Piracy: Rampant and Out of Control Part 1

Cantana Focks has been away in the Gemini Star System. Long cut off from the inhabitant of Sirius and Altair, Focks begins to miss home. Yeah, the Gemini system is great, Ships are nice and cloaking is quite a useful tool in an equally hostile environment compared to Sirius. However, Cantana does at times feel a bit homesick. The Red Dwarf of Omicron Gamma to the impressive electrical storms of the New York Badlands all begin to fade from memory. There's only one way in or out of Gemini and thats through Starpoint: a warp gate near the Nu Geminorum stars (which is probably the closest to the stars represented in Starpoint Gemini) which sends ships thousands of light years to another star system. It so happens that this other star system is Sol, the birthplace of Humanity.

Cantana wondered if the citizens of Gemini knew that there was a simple way to get to Sirius, just behind Pluto. Relativity is such a weird concept, he thought.

One day, he decided to do it. He engaged the T-Drive and hopped over the Starpoint Gemini. Cantana wasn't sure what was waiting on the other side, only rumors of aliens and sentient meteoroids that destroy research vessels coming through to Sol. It was rare someone travelled through Starpoint with the Earth Empire knowing about it and returned to Gemini alive. The Silver Tongued Devil was determined to not only travel through Starpoint, but to travel to the Sirius system. He arrived at Starpoint where two Cruiser class vessels approached his Helios Dreadnought, aptly named The Mississippi Queen. Demanding that he power down and standby for boarding, Cantana rolled his eyes. He had to think quick. Earth Empire shuttles were closing fast and the gate was too far to activate the Power to Engines sequence and make a run for it. He had to let them board.

Moments later, he was being held at gunpoint by Empire marines while another Officer scrolled through the datapad Cantana gave him with all the information regarding who he was, what the ship was holding and why he was trying to get to Sol. Focks had friends within the Baeldor Republic that helped him with the information to get past the security checkpoint into Sol. Jack Rigel was merely transporting mineral processing equipment to the Ceres Mining Camp in the Asteroid Belt. Baeldor didn't want to take chances with rumors of aliens floating around so they hired someone with a big ship to make the run. The Officer looked at Jack suspiciously, handed back the datapad and ordered the marines back to the Shuttle. As soon as the Shuttle was away, Cantana flew the ship toward the Starpoint.

Cantana didn't have words for what he was through the viewports on the bridge of the Mississippi Queen. Intersteller Travel varies and he wondered if the method of faster than light travel determined what you might see outside the window. He couldn't comprehend it. He broke out from the Starpoint in an Asteroid field, roughly 5 days travel to Jupiter using sublight engines. Cantana looked on the starchart and he was in Luck! Pluto was at closest point relative to Cantana and just enough to make it within T-Drive Range.

Later, he found himself at the Hyperion jump gate in Dublin, feeling victorious as he was able to leap hundreds of thousands of lightyears without firing a single shot. It was in this moment of glory when the alarm klaxon began going off as a Bretonian Battleship Essex was on an intercept course with Cantanas ship. The Helios Dreadnought was by no means a small ship and could very well give a Crown Class battleship a run for it's money. But along with the Essex with a contingent of Gunboats and Heavy Fighters. The Brets were scared so they clearly were not taking chances.

For the second time today, Cantana was being demanded he power down and standby for boarding. They weren't aware the ship could cloak and could escape into New London. Right before he gave the order to initiate cloaking sequence and hit the engines, 4 smalls contacts and one very large blip appeared on radar heading right for the shakedown between Focks and the Bretonian navy. It was Hessians, flying 4 decked out Archangels and an Inquisitor dreadnought flying right behind them. Suddenly, the sky lit up as the Essex took a direct hit from the Hessian capital ship and was clear that the Essex was dead in the water. Cantana acted quickly and engaged the pirates firing all forward batteries at the Dreadnought launching missile after missile. The Port and Starboard turrets engaged and fights and one by one, the Hessians numbers thinned. The Essex and her Escort bugged out the minute their power was restored and Cantana was left to finish off the Inquisitor. One last salvo and the ship was toast. Focks engaged the Cloaking sequence and headed for the New London Jump Hole. His next order of business was to get his Celestis out of storage...

not if i'm gonna be a one man clan

still on the fence about it

"What do you mean you don't have it anymore???" Cantana exclaimed. He was about ready to throw the desk attendant out the airlock. Kensington Shipyards was the last place he docked his Celetis Dreadnought, The Reaper and paid the stationmaster very well to maintain his ship in drydock. Focks learned that his ship was stolen by Pirates, stripped and abandoned in Omega 3 before a Freelancer with a tow line stumbled upon it and dragged it back to New London for demolition. He couldn't believe it. His baby, his powerful baby was going to be reduced to a vat of molten steel. The Silver Tongued Devil managed to get the location of the junkyard from the clerk at Kensington and piled back onto his Helios and set a course for New London, diverting all power to engines.

By the time he had reached New London, the Mississippi Queen was practically falling apart at the bolts. He had shut down basically every system on his ship and rerouted it to the engines. This of course, caused the engines to overheat and every alarm the Queen could sound was going off by the time she reached New London Orbit. He took a shuttle to the coordinates given by the clerk and soon after clearing the docking ring atmos-side he sped over to the junkyard where the Celetis was awaiting her fate. It was heartbreaking for Cantana to see his ship in such a state of disrepair. It made him wonder how long he was actually gone. The hull had huge patches of rust, none of the weapons were mounted and he was sure his secret stash of space grass was missing. He went to the office of the yard and demanded the manager release the dreadnought.

Cantana wasn't expecting to get into a fist fight over a rusted, decaying ship, but the manager certainly had an attitude that he himself, never would have though that Cantana Focks, Owner of the mega-corporation Focks Inc would be in his office demanding the release of a rusted, decaying ship. Eventually it was clear to the manager that Cantana Focks wasn't all talk as he had assumed for many years, so he gave the ship back

Everyone is either trying to make others' lives difficult or make a dollar at the expense of others, Focks thought. It was strange that one of the most heavily patrolled areas of Bretonia still had a pirate problem, and it only seemed to be getting worse. Cantana waited at a bar while his Celestis was being restored, drinking probably one of the best Sidewinder Splits he'd ever drank considering it's the first he's drank in a long time after being in Gemini for so long. He was watching the news and became curious as to how much piracy became a problem in Sirius. He picked up his datapad and began scrolling through local news of other houses. It seems to be a widespread problem especially with these newcomers causing problems. "The Inspector?" Cantana laughed "What kind of name for a pirate is THAT? The only thing he's gonna be inspecting is the inside of a space casket one day..." He got up from the bar and began to walk around the shopping complex.

The Silver Tongued Devil began to think. Sirius use to be much safer. The Bretonian Navy used to be a formidable force and he saw the Essex get completley disabled in a single salvo by pirates who would never have been able to get a hold of that kind hardware. He chose Kensington to store his ship due to it's military association and heavy defenses, but it seems they were able to walk in and take it from their under their noses. Not only that, the impound guy was trying to hustle Cantana Focks out of his money for his own ship. This absolutely angered the Silver Tongued Devil. Law didn't exist in Sirius anymore and it seemed like nobody was willing to do anything about it.

Cantana had to think long and hard before he made his next decision. It would probably just be him trying to clean up the galaxy from filthy rats and it would also probably cost him a fortune in Insurance claims for replacement ships. Trying to enforce the law was going to be tough and he wouldn't be able to cover all of Sirius alone. He figured he might be able to get some of the Corsairs still loyal to him to do some of his wet work for him but there was the matter of regular patrols and security checkpoints and it just seemed like a huge task to take by himself. If he's lucky, he'll be able to come across someone else trying to establish rule of law back in Sirius.

It would be a while still before the Reaper would be completely restore. So Cantana went to a hotel and got a room, since he had few days to kill. If there was one thing Cantana hated the most, it's waiting....