Pieces to the Puzzle

        "As a slight aside: DOGFT changed the color of losses on our corp killboard

         to green, so yeah ... killboard still green!" -- LAWN alliance mail

Every pilot had their own ‘thing’ when they wanted to do something which didn’t require much concentration, while still giving them a reason to be around their fellow pilots. Many go mining, others search out agents for distribution missions, some just let a camera drone fly endless circles around the ships in their hangars. My thing, I mused while monitoring the charge display in the blaster cannons, apparently was shooting POSes.

The power readings spiked as the electric charge was shunted into the accelerator coils of my Neutron Blaster Cannons, hurling eight deadly bolts of roiling plasma downrange, taking another bite out of the POS shield. Before my inner eye I could see the extractors ejecting the now empty shells of the hybrid ammunition into space, and inserting new ones into the cannons, while the energy busses began refilling the charge capacitors.

I hadn’t planned it this way, but when Eta had contacted me, asking somewhat grumpily if I could lend some damage for a POS takedown, I didn’t need much convincing. I had gotten a couple more hours of sleep after my early wake-up call, but I still was far from peak condition, so unloading deadly fire onto an unresisting target while the pod’s systems removed the last remnants of last night’s excesses from my system was just what Dr. Druur recommended. Something was eating at Eta though - even though she was on comms, she spoke up only to deliver intel reports in curt, cold sentences. I knew that trying to pry the reason out of her before she was ready to divulge it on her own, would be an exercise in futility. Especially if it was what I suspected, namely troubles between her and her boy.

Another volley roared out, followed by the empty shells, and the cannons locked open, their magazines exhausted. But my gun crew was on the ball and had the replacement magazines ready to go: five seconds later, the breaches closed and the cannons began their fiery work once more.

Giving me time to piece together the events from last night. My memory neurons had woken up, finally, and under their direction I was digging through the various ship logs from last night, and something of a picture was emerging.

Seemed that I finally had managed to tag along with a small group of The Bastards onto one of their intoxicated roams. Though for me the roam had gotten of with a rocky enough start: First it took a while sort out comms, then my aging Punisher’s electronics decided to crash before we were even two systems out. It took me ages to get my electronics restarted, and then even more time before I could catch up with the gang. If they had thrown me off the gang at that point, I would have understood - but they were chill about it and just told me to take a couple extra drinks.

But even with the help of the logs, only a few details managed to stand out from the haze.

There was the lighting of a Cyno next to a gate, with the proclamation of an incoming Nyx, to draw a fight.

A pod hovering next to a gate, its pilot sound asleep in the knowledge that the Sansha combat vessels would protect him. It hadn’t helped that on my attack runs I had managed to twice shoot the gate instead.

Unsolicited, yet well-meant fitting advice after the fit of my Omen broke the heart of one of the attackers. Hopefully he did forgive me that I lead him on in our chat - New Eden needs more pilots like him.

Many deaths to CONCORD in Assietes, where an attempt to kill a Hulk went hilariously wrong. And what did I get for my hero shot at the accompanying Orca? The killright made available to all of their alliance. Miners simply had no sense of humor!

Our Caracal fleet scaring a battlecruiser gang into docking. They were probably too embarrassed about their outer appearance, seeing that we were sporting color-coordinated launchers. Other people were less self-conscious.

Getting shot in the back by a Caldari Militia pilot, who apparently didn’t like me sporting ECM drones. But he was the better pilot, so props to him.

Making somebody meow for me in local comms. Twice.

And in one log, finally, the solution to the puzzle why in the end I had been unable to arrive in Amarr in the same ship I departed in from Sasiekko, despite it being all friendly territory.

I giggled in my pod, log frozen at the crucial moment.

Oops!