling big amount of illegal cargo for the Borderworlds locals. Alone police patrol ship with the TSH tag was just leaving the prison station in the Manchester. Cargo bay fully filled with pirates locked into escape pods was unloaded and officer had carefully watching the traffic. He did not needed too much time for making the decision, was obvious that he need to visit the Stuttgart system. Small but very fast Dragonfly scout was fully armed and on high speed entered the Ostnebel cloud and headed towards the jump gate leading to the New Berlin. Only short time earlier he had used the bounties system and placed an open contract on head of one from known elusive traders. There was a good chance that mercenaries wearing the DP tag will take care about him.
But this time was something very fishy. He have received a brief radio message that the marked trader died in the New Tokyo, but small local police patrol have just send a message about the same trader and two mercenary ships passing together through Sigma-13. Officer had bad feeling that troubles are coming faster as expected. Then suddenly half of ship systems collapsed and ship computer has rebooted ... "What the f*** is going on?" he thought, "now is really not a right time for technical failures!" ... and ship systems were suddenly working again like nothing had happened. Jump gate from the New Berlin system have opened and DP tagged mercenary combat ship have entered the system. Distant sensors also sent a warning that there is another combat ship right in officer's back which arrived to the Stuttgart from the jump-hole in Ostnebel cloud. "Not the right time for the fight!" thought the officer, his ship was not designed for fight two combat ships at once. He used the "brave Robin" manoeuvre and his ship was right on escape course. He also was able to spot that suspect trader was still waiting in the New Berlin.
"So no coincidence here!" and his thoughts were confirmed in next moment when one mercenary announced his hostile intents. Luckily he was too far away and dragonfly's engines were making distance bigger with every next second ... but then came silence, the ship's systems were collapsed again and on scene arrived second DP mercenary. The Officer was only able hit the escape pod button when his ship started shake under guns fire. In next moment have exploded the pod's ejecting charges, and the officer have lost consciousness.
It was more hours later when he awoke in the Planet Stuttgart hospital. This was not something new for him, in the past he ended in such place quite regularly. He opened his com and quickly wrote a warning addressed to the clan headquarters about aggressive mercenaries. He also have scanned local news and with a surprise found, that his new mercenary "friends" were still in the local area. "Time for small payback!" he thought, on starport just arrived special police transport with heavy combat ship. "Where only they are? .. Frankfurt! .. very good, it's only a short distance ..."
