Not bombing a Badger
7th March 2011 – 7.32 pmEven though the two systems I've travelled through are quiet there is still one more to explore, not yet having jumped through the K162 to the class 5 system. I get my Buzzard covert operations boat out again to take a look. Only one planet is visible on my directional scanner when I appear on the other side of the wormhole, letting me launch probes without being noticed. A blanket scan of the system shows one anomaly, four signatures, and six ships, and it is the ships I determine to find.
Moving to the inner system shows on d-scan a Moros dreadnought, Nightmare battleship, Fenrir freighter, Crane transport ship, and a Mammoth and Badger hauler, as well as two towers. One tower holds five of the ships, the Moros, Nightmare, and Badger piloted, but the Crane is elsewhere. A quick sweep of d-scan suggests it is at the second tower, but before I warp off to find it the Badger here moves and warps away from the tower. I ignore the Crane for now and dash home, getting my Manticore stealth bomber in case the Badger is making himself vulnerable collecting planet goo.
I am back in the C5 in my Manticore in quick time, and the Badger is still at large in the system. D-scan puts his ship coincident with the customs office at one of the planets, but warping there doesn't find the ship. I look around again, thinking I see the Badger at one of the planet's moons but, again, warping there sees no ship. A third spin around suggests the Badger is at the planet itself, and I finally get it right, dropping out of warp in ideal range to pop the hauler quickly. No wonder I could find it quickly, I wouldn't have expected anyone to be sitting idly at zero on a planet. But the Badger isn't moving, and with Fin on her way I simply align and watch the Badger carefully. If it makes any move at all I'll take my shot, but until it does I can wait to share this moment with Fin.
The Badger remains motionless. Fin turns up and warps close to my position, where I suggest we don't bother with bombs. We won't need them to pop the industrial ship and may as well save the larger munitions for more worthy targets, like Hulk exhumers. We're both in range, so with little ceremony we decloak and lock, point, and shoot the Badger. The ship crumples under the combined fire, but both Fin and I are a split-second too slow to prevent the pilot's pod warping clear. We loot and shoot the wreck, although the surviving modules are quite unexciting, and I warp off to see the reaction at the active tower.
'Warp home and jump', I advise, perhaps overreacting a little, but I don't like the look of the newly launched Devoter heavy interdictor. We both get home a minute later, unmolested and happy to call it a night. We have our new ships, we get a lazy kill on a careless pilot, and we take no losses.
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