So there i was again, odia/sedina wormhole. Id come through this way a hundred times and never seen a pirate. But I knew that the 101st time was the one with your name on it, so I had equipped my centaur with my trusty anti-pirate weapon: the concussion mine.

As the warp hole closed, and my eyes glazed over at the burning blue light I'd seen a thousand times, I noticed there was vanazek ore floating in space. Odd I thought. I was about to type to the galaxy that someone had been ganked at Odia/Sedina, there was ore floating about, when suddenly I saw a little red blip on the corner of my radar.

Oh god I thought, as I punched the turbo, and dropped a mine. Who is it? Ahh, as I hit X to target nearest enemy, I recognize the name. Him again. He had killed me without warning before, and was infamous for his lightning attacks. On a bad day you could hear periodic broadcast curses from other pilots he had killed, but youd never hear anything from him.

So, I thought, I am home free. Got my turbo going and my mines dropped, and all is well. No, all is not well! He is closing! He has one of the new, faster ships! And what is this, explosion! My viewscreen has gone all crooked! Where is my nose reticle? My balance completely off, I couldnt tell which way my ship was pointing. My ability to turbo away was cut drastically as momentum was no longer in my favor. I dropped more mines, hearing the satisfying 'boop' of contact, but I had no idea if they would slow him down enough so that I could actually escape.

Again I turboed away after my ship stopped rolling around from the explosions. What was he shooting at me, missiles? I heard no warning beep.. but I could see the yellow dots on the radar now as I had a spare second to look. Another mine. This time I drop my cargo, a full 48 crates of synthwood. Im getting away, 170, 180, and BAM, he hits me again. Again Im rolling helplessly in space. Jesus christ will I make it out of here alive? My only hope is to keep turboing, and mine, but I have used my last one!

Thank god I am 3000m away now, and can warp. I warp to station, and barely make it in, my ship smoking and bits flying off of it. I see him jump in behind me, but I make it in time. But I don't have my cargo! All that faction I could have gotten, lost! Now what will I do?

I notify the galaxy of his presence, and complain about his missile spamming, but a friendly voice informs me that it was probably rockets. Aha! Rockets.

Now for my cargo mission. What do I do? Simple, get a faster ship, and go back and find it. So I do. A hog Mk III. A good mine launcher. And I am back. Zounds! There he is!! But where is my cargo? I scan for purple dots on radar, all I see is the VanAzek still there.

I toodle around, watching him closely, looking for my dropped cargo. Damn, its nowhere to be found. I was so far from the wormhole and asteroids by now that I will never find it, unless I stop and do a manual zoom-in scan of the whole sector, which I'm not going to do with all these pirates running around.

He toys with me a bit, I keep a distance, he farts around with the cargo, and I have no idea what he is doing. Maybe he is out of rockets. I can't find my cargo. Argh. What now?

I go back thru to the original station and buy more, determined to complete the mission. As I come back, I taunt him. "Coming through again, hope you are ready". Sure enough, he is right at the wormhole. But this time I am ready too. I drop mines like crazy, and fire a few missiles for good measure, just to psych him out. Then I jump to a bot field, and head straight for the Arklan Guardians pooling in the distance. I keep track of which ones are on my butt, by targeting the nearest enemy. And sure enough, the Guardians are keeping after me more closely than the pirate. I can only assume he was delayed slightly by their presence, which allowed me to slip through, though he has the faster ship.

As I make it to my destination, I cant help but think only a few minutes ago I had been telling myself how boring it is to do trade missions. And only a few minutes later, I would move to a safer system, far from the Odia/Sedina graveyard, and do my trading there.

Until again, pirate friend.

the further adventures

---

forgive me if i lost some details. some facts. some embellishments may have been made. it was like a blur. the thing was mostly a matter of instinct, reflex from experience.

but i write this so i have some memory, some record in the days ahead, so i can come back and see how things were, as near as i can, in this time. in this part of the galaxy.

-----

so i got sick of the pirates. the pkers. the psychos. the new fast ships had given them new gusto. i saw them more often, i saw them at places id never seen them. and i saw them closing on me even at top speed. that was when i decided to get even.

i bought a shiny new ragnarok mk iii, with 2 locust swarms and 3 geminis, 5 guided missiles in all. i took off for the known pirate hangout, and there he was. as soon as he got close i opened fire. blammo. got him, a little bit anyways.

i jumped through the wormhole, him hot on the trail. i jumped to a bot field. nice. the good old arklans guardians can always be counted on to slow down pirates. who knew i would grow to love those bots so much. so that was that, i thought. time to finish the mission. i jump to the station im supposed to be at. ACK there he is!

i ran for the docking bay, thought twice, turned around, and blasted him as he closed to within 500m. i was scared he was gonna kill me first. bleep! i have fired on someone under the stations protection. too bad for me.

he told me ' bye bye ' sarcastically as the station defbots ripped me to shreds.

-----

the same thing happened again. i ran to the station, he closed, i shot him, i died by defbots. sad.

-----

the next time i tried a different tact. i put 1 mine launcher and 4 missiles on a ragnarok. this worked better. he couldnt chase me as well as before. but still, it was slow as molasses.

but his ship was fat and slow too. i decided to test it against a centurion iii, which i had used a little bit against the queen swarm earlier that day. although this was an improvement, it hardly helped me. he had much better aim than a queen, and his rockets nearly destroyed me.

----

i gave up and went back to trading. i admired gingerbread girl a few times, as she taunted pirates and ran away in a loaded centaur. how? i still dont know. technically they should have been able to catch her.

-----

after a few dozen trade missions through this inferno, it was over. i got the new ship. the new secret ship. it was time to test it. i went trading, same route, and things had heated from sizzling to smoking. i happened upon some of the most notorious pirates in the game. i taunted them a bit to get their blood boiling, or at least try. one of them told the other 'lets postpone the duel, and kill him'. gulp. i was loaded down with several tonnes of ore... and a mine launcher and gemini missiles.

it was a close chase. it was turbo and mine and shoot the geminis in the wrong direction hoping desperately to throw off the attacker. it was through a bot field at the last minute. and
last of all it was to a station.

a station they were soon camping!!!!! i checked the bar. one of them had been in and out. in and out. i requested help on channel 100. someone else said he had just gotten killed by them right there. oh great. i asked for help, no response.

how embarassing. a brand new ship. a bunch of loudmouth taunting i had just flewn everywhere. and here they were about to blast me into oblivion. they started mouthing me. 'maybe its time to log off.'. i tried to keep them talking. i unloaded my cargo, and weighed my options. missiles? too heavy. just mines? keep them talking a few more seconds... 'this new ship', 'what better way to test it'

ok, butch cassidy time. i blasted out and they were after me, at least 3. some notorious pirates there, the kind mentioned on bounty announcements at the stations. i had little hope.

i launched a mine. i cant even remember if i was thinking about defbots at this time. i hoped to outrun them though. this ship was fast. superfast. and the mine made a sweet connection, i saw the yellow warning flash, that i had harmed 'protected pilots'. what a laugh. and i headed off. but which way?

one of them had the fastest ship in the game... faster than mine by 40m/s. one hope was the asteroids. open space, i had no chance against this guy. but in the rocks... people get clumsy and nervous. in the asteroids.. the ice cubes... the... the iceberg! there it was. right on my left hand side. well here goes nothing.

i wheeled around towards the berg. anything that big has to be good. i dropped a few more mines, and tried to keep an eye on the range of these folks. the berg grew larger in my display... would this even work? closer closer, they could start shooting anytime now. . . who knows what weapons they had gotten by entering the station.

the defbot dots grew brighter and brighter, the pirates dots as well. this was gonna be close.. i was surprised i wasnt dead already. resigned to my fate, but resigned to my determination to live as well.

the iceberg cluster loomed large. but it was not a straight shot clear through it. it was like a sandwich, two huge semi-flat shell asteroids positioned close to each other, and slightly tilted, so id have to just angle slightly to slip through them....

i had to let off turbo, move the nose, re-engage turbo, always
worrying about losing speed. as i passed the threshold of the ice
cluster, i left a present for my followers. just around the first
bend they would find a mine, and the asteroids were so close
together that once the pursuer was inside, they wouldn't be able
to turn to avoid it.

but the rest of the formation was still ahead of me. i had slowed down, needing to turn enough to avoid.. the large white object ... getting larger... moved my nose and turboed away... my ship slowly corrected course... but the white was almost filling my view screen!!! i braced for impact... waited... and there was none! i had made it through! the stars shone through and the inky blackness of space embraced me. pure unadulterated luck.

but was i free? i wheeled my view around backwards. i could see
some of the dots, directly behind me, behind the iceberg. these
were trying to follow me straight through the formation. i felt i
had safely lost them. i was so far ahead, and they were just
slowing down to weave through it.

but there were other dots... moving up, around the roid, is that
where they are going, i thought? around the roid cluster? were
their ships so fast that they could simply bypass the formation?
could they still catch me?

but it was too late. their distance had fallen off. i heard a 'beep' ... my mine inside the roid going off... i knew not whether it was a pirate or a defbot... and probably never will.

i jumped to a bot field. . . . heart pounding, paranoid, breathing hard.

but this time there was no one to follow me.

i was safe. the ship had worked. but most of all i had been lucky.

i gathered my thoughts, went back and gathered my cargo, and made way for safe haven. home. Dau. UIT capital. where things were good and pirates didnt lurk at every crossroads wating to gank you for nothing.

this new ship was amazing, but perhaps something not to be flaunted. just quietly used, to quietly make money, and quietly trade, and quietly mine. id have no problem with that. would i?

and dont worry forum moderator, i made a backup this time!

Nice story to read.

You like to drop mines as defence. This is okay imo.

But i would be pleased for an explaination, why you drop mines in front of a player who's mining. There was nothing to defend. And don't tell again, it is fun. It isn't.

Linda (-:

lin lin i apologize for disturbing you.
i promise it wont happen again!

"and dont worry forum moderator, i made a backup this time!"

No need for either of us to worry. Nice job.

Nice story very cool..

As much as we have had difference in the past ananzi I must admit, that was a very good read, you should write some "entertainmentisized real life events" stories, maybe youll get your own section or something. And btw, that story summed up the thrill of pirating quite well also, although it was from the piratees' perspective.

Excellent experience. I felt as if I was there and riding your emotional roller coaster. Looking forward to the Sequel. (:->

awesome story!

I give it 5 stars: *****

and a quadruple 5 star front crash test rating!

The Sequel will not be televised!

unless we can get a cameraman this time P)

Very good, enjoyed it a lot, and i know it's fun working with you because we did that roid to 110,000.

We're still waiting for the sequel... :D