Death to Flying Campaign Score 1-10-1

The Black Rebel Rifter Club is moving their base of operations, so I was spending a quiet Saturday morning moving some fully equipped rifters from Auner to Heild.  It's a 9 jump trip with just three low sec systems (counting Auner and Heild - that leaves just Bosena as the third).  Things were quiet (though not as quiet as they often are on a Friday night on Eve) and all was going well.

The Black Rebels also have a couple war declarations active - mostly against illegal minors and poachers of small defenseless animals.  We are on the side of justice.

So when I jumped into Teonusude on my way to Heild I wasn't too surprised to see a bright red flashing war target lingering on the gate (probably up to no good).  It was a Cormorant - one of those destroyers that are often nicknamed "Frigate Killers".  I probably wasn't favored to win, but that didn't stop me and I immediately attacked with all the force of my rifter's three 150mm autocannons.

It was a surprisingly even fight.  I expected to be destroyed by a couple broadsides (a cormorant can carry 7 guns and a missile launcher!).  But I lingered.  Though it didn't look good at any point.

His attack destroyed my shields and worked it's way through my armor even though my armor repair unit did a valiant effort at repairing the damage.  When I hit structure I decided maybe this wasn't going to be a victory, so I pointed at a planet and hit warp.  Nothing!  The destroyer had my warp engines scrambled!  The cur!

So I broke off the 500m orbiting and started heading for the planet as fast as I could go with an overheated afterburner.  The damage got worse.  But I seemed to be making headway and as I spammed the warp button I was gratified to hear the pleasant "Warp drive active" announcement in a very calm voice (as opposed to the screaming coming out of my lungs...).  I made it out with about half of my hull surviving.  Fire and smoke everywhere, but the rifter was alive to fight again (which it would in just a couple hours - though not as successfully...).

I'll call this one a draw so the score is 1-10-1.

In hindsight, looking at the battle report I see that I was doing more damage to him than he was doing to me.  In fact, my last four shots hit him for 269, 300, 271, and 311 points of damage!  His biggest hit on me in the entire fight was just 150!  YOW!  So, it's possible that I had reached his hull too at the end and that resulted in those large hits - had I stayed around and not fled it is possible that I could have won.  From now on the rifter leaves victorious or I leave in my pod!