His name was Davy as a young lad, and he was the "shop monkey" at his father's small
Hauling and Salvage company on Leeds. A dirty little shop in some dirty corner of the
dirtiest planet in Bretonia.
Needless to say, he grew up with a noticible lack of social graces due to spending all of his
time around mechanics and freighter pilots. He did however amass an impressive repertoire
of dirty jokes. (much to his mother's chagrin.) He essentially grew up either in the cabin
while his father or an uncle flew the ship, or bombing about his father's shop while trying
to stay out from under foot and out of trouble, not always successfully.
He was an average student and opted for the classes and certifications that would help
him along the obvious path laid before his feet, that of a grease monkey and pilot in his
father's shop. Opportunity didn't spend much time knocking on the doors of Planet Leeds,
especially for this ginger-haired son of a loud-mouthed and ofen drunk small-time salvage
fleet operator.
He earned a lot of experience with the inner workings of ships and engines, and being of
a smaller than average frame, always seemed to get the work where one must shimmy
into the most god-awful crevices of his father's grubby little fleet. There were a dozen old
and small freighters, but truthfully, it was all they could do to keep 6 or 8 of them operable
at any given time. And as his father grew older, more of the burden fell on his shoulders
as far as fleet maintenance and shop operations.
His mother worked in the office doing all the receiving and compliance paperwork, but as
his parents were nearly 40 when he was born, it became obvious that the family business
was fast becoming his personal Albatross. With 6 full time pilots plus 2 uncles hanging
about the shop who obviously felt as though they should get first crack at work in their
brother's business, Davy always seemed to be under the gun to get another ship in order
or fix a new problem that threatened to take one out of service.
In short, his life was becoming a private little hell as his mother's eyesight began failing
along with his father's health. Once he came into full possession of the company's books
and saw how the business had spent the last several years wobbling along the edge of
the financial abyss, he knew he was going to have a rough year.
It wasn't much longer before his Mother passed, succumbing to the effect of her life-long tobacco
habit. She always said "when you live on Leeds, you might as well inhale your carcinogen of choice also."
And without Mother around, Father didn't last much more than a year. the drink took him, of course.
All of a sudden, and just before his 36th birthday, it seemed that he was in charge of the family's small
freight concern. The uncles tried to persuade him to merge with another small business run by a family
friend, but Davy knew this man too well. Brash and obnoxious, without the excuse of drinking that his
father had. Frankly, this guy was just a walking, talking Bunghole. Davy wanted no part of him, but saw
an opportunity to cut his generally unreliable and "entitled" uncles out of his business equation.
He agreed to divide the company's fleet 60/40 with the uncles, them getting the 60%. They could join
with Mr. Bunghole if they wanted, but Davy was going to convert his share of ships to handle ores.
there was a lot of work hauling ores these days. The uncles quickly agreed, believing that they got
the best deal. Remember however, that Davy was the channel-crawler through these ships for many
years and knew which were the ones with actual value.
It was decided that the 2 oldest of 12 ships were too old and worn-out to be of any use.
They were early model CSV's that father had puchased second-hand from Junkers in New London
long ago. These were scavenged for the few useful parts left and pitched on the scrap heap.
Of the remaining ships, there were 6 Starfliers and 4 Startrackers of varying age.
The uncles disdained the Starfliers, but Davy knew that they had seen less hard use despite
being older and that there were many common parts between the two models.
The uncles jumped at the deal when Davy agreed to take 1 Startracker and 3 Starfliers as his 40%.
Some paperwork was signed and run under the noses of the Barristers. The shop itself and it's
threadbare accounts, along with all it's scrap were used to pay off existing debt. Then, with the fall
of a gavel, Davy and one of the full-time drivers from father's crew named Shelton
(whom Davy had known most of his life as a decent and hard-working employee, and with whose
son Davy had attended school) were now a separate business entity known as:
Redline Inc.
They quickly retreated to a temporary shop and set about creating the 2 best ships possible from
the ones they had picked from the fleet. Due to Davy's near complete knowledge of the ships in
question and having cleverly picked the stafliers that he knew to have the best common parts,
the Startracker and one of the Starfliers was rebuilt to rather nice condition in a few months.
Shelton and Davy ran whatever short runs they could with whichever ship they had servicable
at any given time, and Davy even drove deliveries for Boar's Head Provisions to keep the
wolves off the doorstep.
At last, however, after much toil and sweat, they had 2 decent ships with which they could seek contracts. Redline Inc was flying.
We're sputtering along fairly well, all things considered.
Shelton picked up a sub-contracting job running toxic waste and slag out of LD-14.
It ain't pretty, especially considering the damn Gallian incursions in the area. making
it even more dangerous. Shelton's pretty happy with it though. It's paying his bills
and allows him to go home each night.
I picked up enough work to keep us in the black for the moment. I even managed
to put something aside toward upgrading my ship.
Baby steps.
I've even picked up a second run from Boar's Head. Forth and back between
Planets Cambridge an Curacao bringing luxury foods for the tourist's buffet tables
and returning with tea. I make sure everyone has a good nosh and tea at 4:30
while dodging pirates and living on coffee and protein bars. Some things never change.
I've got a line on a used Liberty rhino freighter that will up my cargo capacity.
More real estate in back equals more money. But it has a hull like a candy wrapper, so
i'll be sticking close to home with that one. One can make 400 credits a unit going
between New London and Cambridge. Short money but a quick turn-around.
It all adds up.
I saw the Anki freigher while cooling off on Waterloo Station.
A nice beefy ship with 500 units behind her. Now that's worth eating protein bars
for another few months.
More of the same old for a freighter pilot lately, long hours of boredom punctuated by occasional moments of sheer terror. I'm using an old Liberty rhino for now, and the relatively thin hull combined with limited sheild capacity has made extreme caution the order of the day. I've lost count of how many times I've been lane-hacked in New London lately. I guess the Crims are having a jolly time while the Navy is occupied with these damn Gallian incursions.
I'm making slow headway, however. Living like a Monk and sleeping in either the ship, or the shop whenever I'm near Leeds. I'm only asking Shelton to kick 10% of his take after expenses back to the shop. That way, he makes a decent enough share to keep him interested. His kick-in plus my side work are nearly paying for the expenses of our decidedly low overhead operation. This means that the work I run with the Rhino is about 75 to 80% profit. This is definately being squirrelled away for a ship upgrade ASAP.
When get enough scraped together for a ship with 400-500 units behind 'er, I should really be able to get this money train rolling!
Wow, I can't believe that it's been this long since I've made a log entry.
Needless to say I've been busier than a one-armed man at a Spanking
Festival. ::rolleyes:
I've been picking up some slack cargo jobs for both BMM and Bowex lately.
These are jobs where there is excess cargo that wouldn't quite fit into their
big Transports but still need to get somewhere to meet a contract.
It's quite nice really, usually following a transport or two to their destination
with the excess. It's nice and cozy flying in the shadow of a transport with
8 or 10 turrets to work with when a band a Crims appears.
Best of all, this major surge in work finally allowed me to retire the last
Startracker in our little "fleet" and purchase the Anki freighter I've been eyeing. I finally have my own 500 unit ship!!
Shelton had been flying the old Startracker on local ore and scrap hauling runs
but with my purchase of the Anki, I've kicked the old Rhino down to that task and
we've now more than doubled our combined capacity. This should help us pick up
some steam, especially since it allows me to grab larger unit count slack jobs than
I had been. Shelton is happy with the Rhino and it's roomier cockpit, since he's definitely
gained a stone or two lately.
Meanwhile, we continue this high-wire act and try not to look down.
More un-exciting news from the world of ore-carriers.
There's a lot of work about in Bretonia due to the Gallic incursions.
Pilots from other colonies are finding somewhere else to be as long as
Gallian fighter wings and battleships are firing on any freghters in Bretonia.
You really need to keep your head on a swivel these days!
I've been jumping out of the tradelanes a segment short of the end in the
troublesome areas and making max-range scans before proceeding, since they've
mostly been attacking base and gate areas.
A lot of pilots and equipment dealers puzzle over why I always mount shield-busters
on my rear-facing turrets, but they'll be astounded by the brilliance when they figure
it out!
Well, the deck workers have the ship filled to the brim once again with some unremarkable
metallic substance and it's back to the grind for me.
Another log entry will soon follow if the Gallians don't implode me first.
// My forum account with which I'd begun this thread hasn't been working since the recent downtime, however this forgotten-about 4 year old account works fine!! Rather than pester the already annoyed and busy forum admins, I'll pick up the narrative using this old account. //
Things have kept steady at a frenetic pace.
Bowex has needed a lot of help getting minerals to Liberty and electronics back to Bretonia. I've been also having to sometimes go to Rheinland via the Omegas, which can be nervous work since the Corsairs, who are an annoyance within Bretonia, are simply a deadly hazard in the southern passage to Stuttgart.
I had the curious spectacle of having the corsairs who were attacking me get chased off by some outcasts in Omega-3. I made a quick exit while they were fighting one another since I'm sure the Outcasts would've taken up where the Corsairs left off once they had the upper hand.
I never thought I'd be so happy to see Rheinland military ships as I was when I passed into Stuttgart proper.
The good news is that all this work has allowed yet another ship upgrade.
Right at home on Leeds, I was able to pay 12 millions for a shiny new Percheron. A relative bargain since it carries half the load of a train at less than 1/10th the price.
I'm still dreaming about that Bretonia Train though, and the Perch's 2500 cargo may well help us get there.
For now though, a hard days work is done, and the object of my current dream is a frothy pint or two.
With the Gallian incursions now infecting Leeds, it has become too dangerous to fly solo.
Leeds is a vital link for an old ore-carrier like me and ours. Half of the time, Stokes station and Glasgow are covered with at least Gallian fighters, if not capitol ships too! The old money-runs to Tau31 are now out of the question.
Due to this threat, I've made some changes to our business plan. Old Shelton is now working in New London hauling Beryllium up from Cambridge for transfer to convoys going into Liberty space.
Needless to say, he is NOT happy about this. The more money made has quieted his complaints for now.
I myself was approached by some friends in Bowex and asked to help shore up their convoys supplying the BAF against the Gallians in the north and the Bounty hunters against the Corsairs and Order in the south.
My acceptance of this request has had the effect of making me infinitely soluble in the eyes of the banks, who were only too happy to supply monies to purchase both a Percheron transport for Redline Inc and a note to purchase a Shire transport for convoying with Bowex. It was an unnerving morning signing paper that said $116 million credits on them, but Bowex subsidized a decent portion of the note on the Shire. Still, 85 million is a big number, made slightly less scary by the fact that profits of 6-8 million and even more are possible with the Shire's cavernous hold.
Now I guess we'll see how well I can drive a ship the size of a 20 story office building!
I've carried on with running with Bowex for several months now.
More than a few white-knuckle moments have been had during those convoys, I can tell you.
We've made some surprisingly deep runs into both the Taus and Omegas but the cool, unflappable nature of the veteran Bowex pilots is something to behold. Having watchful allies among the mining vessels and intel from the Intelligence service has saved our butts on many occasions.
Thankfully, we're seeing less of the Gallic Navy in the area of Leeds. I guess Her Majesty's Navy has made some progress in the area.
It's certainly not safe there by any measure, but less incrementally less dangerous, at least.
![[Image: QOxXx2l.png]](http://i.imgur.com/QOxXx2l.png)
![[Image: yUOYS9Q.png]](http://i.imgur.com/yUOYS9Q.png)
