Litter Patrol

The Black Rebel station in Auner was looking a bit more disreputable than usual - there was a maelstrom battleship floating outside apparently abandoned.  Litter.  One of the sharp eyed Black Rebels noticed it and suggested that we should all join in to remove it from our neighborhood.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

I was a couple systems away (dropping off a blueprint to make some copies at a station with facilities - I'll tell about that in a future post if it's profitable...) when I heard about the litter problem.  I immediately headed to Auner to do what I could to help.

Our first idea, since none of the Rebels had a ship available that could tank the station guns, was to gently push the battleship out of range of the station guns.  I flipped on the afterburner and drove directly into the huge battleship at top speed (more than 1000m per second!).  And bounced right back off of it.  But the monster did wobble in space a bit - so I continued.  And continued.  And continued.  Several of the other Rebels did the same, but eventually we determined that it was about a 3 year process and none of us had the time to stick with it that long.  Real life does come first - even for the Black Rebel Rifter Club.

So our next plan was for Lhorenzho to use his drake baqttlecruiser and fire first (including launching a set of drones - friendly drones for a change!) and hopefully get the brunt of the station guns.  The rest of us could add our damage and hope for the best.  We all agreed that it was a Very Bad Idea(tm) - but that was only mentioned in passing.  It did not stop us from action.

Eventually, we had 4 of us in the litter patrol (me, Lhorenzho, Joe Struck, and Lorenzo de Medichi I think...) and the litter removal was begun with a salvo from Lhorenzho's battlecruiser.

It did not go well.

Not only did we have a bit of a problem with the station guns pummeling us, but it turned out that the pilot of the maelstrom, Amun Khonsu, was the head of a band of desperadoes known as the "Royal Order of Security Specialists" and several of the aforementioned "Security Specialists" immediately pounced on us to add to our miseries.  I exploded.  As did the rest of the litter detail.

gf gf in local along with some friendly banter.

But let's not lose sight of the most important point - when I returned in my pod to the station a few minutes later the annoying piece of litter - the maelstrom battleship - had disappeared.  Job well done Rebels!  Mission accomplished!