Part 2 here http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=125289
Part 3
WARNING! WARNING! MISSILE APPROACHING!
He awoke with a start his face strangely twisted in the red alert lighting. His head was still fuzzy, missile approaching?
“Manual controls” he grabbed the stick with his big hands.
“Bran, give me a lock” his partner slept on peacefully his nose rattling.
WARNING! WARNING! MISSLE APPROACHING!
“BRAN!” he shouted throwing the Buster into a spiral
“What…”
WARNING! WARNING! MISSLE APPROACHING!
“Oh Shhh...” his hands flew to the radar, tuning into the hostile scanner.
“Got it”
UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT
“It’s a Rapier, keep turning while I scan its warhead”
WARNING! WARNING! MISSLE APPROACHING!
“Scanning please wait”
Not too long I hope, Bran thought. His eyes flicked to the Rapier coming head on.
“Break right” He shouted as a streak shot towards the front screen.
Fly chucked the ship into a right turn, half a minute of combat and he was sweating, nothing changes he laughed getting a wary look from his partner as the missile passed within meters.
“Come on Bran do your stuff”
“Mass driver warhead” the computer identified.
“We have a problem” Bran craned his head around to see through the side window, where the hell was the ship that launched it?
“Yeah noticed the problem” the ship shuddered as he slammed the throttle back to zero and pulled a hammerhead turn the enemy ship flashed by in the opposite direction.
A Falcon!
The missile came straight at them, another shudder from the ship as the throttle went back to full power, with the engines roaring out in protest.
“We want to hit it when it’s going away from us” Bran said rolling through the laser selection screen.
“Alpha Particle Accelerator cannons selected”
“On my command” Bran said switching his eyes to the distance indicator on the HUD. The Buster looped and swung in behind the missile.
Bran waited until the Rapier was one kilometer away and turning for another approach before calling out the distances
“1.2km”
“1.5km”
“1.8km”
“1.5km”
“FIRE”
The cockpit lit up and two blue lines traced towards the missile, there was a muffled thud and a firework like crackle and then a dozen whizzing noises as the warhead exploded spewing its deadly projectiles into space. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Falcon break off and race for the nearest gate. He wasn’t even sure what system they were in everything happened so fast.
A Capper missile!
The pirates call the missile “The Capper” because one hit was enough to make a pilot eject or kill the pilot at the controls leaving the ship to be salvaged.
But they were very expensive and even more difficult to get hold of, needing to be hand built by someone who knew what they were doing and the Capper is banned by all races including the Teladi.
The Capper missile is unique the mass driver warhead explodes on contact with an enemies shield, sending hundreds of mass driver bullets into the ship and beyond. It was the “beyond” part that offended everyone, you killed ships not pilots it was an unwritten rule. Even during battles rescue ships would go swooping in amongst the laser fire and exploding missiles to pick up ejected pilots of both sides, later to be exchanged for their own pilots that the enemy rescue ships had picked up. Pilots kept the universe running.
Thinking of it, why would anyone fire one at an M4? The cost of a single mass driver missile is about the same as a decent second hand M5 and probably more than a beaten up salvaged M4 Buster. It certainly wasn’t a random event. Mistaken identity? Fly reached over and checked the ships log.
“0:00:00:0: Autopilot Engaged: Dest: Paranid Prime: Pilot Specified Route”
“0:00:01:5 SETA Drive Engaged”
“7:10:12.4: Illegal Scan: Source Unknown”
“7:10:13.8: Hostile Missile Detected: Unknown Object”
“7:10:15: Manual Override”
“7:10:17.5: APAC Installed”
“7:10:18.3: APAC Fired”
“7:10:18.3: Missile Detonation Detected: Unknown Object”
“7:17:12:7: Idle
“He knew who we were” Fly muttered.
Bran looked around at him eyebrows going up in thought for a moment.
“Rival contractor?” he asked after a moment. Life as a contractor is tough and often dangerous in places and it isn’t unusual for one mercenary to kill another for the same job.
“No, not with a Capper missile” Can’t work this out. A Capper missile, not something you use for an assassination unless the mark was rich or had something you wanted. He laughed him rich! Even with the sale of the ships they were about to pick up it would only be a one million commission. Sure a lot of credits but not enough to warrant the use of an illegal and expensive missile. Was the mission to cripple or to kill?
“Where are we?” he asked looking around at blank space and the gate that the Falcon passed through in the distance.
“Outer edge of Duke’s Domain, avoiding that missile really put us off course”
Fly grunted it was the same when he was a marine, first there are so many ships you can’t see the sky, laser fire and missiles everywhere next you are all alone in space and hoping you can get back to base or join up with your flight without running into the enemy while alone.
“Set auto for Prime, we’ll take turns to keep watch”
AUTOPILOT ACTIVATED
“No SETA?”
“No, keep an eye out for any falcons that get too close”
“I get the first stag then” Bran grimaced.
“Yup” and saying that he closed his eyes within minutes his deep snores filled Bran’s ears.
“It’s gonna be a rough four hours” he said to his sleeping friend.
Paranid Prime Prt 3
Moderators: TheElf, Moderators for English X Forum
Part 4 is up http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php? ... 71#1489671
Took a while with being work etc
Took a while with being work etc
Layton
For the SPLIT!
For the SPLIT!