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.
Read the first chapter before you start with this one =)
List of mini-chapters:
Somewhere in the city…
We went out for a dinner, Eric took me to a traditional Japanese restaurant. It was wonderful, old Earth culture, and the food, I’ve not had anything so tasty… ever. I had something called torikatsu, loved it. I’m smiling at myself in the bathroom mirror now, hey I think that I’m in love. Anyway he’s waiting…
“Hi,” I can’t stop smiling at him. “Let’s go home, slowly?” I chuckle “Yup, slowly.” As we are about to step out of the door a bright light flashes over the river, a ship. Really fast one. Eric immediately turns around and hugs me, as we get hit by the sonic wave of exploding glass. “You okay?” I nod. just to hear an explosion followed by even bigger one. I immediately run out to see a mushroom of fire rise up far left. “Kirea, get here asap!” Eric looks at me funny “Huh?” - “Essentially modified docking computer,” I explain in a hurry. “Flight control.” I should probably tell them about my ship flying through the city… “Fer deLance Romeo Hotel Echo Alpha flying to the city center to pursue the racers.” - “Acknowledged.” The few minutes waiting seem like an eternity. There is a crowd around the river looking at the flames in the distance. I’m just split between being really angry and crying. So many people died there. Eric hugs me from behind as I mindlessly stare. The moment of scary silence gets interrupted by a thunder and large ship rapidly approaching from high above. “In position,” my Fer deLance reports, hovering a few hundred meters above. “Open the ramp and descent over the river facing me.” I’m getting weird looks from the people around, boring planetbound citizens. “Lower.. lower.. hold!” Large ship covering the whole river across, an interesting sight. The ramp is about half a meter from the railing “Will you go home or are you coming with me?” - “I’ll see if I can get home from here, it shouldn’t be a problem as it’s in the other direction.” He grabs my hand and pulls me back as I start heading towards the ship. He wraps his arms around my waist, holding me tight. “Be careful,” he says, placing long and gentle kiss on my lips.
“Kirea, open channel to Baynes naval command,” I instruct my ship as I’m undressing. As much as I would like to fly wearing a short skirt, the combat suit does provide additional degree of G-force protection. “Commander Romeo Hotel Echo Alpha requesting last known location of the terrorist racers.” I’m going after them for real this time. “They are still speeding around the city, currently south-west edge heading north.” - “Thank you, please make sure that the security forces know to stay out of my way.” I hop into my chair and put on a RemLok mask. “Kirea maximum power to Engines and the rest of it for shields.” Even my fuel levels play into my hand, there isn’t much left, not even for a tiny jump. I’m not gonna push it too hard while I’m still ascending away from the city, I don’t need to cause more damage than they already did. I’m going to head west, since they were going north.
Laying in wait in uninhabited industrial zone, hovering just above some warehouses… They should be here any minute now. “Kirea power to engines and the rest of it to weapons,” I instruct my flying beast as I deploy the hardpoints. I’m going on offense, with no shields to save every bit of available power. Even though I could have the shields up with just the systems power capacitor, I don’t want to drain that energy because I will most likely need it to be able to throw away heat sinks. Armour will have to do the job if they decide to fight back instead of running, which is unlikely. *Bleep* Ah here we go, new contacts approaching real fast. Three Imperial Eagles by the looks of it. Slamming throttle forward into full boost as the first one zooms by, immediately squeezing the trigger on the stick. The shivering sound of railguns charging and shooting right through the Eagles shields lighting their main thrusters on fire. He is going to crash into that factory up ahead. The other two didn’t even blink and just keep on going, the race is not over until there is but one racer in the air. I hit the trigger again, shouting “heatsinks!” The shields of the second Eagle but flicker and hold, I’ve hit them with only two of my railguns. I fire again, they are gaining on me, at two kilometers now. Second shot finished the job. The last guy is too far for me. At least it’s over, for now. “Kirea, open channel to Baynes naval command.” *Bleep* “Commander Rhea, reporting two downed Imperial Eagles and one runaway.” The operator seems excited about the news, “that’s awesome! Their bounty is being processed, thank you Commander.” I love getting paid for serving Justice. “Shields up, reset power distribution.”
I don’t want my holiday to end yet… I think that I’m gonna go back to the city and get some rest in a real bed. “Kirea call Eric please,” I’m already smiling, just thinking about spending more time together. “Hiiii! Did you make it home?” - “Oh hi, yes I just got home, it took a while with all the chaos. How about you?” I chuckle… “Well let’s just say that they may not have any ships left to race with, I’m gonna fly over to the eastern spaceport to avoid the..” *BLEEP BLEEP BLEEP* Kirea starts screaming for life as the shield over my canopy lights up, changing colour from blue to purple under intense energy weapons fire. “Max shields!” I shout as I pull up and boost, flipping around, ignoring the laws of aerodynamics. I immediately start firing my multicannon, up-side-down in reverse now. “Shields critical.” Damn… I bite my teeth hard as I boost forward. It’s the third Eagle, this time he was waiting for me. I guess that they’re not happy that I ruined their race. Damn he’s still behind me, that was one hell of a one-eighty, at least I’ve got some distance now, their weapons won’t be anywhere near as effective now. “Open channel to Baynes navy!” I’ll need help with this one, The damn thing is too agile and too fast for me to shake it off in the atmosphere. “Commander Rhea, require assistance, under attack by an Imperial Eagle. I can’t shake that thing off!” Taking as sharp turns as I can, I am yet to land another shot. “Security forces are on their way to your location.” Awesome. Sarcastic awesome. “Shields offline.” She says with calm voice. “Full power to engines and weapons!” Let’s see what can I do with more juice in engines. My most favourite stomach turning maneuver, here comes… Twisting the stick in all three axis while boosting, all the vertical and lateral thrusters working their best in my favor. I managed to turn around before they started turning, but I’m not gonna stop, it’s a three-sixty kind of maneuver. I boost yet again, away from the enemy, flip around with disabled flight assist into reverse. Trigger the railguns and multicannon, screaming at my ship to deploy heatsinks and chaff… The eagle is done for. So is my ship though. Auto-extinguishers start clouding the cockpit, she knows that I’m wearing RemLok and won’t suffocate. My poor Fer deLance.
“Are you okay? We got interrupted.” It’s Eric. “Yes, I’m in the naval docks. They will be fixing my ship.” - “What happened?” I just sigh. “I’ll explain when I get there…“ This is not good, if any of my tuned modules are damaged… it will be not only expensive but I’ll have to go quite some distance to get replacements.