Gordon tries to help a Rhino pilot, and drags his brother into a fight he can't win
Part 1 - Gordon Skye - The Liber-Bug
Kusarians. Everywhere. I was assisting with the defence of Leeds, just helping the BAF boys. The stupid Kusars decided to try a gunboat against the Derby. Yeah, that worked. They lasted all of about 5 seconds. The fighters were a bit to fast for the Derby though, so I helped the BAF chaps send them packing. Well, throughout the number of skirmishes, I noticed a Rhino - little liberty-bug flying past, looking lost. I decided to chase after him and help the pilot, Remco, out a bit. I mentioned the whole war, and the dangers. How I’d even seen those Kusarian cowards blow up a zoner ship before. Just ‘cos they had some refuges aboard. So, a little libber-bug would stand no chance. I remembered an old shipping route my brother, Tyler used to fly in his Clydesdale, so I mentioned it to the Rhino pilot. I flew with him to Graves to pick up some Gold, then the plan was to go on to Cambridge to sell it to a research guy Tyler knew. He’d told me his name in his letters, and it would be quite easy to track him down.
As we approached graves, and alerted the station to our approach, a voice came over the comms. It sounded dodgy, and I wasn’t convince it was friendly. The voice, I later found to be coming from the Molly gunboat The Final Rush, offered gold ore. I declined on behalf of Remco, as Tyler’s contact on Cambridge only bought refined gold. It was as Remmy docked that I finally saw The Final Rush on my scanners. I flew closer to get a decent scan of the ship, and still not knowing who or what it was, I opened the comms line. Sounded like a molly to me, though he was masking the dumb accent with educated and well spoken words, it was still unmistakable. I anticipated just another cracked up kid wanting to act tough, so I joked at his expense, things about inbreeding and the likes. As we started getting heated, I signalled Remco to head for the jumpgate while I handled the Molly. Bad choice Gordon. Stupid Molly was in a gunny. Now, I’m a good pilot sometimes, but I’d be lucky to take down a gunboat. Being already within 2k, I decided to head out of there, and hoped that he’d leave me alone, despite my heckling. He began asking a few weird questions about the nature of freedom, and gave chase. I told him that freedom was about doing what you wanted do do, living how you wanted to. And he asked if I’d change my belief of freedom for him. I told him where to get off and continued fleeing. Oddly, he praised me as ‘worthy’ and broke off his pursuit.
I met up with Remco again just by the Dublin gate in New London, and we headed off to Cambridge. Aside from a few untrained corsairs attacking us by the London gate in Cambridge, the journey was uneventful, and Remmy sold the gold, and picked up some luxury food to take back to London.
On return to London, it turned out the food no longer fetches the same price it did when Tyler hauled it, and Remco wasn’t too happy. I decided to land my ship, and give Tyler a buzz, ask him to check with any of his contacts in Bowex about similar haulage that Remco could do to make some money.
Part 2 - Tyler Skye - Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...
We were moored with the Essex, having unloaded some food rations and water when I got the message from Gordon. He’d met a Libertonian, in a Rhino, who was trying to earn a quick quid hauling gold to Cambridge. Gordon explained he was currently on New London, and patched me through to Remco’s comms system. He quickly asked me to find out if there was any profit in an old haulage route I flew for this Libertonian, warned me about a Molly Gunboat flying around near graves, then left. I suggested Remco buy some mining machinery, the miners on Graves can always use more, and then agreed to meet him at Graves. Carl called the crew back to the ship, and we were underway for Graves within 5 minutes. As we arrived, Remco was already there, and unloading his hold full of mining machinery. We moored up and began loading the hold with gold. Remco was discouraged by the low profits and decided to return to Liberty before we could double check any prices and see if we could find him something better, but we had other problems to worry about, so let him go.
While I was talking to the Bowex Representative on the station, Carl interrupted me with a call through on my pager. A Molly ship was circling the station, just out of it’s guns’ ranges. I signed a few papers, and headed back to the Arundell to talk to the inbr *cough*… the Molly. It occurred to me rather quickly this one wasn’t quite the average pirate, and I decided instead of taunting to him, we’d have a sensible conversation, and discuss a safe way for us to get past him. However, before I could, the dockmasters on Graves had finished loading our ship and sent us on our way. We had no choice but to butt heads with the Molly.
As luck would have it, a Bounty Hunter Gunship happened to be passing. Best luck we’ve had in a while, and in my haste, I made a foolish mistake. Instead of opening a private comm line to the hunter to ask for help, I yelled out over the open comms, offering him money to dispatch the Molly Gunboat. Unsurprisingly, the Molly lept into action and attacked us.
I woke up a little while later to Carl dragging me off the smoke filled bridge onto the Essex. I wasn’t sure what happened, but it seems a metal beam came loose and hit me on the back of the head. I passed out again on the gurney the medics brought out to us.
That utter fool. He'd have gotten us all killed. The Hunter was 6K away, and we'd be dead before he'd turned round. I had no choice, I hefted up my chair and swung it round. Tyler was out before he hit the floor. I grabbed the mouthpiece and pleaded for our lives. I yelled out openly that the hunter was to stand down, and to the Molly to spare us. Thank the lord it worked. As the hunter went off cursing, the Molly ship loomed over us, and I cut our engines, awaiting his demands. When he realised I was more reasonable than the last guy on the comms, he seemed calmer, less bloodthirsty, and we started talking. About freedom. The freedom of Dublin, to be specific. I set the engines to a slow chug, and let us drift slowly toward the London gate, hoping he wouldn't notice.
Apparently, telling the Molly that I would change my beliefs to save the lives of our crew, and myself, made me unworthy in some way. He opened fire on out ship again. This time, we had no Bounty Hunter to help. A bulkhead exploded behind me, and I could hear creaks and shakes as the shields weakened. I grabbed the communication mouth piece and pleaded on the open channels for help. No-one responded. As the shields failed and the ship was wracked by huge explosions, I kicked the thruster on, and set the ship toward the Essex. I tried to get the cruise engines online, but the Molly disrupted them. Another explosion shook the Arundell, and I sounded for the crew to abandon ship. I hoisted Tyler onto my shoulders and headed to the escape pods. Another shake, and I was thrown to the floor. This time it wasn't an explosion. The ship's loading arm had collided with the Essex. I jumped back to the controls and steered us safely around, trying to put the Essex between us and the Molly. Despite the Essex unloading everything they had at the stupid pirate, he kept coming, and we were getting seriously beaten. As the molly began to withdraw, I noticed our engines were down, and we were drifting away from the Essex, away from safety. The near-crippled molly came at us one last time, and a massive fireball collided with the front of the Arundell. Shards of broken metal bounced off the nose, and the useless gunboat limped away for good. We were cleared for mooring with the Essex to wait for a tow to a shipyard. I woke the captain and helped him off the ship. Luckily no-one else was harmed.