The police skybikes have a very limited range height-wise and also in terms of speed, so they obviously wouldn’t really work for the aerial chase scene with the Brimia. So I also designed small police cruisers for the higher-altitude chase sequences.
And it was important for me to establish that Roka and company are not cop-killers. Roka is a total professional and will try anything and everything to complete his smuggling runs, but he also knows it would bring a lot of heat on him if he were responsible for killing law enforcement officers in the process.
There was originally an extended scene with Ril releasing disruptor mines during the pursuit. These mines don’t explode and destroy ships, but instead disrupt a ship’s systems, rendering it immobile. The catch was going to be that in space, disruptor mines are fine since disabled ships would just float harmlessly until power could be restored. But in an environment with gravity (such as Oniaka city station), a disabled craft would plummet to the ground and be destroyed. Ril would release them, forgetting to factor in the gravity situation, and Roka would freak out about it.
I thought it was an interesting idea (and one I’ll probably use at some point), but I had two problems working it into this story: 1) the scene was already too long so I didn’t have room for it, and 2) Ril’s not an idiot, so I couldn’t really justify him releasing the mines and not realizing the effect they’d have in a gravity environment. Maybe it would work with Bocce, but Roka, Ril, Cember and Bennesaud are all too experienced to make a mistake like that.
“DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! Hit your burners, pilot!”
Reminded me of Freespace 2 so much there.