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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?

Confuzimuddlin'

Ahaha! The "rare animal" happened to be one of their own diplomats that they had banished into Gaalian space. Poor Gaalians, so naiive. Poor Pelengs, so abrupt. I felt sorry enforcing my payment, but they did need a delivery of their own so I guess it's a package deal. This time it's medals for a mud-throwing championship to crown the next leader of the Tallot Sector


Tallot boasted a military base, and looking through the advanced weapons had me salivating for the front lines. All were way too heavy for my crate, so headed over to complete the delivery run. The Pelengs were delighted to receive the trophies and were not just waiting for the rainy season to start to get the "campaign" underway. They also presented me with some Black Guck, a wierd substance that emits fuel continuously. Such an appropriate gift.

Looking through their components on offer I stumbled upon a new type of long range laser; a Lezka. It delivers much more damage too, so it will make an ideal replacement for one of my Mining Lasers. It weighs more, but I have a little leeway in that regard compared to mounting points. In fact another Lezka would be perfect if I can get it as light as this one.

Pirates

On my way to Meredito, the closest planet, a transport hailed us for support against a pirate. With revenge on my mind, I punched out an affirmation and set sights on the robber. He turned to flee, but passing close to the other planets, more and more traders joined in the hunt to clear the skies for safer trading. 6 in all were baying for blood, and with the rethone cannon slowing him down, the mob descended to tear him apart.


Back at Meredito I dropped off some cheap luxuries and equipment picked up from the Scientific station as well as a couple of fuel containers that were the last remaining vestige of piratic activity. Rumours in the mess hall indicated an armada is forming to take back Antares, but I've had my share of Dominators for now. The Gaalians have some rare Peleng critters that they want to donate back to them. Oh man, livestock transport? Is that all you've got? Think of the credits, think of the credits, think of ...

Regrouping at Hese

The closest jumpgate led to Hese and my hull barely held up to get me there. I was glad to see the other side of hyperspace and floored it to the closest habitable platform in case they followed.

The staff at Scientific Base "Quantum" were non-plussed with my report, and chided my escape without any Dominator components. They were mildly interested in the nodes, but mentioned that they had been sending all their nodes to the Ranger's Base. Sold off the lone component I managed to snaffle, a deflector from a destroyed human battleship. That and a score of minerals that made their way into my hold.

With a bit more cash in hand, I looked into their upgrade services for equipment. The scanner had let me down being unable to penetrate the Dominator's shields, so it was the first target for improvement. 1200cr to get it ramped up to 14% penetration, but that should do for now. Unfortuately that's all I can afford at the moment.

After reflecting on my performance against the Dominators, I definitely need more forepower and possibly a bigger ship. I'm super impressed with the repair droids and the extra tunnels through the ship. They saved my bacon through that fight. I need money though, and deliveries are sounding pretty good right now.

Battle for Antares

I dumped the luxuries from my hold. 2cr loss per unit, but they'll only slow me down in battle. We dashed to the hangar, refuelled and jumped into the Antaren battlefront.

From the hyperspace exit nothing looked amiss. No ships at all were coming up on the scanner, only a deserted planet sweeping nearby called "Hell". Nice touch. We plotted course for Eif, the Faeyan controlled planet that controlled the sector.

Approaching Eif, the remnants of battle were strewn though space. Dominator ships were now visible attacking a pirate base in the sector, and only 2 system-bound battleships remained. The pirate base lasted a heartbeat longer before imploding with torpedo fire. The Dominators now turned their attention back to the planets .. and us!

With a larger fleet, a faster fleet, and a more deadly fleet, now was probably the time for retreat. It would be nice to drop one though, I'm pumped for some action.


Omallor and I headed back toward the jump point. Only one has us locked on, so maybe it will be a more even dogfight. Who knows, maybe we can give them the runaround until more support arrives?

The battleships retreated planetside to leave us the only ships in the dominators path. Luckily the Neutron star was between us and the main fleet as we tried to outrun the torpedoes.


Omallor was copping the brunt of the attack, so I ordered him back to "Glove", the human colony of Antares. I tried to make it to some debris of a previous battle to grab at least some spoils of war.

It looked like Omallor would make it, but a final shot on entering "Glove" breached the hull and sent him blazing into the atmosphere. The automatic messaging system confirmed my guilt:


A couple more rangers had hyperjumped in, and a repaired battleship re-entered the fight to take some of the heat off me. I'd managed to hoover up some nodes that the research station wanted (energy source for the Dominators or something?), and found myself with only one to contend with. A big one though:


With a faster ship and the Rethone working to slow it down even more, I had the scrim under control, but another Dominator joined the fight to make things interesting. Unfortunately my scanners can't penetrate his shields to figure out how much I'm damaging him, but the repair droids are going flat out and keeping me stable with half my hull gone.

A few torpedoes got through from the original larger ship to slowly knock more of my hull away to 1/3, but luckily a trader gated in close by and drew away his attention. I'm way out past the gate points now, but it's only me and the one designated as "Menok Netset -16-" out here. It must be getting damaged as there's visible signs of damage in the rear view mirror and it's been leaking nodes for a while. Might be a tight race.


Got'im yes! Got down to 63 hull remaining, but the repair droids won the battle. I'd turned around to get a head start on picking up the nodes it was jettisoning. Lucky too, as the Rangers holding the main fleet's attention had vanished (no messages on their demise, so I'm guessing they are repairing on planet). A different variant with torpedoes led the pack and had caught up to me by the time I'd repaired 1/2 my hull back. With the rest of the fleet hot on my tail it's probably a good time to jump out of here. I've got my kill, but it wasn't worth losing a wingman for.

A Trading Nightmare

Aaargh!

I get to Redea and they have a completely different view of what my luxuries are worth. 158cr. 40 less than what I bought them for! So now I have a hold full of expensive paperweights that I'm stuck with. Theoretically I could sell them, but not much else is on offer as a good deal and I'm blowed if I'll take a loss on a trade!

After handing over the books (should have burned them, lying bastards) I pocketed the credits and headed to Pune-Anita to see if they had a need for luxuries. Their price was a lot better, but still under what I paid for them. They needed a delivery to Orlenon but i'm in a sour mood.

Precious little else was on offer, so getting out of here sounded better and better. Just then a broadcast came over the holotubes, "Dominators are attacking Antares!". Wow, that's just in the next solar system! Time for some action O'mallor!

Childrens Books

The chancellor had another task waiting for me when I got back, along with a sob story about the Gaalian's child rearing inadequacies. They would be a lot better if they had a whole heap of our children's books, so they are sending 3 tonne of dusty leatherbacks over to get chewed on by an entirely different race. They are offering 2900 credits, so that's enough to spur me into action.

Looking at the star map it will be a 2 hop trip, refuel at Minnaver and then on to Regulus. Should be painless.

I'm finding the information search to be a godsend in more and more ways. First it had helped isolate the gripper I wanted, and now I've found out it lists the prices at far away planets! Digging up Redea (the final destination) and comparing back to local Mars prices it looked like luxuries would net a profit of around 20 cr each. It's a pity I'm still relatively poor, but the bonuses from the ground assault means I can take 23 tonne with me. Might at least cover the repair bills.