In a brief moment of sympathy towards the pirates, I found that using my mental faculties was a bit of a challenge with the Federal Assault ship unleashing its whole arsenal on me. It felt a bit excessive, if I was to be perfectly honest. Granted, I was smuggling illegal cargo through its system, and I refused to submit to a scan, but this felt like the aggressor quite enjoyed his job a little too much.

My shields had quit almost instantly, and my hull was going through a process similar to what synthetic meat undergoes prior to packaging. I am no food production expert, but I am fairly certain cooking and cutting with high powered lasers is heavily involved.

It seemed hardly unlikely that he would let me rest for a couple of minutes, give me a chance to jump to the next system, out of his jurisdiction. I would stop being his problem either way, so why not go for the option that resulted in me remaining in a single piece?

I let out an involuntary high pitched yelp as my console started throwing up sparks and other assorted pyrotechnics. I pushed my ship as fast as it would go and flew erratically, willing my FSD to charge faster so I could escape. I was sure I had one or two broken ribs from the shaking and shuddering my ship was undergoing.

Or I would blow up and turn into even more space pollution. At least my death would further piss of the space environmentalists. On another positive thought, if I was being shot at, that meant I was not being scanned, so I was keeping up with the terms of the contract.

I had given up mining, and had done enough trading so I could finally buy myself an Asp Explorer. Ask any pilot what the best ship for smuggling is, and they will probably tell you to jump out of an airlock. Earn their trust, get them drunk, and ask them again, and they will voulenteer to help you out into the vacuum. But if you are consistent and lucky and do a bit of digging, you learn that the Asp is the smugglers best friend. Good cargo hold, long jump range, and, if fitted correctly, capable of blasting pesky pirates in Sidewinders and Eagles.

But no match against combat fitted security vessels.

Bosco had offered me the tip as a form of apology. The fat old spacer had almost gotten me killed several times with his liberal distribution of so-called ‘exclusive’ information. I had informed him of my displeasure by threatening bodily harm on his fat, drunk person. But before I could act out on my impulses, he promised me a job, one that would pay more than triple of what I usually made.

“There is this small outpost, some 400 light years from here,” he said, a smug smile spreading on his porcine face. “The Robigo Mines. I know someone there. If you are up for some long range smuggling, then you are in for the biggest pay check of your life.”