“Leopard, this is Captain Madrigal of the MS13 La Bomba, reporting on station, in cloak, it appears we have some Minor company” I looked at the pics he sent me and sure enough, I knew them, minor indeed, I couldn’t figure out how they were planning on haulin it out of here, but the bigger question was how did they beat us to a place they knew nothing of? “Captain, what do you suggest?” I was in no hurry, let him figure it out. 

The Damned guy put it on me, I’m Security, not strategy and recon, so I spoke to our Miners and had them set up ops as normal, and see how the Scavs’ react. “Leopard, Maintain course and follow the Miners into the L points, I would like to just shake their cage a bit, we are in position” Well, that was that, six hours of burn and two breaking wide, we would be at our station for a few weeks.

Damned Miners burned in when weren’t lookin’ such as de Mylar wadn’t playin well today, we uns twere busy making fast the cargo, now was the deciding time. We could run wit what we got, or wait for our friends to get here, we gone carry on.

As soon as we Beaconed L1, the idiots sensors went off like an old time Christmas tree, Comms and Sensors were in stitches with the panic caused, we proceeded to establish the five points in peace. Did they really think we would be out here alone? There’s more going on than we can see, it’s only four hours til the Cat arrives, I think we can handle things until then.

Here we are, we took L2 for distance sake, and I made a Call, “Derelict scrapper, you are in violation of the Universal right of Claim, you have four hours to leave the area or you will be boarded and detained” At this point I was stalling for time, we had plenty, I wanted them to show their hand.

“Cap, we gotta stall til They get ‘ere or they’ll blow us oot of de skies ye knows?“ Me boy was right, the Cat gimme four ‘ours, may as well take it, so we slow rolled our tings to make a getout if we needed to, we thought we were so clever, then it happened.

“Madrigal, are you seeing this?”

“I am, kind of hard to miss, you did zoom lower left?” Then I saw the clear markings of a CCP ship, ah Fuck!

“Ideas?” I knew a few things, that’s how the scavs’ found us, and got here ahead of us, and the behemoth in my viewscreen was larger than any Craft I have ever seen.

“Leopard, they still don’t know we are here, but at the first sign of trouble, they are Galactic Toast, you have my word”

I guess it’s time to see what they want.

“It’s quite simple Mr. Fletcher, we want you to leave our claim, after all, we don’t adhere to your worthless treaties and claims, we were here first, leave now, or bear the Consequences”

By this point, our group was loaded and locked, the Miners had specialized “tools” that worked well at range, and we had the comfort of the main firepower reaching out from a cloaked position, my turn to tell them what the Fuck was up. 

“Communist Ship, We Claim rights to this ‘roid and will stand ground, leave now or cause a Planetary incident, and you will lose.”

We had already found the primary vents and weaknesses, and with targeting locks, we were ready. The Miners went in first, straight at the Scavs’ They overwhelmed the ship. Killed the Men and took the women and ship, intact. It was very messy  as boardings go, these guys fight with knives and axes up close.

I feinted towards the Pirate craft, swung wide and unloaded on the vents I knew I could hit, and nothing happened… Dummies!  MS found the real ones, and between us both laid down a path of fire directly to the engine room, bang! Typical CCP tech, she broke in two and proceeded to scatter 25k people and a Starship right through the Diamond Dust, destroying all of my work.

Cruel POV, maybe, but the CCP is the real scourge of the System, 25k dead sounds good to me, they only have 4 trillion more. I get to start from scratch, no Dust, no cash and a ton of debt,

I still have my ship and my wits, I’ll find more Diamond Dust I’m sure.