Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station
17 December YC 126
My last mission, The Score, was finally cleared by the reviewers and Purkkoken invited me to his office to talk about a new assignment.
“Thanks for taking care of that Guristas patrol, Vlad,” said Purkkoken after we exchanged greetings, “A few more successful missions like that and I will be in Colonel’s good graces again.”
“It doesn’t look like it is my success that has a decisive effect on your fortunes. So far, I haven’t failed a single mission, but your popularity rating has been jumping up and down like a March hare,” I said with an amused smile.
The agent winced, “I know, I know. Although your performance is not a sufficient condition, but it’s definitely a necessary one.”
I raised my eyebrows, “Have you studied formal logic?”
“No, mathematics.”
I laughed, “You too? Imagine that – here we are, two mathematicians, one working as a security agent, and another as a gun for hire.”
Purkkoken scratched his head in embarrassment, “Yeah, I still have not decided whether it was a poor choice of education or of a career. Anyway, here we are. Ready for another mission?”
“Just finished polishing my rails.”
“Good. So, listen, we have found a small repair station in Ekura. It’s not registered in the government’s official database, and it would be tax office’s concern, not ours, but one of our patrols detected pirates in its vicinity. We could go through usual bureaucratic channels to declare it an illegal enterprise, and either shut it down or make the owners, a local mercenary gang, register it, but as you can imagine, Navy, being Navy, prefers simple, fast and terminal methods. Your task is to go to Ekura and remove this repair station from existence. Questions?”
I chuckled, “Hehe, structure bashing. Is there a compensation for boredom?”
“I may sound cynical, but boredom is an essential incentive which expedites completion of such missions,” said Purkkoken and, seeing that I was not impressed, hastily added, “but if you find this necessary stimulus insufficient, I can throw in 75,000 ISK as a bonus if you complete the mission in 2 hours and 24 minutes.”
I grinned happily, “It’s always a pleasure to talk to a fellow mathematician.”
“The pleasure is mine,” replied Purkkoken with an exaggerated politeness, “By the way, we don’t have good intel on that station, so be careful there – it may be guarded,” then he winked at me, “Boredom may not be an option.”
Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Ekura system – Repair Station
The repair station floated amid a group of small ‘roids and was unguarded. I went into a 45-km orbit around it, acquired a target lock and started shooting. As soon as the first iron charge hit the station, four hidden point defence batteries came online and a gang of pirates warped in. An image of a pirate captain appeared in the local broadcast. He looked at me with disappointment, as if I was his favourite pupil who failed an exam, and tut-tutted, “Just as we were about to engage the services of this repair station, you had to come in and make a mess. Very inappropriate. Boys, let’s teach this lout some manners.”
Looking contrite, I replied, “Oh, I would be so thankful for the lesson. To show my gratitude, I’ll even make sure that you won’t have to pay for your repairs.”
The captain laughed, “You heard that, guys? We’ve got a sponsor! Mind you, mate, the repairs are quite expensive here.”
“Not to worry – I don’t have much gold on me, but I do have enough iron.”
The pirate’s expression hardened, “I don’t think this station takes iron as a payment.”
“No, but it is taking it as a punishment right now, and so will you. I didn’t promise to pay for you, I just said that you won’t have to pay for repairs…” here I made a pause and added some steel to my voice, “because wrecks don’t need them. However,” I smiled pleasantly, “I can recommend a good salvaging corp.”
All the traces of mock politeness disappeared from the pirate captain’s face and he yelled, “Get him, boys!”
“Ahem,” said Aura, attracting my attention, “while you were having your small talk with Mr Manners, I noticed that the station started sending repair drones to patch the pirate ships. Are you sure you can handle this gang with a logi support?”
I shrugged, “I don’t plan to attack the ships until I blow up the station, and after that the drones will go dormant. And I don’t believe those thugs in Arrogators and Imputors can get us before I am finished with the station.”
As soon as I said that, a few more hostiles appeared on the grid. They were classified as Mercenary Fighters and Rookies.
Aura raised an eyebrow, “And what about these thugs?”
Before I could answer, the comms screen lit up and showed a scowling face of Merc Captain who growled, “What’s going on here?”
I guessed it was the mercenary gang who owned the station, and said innocently, “Haven’t you got a notice?”
“What notice?”
“The notice from House of Records. You have not renewed your business registration, and now I am pulling down this illegal establishment.”
The Merc Captain looked confused, “But it has never been reg…” he stopped mid-sentence realising that I was pulling his leg, and his face took a fierce expression, “Oh you, motherfucker! I’ll have your head on a plate and sell your clones to Sansha’s slave camps for this!”
I looked downcast, “You beat me there. It’s a really good threat. I wish I could say something like that in response, but in my experience seven railguns don’t leave anything that even Blood Raiders would be interested in. Last time my one-twenty-fives were applied to a ship, the largest body part that I managed to extract from the wreck was DNA.”
At that very moment, the repair station exploded putting an end to our civil conversation, and the mercenaries began to pepper me with profanities and Inferno missiles. As I was already under the fire from pirates, my shield damage indicator started turning red dangerously quickly. I used my usual tactic of getting out of the firing range by turning on a microwarpdrive, and activated a thermal shield hardener for good measure. The pirates’ damage fell to zero, but one of the mercs doggedly kept in the range and his missiles regularly inflicted thermal damage, albeit significantly diminished. I thought I’d be able to tank it for a while and spread my guns across seven red triangles. The dance began.
In addition to the usual target-shoot-reload merry-go-round, I also had to keep an eye on the capacitor, as the MWD and the hardener consumed it with a healthy appetite. I got alarmed that I’d run out of capacitor and turned the MWD and the hardener off. Then the incoming damage increased and I started losing more shield than I was comfortable with, and I turned the modules back. While I was fiddling with controls, the railguns slowly but surely chewed through the hostiles. The pirates in crunchy Pithi ships went first. The mercenaries were tougher and took longer to dismantle, but dismantled they were.
I shook my head, “Those guys were no businessmen. See, instead of cutting their losses when the station went boom, they got emotionally involved and also lost their ships.”
Aura, ever practical, was not impressed with my business acumen assessment, and asked, “And what are you going to do about the batteries, Captain Vlad MBA?”
In fact, I almost forgot there were point defense batteries in the area. I was orbiting one of them at 45 km, which kept me completely out of their firing range.
“Ah, the batteries, we should demolish them,” I replied, “I don’t like those Auxiliary Power Arrays too. Let’s make a clean sweep so that the mercs don’t get any silly ideas about restarting their enterprise.”
After five minutes of necessary boredom, I declared the area sufficiently clean and returned to Tsuguwa.
