Three fights - one win, one draw, and one loss...

I flew over to a nearby system to get some illegal boosters and on the way noticed a couple incursuses (incursi) in a faction warfare plex.  I considered it.  My rifter wouldn't survive, but it might be fun.  But then I remembered that I was on a mission to pick up some cargo and decided to let the incursi live.

I stopped in the station, made the deal for the drugs, and headed back.  On the way back I noticed that Amand Caldurik (a fellow Black Rebel Rifter Club member) mentioned in the corp chat that he had lost his firetail to two incursi.  The same two that I had noticed.  They are a tough pair (one of them has 116 wins and 4 losses in November.  Personally, I'm much more impressed with Amand's record of 67 wins and 61 losses in November.  It shows a willingness to have fun.

But that's another topic.

So, as I was saying, I headed back to Auner with my illegal boosters.  When I got back there was activity in the system, so I dropped off the stash and headed out to see what I could find.

In one of the FW plexes was a kestrel.  Not my favorite target, but worth a fight.  I jumped through the gate on the plex with everything turned up to 11.  The kestrel was waiting and we started tearing each other apart.  My guns were doing good damage, but his missiles were too.  Soon we were both through our shields.  And shortly after we were through our armor.  My overheated armor repairer was struggling to keep up.

Then it was a race through the last of our defenses.  Smoke was everywhere!  And just as I was getting ready to finish off the kestrel - a firetail landed!  YOW!  I hoped that I would have enough to finish the kestrel before the firetail finished me.  And luckily, I did.  The kestrel exploded and I was left with 40% of my hull intact.  A very close fight!

GFs were exchanged in local and the firetail pilot noted that he should have overheated his prop mod to get in on the excitement (and sneak in on a kill or two...).

I immediately repaired my damaged rifter and headed out for round two.  A firetail is a tough frigate and I didn't have much hope of survival - but it would be fun trying.  I landed at the plex, turned up everything to 11 and headed through the gate.  The firetail was waiting for me.  The fight was on!

This one didn't go nearly as good as the fight with the kestrel.  I did some damage - but the firetail was doing more and able to keep up the repairs on his ship better than I was doing.  Eventually I lost my shields and armor and was going through my rifter's final defense - my hull.  And about that same time I noticed that my guns had burned up from overheating.  YOW!

Fortunately, I had somehow slipped far enough away from the firetail that I was no longer held by his warp scrambler - so I hit warp and heard the reassuring voice telling me I was in warp and safe.  This time I had 70% of my hull left - I was again smoking and on fire.  My armor repper also burned up due to overheating as I was flying away.

A very close call.  GFs were exchanged in local.

I again headed back to the station and I noticed that my opponent, Khallii, was also in the station repairing.  I again headed out with the rifter - this time changing my ammunition to barrage and moving my orbit distance to 4km.  I wanted to try staying away from those firetail guns...

I managed to stay away from the firetail's guns.  Because Khallii re-shipped to a breacher.  Unfortunately, I couldn't stay away from the breacher's rockets and the rifter finally died a glorious death!

GFs were again exchanged in local and we chatted about the sad state of the rifter today compared to its past glory...