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The story of iTripped (not the one from beta)

Jul 12, 2005 iTripped42 link
Log of iTripped.

Entry 17

7.12.4435

The day had been uneventful and I was just about finished with my final trade run. Coming through Verasi, I noticed something on my radar that shouldn't have been there. I selected it for a better view and sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed. I turboed quickly then, and made it to the jump zone safely. I hadn't been seen. Dropping off my cargo in sector I5, I bought a new ship, and equipped it with gauss cannons, and set out. I entered the sector again, about 4000m from the wormhole, and saw nothing on my radar. I checked the sector list, and was just about to give up, when the name appeared again. The pilot was out of range, and so did not show up on my radar, but he had obviously checked the list too, because a threat had come over the encrypted comm channel.

“Pay me 25000 credits, or lose your ship”

I was not worried because he was still out of range, and had no idea where I was. Unfortunately, this meant that I had no idea where he was either, and I could be attacked out of nowhere at any moment. I called over the Guild comm channel, asking if anyone had seen the pilot recently. No one had and so I continued closer to the wormhole, convinced that that would be where he would show his face. Suddenly, the blip appeared on my radar, bright red. He must have been less than 500m away from me. I turned my ship towards his and noticed that he had just warped in. He must have warped back into Nyrius, and waited for me to approach. I wasted no time preparing for what I knew I must do. I switched into combat flight mode, and brought my ship nearer to his. He had exited warp by now and had immediately found me and was fast approaching. I saw that he was flying a Valkyrie ship, the Vengeance model. I was beginning to think that this whole thing had been a mistake. He surely had rockets equipped, and I was just as surely a goner.

The same message came over the encrypted comm. “Pay me 25000 credits or lose your ship.”

Well I wasn't about to pay the pirate that easily, I faked that I was typing out the transaction, and very slightly moved my ship closer to his. When I was just about 150m from him, I opened fire. He was obviously prepared for this, because he dodged all the shots easily, and sent 3 rockets screaming at me. I had been prepared too, and quickly dodged the rockets, sending them sailing into the void.

I was not prepared for his next move.

He quickly recovered from what I am sure he thought would be a direct hit. I was still lining up my next shots when another set of rockets came barreling out of his ship. I dodged them, but found that there were still rockets headed straight for me. “I can't play defense and hope that he runs out of ammo” I said to myself and waited for the hits to take their damage. I wasn't just sitting there mind you, I was still trying to dodge and firing at him, but I was prepared for the worst.

Sure enough, just then, the worst showed up. Two more red blips appeared on my radar, and I quickly confirmed that they were my worst fears. This guy had called for more pirates to come, even though he could have easily finished me off then. Realizing that this show of force was too much for me to handle, I turned away from the group and began to turbo, calling for backup from my guild. Checking my health, I saw that I had 87% of my hull intact. The right wing was in the yellow, and looked like it was the only part of my ship that had taken damage. My ship was not that fast, and I knew that my only hope would be to disengage turbo temporarily, turn around into the oncoming attackers, and go for 3000m, the distance required to jump back to my home sector. It would be risky, but I would have to do it, or be dead for sure. Either way, I was almost guaranteed an escape pod ride home, but I was going to try everything I could think of to avoid that. My persuers were close behind me, so I didn't have to worry about getting hit as i zipped by them. They immediately turned around and continued the chase.

I was confident that I could make it. I watched as the distance between me and the nearest pirate lengthened, and then as it slowly began to get smaller again. It was going to be close. I still had over 2000m to travel before I could safely jump to my destination, and the pirates were sneaking up faster now. When one of the pirates came to within 200m, they fired three rockets at me. I was prepared for what I would do in this situation, and I suddenly changed direction and started turboing away from the path of the rockets. One of them clipped the end of my wing with its proximity detonation, but the other two sailed on and hit a lone trader in an atlas.

“Lucky shot” I taunted as he fell back from me.

“Not so fast there 'iTripped',” another called as he swept up behind me.

More rockets were fired, this time from a closer distance, and I just barely had time to turn my ship when they hit. I checked my health meter. 27%. Damn! how could I let them get so close to me? My right wing was now in the red, and the rest of my ship was into the orange. The hull could not take much more of this.

Again the pirate fell back, and the third one came to take its place. I had just over 500m to go before I could safely jump. The third pirate fired off a round of rockets, and I turned to avoid them. One of the other two had also come up behind me, and he fired off rockets too. This didn't look like a good situation for me. I quickly made an adjustment and wondered if it would be enough. It was, but just barely. My ship was now completely in the red and I had just 5% of my hull remaining. I could almost feel it straining and beginning to break apart.

With 200m left to go before the jump, I positioned my hand over the big red button and was ready to press it when two things happened. First, my battery failed and I was taken out of turbo. Second, some small asteroid was creeping up somewhere in front of me and I was losing distance. I now had 500m of space to cover before I could jump, and that number was rising. I suddenly realized my mistake. I had been making adjustments to my direction, and hadn't noticed that I was almost halfway turned around, and headed back towards the asteroids.

With almost no battery power left, I turned my ship and hoped for the best. I turned turbo back on, and estimated that I had 5 seconds of energy available. The pirates were obviously surprised by my turn, because it took them a few seconds to adjust their courses and realign with me. It was not enough time for me though, and I felt the rockets barreling down on me. I tried turning and running the last 100m before the jump, and I almost made it. Just as I was pressing the jump button, I felt a huge jolt from beneath me. As I soared through space, faster and faster, I looked down below me. There was the remains of my ship, and the pirates who had killed me.

“Damn pirates” I said over the sector comm just as I was warped back to my home station.

“You could have paid us” One said, and then I warped.

I felt miserable and weak. Running from the pirates, even in the vulture, had worked me into a sweat. I vowed then that I would come back, this time with more fire power, and some buddies, and show those pirates never to mess with traders again.
Jul 12, 2005 VincentV link
I like it!

You could try using enter more, to make it more readable, I kinda get lost sometimes.

Keep it up!
Jul 12, 2005 iTripped42 link
Enters placed, your right, it is much easier to read
Jul 12, 2005 VincentV link
I love the story!
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Enters are nice
Jul 12, 2005 Martin link
Great yarn. I wonder if I was involved.
Jul 13, 2005 iTripped42 link
Actually, I made the whole thing up. It's so much easier to make stuff up than it is to tell about things that have happened.
Jul 13, 2005 Borb II link
Hehe, nice one. Gotta love them pirates.