Chapter Three: A Dangerous ProfessionUlbar decided that to make his name as a famous space-adventurer he needed to do more than haul goods back and forth. Anyway, he never wanted to set foot on goddamned Basin ever again. So he headed over to the bar to see if he could find some more exciting work.
Unfortunately people tended to trust exciting work to those who had the credentials to prove that they could handle it. He was turned away by shady character after shady character.
Finally he managed to find two jobs. He told both that he'd think about their offers and went to get a drink. He sipped his beer while the barkeep talked to a regular about the war. It was then that he decided that caution was going to get him nowhere. He downed the last of his drink and calmly took both jobs, loaded his ship full of iron and took off for the New Frankfort system.
It was going to be a long trip. The distance he was traveling was almost mindboggling. He flew to the first of 3 jumppoints he would have to take. WHOOSH! For the second time in his life he felt his body being ripped into millions of pieces. Strangely enough, it already felt routine. Maybe it was just easier when he knew what to expect.
On the way he noticed a huge number of Confed patrols. On Basin the war against the Retros, the Kilrathi and against the ever present Pirates had seemed so distant but out here in space the harsh reality was setting in. One of the Confed pilot's voices crackled over the radio warning me that the area I was entering was disputed space and to watch for hostile activity. Ulbar replied that he would watch himself and continued on course.
Finally, after about a day and a half of flying (he slept while auto-pilot was on) Ulbar had arrived in the New Frankfort system. He swiftly set a course for the designated Nav Point, the city planet of New Frankfort. There he met with his contact, a man with a husky, deep voice. "Do you have the package?" he inquired? Ulbar confirmed that he did and that he had not looked at it's contents. "Good," the man said in a somewhat menacing tone.
His ship pulled up and a tube shot out and connected to Ulbar's waste expulsion unit. "Dump the package now and I will receive it." Ulbar dropped the package into the garbage chute and it fell out of sight...
The words, "Package has been received. You should find the credits in your account privateer," crackled over the radio and Ulbar breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want to think about what would have happened if the man hadn't received his package. He didn't sound like the most forgiving person in the galaxy.
As much as Ulbar wanted to visit a big city planet like New Frankfort, he had just committed a possibly illegal act right over the planet and so he flew to a nearby orbiting refinery to sell his iron.
He wasn't sure he liked the refinery. Sure he knew there was an almost impenetrable forcedome covering him, he still felt like he was going to be sucked into the inky black void of space any second.
He sold the iron and loaded up on "pre-fabs." He wasn't even sure what they were but apparently they produced them here.
He also bought an afterburner for his ship. The salesman said it would allow his ship to fly at twice it's previous max speed, at the cost of draining the ships energy, unless he set the ship's shields to half to offset the increased energy drain caused by the afterburners.
After getting a bite to eat at the station's bar, he hopped in his ship and set off to complete his next mission. he was going to skirt the pirate system of Rynkel by going through the MacAllister system.
When he warped out in the MacAllister system he warped out to a ship of strange design flying straight at him, pursued by two Confed ships, firing rockets, lasers and mass driven particles.
A strange sound the sounded like a communication that's been garbled came over the radio and the computer started screaming that the ship was being hit on the left side. "SHIELDS AT 56% AND FALLING!" Ulbar panicked, swung his ship around and started firing lasers wildly.
The Confeds were firing too. A missile struck the side of the ship and it melted away in a blinding flash of light. The Confeds radioed him warning him that there may be more Kilrathi nearby. Ulbar assured them that he would and set the autopilot for the jumppoint.
However as he neared the jumppoint an unidentified ship fired on his front shields. He thought, "This is not my day," and began another fight for his life, this time with no Confeds in sight.
"HULL BREACH!" The message blared as Ulbar frantically fired shot after shot at the rogue ship. He knew that his ship was damaged but so was his foe's. His sensor's indicated that the enemy's front shields were down and the enemy's ship had a far thinner hull.
Ulbar's gamble paid off and the enemy ship exploded, leaving no significant pieces behind. He breathed deeply and set off towards his objective.
When he came out of the warp, once again he saw an enemy ship staring at him. It was bigger than his. The Confeds were minutes away. His ship was damaged. "I'm a lucky bastard aren't I," he muttered cynically. "Ah well, better to die in space than on Basin." And with that thought he shoved the throttle forward and sped towards the Kilrathi ship.
BOOM! Terrible forces tore at the hull of his ship. His view screen went dark after the camera was ripped off and thrown into the void of space. The front of the hull was torn off and the last thing Ulbar saw was the twinkle of distant stars as he was torn out of his ship to join them in the vast emptiness that is space...
Well there ends the story of Ulbar. Poor kid. All he wanted was to be a hero...anyway! Anyone want a replay of this game? If there's enough support I'll start a new character. Otherwise I'll probably move on to a different game to LP.
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Topic: Re: Let's Play Acii Sector: Chapter Three, A Dangerous Profession (Read 3930 times)