Clean Up the Galaxy

The chancellors of Planet Rahalito had a different request than norrmal. A pirate ship has been terrorizing the Sol System, but it's not the piratic activity that has caused them grief, but that the ship is using old Chinese technology that is leaving a toxic chemical trail wherever he goes. They want him taken out to stop the pollution. I just need the money and a Ranger Centre to cash in my collected nodes, of which Oldy will do nicely.


The trip out through Minnaver to the Sun was relatively uneventful with the usual opportunist mining and trading. I dropped off the spoils at Oldy as well as locking in the nodes. The pirate was easy to find. Follow the smoking trail. Why a pirate would use a leaking ship is beyond me, but I didn't feel the need to ask him, just relied on laser talk.


With the kill confirmed, I hunted around for another task to take me back in the direction of Hese to collect my fee. Some rare artifacts to Regulus fit the bill, but I didn't press the negotiations on price as I wanted to check out how the scientific probes had gone.

Previously I had dropped off probes in Betelgeize and Tallot systems, so I plotted an arcing course through those systems to check on their progress. Both had just turned up some minor goods, but nothing of real value. One of the probes had finished so I packed it up for a fix and relocation to somewhere in Hese. The other still needed to cover some mountainous terrain, so it may as well stay to complete the survey.

The Regulus run garnered more reputation and an injection of capital, but nothing like the reward on offer back at Hese for the removal of the toxic ship. Once that circuit had been completed I was back to a free state with no obligations.

Back Home

The tasks on offer weren't that appealing in the Tallot system. It's right next door to Dominator fighting, but I'd rather still wait for better firepower. Through a scan of the records it seems Mars has a similarly small Lezka as the one I have, so a trip home might be on the cards.

With no time-based tasks to set the pace, I took my time getting back to the Sun by picking up flotsam and intercepting asteroids. There was a welcome surprise when planet Astron in Betelgeize gave me a reward for cleaning up asteroids on a collision course with that planet. Nice!



Arriving at Sol I popped back into Oldy Ranger Centre to check up on our progress and donate the nodes that had been clogging up my hold. Mars was next to sell off minerals, refuel, and pick up the Lezka that was still available (luckily, the last trip based on looked up prices turn into a disaster).

Mars also had an oversupply of luxuries, so if I can string together a couple of runs to Earth I could make a substantial amount of money.


2 trips netted another 5k, bringing my current total to 18,539cr. With 2 Lezkas and a full bank I'm happy heading back to the front lines. Maybe I can hook up a delivery going that way?

10k

Earth has no more Medicine available for trade, Venus is out of Equipment too, but boy are my pockets full! The trips were getting so large I left all non-essentials on Earth to take even more cargo:



After a month I've made over 10,000cr. I guess I've mastered trading? Time to head back to Oldy and see what they want me to do next ...

Time vs Money

Another potential gain is to sell the equipment quickly. If you can make 500cr profit in 5days rather than in 10 days it would be better because you could then have the potential to make more in the remaining 5 days. Eventually all trades come down to a rate of increase of your credits. The faster the better.

As it happens, Venus is passing very close to Earth in its orbit as well as Oldy, the Ranger Station. Dropping off the goods there would mean a sale in 2 days or 4 days respectively compared to an 8 day trek across the solar system to Dream. Earth being the closest is an obvious choice as long as it has around the same prices.

Turns out it's got better prices! 95cr per equipment means that I'll rake in an extra 700cr over what I was expecting. Quick! Turn around and sell some more while the prices are running hot!

Raw Recruit

Today's the big day: 1st of January, 3300. Turn of the century and the biggest party this side of Rigel. Not for me though, I'll be making my own fireworks in the Old Ranger training centre.

Space flight is different than what I imagined. They steer like the aeroflots at home when in the atmosphere, but once you get out the controls tighten up and your bearings get screwed. Dad's advice was to travel fast and watch your back. Well, I got the first part down pat and it's AWESOME!

Ranger Station "Old" is a hive of activity. Here's a pic of my training instructor along with my omni-watch overlay to translate what he's saying:



Apparently the stories Dad used to tell me about the Dominators are real, and as a Ranger they are our primary task. We're free to tackle them any way we see fit though, so trading, mercenary work, or even piracy could be tolerated if it means getting closer to information about the dominators. They are still a little cagey about the details until I've completed the training, but I'm in no rush to meet them.

We've also stumbled across a couple of extra bonuses Dad had preinstalled, a Rethone cannon and an advanced engine. I guess he was serious about the speed:



Oh hey, that was me in the corner!

Speaking of Dad I found him in the list of Rangers too. They have somewhat of a leaderboard to promote competition amongst the pilots. I'm at the bottom with Orollin above me with a couple of missions already completed and some Dominator action. Nothing like my Dad though; 39 dominators killed to be 14th on the list!




We're also taken through a briefing on map reading. Our solar system is simply know as the "Sun" inside the "Qaragon" sector (what happened to the 'u'?). Phaavy and Khisha sectors have systems within one jump, although I'm told we'll be getting to that later ..



First mission is to fly back to Earth. If it weren't for the bio exam I could have saved myself the trip!