This is a story about my character in the Elite Dangerous game. A story of love and adventure, with a taste of science and beauty of space ships. A diary written by Commander Rhea, passionate fighter pilot.

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Day Five

  *BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP* - “…what’s going on?! Kirea shut it off!” Why is the impact warning waking me up in the middle of the night?! I better run to the bridge. “Status?” - “All systems functioning within specified parameters.” I notice an incoming ship on the scanner as I jump into the seat.. It’s heading right for me. “Engage thrusters, maximum power!” I’m betting on the speed rather than shield strength right now. Boosting off of the landing pad with thrusters full vertical up, slamming the throttle forward really hard, just to hear an explosion behind me and alarm go off… “Under attack.” she said. Shrapnel from the explosion I guess. What on earth was that, anyway?
  “Kirea, open comms to the flight control.” - “bleep” - “This is Zorgon Peterson Romeo Hotel Echo Alpha, I would like to know what just happened on my landing pad B-34!” I realise I’m shouting at them… oops? I don’t know who is to blame for.. whatever that was. “Commander Rhea, I’m glad to hear you’re okay,” well, this guy sounds very informal. “We’ve detected it too late to shoot it out of the sky, it was a small ship in silent running on collision course straight down towards your ship.” - “Any idea who was the pilot?” I need to know how is this connected to my contract. “Judging from its trajectory, there wasn’t one, it must have been pre-programmed.” - “Okay, can you please ask Lieutenant Antoine Dubois to keep me posted about this incident as well?” I should get out of here, disappear in the void, they are obviously trying to do their best to stop me from investigating this any further… “Will do, Flight control out.”

  This trip will take a while… I don’t like traveling long distances, my Fer deLance is not exactly an exploration vessel, right? I’ll need some fuel after this jump, I should be safe there. I went two jumps in wrong direction instead of heading straight for Farseer. “Frame Shift Drive charging…“ Carefully watching the heat indicator as it is raising. I’m pretty close to the star. You always jump out towards the star, because only the star has big enough gravity to be able to lock onto it for interstellar jump. “Three, two, one, engage.” This will be F-class star, that’s hotter than our Sun “back home.”
  “Fuel scoop engaged.” I’m diving down, dangerously close to the corona. I love to fly underneath bigger stellar flares. It is very dangerous and you need better shields to protect you from radiation and those crazy EM fields. “Fuel scooping complete.” Time to continue… “Frame Shift Drive charging…“

  This was the last jump, that was one hell of a trip. I left Baynes City around 3 o’clock their time, it’s 16:20 now. Farseer seems to have a noon now though, they will be awake at least. “Warning, interdiction detected.” Okay, this is interesting. An Eagle is interdicting me. Makes no sense for a lonely Eagle to interdict me, he will have friends. Either way I’m going to throttle down and submit, because it will damage my modules if I don’t. Being abruptly pulled out of Supercruise is no fun at all. I better hold tight, here we go! The ship is thrown out, spinning. “Kirea, enable Flight Assist!” That will help stop the madness at least. Throttle to full, boost! Damn all the G’s into the seat… urgh… “Kirea, disable Flight Assist and deploy Hardpoints!” Pulling the stick hard, to pitch 180 degrees while boosting again, using my thrusters while I’m half-way through the maneuver, to already reverse my velocity vector. I’m not stopping the maneuver at 180 though, I boost again and continue spinning as the tiny Eagle passes in front of my cockpit. He’s done for. I press the the trigger on my Railguns. Synchronized blue flash and an explosion in front of my ship. “Warning, temperature critical.” I hear loud thunder-like noise, that’s a big one jumping in. Little ones friends, too late for him though. It’s a Python. This is no longer fun, it’s actually starting to get dangerous. If they have any other ship incoming, I’m screwed. They would have one ship behind me while I’m chasing the other. “Under attack.” Damn, he has fixed lasers! My countermeasures are useless! “Kirea, divert power to engines and shields.” My weapons capacitor is full, I can fire two salves with that. Lets dance! Pulling up with boost, getting some angular velocity around the big guy, while pointing my guns at him. His fixed weapons can’t hit me now, as I’m slightly faster than he can turn. I trigger the huge laser under the belly of my ship just to hear Kirea tell me about incoming missiles. “Kirea, shields maximum.” My ship shakes as they explode on my shield, it’s down to 72%. Not so good anymore, not at all. I have to change something if I don’t want to go for an unplanned EVA. “Kirea, divert power to engines and weapons.” - “Incoming missiles.” Dammit! Boosting again, I need to get behind this guy otherwise he can maintain the lock on me! “Shields offline.” They didn’t hold without any power to provide extra strength, however, barely any hull damage yet. “Kirea, Silent running!” It’s gonna get hot in here, however, he can’t lock on to me now, and as long as I’m not directly in front of him, his fixed weapons are useless! Now who’s got the upper hand, huh? Firing my laser, as I see his shield flash - Shield Cell Banks, it’s like a capacitor strapped onto the shield generator to quickly recharge it. Time for more firepower to punch through I guess. “Warning, taking heat damage!” - Railguns generate an insane amount of heat. “Kirea, deploy heat-sink.” I can eject the coolant and replace it with cold one, I’ve got twelve of those in total. “Target shields offline.” Here we go! I’m gonna go for his drives, I’ve got more-less good angle now, and Railguns should punch straight through the armour. *PEW* ouu that must have hurt… His drives went from bright blue to dim red. “Kirea, disable silent running, full power to shields, and open comms to the Python ahead.” - “bleep” - “This is Zorgon Peterson Romeo Hotel Echo Alpha, identify yourself or face the void.” …no response. Maybe I damaged their computer or comms or something? “Shields online.” Kirea announces as a huge explosion blinds my sight. The Python is gone, they’ve self-destructed. I’m getting no answers again. “Dammit! Kirea, status report.” - “Frame Shift Drive minor damage.” Whew, I was afraid that I cooked off half of the ship there.

  I’ll be safe at Farseer, these guys are known for good security, as long as you’re in the hangar that is. There are occasional pirates lurking in close proximity to this base. I hope that I’ll get some sleep this time.

 

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