Diary of A Galactic Uber Driver: One Of The Good Guys

written by Fyren

Coming off a streak of success hunting down local pirates and drug runners, I am thirsty for more. I find myself in the Nocori system on the trail of a self described ‘Pirate Lord’ by the name of…. and no, I am not making this up…. Kaptain Karnage. I guess when you can name yourself the worst people will come up with the worst names.

I get a whiff of Karnage’s signal near Nocori 9. I get a lock on his transponder and give chase. Unfortunately, the pirate lord was moving too fast and I lose the lock quickly. Fortunately, I now know what I am looking for. Karnage is in a cutting edge Fer-De-Lance fighter with a 3-man escort backing him up. This might be a bit too much for me, but my blood is already running hot and I’m not ready to back down anytime soon.

I continue on in the direction of the lost signal and come upon a distress signal. “Trap?” I ask aloud to the ship’s computer. Of course there is no response, so I answer myself, “Most likely. High chance of pirates and that’s exactly what I’m looking for.” I drop in on the distress signal to find a cruise ship, a large luxury liner, under attack. I deploy my guns and open fire immediately. The pirate does not immediately return fire but instead continues to fire upon the lightly armed passenger vessel. I maneuver my gunship in between the cruise ship and its attacker. “That’s right, you can’t ignore me now.” I scream at my panels as I unload my cannons into the pirate. “Target shields offline” the computer informs me. Just as I start to go in for the kill, several new contacts pop up on my scanners. The feds showed up. Not wanting to be caught on the wrong side of a Federal fleet I quickly stow my guns and submit to a scan. In the meantime though, the pirate gets some more shots in, cracking my cockpit glass and doing some significant damage to my thrusters. “All ships are to immediately leave the area” comes the wide channel communication from the lead Federation ship. I don’t need to be told twice.

I head to the nearest station to gather my thoughts, plan my next action and most importantly get some repairs. The engineers at Bramah Station get my recommendation. Their work was fine, fast and affordable. I barely finished one drink before my repairs were complete and I was back on the hunt for Kaptain Karnage.

Another distress call, another chance that it is my pirate. This time I find a lone Federal security ship under attack by a squad of three heavily armed ships. I try to call for help, but communications are being jammed. The Fed gets a channel open and I can hear him, half crying and half screaming for help. He is certain of his fate. My cannons had only just deployed when… “Shields offline, Hull taking damage” This is bad. I can’t seem to establish a target lock, my guns are firing wide and my ship starts to spiral. I whip the controls back and forth furiously trying to stabilize. “Thruster Malfunction” the computer informs. “Really? You think?” I reply trying to keep it together and failing miserably. I hear a dull thud in the distance as I lose all control of my vessel and the open channel to the Fed goes dark. I continue a backwards spiral, and I see the three ships closing in through my cockpit glass. I can’t see or hear, but I can imagine them laughing as they come in for the kill. They want to teach a good samaritan a lesson.

And they did. I jettison in an escape pod just before the explosion. Good thing I bought the insurance on that thing. Now I am drifting through the Nocori system in my pod, writing this entry, waiting for a rescue and contemplating the decisions that led me here. Kaptain Karnage will clearly live to terrorize another day. The pod rotates slowly, every so often I get a glimpse of the nearest star. I remember my good times, just taking people where they needed to go. I remember the happy customers and the angry ones. I remember my close encounters fondly now. Perhaps it is time I give up on this crazy dream of wanting to fight the good fight. Perhaps the galaxy doesn’t need any more heroes. Perhaps I am more suited to just being a galactic uber driver…