I was heading to California, I had skirted West Point Military Academy and made it to the trade lane three rings down. As I was passing through the trade lane I stepped up from my captains chair of The Aldebaran, my Osiris Dreadnaught and just happened to glance at my tactical ops station and saw a radar blip of a cruiser near the trade lane, I asked my tact ops officer to give me an ID on the blip, as the AI Computer marked it as a friendly target, which is rare at best for a Corsair dreadnaught in the heart of Liberty. My TO officer pulled the records and got a very generic reading on it. He told me it was a Cruiser class ship, relatively small and was broadcasting a Liberty Rogue Signal ID. I turned to my helm and told him to drop us out of the lane, and bring us about to a position 8 kilometers away from the cruiser we had scanned.. close enough for a visual but far enough to be out of their scanners.
When we arrived at the coordinates I had the viewscreen target the ship and magnify. It was a very intiminating looking vessel, so much so that I had to add one to my personal fleet, granted it had the power to back up the look. I set the ship to combat status raised the shields and ordered my helm to approach to 4 Kilometers, surely we would be within their sensor range, but well out of their scanning range, but within ours with our high end scanner, primarily operating in the Border Worlds does have its advantages. I ordered I full scan and diagnostic of the vessel. Just as I made the order, my comms system blared to life and I had my communications officer put it on the main viewscreen, it was the commander of the Liberty Rogue cruiser, he asked me to identify the ship and it's alignment, I did so. I identified myself by callsign as Captain Dark Oddity of the Corsair Dreadnaught Aldebaran, he replied with a question "Corsair's eh? And what is your reason for being here then?" I told him the ship interested me, and I was interested in taking a look at it, and he would be well compensated for his time. He agreed and I took my personal shuttle and boarded the craft.
When talking to the Cruiser Commander he told me all about the ship, and it's abilities, being careful not to give too much information since it was produced with their semi-allies, the Outcasts, enemies of the Corsairs. I told him I was interested in purchasing the ship, and offered him a sum of money that would make even a child turn on their parent, and asked him simply for help in procuring a ship of it's make and model. With that, he told me that their would be an Outcast battlegroup heading to rendevous with a luxary liner in a Sigma system and he uploaded the information into my personal datapad, I had some of my crewman bring over 500 tons of cardamine, and 500 tons of artifacts, and several captured commanders from Liberty fleets that frequent the heart of liberty, along with a sum of $50,000,000 credits which he greedily accepted.
A week later at the scheduled time, I lay in wait near the luxary liner Hawaii on the far side of the planet it was orbiting. Sure enough the information was good, an Outcast battle group dropped out of cruise speed and entered a defensive formation around the Hawaii. Something big was going down, but I didn't know what. A private shuttle launched from the Outcast Battleship and docked with the Hawaii, apparently there was some sort of high level meeting or deal going down.
My scout posing as a freelancer was nearly shot down for straying too close after a warning from the Battleship, I sent an encrypted comm to him to tuck tail and run to the nearest neighboring system where we would pick him up when we finished here, and so he wouldn't reveal our position.
Nearly three hours later, the personal shuttle finally launched and returned to the battleship. Communications throughout the battlegroup were being tossed back and forth as they were preparing to depart coordinates for the jump they were using to leave the system and return to their homeworld, I ordered a group I had prepared of one freighter and four fighters to approach the Hawaii and act as smugglers carrying a load of artifacts with escort as not to get shot down. Sure enough the freighter, loaded with some of my men for boarding action, got to the Hawaii, conveniantly had thruster problems and warned the Hawaii it would be several minutes till they were able to complete the mooring process. The Outcast battlegroup began it's initiation into cruise speed and my fighters, according to plan broke formation with the freighter and went for the "caboose" of the battlegroup, one of four Outcast destroyer Huegenots escorting the Battleship. The four fighters launched their cruise disruptors as fast as they could, unloading enough of the engine disabling rounds to kill a small fighter based on the impact alone. The destroyer sent it's cry for help but the battlegroup wasn't able to disable their cruise engines untill they hit 6 kilometers distance, at which time they had to turn around.. by that time it was too late, the fighters had disabled the shield and the freighter with the boarding party had latched onto the hull of the ship and the boarding party had dispersed into the cruiser. It took the battlegroup a whole of 10 minutes to bring their ships to bear down on the location and begin initiating cruise speed to return to the location, by the time they were prepared, the outcast destroyer had been over run, the crew killed and a new crew dispatched from the freighter who had been trained based on information obtained from the bribed rogue commander. Sure enough the cruiser was brought to bear towards the planet and set for full impulse, leading it to meet with the Aldebaran.
I had the ship form up with the Aldebaran and ordered a course set for the rendevous coordinates and a full retreat where the fighters and freighter would meet up with my flagship. Sure enough just as we were up to 90% initiation of cruise speed the outcast battlegroup dropped out of their cruise and unloaded a volley of fire so powerful that it disabled the shields of the Aldebaran, greatly damaged its armor plating, and nearly pulverised my newly captured ship, thankfully the engines were not harmed and it was able to escape into cruise speed along side the Aldebaran to the rendevous coordinates, from there we returned to planet Crete to announce our newly aquired prize from our enemy, the Outcasts.
