That Was a Surprise...

I thought I'd maybe check on some wormholes in Auner and headed to the hangar to grab a cheetah scanning ship.  Hmmm...  Where is that thing?  Lots of rifters and slashers.  But no cheetah.

I checked my assets screen and noticed that it was still in Lantorn.  That's right!  I had been heading over there a few days ago when I was ambushed by 9 (or was it 13?) enemies who destroyed my firetail.  Checking the link, it turns out it was only 4 of them.  It seemed like more at the time...

Whatever.

I decided to head over to Lantorn to pick up the cheetah. I found a merlin that seemed like a good ship to take me the 7 jumps - and if I could find a fight or two along the way and lose the merlin that would be fine too.

It didn't take long to find a fight.

In the next system over, Resbroko, I saw a Republic Fleet Firetail on scan.  I quickly narrowed it down to a faction warfare plex and turned all the knobs up to 11.  I didn't have much hope of surviving against the firetail in my modestly equipped merlin and I wasn't high on any performance enhancing drugs.  But it was worth a try and the worst that could happen would be I'd head back one jump for a new ship.

I landed on the gate and jumped through.  The firetail as close and I chose a close orbit, scrambled his warp engines, webbed him, and started tearing into him with my overheated blasters.  Things went very well.  I was doing plenty of damage and he was hitting me lightly - my speed might have been too much for his 200mm autocannons.

Whatever the reason, in a relatively short time the firetail exploded!

That was a real surprise.  But a nice one for a change.

I continued on - through masses of FW gangs that I avoided.  Waved hello to former Black Rebel Tomba when we were in the same system, and eventually made it to Lantorn without incident.

One-A-Day

I've been on a one-a-day schedule here for the past three days.  Losing one ship a day.  First a rifter, then a slasher, and tonight a firetail.

The rifter I've mentioned.

I was out in the slasher last night and came across a merlin at a gate in Orfrold (that name dances off the tongue, doesn't it?  Orfrold).  I sat there for a few seconds and he sat there for a few seconds.  No sense fighting at the gate since the gate guns would tear through my slasher in a volley or two - so I headed to the sun hoping that he would follow.  Nielendorane Galtran followed me a few seconds later in his merlin.

We jumped on each other and started blasting away.  I was taking some damage, but when I turned on the afterburner to get some additional speed (and with it distance from my foe) things got much more comfortable.  With barrage ammo and the range script in the tracking disruptor I was able to destroy the merlin relatively easily.  GFs were exchanged in local.

I moved on and came across an imperial navy slicer at a plex.  That should be fun.  I turned everything up to 11 headed to the fight.  We started battling and things weren't especially going well - slicers can be tough.  And then the slicer's friend arrived in a harpy and things definitely went down hill fast.  I blew up quickly.  GFs were again exchanged in local.

Then tonight I noticed that there were a lot of abandoned drones in Auner - the FW guys seems to abandon drones with every fight.  I like to clean the system up now and then, so I headed to the hangar to get in my Cheetah to scan them down.  No Cheetah.  I looked around and I had apparently left it in Lantorn for some reason.  I hopped into a Republic Fleet Firetail that was handy and headed to Lantorn.

Along the way I scared a FW plexer in a plex to the point that he fled from me in his warp stabbed merlin after I started to pummel him.

Further along I came to the Hadozeko/Ardor gate and prudently landed at a perch a couple hundred km from the gate.  There were 3 thrashers and a catalyst at the gate.  Hmmm...  We looked at each other for a few seconds and they jumped through.

I waited for about 30 seconds so that they could move along to their next stop, and then jumped through.

That was a mistake.  On the other side were the 4 destroyers.  oh oh.

I have been in this spot before and usually the frigate that I'm flying can just fly away from gate camps.  Occasionally I get caught, but usually not - so I wasn't too worried.  "We'll see how this goes," I thought.

I picked my next destination, hit the warp button, hit the damage control button, and suddenly everything was turning red.  I was caught and taking massive damage.  This is bad.  I slammed the warp button repeatedly and just a couple seconds later, after my firetail blew up, I managed to get my pod away safely.

GFs were exchanged in local and a brief chat:

Caldari Joans > gf
Caldari Joans > figured you wouldn't jump through
Jack Dancer > gf
Lelden Praxis > gf
Jack Dancer > I'm not that clever...  :-)
Caldari Joans > ahh lol
Lelden Praxis > lol
Caldari Joans > live and learn
Caldari Joans > got the pod out!

I made the next jump into Lantorn and decided that those drones could wait for another day to be picked up.

Welcome Back Jack!

For the past couple week's I've been away from Eve - Cold Turkey.  Our daughter got married in Chile (where she lives) and we were down there for the excitement.  She has internet of a sort - but a dial-up connection was just too painful to deal with, so I was glad that I put a couple loooooong training choices on my two accounts.  Jack is finishing Neurotoxin Recovery V.

Speaking of which, today I was wandering around Metropolis looking for trouble and popped a Standard Exile Booster to try out drug enhanced flying.

First off I met a Republic Fleet Firetail that was sitting about 70km away from a novice FW complex.  That seemed like it would be a good test for my rifter so I headed towards him with everything turned up to 11 and my mind buzzing from the exile booster like I was back in college...

The Firetail fled.  Or at least he headed in the opposite direction from me - very possibly waiting for some help.  He was facing a Jack Dancer Rifter...

I left him and ended up in Auner.  Here I found an Atron in a novice FW plex.  Excellent!  I again turned everything up to 11 and headed to the complex.  I jumped through the gate and there he was.  No running this time - Mr. Spaxi was looking for a fight too.  I had a few technical difficulties - it's been a while since I was in a combat situation...  Eventually I sorted things out and the Atron was a flaming ball of rubble.

As I was fighting Mr. Spaxi's Atron, Aeonax Aeternal arrived in a Kestrel.  I turned my attention to him and again fumbled with the controls.  Eventually I again got things straightened out and his ship blew up.

As I was finishing with Aeonax Aeternal's Kestrel five other Bastards ( No, I'm not calling them a derogatory name - their corp is named The Bastards...) arrived in short order and attacked me. I again fumbled around and managed not to destroy any of them before my rifter was a heap of smoldering duct tape.

I was proud to see that they felt it would take 7 of them to destroy it though.  Rifters still get respect...

The first two - Mr. Spaxi and Aeonax Aeternal - were members of Meatshield Bastards which is The Bastards training corp.  I've met some of them before and they're always up for a fight and good sports win or lose.

In the end GFs were exchanged in local, the exile booster seemed to work pretty well, and I went off to find some munchies...