3301-01-19: An enemy and a friend (?)

Today I met an old enemy, and made a new friend in an unlikely fashion.

First was CMDR Exorial, who'd previously killed my Cobra on 3301-01-11. He was docking right in front of me at the Solo Orbiter in Altair, in a Lakon Type-6 Transporter. A Type-6 is a cargo ship, probably not well armed... hmm, maybe I can have some revenge.

I undocked again and hung outside the station but above the undock airlock, assuming he'd be coming back out on another cargo run. And sure enough, he undocked in the Type-6 a couple minutes later. Once he'd cleared the docking airlock, I got behind him and opened fire.

Unfortunately, my weapons were all laser beams -- not the best at punching through the Type-6's relatively heavy hull armor. He hit his FSD, and escaped off to another system before I could finish the job. But I did do a fair amount of hull damage, so at least he'll have some repair bill. And hopefully he's a bit more skittish when hauling goods around near Altair :)

--

Later, I was bounty-hunting in a newly-acquired Viper (more on that later, maybe) near a nav beacon in an Anarchy system. I had engaged with a wanted criminal who was piloting a Federal Dropship -- a pretty big ship, and worth a fair amount of bounty. I'd been working on the dropship for a couple minutes, using my superior maneuverability to slowly whittle down its shields and hull while staying out of the line-of-sight of its heaviest weaponry, when another CMDR by the name of "Tatty Go Lightly" flew by in a Cobra Mk. III and joined in the combat.

The dropship's hull was more than half gone at this point, so I didn't want this unknown CMDR to have a chance at stealing my bounty. So when the time was right, I lined him up and switched targets briefly, pouring my lasers and multi-cannons into him for a bit instead of the dropship.

He ran away, and a few seconds later, a message popped up on my comms window: "Too slow!"

I ignored it -- my goal wasn't to kill him, but to drive him off -- and finished off the dropship.

After the fight was over, I re-opened the comms channel and sent CMDR Tatty Go Lightly a reply. I explained that I was just making sure he didn't steal my bounty; he seemed understanding, and explained for his part that he was only interested in picking up the loot that had dropped from the dropship during the fight.

Since I didn't have any cargo capacity remaining, I told him he was welcome to take whatever he wanted. We parted ways, but not before adding each other as friendly contacts.

So that's one way to make a friend in unusual circumstances.