Alle gegen Alle

        “Anyone want to help write ‘Survival for Dummies’? -

         ‘Don’t’ in large, friendly letters." -- Joe Moore

Ah, Orfroid. How have I missed you!

Well, not you personally, but the factional warfare zone in general. The orbiting of complexes to convince their inhabitants to switch allegiance; the fights against pirates trying to interfere with the Empire’s work; the dissatisfaction when a night’s work was undone a mere six hours later.

There was a reason why I had delayed my return to factional warfare, and instead taken to haunting wormholes again. While there was still a lot to learn for me in ship-to-ship combat, the purpose of the factional war had started to slip my grasp.

But yet… seeing Orfroid filled with both factional friendlies and hostiles, my fundamental allegiance refused to be denied. I was but a neutral to all of them, but gods help me, if I could help a righteous Amarr miltia member to achieve his objective, I would!

Remembering a few half-heard comments from veteran militia members, I sent my Pilgrim towards the nearest complex.

Sliding into a complex wasn’t that difficult: you only had to warp at 10km to the beacon, and start sending the gate-activation commands into the systems before you even landed. Easy peasy.

Except I also had to handle the fact that the Maller inside the complex might or might not be hostile.

As soon as the acceleration gate fired, I cloaked my Pilgrim again, and prepared myself mentally for the next steps: upon landing on grid, accelerate under cloak away from the current occupant. While gaining distance, check her allegiance - if she’s Amarr, just stay cloaked until she needs help; otherwise, wait for a good moment and pounce her.

I hadn’t accounted for the third possibility, that she’d have stayed right at the warp collapse point, and that she’d attack me as soon as my cloak failed in her presence.

Lasers were screeching over my hull, and I lost all sense for space and time as I went into mental overload. My drones streaked away towards my aggressor, my pulse lasers began their deadly rhythm, and I found myself frantically micromanaging my active tank, my micro warp drive, my capacitor booster - and yes, my lasers.

I hardly noticed the arrival of the five Gallente militia members in the complex - I knew that I was already dead, so the number of knives these Brutuses could bring didn’t matter anymore. The only open question was whether I could take the Maller with me before I died, or not.

Enemy drones were swarming around my ship, a small voice in the back of my mind mentioned that with auto cannons I could have shot those direct enemies of mine, alas my pulse lasers had run out of cap and were half-molten anyway, both my cap booster and my ancillary armor repairer had locked their breeches open as they had ran out of charges, and the various shield and armor and hull breech alarms were playing their cacophonic symphony.

Detachment took hold of me.

        Druur Monakh: Guys. this was a private fight!

        Druur Monakh pouts.

        p30pl3h4t3m3> then go save yourself

        Druur Monakh: Never! Win Amarr Victor, or something!

A surge ran through me when both the cap booster and the armor repairer resumed to do their work, and as soon as the board flashed green, I activated my hardeners as well. Surviving long enough was my goal at this point - any damage would have to be done by my drones.

When the Maller finally exploded, I barely noticed, to busy I was trying to get into a position to fight the GalMil members. Not that I expected much from that effort, but I felt that I should at least try.

…Nope. Barely ten seconds after the Maller, my Pilgrim met its demise as well. And as it went, I actually tasted the sourness in the super-fluidic transmissions which told me that this loss had went unnoticed by CONCORD.

I didn’t like to lose, but even more I disliked not giving my opponents the credit they were due. It was the only way I could keep myself honest.

But there was nothing I could have done about it at that point: my capsule sped away from the place of unintended slaughter, and right then, there was a more pressing matter on my mind:

        Druur Monakh> gf!

        Druur Monakh> …ehrm, now where is the nearest hi-sec which won’t shoot me on principle?