The Little Slasher That Could...

I popped out of the station in Auner to see what was available as targets for my Slasher.  The FW plexes were all empty and there was just a Thorax cruiser on scan.  I checked all the usual spots (FW plexes and asteroid belts) but didn't find him.  That's odd.  So I hauled out the scanning boat (a Cheetah) and headed for a safe spot where I could launch my probes without them being seen.

I dropped off the probes and after a couple scans had a 100% lock on the Thorax.  I figured it was too slow (I'm not especially good at probing out ships) and that the Thorax would be spooked.  But I headed back to the station to switch back to the Slasher.  I changed the script in the tracking disruptor to be a tracking script instead of the usual distance script that I use against frigates.  I figured that speed tracking would be my savior rather than keeping out of range of the cruiser's guns.

I headed for the Thorax to land at zero.  Now this is exciting!

I landed and found a gate.  Hmmm...  He must be running a mission?  Whatever!  Onward!

I passed through the gate and landed about 20 k from the Thorax.  With my afterburner overheated I headed his way.  Success!  I had him scrambled and webbed.  All my modules were locked on and I was doing some damage to his shields.  I was taking no damage at all.  His guns weren't tracking me as I circled close.  I switched from barrage to phased plasma since I was at close range and continued to work through his defenses.

It was slow work.

But eventually I was into his armor.  Still without taking any damage (other than my overheated modules - I remembered to turn the heating off so they were going to survive).  I slowly worked my way through his armor and then hit his hull.

It was slow work.

But not dangerous.  I took no damage.  After a few more seconds the Thorax blew up!

I scooped up as much of the T1 loot from the wreck as I could hold and  headed back to the station with it.  I repaired my glowing hot modules and then went back for the rest of the loot.

Nice.  My slasher destroyed a cruiser!  Wow!

So, once I unloaded the rest of the loot I headed out of the station again and checked dscan.  A Rupture.  Another cruiser!  I scanned him down to an asteroid belt and immediately headed there!

I landed on top of him and hit all the right buttons to have his engines scrambled and my guns hitting him.  Things went much like the Thorax with one big difference.  When I was most of the way through the Rupture's shields he tossed out a variety of drones.  I think there were two warriors, a hornet, a hobgoblin and one hammerhead.  All T1.  I targeted the warriors - they're the most dangerous since they are fast enough to keep up with my slasher.  I took the web off the rupture and onto the warrior.  It blew up.  I then targeted the second and it blew up too.  Then back to the Rupture.

I was taking damage.  A distressing amount of damage actually.  My shields were gone and my overheated armor repper was trying to hold back the damage to my armor.  I figured that I would try to take out the Rupture, but it was getting real scary.

I was now into structure.  My armor repper would sometimes grab back enough to keep damage from my hull for an entire cycle - but other times the armor was gone and the hull took more and more damage.

A sliver of hull was left.  And a small chuck of armor.  Then the armor was gone.  But the hull held out until the next armor repping cycle.

The capacitor was also dangerously low.  To the point that there were only a couple dots left.  If that turned off my repper, I was a goner.

But the Rupture was in dire straits too - it was as bad off as I was.  Red everywhere.  A sliver of hull left and  an armor repairer that was trying to keep up with the damage from my 200mm autocannons.

Who would blow up first?  I had my escape destination picked and had the mouse hovering over the "warp to" button for when my pod needed to make the emergency trip.

Then!  Nothing.

The rupture was gone and I was being pummeled by the angel rats that infested that asteroid belt.  I checked and realized I was in one piece - so the rupture must have escaped.  Did my capacitor run out and the warp scrambler turn off, letting him loose?  Did he somehow get distance from me while I was messing with those drones?  A mystery.

I headed back to the station with smoke billowing out of my Slasher my structure was at 8% - about 25 points of structure was all I had left.  One more shot would have killed me.

At the station I decided to post the Thorax kill to the R1FTA chat channel.  I opened up the in-game kill list and I was amazed by what I found!  Not just the Thorax, but also the Rupture!  The Rupture was listed as a kill!  I had killed him and didn't realize it!  \o/

I headed back to the asteroid belt and sure enough - there was the wreck!  I looted it (two trips again).

While neither of these cruisers were expertly fit or flown by grizzled veterans - they were great fun to catch with my little Slasher.  And two cruiser kills in the span  of 12 minutes made for a memorable evening...