Hazardous Goods

And Again!

2012-01-29T19:29:00.000-08:00

The problem of going to sleep in your pod is that once you wake up, you can’t really rub your eyes, or drink a glass of water to clear the bad taste out of your mouth. Instead, all you have is all-encompassing amniotic fluid - and ship signals demanding your attention.

So, what do we have... ship finishing warp-in to my safe-spot, the CVA morale office still cloaking in our system... and an urgent comm request from Eta in Empire. I opened the channel.

“Good Morning! What’s up?”

[ “Morning”? It’s about midnight here! ]

“Details!”

[ Pah - I’m going to detail you, if you keep that up! ...but anyway: the Alliance is shooting Interbus Custom’s Offices next door, and could use any damage we have available. ]

“Didn’t they do that last night?”

[ No, that were just another couple of POSes in the other system. ]

I sighed theatrically: “We really have to do something about LC’s Dreadnought addiction.”

Eta chuckled.

[ Actually, it was the Koalas: ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we owned all the Customs Offices - no PI taxes!’ - ‘Yes - how many dreads would it take to take out a CO?’ - ‘I have a dread available!’ ...]

“...and then it snowballed.” I laughed. “That does sound eerily familiar.”

I pulled up my asset list .... excellent: I still had my POS-bashing Apoc in our home system.

“Any hostiles?”

[ None so far. ... oh, and I donated 100M from Corp funds to put up the new custom offices. I hope you don’t mind. ]

“Nope, no objections!”

I looked at the map, and then continued:

“Ok, I’ll have to head to the nearest outpost, but then I can jump-clone back to Empire and add my feeble DPS to the effort.”

[ Sounds good - I’ll let them know. Good hunting! ]

The channel closed, and I instructed my stealth bomber to head for our system’s gate. As my ship picked up speed, I briefly considered whether I should wake her - but dismissed the thought almost immediately: she’d only get shot at needlessly. I’d make it up somehow later.

The gate fired, dropping me into the next system towards the outpost, and I prepared myself for a long night ahead.

Avalanche

2012-01-04T03:17:00.000-08:00

Corp Comms, 07:32:11

Druur Monakh > LC!
Littlecritter > Wazzup!!
Druur Monakh > Moving fuel...

Corp Comms, 07:49:37

Littlecritter > We so need to kill that POS out here "during the week while quiet". You need to pester the powers to make that happen...i am getting trigger happy.
Druur Monakh > Hmm.... do we need more DPS, or more Triage support?
Druur Monakh > You have more experience with Cap warfare in these matters - could we take out that POS by ourselves?
General Offense > Good evening!
Littlecritter > 2 dreads should take it down in about an hour....remote reps on the dreads would be a must
Druur Monakh > General!
General Offense > I heard the magic D-word...?
Littlecritter > I say we skip the guns and go right after the tower.....we can always take everything else out after it goes int RI
Littlecritter > I have never seen any of these guys out here while I am out and there is a very good chance we could take it out un-challenged

Corp Comms, 08:05:49

Littlecritter > you remember what planet moon it was at? I must have erased the BM
Druur Monakh > VII-M23

Fleet Comms, 08:14:06

Littlecritter > get into something cloaky and warp to me. Its off line
Druur Monakh > Offline again?
Littlecritter > unless this isn't the right one - this is a large....i thought the other one was a medium
Druur Monakh > That's the one - I remember the gun layout
Littlecritter > can you shoot it if its anchored?
Druur Monakh > Yep. Don't know about reinforced though
Littlecritter > fuck it my dread is here
Druur Monakh > Lemme get my HAC. Miniscule DPS, but best I have atm

Alliance Comms, 08:24:16

Druur Monakh > FYI we're shooting the hostile POS at VII-M23. It's offline, so any DPS is welcome
Littlecritter > X for fleet
Hawk Pathfinder > x
Vash Di > x
Hawk Pathfinder > is it shooting back?
Druur Monakh > Nope, it's offline
Hawk Pathfinder > kk SB it is then
Littlecritter > Lets take this biatch out!!

Fleet Comms, 08:28:54

Bremhan > Wo Needs fighters, have 5 left
Hawk Pathfinder > trying to fund more torpedo's
Druur Monakh > If that's a hint that I should train for Amarr Revelations, I'm not listening :)
General Offense > If you can jump me out to lo-sec I can get my dread
Eta Monakh > About 15-25 min - I am in a different system altogether
General Offense > anyone in lo-sec that can pop a cyno? I can bring my dread
Hawk Pathfinder > I can do one

Fleet Comms, 08:34:40

Druur Monakh > We needs more DPS :(
Littlecritter > It only has 45mil shields
Druur Monakh > 'only' he says :)
Hawk Pathfinder > no sleep until tis pos is down this time :)
Druur Monakh > We're going to hold you to it :)
Hawk Pathfinder > in position, General, let me know when you want the candle
General Offense > light it

Fleet Comms, 08:47:27

tolharn > what do we need amarr pilot or a hauler ??
Druur Monakh > Damage
tolharn > oh ok
Eta Monakh > Sis, you really should learn Dreads...!
Druur Monakh > Easy for you to say!
tolharn > have an abbadon here
Druur Monakh > This is improvised, so the most sustained damage you can bring, it will be good

Fleet Comms, 08:57:37

General Offense > Moros needs cyno opened in null
tolharn > can open one ya mate
General Offense > 1 min tolharn for me to recharge cap and then I need that cyno
tolharn > cool ill get it set now
General Offense > light it
Druur Monakh > Well, we seem to be at 85% shield on the POS already
Hawk Pathfinder > yeah is going down faster this time
General Offense > will go even faster when I get my dread there another 120k damage per volley
Hawk Pathfinder > of course it would go down even faster if I remembered to activate my missiles after a reload
tolharn > cyno up
Hawk Pathfinder > pockets nearly had a heart attack when you jumped out there :)
General Offense > lol

Alliance Comms, 09:09:50

Littlecritter > FYI we're shooting the hostile POS at VII-M23. It's offline, so any DPS is welcome
Tavi Calderon > where are teh shields at?
Littlecritter > I would say 75%
Tavi Calderon > does everyone have fighters
Hawk Pathfinder > not me
Tavi Calderon > cool - I’ll ring Kitai out
Hawk Pathfinder > need to kill it quickly. I said I wasn't going to bed until it was :-/
General Offense > General Offense could use some fighters

Fleet Comms, 09:16:47

Kitai Calderon > you guys ahve fighters now
Tavi Calderon > i will love to tell dns we took care of this problem! that will make us look good
Tavi Calderon > well done boys

Alliance Comms, 09:24:02

pockets62 > im on my way will b bout 10 min i can spaer some fighters

Fleet Comms, 09:41:56

Littlecritter > These guys will be in for a surprise when they log in tomorrow......shouldn't have let the fuel run out :)
Littlecritter > I have been dying to blow this thing up, and they handed it to me
Vash Di > I love the alpha on the Maelstrom..I just hate my short term memory loss
Vash Di > I keep fogerting to turn on the guns..:)
pockets62 > did u need carrier on feild ? or just drones
pockets62 > who needs drones only got only 7 to spear
pockets62 > im warping in aways just to look
Littlecritter > I see armor damage!!
pockets62 > i cam in time then yay

Fleet Comms, 10:29:37

General Offense > yeah 50% structure
Hawk Pathfinder > yay found some extra torps hidden at hanger
Littlecritter > 25%
Hawk Pathfinder > yeah it's going fast now

Fleet Comms, 10:32:31

Byrd Parker > awesome
Vash Di > WOOOHOOO
Hawk Pathfinder > yeeeehhhaaaaaaaaaaa
Byrd Parker > dreads off field now please
pockets62 > o/ party time
General Offense > waiting for triage to disable
pockets62 > ok im out
pockets62 > who got the final blow
Littlecritter > I got the final blow
Littlecritter > lol 32mil in damage :)
Bremhan > Sweet mate

Fleet Comms, 10:44:10

Littlecritter > Nice work everyone! For and unplanned hit it went very well....Props to everyone here tonight!!!
Hawk Pathfinder > drinks on the house
Bremhan > Cheers guys
Druur Monakh > Way ahead of you :)
Byrd Parker > well done all
Hawk Pathfinder > I'll start cleaning up POS modules, and come back after DT to do the rest.
Druur Monakh > Actually - special thanks to LC for noticing that this bloody POS was offline again!
pockets62 > THANKS LC!!!
Hawk Pathfinder > Booyah LC

Littlecritter > That my friends is how you make a statement! This is our space!!

Old Year, New Year

2012-01-03T00:41:00.000-08:00

It is funny: after all this time - tens of thousands of years - humanity was still clinging to the concept of ‘years’, including celebrations of their turnovers, when the space we had conquered no longer had a meaningful single definition of a ‘year’. But as the Amarrian Empire continues to demonstrate: traditions are stubborn. And if they involve company and hearty drink - I wholeheartedly approve!

...assuming you don’t happen to be out in deep space, with nothing but your fully-automated CovOps to keep you company, and an outpost and a distant sun as scenery.

Judging from the latest messages, things in Empire were just going fine - even the latest war dec wasn’t much of an issue: the usual wannabe-scourges looking for careless industrialists. So far, the only fallout had been Eta’s bad mood, for having to online all those POSes yet again. In other news, a certain corp member had managed to clear the slate with the rest of the alliance, and things in our 0.0 operation are smoothing out as well. I should be happy that for once the corp works without having me to push things forward...

I was about to turn my ship around, back to our POS for an evening of light reading, when my sensors showed the arrival of a HAC in my vicinity.

Friendly. And also opening an encrypted communication.

[ Hey there. Pondering deep thoughts again? ]

“Yep. Wouldn’t you?”

[ Nope. Life’s too short for that. ]

“We’re capsuleers. We’re immortal!”

[ Still - There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. ]

I started to reply, but my visitor wasn’t finished.

[ ...But you and I, we’ve been through that and this is not our fate. So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late. ]

“Now who’s having deep thoughts here?”

[ Not me - I’m just quoting something cool. ]

I laughed.

“And what do you have in mind for this late hour, pray tell?”

[ Dunno... you probe, I shoot? ]

“Nothing but Sanshas here tonight, sweetie.”

[ Then Sanshas it’ll be. Shall we? ]

An unexpected smile spread across my face - nothing like company when you least expect it.

“Yes. Let’s.”

In Memoriam

2011-12-19T18:24:00.000-08:00

I was dreading opening today’s mail, as I had a good idea of what to expect.

The day before my a current Alliance boss, Tavi, had expressed specific discomfort with one of my corp members, who also happened to be my former Alliance boss. Of course, all I had to go on from Tavi’s side were paraphrases, not actual logs. Considering the nature of our communications, it could have been just a misunderstanding in tone. Nonetheless, I had to follow up with my corp member, just to be sure.

In hindsight, I may have been too blunt, too Khanid in my communication with him, instead of the usual flowery Amarrian standard of business comms.

Oh well, that’s what I don’t get paid for, right?

I punched the button.

The expected mail was there - and an unexpected one recalling the past glories - of course denying all allegations. As I feared, I was left with nothing but hear-say. And - oh look! -a reference to a plentitude of ISK and capitals defending our 0.0 sec POS.

Gods. When did I get that sarcastic?

‘When he abandoned you almost a year ago.’, answered my inner voice.

Shut up, inner voice! ... what do you mean?

‘He vanished, leaving you to hold the bag.’

I remembered too well. The alliance fell apart, people going off to new adventures, just me holding on to the hope that the alliance might return. I even called in favors with my aunt to keep the bills payed.

I remembered trying to break away - unsuccessfully, coming this close to losing myself in the serenity of wormhole space. If my corp members hadn’t made unofficial contacts, I might have never returned.

But I returned, eventually, swallowing my pride and hopes, and found a place for my corp in an alliance we fought just about a year ago.

My corpie may have had valid points, which I’d made sure to keep in mind, but at the same time... at the same time...

‘She makes prodigious mistakes, she has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: she is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn't standing still.’ supplied my inner voice. ‘e.e. cummings, I believe.’

I nodded. While I wasn’t willing to make a judgement without proper proof, my sympathies lay more with the people who actually went out and did something, than with those who celebrated the status quo of the past.

Khanid, remember?

I was just starting to write an answer, when a new mail came in.

Blah blah CONCORD blah blah Pedevil blah blah deeply sorry blah blah accident in in cloning process blah blah - wait? what?

I looked around this meagre room in the POS we had erected in 0.0.

This couldn’t be true. Not Ped!

I looked at the screen displaying the half-written reply to my corpie, and it suddenly seemed small. Irrelevant.

I walked over to the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of Kadeshi’s Finest - or as it was better known in Empire, Pulse Laser Coolant. Selecting the cleanest glass I could find - easy when there’s only one - I walked back to my desk and opened comms to HQ back in Empire.

To my surprise, it was Jaana who answered, not Eta as usual. Jaana must have gotten a day off from Imperial University.

“Hey folks,” I began unceremoniously, “I just got note that...”

[ We know. ], Jaana cut me short. [ We got a copy sent to corp. ]

“Oh...ok. Then I suggest that you get yourself something to drink...”

[ Way ahead of you. ] The camera view zoomed out and I could see the people gathered in the room - Jaana, Eta, Calcinus, Keilidh - heck, even Heloisa, and a few other people I didn’t even recognize! All with a drink in their hands, looking expectantly at me.

“Ok, well....”

I cleared my throat.

“I’m not good at this,”, I continued, “I _don’t_want_ to do this. And this may be the worst obituary ever.

”But if you’re here, it means you have known her, by reputation if not in person. And you know that if life were fair, she’d deserve more than an impromptu speech. Pedevil has been the bedrock... frack, without her Frequent Flyers wouldn’t even exist today! Yet she never aimed to be in the limelight, always putting the needs of the corp over her own.

“I wish we’d have the numbers to give her a proper farewell, like we did for Psi... But even so, I know that she would not want us to look back, but move forward without fear in our hearts.“

I lifted my glass.

”’Give me a star to navigate by...’“, I intoned Ped’s motto

[ ‘... and a cute girl to pass the time until I get there.’ ], answered the group.

”Godspeed!“

Boxes, Boxes Everywhere

2011-11-29T09:39:00.000-08:00

“That takes care of the cynos,” I murmured to myself while checking of another item on the list. “Now as to the Purifier...”

I frowned looking the manifest: I knew I had written it myself the night before, but why had I put an F85 Damage Control instead of its T2 variant on it? Well, not to worry, that was easily corrected: a quick data entry, and the new and improved fitting order made its way into the system.

Only to be rejected with rather arrogant warning beep. I was just about to check what the system was complaining about, when suddenly a weight fell on my shoulders, and two arms embraced me from behind.

“What’cha doing?”, asked a curious voice right next to my ear.

I reached up and tussled Eta’s hair.

“Packing, Sis, that is...”, I glowered at the terminal, “...if the system’d let me.”

“Well, it would help if you didn’t exceed the CPU on your ship.” She pointed at the screen. “You know, there are only that many hamster wheels which can fit into a hull that small.”

My eyes followed where she pointed -- of course! The F85 was the only DCU which still fit given the rest of the modules! I really should write that stuff down.

As I reversed my manifest change, Eta pushed away some of my notes and made herself comfortable on the desk.

“So, you’re really moving down to Catch? I thought we lost Sov again.”

I flashed her a smile. “Yep, I'm moving. After all the work the alliance has put into the project, it'd be petty not to. Besides - I always wanted to cause more explosions!"

"That's what I have my reactors for - much simpler!"

I finished up my last entries, and turned to her. "And as for Sov - we have handed it over amicably to Dirt Nap Squad, and in return they let us stay as guests. It's perfect: we develop our 0-sec legs..."

"...while not having to worry about a sov bill.", she completed the thought. "Until they change their minds."

I nodded in agreement - but that was a risk we had to take one way or another. This way less was put on the line.

"When will you be leaving?"

"As soon as possible." I gestured towards the terminal. "I got my ships I want to take down, now I just need to stage them Next Door, so Calcinus can jump them down with his carrier the next days. He's itching to go as well."

A thought occurred to me. "Say, could you be available with a cyno ship? He may have to make two trips."

"Sure! Just give me an hour heads-up in case I'm hauling stuff. But... if you want to stage your ships, you may want to hurry: the CONCORD curfew begins in less than two hours."

"Oh crap! That is today? I completely forgot!" I jumped up and headed for the door. "I better get moving then - sorry."

"No problem. In fact," she hopped off the desk, "I'm going to spot for you." She smiled sweetly. "Because I'm nice like that."

A soft sound from the terminal made her turn back.

"You've got mail!" she pronounced. "From somebody named ... Grendel, or something. Ring a bell?"

I racked my brain. "Not a clue. Probably a faction agent - I have been working on some standings. Whoever it is, it can wait. Let's go!"

"Right!" She caught up to me. "Ships to move! Modules to box! Laundry to fold!"

Project Foothold

2011-11-13T22:31:00.000-08:00

“Why so alone tonight?”

It was just another voice in the cacophony of the bar, so I ignored it.

What I couldn’t ignore was the man sitting down next to me, giving me his attention.

“Don’t talk to just anyone, hm?”, he continued. “Smart. But how about I buy you a drink?”

I turned to muster him. Male, Caldari, bald-shaven, a pair of Nightstalker goggles pushed up on his forehead. Not too shabby looking. Capsuleer.

“Arcturian Mega-Stout.”, I agreed.

He turned to give the order, and we sat in silence until the barkeep returned. I picked up the glass, and took a long swig, then flashed my benefactor a quick smile.

“See, that’s how you do it. Now, try again.”

“Very well.” He cleared his throat. “’Why so alone tonight?’”

“Well, have you tried sitting back there in the booths?”

“Good heavens, no! There’s only so much industrial talk I can stand before... I see your point.” He took a swallow from his own drink. “However, that’s not what I was referring to.”

“If you must know, it felt it was necessary to unwind for once. Which works best alone.” I cocked an eyebrow at him. “And you?”

“Also unwinding - but I prefer the kind where you have company. But of course, if you’re not done with your kind...”

“That fully depends on the options. What do you have in mind?”

He leaned back. “For starters, I’d suggest to retire to a bar less ... sterile. The kind where they also offer....”

Suddenly his voice was replaced by static, and it even appeared as if his outlines broke up. Then everything was normal again.

I looked at my glass - I didn’t recall Mega-Stout having this kind of hallucinogenic effect. And it was my first alcoholic drink for tonight.

“...everything ok?” I realized that he was mustering me with a hint of concern.

“Yes - just had a weird moment here. Sorry.” I shook my head to clear my thoughts, then returned my attention to him. “You were saying?”

He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, he himself, the bar, all the people flickered and derezzed - to be replaced by the virtual images of my Purifier’s command system. And shrilling in my ‘ear’ was the thing which had interrupted my dream: a priority message from our WH operation.

Instinctively I engaged my cloaking device while the ship performed its automatic warp, and accepted the communication.

“What?!!”

[ Sorry, boss, for waking you up ], replied Lance, [ but we have just found a WH leading to Hi-Sec. Caldari Space. ]

“How stable is it?”

[ Hardly used, and probably has another 8 to 10 hours on it. ]

Of course this had to happen when I was down in 0.0 space. But we had waited for a chance like this for months now, so...

[ Hang on - let me patch Eta in. ]

I sent out the Comm’s request, and it was answered immediately - she hardly ever was asleep at this time of day. Though you wouldn’t be able to tell from her reaction.

[ What?!! ]

“Sorry, sis, but we are in need of your services.” I quickly explained the situation. “Can you take the Orca we prepped, and bring it into the WH?”

A moments silence, then she replied. [ Sure, it’s only seven jumps from here. But - we haven’t prepped the Blockade Runner to go with it. ]

“Hm. Could you donate yours?”

[ I kind of need it for my own hauling. ]

“Tell you what: once you deliver the Orca, buy a new transport on the way back. Corp pays.”

[ In that case... ] she sighed. [ Very well - again I melt at the sound of your velvety voice. Where is the exit? ]

[ Isaziwa ] answered Lance. [ We’ll fleet up and you can warp to me when you get there. In the meantime, we’ll collect our produce from the planets. ]

[ Copy that. It’ll be an hour or two. ]

“Excellent - and thanks! To both of you!”

As comms winked out, I considered my own next steps. Last night I had gone to sleep in this system just a few jumps from the border between Providence and Devoid - drumming up the courage just to make the first and second jump out of Empire had taken me hours.

While this wasn’t my first excursion into lawless space, it was the first time that I was doing it all by myself, with no backup. Using a stealth bomber gave me an advantage - but it didn’t make me invincible. As evidenced by the Hawk yesterday which did its best to uncloak me at a gate. Luckily the evasion drills from the Agony CovOps class came back to me in time to avoid an embarrassing accident.

For a moment I had even been tempted to blow the Hawk up for his insolence, but I restrained myself: the purpose of this trip was to scout and bookmark the long way to the system our Alliance had taken sovereignty in. There’d be plenty of fights waiting for me once I got there.

And considering the time it took to make the bookmarks I wanted, I better got going again.

Commands streamed out from my pod into the ship’ systems, as it elegantly swung around and accelerated towards the next gate, further away from Empire.

Interstellar Spreadsheet Overdrive!

2011-10-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

The barkeep placed my order in front of me, and taking it, I stood to look for a decent place to sit.

There was no denying: I had been somewhat grumpy ever since our WH operation got crippled a few days ago, more than actually warranted by the loss. But I knew a recipe against this mood: find a place with other capsuleers, and just kick back with a drink for a while.

A soft drink, that is. History had shown that inebriation does nothing to ungrumpy a Druur, just to cause her to undock in too-shiny ships.

Finding a nice spot next with a good view over the room, I relaxed and let the sights and sounds wash over me.

Suddenly, the conversation at the table next over caught my ear.

“Wait, say that again: you think that POS refineries are useful?” A young’ish voice.

“That’s what I said.” Old, grizzled. “If you look carefully enough.”

“But why? Even the Intensive array only gives you 75% yield. Why waste 25% by refining at the POS?”

“In a word: Opportunity Cost. Imagine you’re in a wormhole with only sporadic safe connections. Now imagine you don’t get a good connection for a long while, the corp hangars fill up, and you have to go let Grav sites to waste. Depending on the circumstances, these sites you can’t mine can be worth more than the 25% the refinery loses.”

“Hmm, I can see that.” Young voice wasn’t quite convinced yet, though. “But if you have a good connection, or enough hangars, then this wouldn’t be an issue.”

“Well..., now you also have look at the time you spend. Let’s say you have enough raw ore that it takes you 8-12 hours to move out of the WH - refined down to minerals, it would take you only an hour. That’s 7 to 11 hours you could have used for mining more, shooting some sleepers - or cuddling with your sweetie.”

“Hey, leave me out of this!” New voice, young, amused.

“But then tell me this: if refining arrays are so good, why isn’t everyone using them?”

“Because of fuel cost.” I could almost see Old Voice smiling. “Running an Intensive refinery costs you 0.2 ISK/m3 of ore, a Medium refinery 0.4 ISK/m3 of ore. That is if you have a suitable tower running anyway. If you set up a tower just for the refinery, the costs would be...” I heard tapping on a padd “... 12.8 ISK/m3 for the Intensive, and 28.1 ISK/m3 for the Medium. And that is before defenses.”

“Riiight...” You could hear the Young Voice’s gears turning. “So depending on the setup I’d have to make sure that my ore is worth more than the fuel. On average, and taking yield into account.”

“Precisely.”

“Ok, I’ll bite.” This was Sweetheart. “How about using a Rorqual to compress the ore?”

Old Voice was unperturbed. “Good question. But keep in mind that a Rorq is a 1 Billion investment: you will have to mine a lot just to pay off that investment. Especially if you’re in a lower-class WH which the Rorq can’t leave. But true - if you know you have the time and/or people, a Rorq could be the better choice. Don’t ask me for numbers on that one, though!”

“You’re no fun!” mocked Sweetheart. “But what then about normal refining arrays - those with 35% yield. Those you will agree are useless.”

“Trying to make my evening difficult, eh?”

“Yup!”

“I should have known.... Right, then. One primary application: Ninja mining. You only need a small tower to run a normal refinery. Actually, you can put two on them, but let’s keep it simple. Just a couple of transports, or an Orca, can transport the tower, refinery, and fuel. Run it of for a few hours or a day, then take it down again. And if it gets popped - heck, it’s cheap.”

“You said ‘in theory’...” Sweetheart. “Let me guess - fuel cost vs. ore price?”

“Right. At the moment...”, more tapping, “... a Ninja refinery would cost 5.2 ISK/m3, so your ore better be worth 16 ISK/m3 or more. Which at the moment applies to all of them - but that changes with the fuel prices, and with how many Ninja POSes you lose. And with how correctly I typed in those numbers. But you get the idea.”

“Fun!” Young Voice, sarcastically. “How do you know when to use which setup, if at all? ...no, wait, I’m going to regret asking this, am I?”

“Spreadsheets, son!” Old Voice was chuckling. “Lots and lots of spreadsheets!”

“God, I hate those. Takes all the fun out of things. - Death To Spreadsheets!”

And I started quietly laughing into my drink.

16 Months

2011-10-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

“no no No No No NO NO!”

A calculator flew threw the air in our common room, impacting the wall right next to the door I just entered through, shattering into dozens of pieces.

I sighed - only one person could get angry enough to violence a harmless piece of corporate machinery...

“Ok, Sis - spit it out.”

“The Oxy-Tope market!”, she bellowed, waving a bundle of spreadsheets at me. I couldn’t read any of the writing from this distance, but the diagrams were visible enough: colorful curves of averages and channels, and all pointing upwards. “Might as well not bother reacting anything,” continued Eta, “by the time it’s done, I can be lucky to just break even. Damn Goons!”

Suddenly I had a strong feeling of deja-vu.

“One sec, before you go any further.” I walked over to her, pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. “You are not, by any chance, considering joining Hellfleet again?”

She looked puzzled. “No, why would I? Why do you ask?”

“Nothing,” I waved dismissively, “just checking. Besides I think they closed doors. Anyway, talk to me.”

She leaned back. “You remember the Goon’s new campaign - Goonswarm Shrugged - targetting the Gallente ice miners?”

“Yep. I noticed the Oxy-Tope price wobble somewhat precariously...” - something clicked in my mind - “...oh, that’s the stuff you use.”

“Right. My fuel cost almost doubled - and if the Goons continue their campaign, it may climb even further. Right now there are a few things I can react for profit - but who knows what happens in two months?”

I rubbed my face tiredly. I had just finished a hauling trip to our local market hub, and was actually longing for a shower and my bed. But this took priority.

“Well, how about you switch to a tower using different isotopes?”

“I thought of that.” She tapped onto her console, and a number of tower configurations started flickering over the screen.

“For my purposes, pretty much only the Caldari are suitable - the others don’t have enough CPU.”

I nodded - our corp tower Next Door had the same limitation.

“However,” she continued, “if I go with a plain Caldari, the fuel cost is about the same as my current one. Plus I wouldn’t have the powergrid to anchor proper guns - I’d have to make it a Dick Star and hope for the best.”

She interrupted herself. “Actually, that might not be a bad idea in general.” She made a note to herself, then continued her thought.

“A faction Caldari would reduce the cost, but I’m not sure it would pay itself off in time.”

“I see - so what are you going to do?”

She sighed. “I’ll keep my current towers, maybe try the Dick Star configuration - and wait what happens in two, three months. Besides - did you read this?”

I took the printout she held out, and glanced over it. Then I read it again, and whistled through my teeth.

“Nasty. Capsuleer-Owned Custom Offices - that’ll throw the fuel market into a frenzy.” Possibilities ran through my mind. “We’ll have to reconsider our research POS. Try to pre-produce the gantry materials, and hope that the BPCs get onto the market quickly. And I don’t even want to think about our WH operation...”

“Precisely.” Eta snagged the printout back, crunched it up into a ball and threw it violently into a corner of the room. “We might make some money playing the market at first - but long term?”

“Great.” I slumped into my chair. “Anything else?”

“Well, since you ask...”

I tried to stop her, but she had already entered more commands into her console. The display flickered briefly, and the system started playing a recorded message. According to the time stamp displayed, it had been received just five hours ago, originating from our WH operation. No visual, so it had been sent directly from a ship.

A bad feeling came over me.

A hiss of static, then Lance’ voice became recognizable.

“Hello folks. Unfortunately I have some bad news.
About three hours ago the POS ran out of fuel - right in the middle of our rest period. The reason why we didn’t refuel it in time is because the indicators malfunctioned: we didn’t see anything amiss when we called it a night. But that is only half of it.
One hour ago, a Stealth Bomber and a Battlecruiser attacked the then-offline POS. While they couldn’t break the tower itself, they destroyed both hangars. Our ships are lost, but worse: so are all materials we collected in the last months. Luckily we had made it a habit of sleeping in our ships, otherwise we would have taken the pod express home.
Anyway. We have enough fuel left to power the tower for an hour or two - but I don’t think that’s very useful at this point. So for now we’re just going to hold station, until we hear from you.
Lance out.”

I leaned back, let my head flop over the back of the chair, and closed my eyes. While we had pondered closing down our WH operation before, the loss of the goods had not been part of the plan.

And we had just managed to make back the ISK we lost in the two wars this year!

Eventually Eta softly cleared her throat. “I hear the Tuskers are recruiting?”

I straightened up and looked at her sternly. “Don’t toy with me, Sis! Besides, we both know that I don’t have the right stuff for that!”

“Well, in that case...”, she handed me a calculator, “I suggest that you throw this. It relieves immensely.”

And she was right.

30 Minutes, 5 Lessons

2011-10-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

I awoke with a start, opening my eyes to the dim light of my lodgings. Shaking my head, I tried to remember what had woken me ... some kind of noise ...

Damn Minmatar quarters - always something creaking or hissing in them!

I rolled over, intent to return into Morpheus’ embrace, when the shrill sound again rang through the room.

What the... Comm System!

Stretching out my arm, I activated the comm panel - no outgoing visual though. The holo display shimmered and resolved into the face of Eta.

[ Finally you’re awake! Get your ass on alliance comms, and then into a ship. They need a combat scanner Next Door; like, 10 minutes ago! ]

‘Next Door’ - our nickname for the neighbouring lo-sec system; home to the towers of a number of alliances, some of them much larger than us, and also always seeing traffic from random missioners and ratters.

Hmm, combat scanning - I don’t think I ever had to do that outside of my solo WH expeditions... ah, what the heck - she who dares, and so on.

I jumped off my bunk.

“Copy that, I’m on my way.”

Discarding my clothing as I went, I ran towards my pod at the hangar balcony, preferring speed over decorum. As soon as the pod had closed around me and the neural links were hooked up, I instructed it to dock with my Covert Ops, and opened Alliance comms.

“Druur here. Do you still need a combat scanner?”

[ Hell yeah! ], came the immediate response from Tavi, our alliance leader.

The pod entered my Anathema, and the virtual consoles sprang alive before my mental eye. A quick command to the hangar systems, the probe launcher was loaded with combat probes, then I initated the undock procedure.

“I’m on my way. What am I looking for?”

[ A Kronos and a Noctis. We’re holding on this side of the gate, so as not to spook them. ]

I entered space, and with a swift command my engines went to full power, propelling me towards the star gate.

“Any particular reason why we want them?”

[ They’re neutral, and on our turf. ] Amusement tinged Tavi’s voice. [ Plus, they are flying shinies. ]

Heh, there’s a lesson: Our boss really didn’t pussyfoot around our NBSI policy, unlike our previous alliance. I approved, but had to admit that there were still some old NRDS habits I needed to get rid of.

“Fair enough.” I dropped out of warp. “Jumping into system.”

The gate fired, and spit me out in lo-sec space. A quick scan..

“Gate is clear, two in local, no targets on d-scan. Warping to safe spot.”

As I warped, I realized for the first time how big the system actually was - I would have to bounce around a bit to find our targets.

Another lesson: Make scan spots for the next time.

“This may take a while ... ”, I reported, knowing that few things were worse than waiting for Intel. “...hang on, I have the Noctis on d-scan, probably in a safe-spot. No sign of the Kronos yet.”

I was at planet VII, and some quick d-scans revealed that the Noctis was less than 20M km off the planet. Just to be sure, I repeated the scan - yep, it was still there.

Could he really be so dumb?

Back to my own safe spot, combat probes set for 0.5 AU scan radius, sent in formation towards planet VII - and I got a perfect hit on the first scan. Bookmarked, the probes sent far off the ecliptic plane, and my warp engines roared back to life.

“Got a hit on the Noctis, warping to 100.”

[ Just the Noctis? ]

I waited a moment with my reply until I had arrived at my destination.

“Yep, just the Noctis, no sign of the Kronos. Nor do I see any wrecks on d-scan.”

A moment’s silence, then: [ Ok, we take the Noctis at least. Can you get closer to give us a warp in? ]

“Sure - stand by.”

I powered up my engines and started approaching the Noctis, which just sat there, oblivious. Inwardly, I was chiding myself for not warping in closer - old WH habit, which now came back to bite me.

No, this wouldn’t do - it would take ages to close the distance. I selected a nearby celestial, and initiated warp for a quick bounce-off. Too late I noticed that the incoming gate was almost perfectly in line with the Noctis - my gang could have just warped to me at 100.

Damn.

Arriving at the celestial, I swung my ship around and warped back to the Noctis un-safe spot.

Please be there please be there please be there.... aahhh, Good Noctis!

“I am 20 klicks off the Noctis, you can warp to me... belay that, it just warped away. Damn!”

[ Did you see where to? ]

“Outer system - I will have to search again.”

My d-scan at this spot covered all but the outermost planet, so that’s where I headed next. One d-scan later a smile played on my face - there they were! Obediently my probes came down, and quickly gave me a 40% hit on the Noctis, and a 100% hit on the Kronos.

“Gotcha! I have a hit on the Kronos, warping to it now, and I also see wrecks on scan - they’re probably salvaging.”

My warp bubble collapsed and expelled my back into normal space. Empty normal space.

“Damn, they’re gone.”

[ Gate fire! They’re coming out! Jump! Jump! Jump! ]

In my pod I nodded - the idea was to hide the fact that there had been a gang waiting at the gate, by jumping in before our targets emerged on the other side.

A few seconds later, the gang landed next to me.

“Sorry, I was too slow finding them.” I apologized. “Or they got spooked by my probes.”

[ Nah, don’t worry, it was a long shot - you came closer than I ever would have. ]

That cheered me up a little.

And now that I think about it - the hunt had been great fun. Even though we didn’t get the kill in the end, I did manage to scan them down! Maybe I should look into flying CovOps full time...

[ How many wrecks had been here? ] That was Johanna.

“Six, maybe eight. ” I answered, then realized the meaning of it: there were no wrecks around us, which meant...

[ They finished salvaging before we could get here. ], voiced Johanna the inevitable conclusion. [ Just not enough time. ]

[ As I said, we gave it our best shot - next time we'll do better. And there is a good chance that they’ll be back. You bookmarked the Noctis’ safe spot? ]

“Yes, yes I did.” I replied with happy satisfaction. “And boy, am I going to keep it!”

Way Of Life

2011-10-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

[Welcome to Amarr - Emperor Family Station]

It was an old trick, but the soothing, de-sexualized voice of Station Comm’s never failed to distract me from the actual act of undocking - the shutdown of all external sensor feeds, the ejection of the pod, the expulsion back into the real world, into real air.

In the promo videos you only get to see the strapping capsuleer standing proudly on the balcony in front of their current ship, preferably capital class or better; but reality is much less glamorous. The details... let’s say there is a lot of coughing involved. And dry heaving. And ascramble for clothes.

Aaaaaand Cut! for the camera.

On this particular day, however, I was way beyond such trivialities - I pretty much didn’t start registering my environment until I rested my head on the pillow of that ratty old Minmatar excuse for a pillow.

Behind me were two days of roams, of intense fighting.

First, there was the Agony Alumni Roam - advertised as a Frigate-hull roam for alumni, we quickly were recommended to stage a battlecruiser as well... and ended up holding down a Carrier-supported battleship gang long enough for enough DPS arrive from nearby pirate corporations to take down the whole gang. And not even fifteen minutes later, we were back in space, trying to hunt the very same pirates who fought along our side before - and vice versa.

And today, a battlecruiser roam with friends of my alliance - the level of sophistication was below Agony class standards, but the heart was in the right place, and in the end that’s all that counts.

Of course the non-Capsuleers don’t see it that way, which is the reason why for once I chose to stay in these rinky-dink excuse of ‘Captains Quarters’. Facing yet another gathering of placards proclaiming “It’s just a game for you!” or “You don’t give a damn about the Real People!” was not what I had in mind for relaxation.

The protesters weren’t completely wrong, mind you. Some of us really consider it just a game. And in the heat of the battle, most of us capsuleers tend to forget our mortal crews, the danger we put them in. When push comes to shove, we become our ships. And that’s just it.

We feel every impact of an enemy projectile as if it broke our very own skin; the burn-through of enemy ECM as if a haze is lifted from our eyes; and most importantly, we know that the survival of our ship is dependent only on whether we would be able to outsmart our very human enemy.

There was nothing like it.

But even un-podded, like I was now, our capsuleer life didn’t stop. Even un-podded, we never stopped asking ourselves what we could have done better to defeat our opponent. Or, in the case of CEOs and alliance leaders, how to keep our organization alive and humming.

Heck, myself, I even had read up on accounting, just to run my corp!

And if we failed, for most of us, it wasn’t just a statistic on a high-score list - instead, it was personal.

The embarassement you felt when being defeated by a nominally inferior opponent; the pride warming your heart when your alliance boss commends you on your recent battle successes, even though all you did was flying an Interceptor for a gang of random people - all this went beyond the mere identification with your ship.

Everybody knew that being a Capsuleer was not the end-all of things - that sooner or later we all would return to our pre-Capsuleer lives, by choice or by necessity - even myself. But until then, it was fully up to us what to make with our time.

And as far as I was concerned, time was too precious to waste on playing to be something. Either be a capsuleer, or don’t.

Your choice.

Next Time, Just Pay The F'ing Ransom!

2011-09-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

One last salvo from my lasers, and the Blood Raider Apocalypse exploded in a nice, shiny fireball.

“Ok, you can come in now!”, I transmitted over comms, while setting my course towards the space cathedral. It was protected by two Raider frigates and cruisers each, but being non-Capsuleer ships, they stood no chance against my Absolution.

A blip on my scanner announced the arrival of a Noctis - Eta had arrived.

[ That’s a lot of battleships! ], she commented, referring to both the wrecks and the other battlegroup, 60 klicks off the cathedral.

“No worries, they are just flesh pilots, nothing I can’t handle.”

[ If you say so...]

Quickly dispatching the Raiders at the cathedral, I steered my ship towards the other battlegroup. It was the same mix of battleship and cruisers as the first one, if I kept up my transversal, my command ship should be able to mitigate the incoming damage.

“How’s the salvaging coming?”

[ So-so. Some loot suitable for reprocessing, but average overall. Uhm - you’re taking a lot of fire? ]

“Yah, they tend to do that. But my armor is holding...”

And indeed, having destroyed the last cruiser and now aimed for a tight orbit around one of the battleships, my armor repairers were doing a good job nullifying the incoming damage. Not fully, but well enough to destroy at least one of the battleships. Capacitor was at 40-something percent, and dropping rapidly.

...eh, what?

“Gods dammit!”

Three of the battleships had put neuts on me, and soon I’d be dry. What to do?

Without thinking, I launched my Warrior drones, and shut down my lasers. Might as well do some damage, while I’m still on the grid, feeble as it may be. But it wasn’t enough - my cap dropped to 30%, then 20% - any second now my repairers would shut down.

“I need to bail - align to something useful, just in case.”, I advised Eta, while following my own advise.

Lumbering like a duck in molasses, my ship turned towards the next stargate and started accelerating. Cap exhausted, my repairers shut down, and soon some of the Raider shots penetrated the armor into my structure.

“C’mon...”, I implored the ship, spamming the warp command into the system, hoping to catch the cap recharge cycle before the neuts did. I even almost forgot to pull my drones in.

[ You’re on fire. ], commented Eta dryly, safe in her non-combat ship, [ As usual. ]

I was already pondering where to get the ISK for a new command ship when suddenly the warp drive caught, and I was propelled about 3 AUs away from the Blood Raider settlement.

Phew!

Shutting down all non-essential systems, I directed all available power towards the repairers, and then pondered how to defeat this battlegroup. Multifrequency laser crystals would put me right back into neut range, and my token missile launcher simply didn’t do enough damage on its own. But wait a minute...

I called up the sensor recordings of the fight and played back the last few minutes.... yes! Moments before I had entered warp, all battleships had dropped their neuts - at a range of about 25km.

That meant I could take them with my Scorch crystals. I would be in fall-off and doing only a fraction of my possible damage, but it should work. I just would have to make sure that I kept within that 5km window of range.

A quick check back on my ship - yep, armor and capacitor are back to full. Even the shield had regenerated a bit.

“Ok, I’m coming back in - I think I know how to defeat them.”

[ Wouldn’t it be sufficient to just blow up the cathedral? ], inquired Eta. [ That would show the kidnappers that we mean business. ]

“It would,” I admitted, “but this is now personal. Plus, did you look at the bounties?”

A second of silence, then Eta whistled. [ Nevermind, carry on.]

“Way ahead of you!”, I smiled, as my Absolution dropped out of warp. The Raider battlegroup was glistening in the sun, just 80 klicks off me, again obliviously orbiting their tactical beacon.

I just had to not make a piloting mistake now, and this battlegroup would rue the day they kidnapped that something-or-other’s daughter. Indicators, well, indicated a fresh load of crystals and missiles in my weapons, and my crew was safely at their combat stations. I punched the afterburner for the approach.

“Tally-ho!”

Welcome To The Noble Exchange!

2011-09-11T01:29:00.000-07:00

“Welcome, Madam, to the Noble Exchange! How may I be of service?”

“Of course, boots, this way please. I am sure Madam will be delighted by our selection.”

“If I may recommend the ‘Graeve’ boots - our latest addition, and at only 2,400 AUR quite affordable.”

“No, Madam, unfortunately I wouldn’t know about the prices of Command Ships.”

“I am afraid the ‘Graeve’ boots only come with heels. But if Madam would care to try them on - she would surely find them to her pleasing.”

“Five minutes - considering the exclusivity of our items, Madam will understand that we just can't put them on the shelves, for anybody to take.”

“Madam is correct about the safety scanner at the entrance, but one can’t be too careful in these trying times, yes?”

“Those? Those are ‘Trench’ boots, patterned after the footwear of soldiers millenia past. Crafted of genuine calfskins, reinforced around the foot and supple at the ankle, these boots won’t let you down!”

“I’m afraid that is not possible - while Madam is, well, female, these boots aren’t.”

“To my deepest regret, the question whether feet are feet is outside of my area of expertise. Now if Madam would be so kind and remove her hands from my throat?”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a Snowball Refrigeration Module is not in the line-up for the Noble Exchange. And if I may be so bold, I have my doubts it is ever going to be.”

“Madam, while I do enjoy the occasional snowball fight like the common man, may I remind Madam that the Noble Exchange deals in fashion?”

“My deepest apologies, Madam, but I really have to ask Madam to leave now.”

“A nice day to you, too, Madam.”

A Walk in a Station

2011-09-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

With a last shudder, the FF Duolith nestled into its berth in our home station, and the engines of the Obelisk-class freighter fell silent. I issued some final commands to have the collected ore transferred towards the station’s refining facilities, then began the not-too-pleasant process of unpodding. Automated systems disentangled my pod from the ship - this hadn’t changed - and then moved it towards my quarters.

Correction: towards my Captains Quarters, Minmatar issue. Guaranteed to give every slightly claustrophobic capsuleer an anxiety attack, especially when returning from the Big Void. Heck, I had seen slave quarters more luxurious! And there was this door, closed “due to ongoing construction”. Supposedly it would open one day soon, revealing new station establishments worthy the rank and riches of a capsuleer. Until then, we were asked to wait in patience.

Well, at least we were given a couch to wait on.

Luckily the station commanders everywhere shared such sentiments, or at least missed the ISK we capsuleers used to leave in their stations. As a result, private gliders had shown up at hangar balconies, “compliments of the station”, to whisk us away to whichever part of the station piqued our interest.

In my case, I was simply heading towards the nearest station access port, to take the transports towards our corporate headquarters. A ‘State of the Corp’ meeting was on the agenda for today, which sounded grander that it was: in general, these meetings were just an excuse to get together and shoot the breeze, as well as breezing through some shots.

Walking from the glider to the nearest transport belt, my attention was invariably drawn to the monitors showing the latest news and advertisements. Apparently the militias had picked up the gauntlet which Pandemic Legion had thrown down in in the factional warzone, with the militias actually getting some kills against PL. Still - Supercaps in Lo-Sec just rubbed me wrong.

Heck, it was wrong, front and back.

It meant that the 0-sec regulations introduced just a year ago had truly sucked the life out of the sovereignty warfare, with its participants now seeking their kicks in lo-sec. And the instance in charge, the Concordiat, was more interested in pouring its funds into their ‘New Capsuleer Recruitment’ programs.

Not that I disagreed with the New Capsuleer drive in principle - the pool of pilots who could handle a Capsuleer’s life in its current form was pretty much exhausted, and in order to draw in new blood, increasing degrees of handholding were unavoidable. But at the same time, the slashing of funding across the board was making it ever more difficult to retain veteran pilots: to name just one example, the explorers amongst us were yearning for new regions of space to explore - something only a properly funded DED could unlock. And if veteran pilots like that handed in their licenses and stopped paying the associated fees, there was a good chance that the Concordiat would go bankrupt before their New Capsuleer plans came to fruition.

Talk about a waste of potential awesomeness.

However, that possibility was still very far down the road. For the moment, the Capsuleer’s Council - though 0-sec heavy in composition- was making progress in lobbying the Concordiat to restore at least some of the original funding. And as long as the Council would continue pushing, our way of life might still be saved, in one form or other.

And in the meantime, I would keep flying. Not just to show that the Council was indeed representing active capsuleers, or because there were still goals I intended to achieve in New Eden, for myself and for the Corp, but mostly...

An announcement interrupted my musings - it was time to debark.

Hopping off the transport, it was only a few steps towards our headquarters. When I entered, I could hear the voices coming from the common room, telling about their latest adventures, big and small.

In the end, my reason to continue as capsuleer came down to this simple thing: People. Not just my corp mates and family, but also all the hostiles past and future. Every encounter, good or bad, added to our lives, let us grow - and in the process, we wrote New Eden’s history, the only history it would ever have.

And as far as I was concerned, that was reason enough to keep undocking for.

For Once, Good News

2011-07-24T02:08:00.000-07:00

“Very well, that would be 100k for each gate jump, and ...”

An incoming message indicator popped up on my terminal.

“... hang on a minute, please.”

Taking the nod of my conversation partner as agreement, I pulled up the incoming message and read it.

And I couldn’t believe it.

I read it again.

[Good news, I presume?]

“Eh, what?”

I felt a flush of embarrassment coming on, but that wouldn’t do in a business negotiation, so I suppressed it.

At least I think I did.

“You could say so.”, I answered in my best business-like tone. “It looks like that our difficulties, which we talked about before, ... decreased.”

[I see.]

The black-haired woman on the holo-communicator frowned.

[So I take it you no longer need our services?]

Now it was up to me to frown. Granted, the war had been retracted, but there was still one day left during which fighting could occur. And a multi-day backlog of missed deliveries, which was just getting larger by every minute passing. And there was still a chance that the war would be re-declared, in defiance of the spirit of the Yulai Concordance rules.

I made up my mind.

“No, on the contrary. We will still need your courier services until CONCORD gives the official ‘all clear’.”

The black-haired woman nodded.

[Very well, I am glad that we could come to an agreement. I will send you the contract, and as soon as it has been signed and escrow payment being submitted, one of our couriers will check in with your office to arrange the details.]

“Agreed.” I acknowledged.

[Pleasure doing business with you.]

The holo-display flickered and briefly broke into static before shutting off - the connection was terminated.

The courier contract would cost my corporation a few million ISK, but at least it would bring our products back on the market. And while I probably should have negotiated a contract like this sooner, the old adage of ‘late being better than never’ still held.

I almost didn’t dare to pull up the local occupancy statistics - but it confirmed the message: our war targets were no longer in the system.

Granted, in terms of ISK and number of kills, we had been steamrolled - but in terms of sheer stubbornness...

... I think we won.

Shock Your Sensors

2011-04-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

Jessie Arr> Okay, which one of you is gonna 1v1 me?

Ingredients:

Elusive Targets
Roam Footage, no less than 5 hours
One Pilot, with delusions of creativity

Combine in a wormhole, stir well, and let simmer for five to six weeks.

High-quality version stored on EVE Files .

Caution - Video production may cause: Misplaced perfectionism, Spiced Quafe addiction, AV Equipment envy, Drop in killboard stats, Loss of sleep, Mail backlog, and BlasterTag tournaments amongst bored crew members.

Reflection

2011-03-03T22:33:00.000-08:00

With a barely audible hum, the lights in my quarter turned on, as well as a receiver set to a local music station, both controlled by a timer. Itís not quite the same as a morning sunrise with birds, but on a space station it had to do.

Time to get up.

Throw back blanket, swing the legs out of bed, let the torso follow the movement.

Get onto your feet - good. Now turn left, and pad into the bathroom. A splash of cold water into the face, and now there, there is the shower. Enter it.

No, not with your clothes on, dummy! Yes, better. Enter shower, turn it on.

....aaaaah!

The hot water cleared the last sleepy fog out of my head, and let me start planning for the day ahead; including, but not limited to, breakfast. Though breakfast was probably going to be the high point of the day.

Turning off the water, I grabbed a towel.

In the last weeks one of the corps in the alliance had essentially folded, its members leaving for the excitement and systemically upgraded riches of 0.0 . We were staying in contact, as you never know when one might need a discreet hauler or a boat bristling with weapons, but it had gotten undeniably quieter in our corner of New Eden.

Fresh clothes, and I shook out my hair and grabbed a brush to attack the tangles. Each time I got podded, it seemed to take weeks for my hair to stop tying itself into knots, probably out of shock that it happened again.

I grimaced at my reflection in the mirror as the brush caught a particularly stubborn knot.

The people in our corp on the other hand happily didn’t feel the need to rush into 0.0, preferring the challenges of industrialism in Empire space. Sure, we could have used a few more corps in the alliance, or maybe needed to consider moving into a different alliance, but independence and friends are hard habits to walk away from.

Except...

I just couldn’t forget the moment I got podded outside Hemin station a few days ago. Before, I had been able to walk away from an Agony class with just the lessons learned, but not this time. I just had to close my eyes, like this, to feel it again, the combination of absolute excitement and utter exhaustion...

The brush caught again, in full mid stroke. I looked at my mirror self.

"Oh, fuck it."

When I entered our Corporation offices some time later, Eta was already there, studying her nanotec notepad while nursing a cup of steaming coffee. Hearing my steps, she looked up.

"Good Morning! How did you...". She stopped mid-sentence as the sight truly registered with her. "You Cut Your Hair?!"

"Good morning to you, too." Ignoring her shocked expression, I leaned over her shoulder, peeking at her notepad. "What’cha working on?"

"But... Hulkageddon preparation... but... - Your Hair!"

"Oh, that?" Running a hand over my scalp, I raised an inquisitive eyebrow at her. "Like it?"

"Ehrm." She took a deep draft from her cup, stalling, and burst into a cough as some of the liquid went down the wrong passage.

"I hate to admit, not too shabby", she managed to croak eventually. "But still, it took you years! And why?"

"Guess I thought it was time for a change." I replied matter-of-factly, and switched topic. "How are we on Hulkageddon prep?"

Eta gave me a curious look, but followed my lead. "We’re as prepared as we can be: POSes are topped off, enough reaction material for weeks, and all current production can be done here in the station."

"Good," I nodded, "and with the one low-sec POS taken down, we should have more than enough fuel in stock, avoiding needless hauls. What about the inquiry from the Grav ... ex-Grav guys?"

"Regarding building a Thanatos or two?" She tapped on an entry on her notepad. "I haven’t run the exact numbers yet - but I have a feeling that we won’t be able to do it at market cost, not unless we can produce either the BPCs ourselves, for which we don’t have the BPOs, or mine the minerals..."

"...for which we don’t have the miners." I straightened up again. "I can’t say I’m surprised. Anything else?"

"Well...", she swiveled to look straight at me. "You could tell me why you gave me Director roles. Are you planning on going somewhere?"

"Uhm, yes." I admitted, caught on on the wrong conversational foot. Lamely I added, “I may be a while.”

"I see." she said coolly. "And where are you going?"

"Not exactly sure yet. w-space, I think."

"I see." she repeated, then gave me sly smile. "Took you long enough."

"I meant to tell...", I began, then realized what she had just said. "...come again?"

"You heard me." She leaned back, enjoying my perplexion. "Sheesh, you have been grumpy since you stepped out the clone vat; and I know you well enough to deduce why. And gods know you need a break!"

I raised my hands in defeat. "I can’t keep anything from you, can I?”

"Nope!" she agreed smugly, bounced up from her chair and gave me quick hug.

"Now go! Hunt some pod!"

Karmic Balance, Or Something

2011-02-07T00:27:00.000-08:00

[[ Autopilot jumping. ]]

Aura’s announcement barely registered with me - I was conferring with Eta as to what she could produce next. Nanotransistors were still a sought-after commodity, but we were getting uncomfortable: two months of a continuous price increase was just too good to be true. Granted, the price of the input materials was rising as well, but sooner or later it had to top out.

[[ Autopilot disabled. ]]

Ah, excellent - I had arrived. That was quicker than I expected!

...waitaminnit - that had been too quick. Putting Eta on hold, I shifted my attention back to my sensors

Aha! I was in Ashab, only one hop into my journey, aaand there was a Curse warp-scrambling me, and now launching Warrior IIs.

Wasn’t it a bit early for Hulkageddon? And did this pilot really think he could take out my freighter before Concord got him?

Anyway - I aligned my freighter back towards the gate and brought the engines to full power. Progress was slow however, a Crane from the same corp was enjoying himself by bumping me off course.

My shield was gone, and my ship informed me that I was taking armor damage.

...ehrm, Concord?

Did we get war-decced, and I didn’t get the memo? But then the whole corp would be able to attack me, like the Harbinger who now had a lock on me, and they didn’t.

[ Hold on, I just switched into my Drake - I’ll be there in a few minutes. ]

Eta! I had completely forgotten that she was still listening in on comms. Her Drake could easily take down the Curse, but...

“Negative, stand down. We can’t have him get kill rights on you.”

[ Awww! ]

I heard her disappointment, but I knew she would obey. Another comms message came in - but this time it was a request for a private conversation, from a member of Brick Squad alliance. What the...?

Astroid Mistress > you ok
Druur Monakh > I'm only in 50% armor, but otherwise yes.
Astroid Mistress > why arent you heading to gate?

But I was heading towards the gate! That gate over there, which was still ... behind ... me.

Druur Monakh > Stupidity, I guess, I confused the gates :(

Damn! Hastily I changed course, pointing the ship towards to right gate this time - but my mistake had cost me precious minutes.

Astroid Mistress > I will help you
Druur Monakh > I'd apprecieate that
Astroid Mistress > I will try and bump you closer

Moments later, a shudder went through my ship - Astroid’s freighter had made contact, and propelled me towards the gate. But it was still a long way to go.

Might as well use the time to figure out why I was in this situation in the first place. ‘AMSF Celestial’ - the name didn’t ring a bell with me. Maybe my Combat Log would give a clue... He has kill rights on me?!

No wonder he caught me unaware - it’s the first time anybody had kill rights on me ever! But why?

A cursory check of the outside world - yes, I was still putt-putting towards the gate, and was about to hit structure - and I went back to investigate my foe. Let’s see what the public records have on him...

“Teshkat!”

[ Eh, what? ]

“The carrier shoot in Teshkat, two weeks ago. He was one of the attackers we popped, and now he has kill rights on me.”

[ Geez - some people really know how to carry a grudge! ]

Outside, the gate loomed large in the sun, and I was actually almost in jump distance.

Astroid Mistress > I think you will be fine
Astroid Mistress > I would log when you jump
Druur Monakh > It'll be close :)
Astroid Mistress > I hope you make it

300 meters ... 200 meters ... 100 meters ... and Jump!

On the other side, I began the process of ‘logging off’: shutting down all communications between my pod and the ship’s system, to trigger the Concord-mandated emergency warp-and-cloak system. A cheap trick, to be sure, but then again attacking a freighter wasn’t exactly a heroic gesture either. I was just about to give the final instruction, when the Curse appeared on grid.

Damn! He must have de-aggressed sooner than I thought! Still - what choice did I have? I gave the command, and was instantly dropped into neural darkness.

Through the amniotic fluid, I could feel the vibrations of the warp engines, as they powered up - only to be disrupted by the Curse’s warp jammer. ..and yes, those other vibrations were caused by the projectiles renewing their assault on my ship. My attacker now had fifteen minutes to chew through the freighter’s massive structure before the emergency cloak would cut in. And I wouldn’t know the result until the 15 minutes had elapsed - nothing to do but wait, and reflect on what happened.

On the one hand, it was good to see that solidarity amongst freighter pilots still existed, even from members of more combat-oriented corporations.

On the other hand... aligning towards the wrong gate? Really?! Especially after all that pride for doing the Interceptor class?!

Karma, definitely.

Advanced Education

2011-02-05T21:14:00.000-08:00

Deep in lawless space, a star gate fired; the flicker of the warp bubbles around the gate momentarily outshone by the flash of the gate.

Then, for a few seconds, nothing.

Suddenly, a Malediction appeared, close to the edge of one of the warp bubbles. The engines fired up, glowing with a painful blue tinge, the interceptor takes up speed towards a near celestial. A puff of vapor indicates the launch of a scan probe, then the interceptor cleared the edge of the bubble and warps off.

Fleet Comms crackled with a new message.

“Recon - Druur in 9M-. Gate bubbled, grid clear, Brutix on directional, four in Local, scanning for anomalies.”

While talking, I was already working on my next task: dropping a midway safe spot to double back to. As I dropped out of warp, the probe finished its scan of the system. Directional was still clear, and under my mental instructions, the interceptor aligned back towards my mid-safe, while I was checking the scan result.

Odd, just one Angel Yard in the system, even though this system had been upgraded to Military-7 level. Well, since I was here, I might as well check it out.

The Malediction nimbly responded to the new course and leapt into warp. I hit the directional scan again, completely forgetting to restrict it to my flight direction. Not that it mattered - it was still uneventful.

“Recon - 9M- update. Only one Angel anomaly in system, which is ... ” - my ship dropped out of warp - “... inactive. No other anomaly on scan.”

An indicator signaled that local comms had become active, but I ignored it - I didn’t speak the local dialect anyway.

[ Did you try moving your probe? ], inquired the FC and instructor.

Good point! And while I was sure that I had been scanning at maximum range, I hadn’t really verified it, hm?

The probe launcher burped and another probe sped away. A quick check - yes, it was set to 32 AU - and I triggered another scan while checking on the local map that the probe would indeed cover the whole system. The scan ended... again no further hits.

“I did that - the probe covered the whole system, and still nothing. And d-scan is clear.”, I reported back, and added with a bit of embarrassment: “I have no idea where the locals are.”

[ Hmm - ok, come back. ]

For a second I considered checking the belts, but by this time the locals surely had POSed up, if they had any sense. With a mental shrug, I turned my ship back towards the gate and entered warp. Back in QPTT-F, I met up again with our little fleet: 10 or so interceptors, flown by nervous students like myself, and a DPS wing flown by Agony Unleashed.

Our task: practice the art of skirmishing by finding and holding targets for the DPS wing to kill. And while the Instructor/FC did orchestrate our movements in general, scouting out the individual systems was fully up to us.

The roam had been uneventful so far - a few close misses, but mostly empty systems. Word from our little fleet probably had preceded us, but as the real goal of the class was the art of the hunt as such, we didn’t mind that much. Besides, just doing all the scouting tasks kept us more than busy - it was a far cry from our previous experiences as fleet peons, or as dwellers in the slower paced w-space.

Onwards we pressed, leaving Scalding Pass for the open spaces of Insmother. And there, finally, we got our first engagement - almost by accident, actually. One of us had warped to the Sun as part of his scouting procedure, when suddenly a Cynabal showed up on his grid. The cruiser was quickly tackled, and the fleet poured in to lay the killing blow. As the fight was going on, a Raven landed on grid as well. He, too, found his end at the hands of the DPS wing.

[ Maybe we should just wait here, and let the targets come to us! ]

But of course staying wasn’t an option. With renewed energy we moved on, scouting system after system, until about an hour later we came across a Drake and a Raven at a gate to 2-Q4YG. Disruptors were activated and found their targets, but these two pilots stayed calm and approached the gate to jump to safety. However, the FC had anticipated the move and sent a couple of interceptors ahead. Trapped on either side, both ships made valiant attempts at escape, but in the end both succumbed to our DPS wing.

But the tide was about to turn. The Raven pilot had just warped out his pod, when suddenly new ships joined our party: a small gang comprising of a Hurricane, a Sabre and a Huginn showed up. Absolutely deadly enemies for an Interceptor.

[ Burn out! Burn out! ] came the urgent command on comms, but the fleet was already scattering away from the gate, to re-assemble in a safe spot until the immediate danger was over.

But we knew that whoever was leading this gang wouldn’t stop hunting us, and the decision was made to head back home. Besides, we had been on the go for almost four hours at that point, and everybody was starting to lose concentration, which sooner or later would lead to a fatal mistake. The enemy gang continued to chase us for a while, but couldn’t really keep up with our speed; and once they took a wrong turn in 1V-, we no longer had to worry about them and reached MDD-79 without any further opposition. The class officially ended at this point, yet we kept the fleet going for those of us who needed to traverse the Hemin-Doril pipe towards Empire.

As I navigated my trusty Malediction through the gates, shaking inside my pod from exhaustion, I couldn’t help pondering how the last hours had changed us. When we started our roam, many of us had still been skittish to jump

[ RMOC gate in Hemin clear ]

into an unknown system, or even to speak up on fleet comms. But now, jumping

[ Be advised, Utopia gate in Doril is camped ]

through gates and providing informal recon

“Jorund gate in Doril: one Hurricane at a TAC”

was something we just did.

And knowing that I now had this experience at my disposal, should I ever need it - that was a good feeling.

Bring Me The Head Of Kirith Kodachi

2011-01-22T15:33:00.000-08:00

“Look at the Caldari over there. I say: Miner.”

I followed Eta’s gaze. “You sure? He looks awfully dapper to be a Miner.”

“Very sure. I’ve come across his type - they like to spend their ISK on clothing, to make up for all the boredom in the belts.”

“Hmm... you may be right.” I scanned the crowds passing by. “How about her - Minmatar, short hair, bearing 200?”

Eta scanned the crowd. “Hmm... combat pilot, definitely. I’d say... sub-capital.”

Taking a sip from my drink, I nodded. “Agreed. I’d even go so far and say: scout, or at least fast tackle. She’s used to getting podded - you can see it in her eyes.”

“You’re right.” Eta’s eyes followed the pilot as she weaved through the crowd. “Cute, though.”

I grinned, and took another sip. Since CONCORD had imposed a lengthy no-fly period, ostensibly in reaction to the increased reports of Sansha incursions, Eta and myself had taken to chilling out in a Carthum station in Pimebeka. The bar we selected provided the ideal combination of hearty drinks (at least for me), and a good overlook over the station’s promenade.

Finding my glass empty, I waved to the waiter for a refill, and was just about to return to our game of “Guess Their Profession”, when my personal communicator chirped,
I looked inquisitively at Eta, but she just shook her head: she wasn’t expecting a message either.

According to the comm’s display, it was a live holo call from EL8 in Pure Blind, which meant...

“Hello Heloisa. Long time no see!”

[ I could say the same! How’s it going in Industrial land? ]

“Same old, same old. Missions, planetary overlording, keeping the ship baking ovens hot, the usual.”

[ Plus some fighting - I see 14 kills on your record. What happened, and why didn’t you invite me? ]

I cleared my throat. “First of all, I did invite you - but you said you were busy with some kind of advanced training....”

[ Bah, details... ]

“...and second, on at least half of these kills I didn’t even do any damage. So as far I am concerned, they don’t really count.”
[ Still, they are on your record now. But tell me, what happened? ]

“Well... you remember that original idea was the Kirith Kodachi, on account of his six year anniversary, would jump his carrier into a lo-sec system and then give everybody half an hour to kill him. You could say that the event snowballed a bit...”

The first sign that this event wouldn’t be just a little shootout was when Noir announced that they would send a body guard for Kirith. Other capsuleers also announced their support, and quickly there were rumors that a cap-drop from one of the larger 0-sec alliances was in the planning. An announcement on GalNet news was then just the cherry on top.

Myself, I had drummed up support inside our alliance, partly because it promised to be an entertaining event, but also because in light of our renewed 0-sec aspirations it was time that we exposed ourselves to some actual combat. But in all that, we had no idea of what opposition we would face; an uncertainty which expressed itself in our fleet composition: we had all from short-range frigates up to battleships.

Myself, I took a break from my usual battlecruisers and for the first time ever fielded an Armageddon-class battleship. Considering the possibility of an ECM-backed cap-drop as well as lack of logistics, I decided to forgo some of the DPS output in favor of a single rep buffer tank, to give me some survivability. But just in case, I also prepped four battlecruisers to fall back on.

I needn’t to have worried, though: when we arrived in Teshkat, the fleets were forming (a temporary truce between the attackers and defenders was in place), and not only was there a logistics wing in place, the defender fleet was even backed by a carrier. We gathered at the top station in the system, and seeing that there were a number of normally industry-minded pilots in the fleet, the FC ran us through a number of broadcasting and targeting exercises. The number of pilots in system steadily increased, soon reaching 250 and increasing even further. Finally the word came: Kirith’s carrier was at the customs office at planet IX! The FC put the fleet into warp, and the fight was on!

I sent out a flight of Valkyries, and settled into an orbit around our fleet carrier. My shield was dropping, but I couldn’t see where the fire was coming from: even with our fleet removed from the tactical overview, the list of ships was still longer than could be displayed. Our FC started calling primaries and hundreds of weapons discharged into space.

The attackers had brought a fleet similar in composition to ours: a large number of battlecruisers, supported by battleships, logistics, stealthbombers, and a smattering of cruisers and frigates. No carrier on the attacker side however, and with Noir having upped their presence on the field in anticipation of a cap-drop, the defenders outnumbered the attackers about 2:1.

Quickly the weaknesses in my Armageddon fit showed: most primaries were at the outer limit of my Scorch pulses, and my choice of ECCM over a sensor booster meant that smaller targets exploded before my locks resolved. Nonetheless, some of my shots landed, and while the attackers appeared to lack organization, our fleet picked them off one by one.

I recalled my Valkyries, which were just being chewed up on the field, and instead sent out a flight of Warriors. Whoever had been shooting me must have been eliminated, as my shield had recovered to 70% strength, and I was just about to target the next primary when we got new arrivals on the field: The Goons sent their regards, in form of a Thrasher/Blackbird fleet.

However, even their numbers weren’t large enough and after decimating most of their fleet, they withdrew mostly to wreak havoc all across the the system.

And so it continued: the attackers continued to press on, but never reached the critical mass to turn the tide in their favor. At times all attackers were so far out of my range, that I didn’t have anything left to shoot at.

Eventually, Kirith declared the defenders to be victorious - but since the goal of the event had been to destroy his carrier in celebration, he asked that both attackers and defenders would renew their attacks on him.

We didn’t need to be asked twice: all pilots directed their fire onto the carrier, and under the onslaught of the two fleets combined, the carrier died within three minutes.

And my Armageddon was still alive.

[ Uhm - I see a kill mail for your Armageddon? ] - Heloisa’s question brought be me back into the there and then.

“Yes, that happened in the aftermath.” I took a drink from my glass, which had magically refilled. “After the carrier exploded, most people left for home, but some stuck around - some to loot, others for lack of something better to do. So inevitably somebody started shooting somebody else, and for a while it got interesting again.

My Armageddon had been tackled by a Hurricane, so when the last of the defender fleet withdrew, I couldn’t follow. I then made the mistake of wavering too long whether to shoot the Hurricane, or sent my ECM drones against it. By that time, I was under fire from ten or so other ships, and my single armor repairer couldn’t keep up.

And thus endeth the story of my Armageddon - her life was short, but glorious!”

[ Hear hear - I drink to that! ]

We sat in silence for a moment, then Heloisa spoke up again.

[ I got to get going - things are about to get interesting again up here. Fly dangerous! ]

“Same to you - until next time!”, I replied and her image winked out.

I turned to Eta. “You have been awfully quiet?”

“I didn’t exactly had much to add, now, did I? All I managed to do was to get my CovOps popped while filming the whole thing. Probably ruined half of my footage.”

“True, true. And that happened even though you named it ‘Cameraship - Have Mercy!’“

”People are so inconsiderate these days!“

Umokka X-4 - New Years Eve

2011-01-01T13:28:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it is nice to just sit back and enjoy the show (click for full-size picture).

A Valid Question

2010-12-18T00:58:00.000-08:00

15...
14...
13...
12...

As the number display in the elevator counted down towards my destination, I used the privacy of the cabin to unceremoniously slump against the back wall: it had been another long day of ferrying stuff between the stars, and taming capricious agents who by corporate rule didn’t bother with little details like industrials not exactly being the best ships to send out mining.

9...
8...
....7

A melodious *ding* announced the arrival at my destination, and I exited onto the quarters level of the Creodron Factory station in Ghesis. And this weren’t just the transient capsuleer quarters, No Sir! - the even more posh Guest Quarters it was! Plush carpet, original paintings at the wall, discreet security, an open bar at the corner - and this was just the hallway!

Good to see that the last weeks of endless missions had been good for something tangible.

Reaching the entrance to my actual quarters, I unlocked the door and triggered the opening mechanism - and stopped in the entrance. Where there should have been a dark and quiet room, I saw light and heard music. Pre-capsuleer instincts tried to draw a sidearm I no longer carried, while the post-capsuleer brain took inventory of the situation.

A wet towel on the floor, the computer display showing market graphs, Amarrian synth-punk on the sound system, and, hanging over the side of a high-backed chair, a pair of slender naked feet, bobbing with the beat. This meant....

“Hi Sis!” Eta’s red-haired head peeked over the back of said chair. “You live!”

“Of course I live!” Letting the door shut behind me, I entered the room, and slumped down on a couch. “Why shouldn’t I?”

Eta swiveled her chair to face me. “Well, rumor had it that you left our WH months ago, but nobody had seen you.”

“’s not true!”, I protested. “I am on comms every day!”

“You were,” admitted Eta, “or somebody sounding very much like you. But what _are_ you doing?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Earning standings, in case we need to anchor new hi-sec POSes. Plus, it's never a good idea to give Gallente itchy trigger fingers, undisciplined heathens they are."

Eta thought about that, then nodded. “Makes sense. Well, in that case I have something to cheer you up. Catch!”

She tossed a small object at me, which I managed to catch solely on account of my chest being square its trajectory. It was a credit chip.

Seeing my slightly puzzled look, she elaborated. “ISK. Your share from my Nanotransistors batch.”

“Your Nanotransistors... but I thought that batch finished two months ago?”

“I’m glad you ask!”, smiled Eta. “Remember my Fermionic Condensates batch?”

Oh, the Fermionic Condensates - who could forget! For days we walked carefully around Eta and avoided any mention of markets, reactions, or, for that matter, POSes. After losing a good 500M on that particular batch, she was even considering giving up reactions altogether; but eventually settled on just reducing her operation. By eliminating the fuel cost for one reaction POS, she was more or less able to compensate for the loss - or so she claimed.

"Well, after that debacle, I started a batch of Nanotransistors. But guess what!"

I had an inkling where this was going: "The market crashed?"

Eta nodded, "The market tanked - again! I would have been out another 200-300M."

"But obviously" - I held up the credit chip - "you aren't."

"Nope!", she beamed. "Thanks to the powers of Market competition."

That surprised me. "I thought you stayed away from it, on account of all the high-frequency trading."

"Well, true, but it was either that, or losing even more ISK. So I started some cheap low-yield reactions to tide me over, put up a couple of sell orders, and updated them once or twice a week. And lo and behold: the market recovered and I was able to make some profit after all."

"And now you'd like to be our official Mistress of Reactors _and_ Trading?", I couldn't resist teasing.

"Gods, no!" She shuddered. "Unless really necessary, I'll happily leave that up to the others who actually enjoy it. Speaking of which..."

She leaned forward, suddenly serious.

"When will you be back, and have some fun?"

Of Cats and Mice

2010-11-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

The stargate was filling the field of my vision, hovering majestically against the background of stars. And if you looked closely, you could even see the two figures in spacesuits, as they duct taped down a strut which shook loose in the last activation. On the other side of the gate, the expanse of Minmatar lo-sec beckoned. Inside it, the wormhole back to our w-space system, bubbling away towards its collapse, and Lance in his Covert Ops.

“Lance, Status?”

“Still clear.” came the instant reply. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Ha! As if he had to ask!

What had been a quiet system an hour ago, with just one mission runner in it, had turned into a center of popularity right after we brought our goods through to hi-sec. With all people from the SILENT. alliance, one of them having his Drake named “Stargate (Ney)”, the intentions of the locals were clear, and we already had to abort our previous attempt of bringing the Orca back in. But suddenly, a few minutes ago, the lo-sec system emptied. Completely. And all SILENT. members vanished from the neighboring hi-sec system as well. Obvious, really.

On corp comms the sounds of a corp ice mining op happening in our home constellation, providing a background of normalcy, its participants too far away to render assistance.

And, in the back of my mind, teasing, a thought: We might just be able to make it.

“Screw it,” I announced as I initiated gate jump, “let’s do this.” Not the best line in history, nor the most coherent one, but the message came across.

“Copy that.” acknowledged Lance, “Warping to WH exit.”

My Orca emerged from the gate, and its mighty engines filled the ship with their sonorous hum as I directed the navigation systems to warp to our WH entrance.

Speed at 40% … 50% … 60% …

Local plus one! Plus two!

My Orca reached warp speed just in time for me to see a Drake land on the gate grid. Simultaneously, Lance cursed.

“Shit. A battlecruiser entered the wormhole just as I arrived.”

In my pod, I nodded solemnly.

“The game is up, and we lost. Go through and head back to the POS – I’ll follow when I can.”

“Aye aye, boss.”

With an unexpected calmness, I watched the distance to warp bubble collapse tick down, knowing that I’d emerge into certain doom. At the WH entrance, a Brutix was already waiting for me, laying down tackle before I managed to align even halfway to the next celestial. Warp core stabilizers, or ECM drones, might have been able to save me, but even then it would have been a close call – within seconds, two Drakes arrived on grid and put even more hurt on my ship.

“Nice.” Comms garbled from the WH interference, Lance still managed to sound almost admiring. “Two were already waiting here - the Orca would have never made it.”

Escape pods darted away from my Orca’s belly, taking the crew to safety, as my Orca’s structure rapidly ceased to exist. As I warped my pod back into CONCORDs protective arms, I complimented the attackers in Local for their well executed trap, my mistakes notwithstanding. The ensuing short, but surprisingly pleasant chat revealed just how much effort SILENT had put into this trap: they had scanned out our WH entrance right when we first showed up, and then placed multiple scouts in the neighboring systems.

All this effort, just for me? Awww - that’s worth losing a fully fitted and rigged Orca!

...on second thought, maybe not.

Back to the Grind

2010-11-02T19:50:00.000-07:00

“Stupid. Stupid Stupid! STUPID!”, I cursed under my breath while giving the commands to fire up the warp drive and move the ship away from this location. Outside, another beam from a laser battery danced over my ship, taking out more large chunks of my armor.

“What? What did I do?”, asked Sio over comms - my cursing apparently had made it out after all.

“Nothing!”, I replied, wishing my ship to accelerate faster. “It’s what _I_ did!”

War, it is said, is boredom punctuated by sheer terror. Well, whoever said it obviously hadn’t had tried their hands at supplying a POS in w-space, otherwise they’d have added adjectives like ‘endless’ and ‘defenseless’ to it. Spoiled, all of them.

It had been only a few weeks since our little altercation with our lo-sec POS next door, and since then we had been living in constant anticipation of our neighbouring ‘landlords’ dropping the hammer on us. But as days passed by with nothing happening, we had to park our freshly insured PvP ships back in our hangars, and getting back to keeping the alliance humming. Specifically, resupplying our w-space POS which had been cut off for quite some time now.

Not that we were lacking for help: Sio and Keilidh were eager and able to help, so I contracted them the latest set of bookmarks and told them to come out in their haulers.

Of course I forgot that both were new to the corp and thus not accustomed to our w-space operation.

Of course I forgot to tell them that there was an occupied Cl.3 systems between ‘our’ w-space system and Empire.

Of course I forgot to tell them that some of the bookmarks were observation posts, where I’d be watching the Cl.3 POSes from my CovOps.

And definitely I had forgotten to move away from the observation warp-ins, as it is my usual custom.

As my ship reached warp speeds, away from the POS and Sio’s fateful pod, the POSes battery lit up once more, sending a last greeting my way, rocking my ship violently.

“Lance?”, I called out on comms to our resident miner. “How far are you with the Hulks?”

“I just dropped off the last one.”, came the crisp reply. “Why?”

“I need you to get your Helios and take over POS scouting for me.”. Embarrassment crept into my voice. “I need to go and get a new ship.”

Look! A Rabbit Hole!

2010-10-12T21:41:00.000-07:00

Vacations are fun!

Clear sky, natural Vitamin D, ice-cold smoking drinks, the cry of the raptors overhead... Just the thing a corporation officer needs to to forget the daily worries of a space corporation.

But the call of space is in a capsuleer’s blood, and soon the universe found me walking the corridors of our home station again. There was mail, of course, and bills, and all other minutiae, but it all paled against the feeling of a red giant’s hard radiation on your ship’s hull, and the endless darkness of space.

I was catching up with mail of the day, making note of the one or other event I needed to talk with my corp mates about, when I heard the door to the apartment cycle. A heavy ‘clunk’, the sound of boots discarded with force, and soon I had a curious Ni-Kunni peeking over my shoulder.

“What’cha doing, sis?” Eta glanced at my screen, and grimaced. “Ew, paperwork.”

“Yep,” I answered, finishing the note I was working on. “And what are you doing here - I thought you were inseparable from your reactors?”

“Well, yeah,” she pulled a chair close and made herself comfortable. “Everyone needs a break once in a while. Relax, chill, have fun, you know?”

“Hmmm...,” I frowned. “I don’t know what you consider ‘chilling’, but CONCORD considered it aggressive actions.”

“Aggressive.. oh, that!”

“Mind telling me, or do I have to cut your Quafe ration?”

“Well...”, she tried looking bashful, but not very convincingly. “You know the lo-sec system next to here?

”Last week, when we had this 20-hour wardec going on, I noticed this moon next door, empty and for the taking. Of course with the wardec I couldn’t do much, and when the war ended, some small corp had anchored a small tower there.

“So I shot it a bit.”

Eta shooting something...that meant “Your mission Drake?” She nodded happily.

“And what happened after the tower guns reduced your Drake to scrap metal?”

“It went into re-inforce.”

“It ... what?!” An dreadful feeling overcame me. “You weren’t alone, right? The General was there as well, with his Dreads, right?”

“And Ran, and the Grav guys!” she bursted out. “It took only 40 minutes. And Grav’ has popped somebody else’s tower already a week ago, to make space for their own!”

Leaning back, I idly toyed with an electric pen. “And now what?”

“Well, the tower is out of RI now, and the General says, this would be a great opportunity to anchor our own POS. Planting a tree, or something like that.”

I mustered my little sister - I had never seen her that blood-thirsty. The radiation of her reactors must have gotten to her.

Yet the idea was now planted in my brain, arguing against my natural carefulness - and quite successfully. A permanent presence in the lo-sec next door... a place and reason for the alliance to rally around.

“You know that a 0-sec corp is drawing rent from that very system, right?”, I asked.

“Yep.”

“And that they won’t like us planting towers there?”

“Yep.”

“And that they could wipe us out in a week if they put not even half a mind to it?”

“Yep.” Eta was grinning wildly.

I swiveled in my chair, and then threw the pen into a corner.

"Oh damn it - let's go!"

Vacation Ho!

2010-09-15T08:21:00.000-07:00

"Shorts? Check.

Dressy stuff? Check."

Looking around my room, I made last run through my checklist of things to bring.

"Spare ammo? Check.

Sun Screen? Check."

Space is all good and well, but once in a while it is fun to go planet side - experience real sunlight, breath real air, and all that. And after all the excitement of the last weeks, not to mention the daily industrial grind, a vacation sounds just right up my alley.

"Holovids? Check.

Life Insurance? Check.

. . . aaand that's it."

Satisfied, I zipped close my bag and shouldered it.

"You're outta here?", called Eta out from her desk as I left my room.

"Yeah. Two weeks of lounging and mindless relaxation await!", I replied, adding "You should try it some day."

"Naah, I'd be bored halfway into the flight down."

I chuckled, "That's the point."

Eta grimaced, and I threw her a casual salute. "See you in 14, Sis. Don't blow the place to pieces while I'm gone, please?"

"Bah! You're no fun!"

"Never!"

And with that, the door closed behind me and I hurried to the docking level. I had a shuttle to catch!

Just. Awesome.

2010-09-04T04:09:00.000-07:00

“Oh my gods. I still can’t believe it.”

“Yeah, me neither. Epic, all the way.”

“Where’s the bar - I need a drink. Or ten.”

It has been a while since the main offices of our corp saw that many visitors, and it had been even longer that we had Alliance members here as well, much less non-Alliance members. But now the rooms were filled with capsuleers, all in advanced states of exhaustion, and with no energy left for decorum. All that mattered was to get a stiff drink (which for some doubled as breakfast), a place to sit, and to reminisce the high points of the day while they were still capable of conscious thought.

“Did you see them when Dantae charged his Command Ship into them? He had three battleships and a Drake firing at him - and survived!”

“I’ll never forget how this single Drake took down one of their Abaddons!”

“If only they knew how close they came to winning. 6% structure left. SIX PERCENT!”

Sitting on a desk, slumped against the wall, I just uncompressed, aided by a glass filled with Arcturian Mega-Port. Words were failing me.

“Do you realize that if we lived in 0-sec, this would be something we would be doing every week? We wouldn’t even be noticing a single POS!” - “That’s why we don’t live there!”

“I think, at the end, the General passed out in his pod. Last I saw of him was his Carrier doing an emergency warp to a safe spot.”

“Where did the Supercaps come from again? And why?”

I thought of Eta, who was still out there, busily onlining modules to bring the POS back to full operation. She was never one for social gatherings, but had been invaluable as my eyes and ears while I was still stuck in our w-space system.

“Don’t know, some 0-sec alliance. They competed in the recent Alliance Tournament, that I know.”

“You should have seen it! Our attackers just wouldn’t give up! After they lost their two dreads and lone carrier, they came back in battleships!”

“I don’t know. First the 0-sec contact told Dantae that they were busy defending their own POS. But then suddenly - Boom! Supercap Hotdrop! Wish I could have seen it!”

“Gods, the repairing. THE REPAIRING! I don’t want to see another POS in my life!”

“Aw-right! I’m negative sec status!”

That was Heloisa, a 0-sec citizen who I met first in the Agony Unleashed classes, and who somehow had taken a liking to us. Right now she was high-fiving The Atheiist and Chi Ke, other random strangers and at the same time crucial persons this day.

Come to think of it, these Agony Unleashed classes had really paid off. Getting our pilots rallied in one point took a long time (as my fingernails did attest), but then it ran like a clockwork: Atheiist calling primaries and giving warp-ins, Heloisa acting as XO, calling secondaries and tertiaries, and everybody knew how to act in a fleet. Carebears with teeth, indeed.

“Can you believe it? They actually starting whining on comms on how we dared to call in help!”

“Our hit and runs really messed them up. Well, it helped that they were even less prepared than us!”

“I don’t even want to think about how close it got. Twice!”

I drained my glass, closed my eyes, and relied on the pressure of the wall to keep me awake. In a way, this attack couldn’t have come at a better time: as an alliance, we had lost our purpose, things had gotten too easy; and it was unclear who was really still with us and who was just coasting on the Alliance’ coat tails.

Not anymore.

“I still can’t believe we managed to finish the repairs with just minutes to spare.”

“Guess we all learned valuable lessons today.” - “Just don’t let us speak of them again. Ever.”

“Did you see the mail their Alliance boss sent to ours? ‘I think we need to talk, i think we have been mis-informed about certain details.”

Roaring laughter filled the room - this mail would be one of the things long remembered about this day.

I lifted my glass, and found that it was full again. Probably courtesy of my right hand. Thank you, right hand.

...damn, I better get a wrap on this before I crash completely.

As I got up, the words of an ancient Earth politician ran through my mind: “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

“Listen Up!”

My shout was drowned out by the din, and I looked for an alternative to make myself heard. A nearby heavy object offered itself up to be hammered onto the desk I was standing on, gaining me the attention I required.

I raised my glass, discreetly dropping the former desk lamp onto the floor.

“Pilots - A toast! - Or, in fact, two toasts!

First: To unexpected allies!”

I nodded towards Heloisa, the Atheiist, and Chi Ke.

“At other times, we may not see eye to eye. But today, you helped saving the day!

Cheers erupted from the crowd, and I paused for a moment.

“Second...”

I looked around the room, searching out in particular the Gravimetrics pilots.

“...To the damn best Alliance I ever had the honor to fly with.

“Cheers!”

Jetsam

2010-08-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

Another day in our w-space system, another neighbor to groom.

I wasn’t the first one get up this day, as Brad and Liza were already busy decimating one of our Grav sites. However, they hadn’t gotten around to our daily scan routine, so I took on the duty for today. After a light breakfast, I hooked up to my pod and let the amniotic fluid wash over me.

The signatures in our system were quickly confirmed: nothing new, just one of the older Mag sites had evaporated. And of course we had a new connection to a Cl.3 w-space system, which was the real objective.

Once jumped through, a quick lookaround confirmed that this system, too, was occupied. For ‘unknown space’ we sure kept finding lots of dwellers. Also on scan: about fifteen CAs, one Grav site, one Ladar site, and exits to 0-sec and lo-sec respectively. The Ladar site looked promising, filled with C-28 and C-32 gas, and outside d-scan range from the central system. It would be just a matter of waiting for the Sleeper patrol to show up, then the riches would be ours.

Of course it didn’t go as planned: after waiting some time, not only did the Sleeper patrol show up, but so did a number of Core Scan probes as well. A quick jaunt back to the central system showed a Probe on scan, but only briefly: the pilot was apparently moving around and I lost contact as often as I regained it.

Eventually I managed to trace the Probe down to the POS, but just when I arrived to eye the scene, the pilot changed into a Hound, warped off and cloaked.

I knew he hadn’t seen me, but with him around I couldn’t risk calling our non-cloaking gas miners in, so after a few minutes of diddling I gave up for the moment and headed back to our own system. I had a couple of other things to take care off anyway, so I docked back up, not without reminding Brad and Liza to keep an eye on the scanners.

A couple of hours later, I returned to our system, only to be greeted with this message:

Remember the Hound guy?

He warped in to our WH in the Hound with no scanner. I scanned out the cl3 as he asked. He said he would give me the Hound in return. I'm not stupid. I made him eject over the pos and I fleet warped him to the WH by himself. Now I have a shiny new stealth bomber with named and T2 equipment.

-- Brad

I’m so proud!

Are We Having Fun Yet?

2010-08-13T23:52:00.000-07:00

So -- Planetary Interaction.

When it was first announced, I resisted. Too much it reminded me of POS Reactions on Steroids - replete with spreadsheets, non-linear optimizations, OCD-fueled min-maxing, and brimming with a plethora of special interest magazines.

Then CONCORD cleared the way, a fleet of heavily-guarded construction ships appeared in our little w-space system to put up customs offices, several of my corp members plonked down their command centers, and started spending all of their time with spreadsheets, non-linear min-maxing, and long discussions whether ‘The New Colonial’ or ‘Planets!’ had the better market advice. But my smugness didn’t last long - it may have been one too many ‘You too could be a God!’ flyers, or one of the many multi-million ISK transfers I made to corp members in exchange for home-made POS fuel; either way, I broke down and started colonies as well.

Everything seemed to be going swell - our w-System wasn't exactly rich, but quite well populated with planets, the processors hummed along merrily; only my spreadsheets caused me worry because they refused to match what my colonies were producing. No worries, probably just a type somewhere - a bit of staring at the numbers, and the mistake would reveal itself.

And revealed it was: at some point I over-calculated the raw material extraction by factor 2.

Oops.

As mistakes go, it was easily corrected, but now all my industrial facilities needed to be rejiggered. I was just putting together a new plan, when suddenly my terminal went dark.

Power Outage? Somebody put us into reinforced? We forgot to refuel the POS? No - the lights were still on, and I hadn’t noticed any explosions either.

I turned, and came face to face with Lance, one of our resident miners, who was holding my terminal’s power connector in his hand.

“Boss”, he drawled, “You have to stop staring at numbers. There’s a whole universe out there, full of adventure!”

“But...”

“You’ve been cooped up here for a month! When was the last time you were in space?”

“Today...”

“And I don’t mean your daily confirmation that our known signatures didn’t move over night. Real space!”

“Well...”

He grinned. “C’mon, you know you want to. Our today’s neighbor has some juicy CAs - so how about you shoot, and I salvage? And afterwards we can pick up some Fullerenes on the way back.”

I glanced at the dark terminal, and then back at Lance. Of course he was right - it had been too long since I did some real flying.

“Damn you, Lance. Last one to the hangar is a short-limbed roe!”

---

Two hours later, our ships docked back at the POS. As we padded barefoot to the living areas, toweling off the last remains of the Pod juice, Lance punched me into the arm.

“Well, Boss, wasn’t that fun?”

Well, let’s see: most of my Harbinger’s equipment was now resting, slightly scorched, in a can in the main hangar; my Harbinger itself was a smoking wreck off an Oruze Node; my Apoc’s structure was held together only just so by its armor, with no repairer on hand; and our Fullerene mining had been cut short when a Cheetah with an unpronounceable name started poking its probes into our business. So, did I have fun?

“Oh yeah!”

Imagine There's A War...

2010-07-07T22:21:00.000-07:00

Wars. Oh, Empire Wars.

One of the things which really messes up the day of an industrialist: securing all POSes, having to stand guard while mining or hauling, and, worst of all, watching the reduced profit on the balance sheets.

Of course, in the beginning there is excitement, too - finally a chance to pull the dust covers of all the shiny faction toys which will surely bring us the victory, after all, remember how we ran Angel Extravaganza in just two of these beauties? These pirates, just let them come!

Such is the chatter in the ranks, while the CEOs check the balance on their War Chests, knowing full well that the war will likely end with an impromptu WH op or extended vacations.

These and others were my thoughts when I accepted the message about two weeks ago. Certified delivery, and from CONCORD - that could mean only one thing. And indeed, the Evil-Bastards had declared war on The Last Stand. Fighting was permitted to commence within 24 hours. And to throw a twist into the event, a little research showed that our opponents had taken out a tower in a previous war.

Oh well.

The usual flurry erupted: people dashing their Industrials to their POSes, to unceremoniously dump fuel into the bays or to prudently unanchor modules too valuable to risk; others moving their combat ships into less conspicuous locations, swearing that this time they really will prepare a fleet of 10, nay, 20 ready-fitted combat ships, Promise!; all the while our Intel officers delivering updates on who what where when.

The destined hour arrived, we received the customary “Good luck, folks” from our local CONCORD office, and then we were on our own.

And waited. And waited.

As our increasingly annoyed agents confirmed, the scumbags were still in Jita. Or Hek. Or whatever other trade hub you could think of, obviously waiting for us to drop by for tea and cookies.

C’mon guys, you war-decced us! Do we have to do everything for you? Sheesh!

And thus passed a very quiet week, with just the occasional fly-by, and one exchange of mildly agitated words, and when the day came, we offlined some weapons, stepped down our alertness, and got back to the business of ISK.

...only to be war-decced again two days later, by the Legion of Sun Tzu. This time our opponents actually had a plan: they had found a research POS which we had forgotten to refuel, and decided that a fireworks display was in order. By the time we caught on, the deed was done and the war was retracted.

Bastards! We had just updated our balance sheets!

Brave New World

2010-06-16T22:58:00.000-07:00

“no no No No No NO NO!”

A calculator flew threw the air in our common room, impacting on the wall in front of me, shattering into dozens of pieces. It came so close to my head, I spilled half of my drink.

I sighed - only one person could get angry enough to violence a harmless piece of corporate machinery...

“Ok, Sis - spit it out.”

“The material market!”, she bellowed, waving a bundle of spreadsheets at me. I couldn’t read any of the writing from this distance, but the diagrams were visible enough: colorful curves of averages and channels, and all pointing downwards. “Might as well not bother reacting anything,” continued Eta, “by the time it’s done, I can be lucky to just break even.”

She threw the sheets back onto her desk, and leaned back. “I knew PI would mess things up, but this...”

“Shush, there must be something still worthwhile...”, I walked the few steps over to here, ignoring the wisps of smoke emanating from my tunic. “Let me see - how about this? PPD Fullerene Fibers - they make a decent profit still.”

“Yes, but - ”, she pulled up the current market prices, “there’s hardly enough of the gases out there to make it worth the effort of switching the reactor around. It’d be easier to just raid a w-space system or three.”

“Hmm...”, leaning back I pondered the situation. “Well, guess you’re screwed then.”

She harrumphed. “Gee, thanks! I’ll just have to try these to materials and hope for the best. But I wonder what POS fuel is doing now...”

“You may not want to...” I started in alarm, but too late: she pulled up the market information before I could stop her. Quickly I ducked behind a chair in anticipation of the next domestic projectile - but to my surprise nothing happened.

As I carefully peeked over the top of the chair, Eta was absentmindedly doodling on a piece of paper.

“You know,” she said to noone in particular, “Sometimes I wonder if shouldn’t just forget about this stuff, and do something less stressful. Like joining Hellfleet, or so.”

Taking a Breather

2010-06-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

Mining.

If somebody had told me at the beginning of my career that I’d look forward to a quiet day of mining, I’d have laughed him off (and probably put into structure). But yet here I was, sitting in our corp Orca, enjoying the live feed from the Alliance tournament while cracking the ganglink whip over my minions. Sun shining on the ‘roids, drones merrily playing hide and seek with the Sansha locals, and in the bowels of the barges the Arcturian mega-space hamsters running in their wheels to power the strip miners. After all, even a CEO needs to take a break once in a while (as long as it generates a profit).

It felt like we had just left our previous wormhole (I distinctly remembered the subsequent days of freightering across New Eden to collect our belongings), but in fact it had been several weeks - long enough for our Alliance to get the itch again and look for a new WH to occupy.

A suitable system was soon found - a nice, cosy Cl.4 with not too many neighbors. But being a Cl.4, it’s most convenient access was through the daily neighboring Cl.3 into a lo-sec system, which made the initial move into the WH quite interesting.

Our Alliance boss had had packed up his Orca for days then, and when a suitable connection opened up, the call went out to the Alliance for scouts. Our corp was just about to embark on some missions, but much as we tried, our sense of duty prevailed and we exchanged our combat ships for flimsy CovOps and headed off to the Citadel. Once in the system, we did a quick evaluation of the situation: only one unknown in the system, safely docked in a station, and three gates - no problem for us five to keep eyes on.

But of course life wasn’t meant to be so kind to us. The Orca was just a jump or two out when we a got a newcomer in the system, an Omen piloted by a person of rather ill repute, and the way he dashed off from the gate to a safe spot told us that he meant business. Our CovOps were safe in their cloaks, but we had nothing to fight this guy with - what do do? While we were thinking, our handyman Marconi put out a flight of combat probes, to probe down the safe spot. Almost immediately he got a hit on the Omen (plus a number of abandoned sentries elsewhere in the system). While proceeding to narrow down the location, the Omen moved, only to be quickly located in the vicinity of an asteroid belt.

Hmm - this guy didn’t know what we were flying, and he’s obviously not keen on having us demonstrate it to him. Maybe, if we continue sending our probes after him, we can keep him busy enough to not pay attention to our Orca arriving. Not that Marconi needed any encouragement, as he was having a grand old time keeping the pirate on his toes.

This game continued for a good ten minutes, then suddenly our adversary showed up at the hi-sec gate, and jumped out. At first we couldn’t believe it - A Pirate! Running from us! - until somebody stated the obvious: “Six people in local, five from the same corp, none of them on scan, and somebody is chasing you with combat probes. What would you do?”

Getting the Orca through this system into the wormhole then was mere routine in comparison.

Since then, more people from the Alliance had moved into the wormhole (some of them in a way that threatened to give me grey hair despite them not even being in my corp), including a few Frequent Fliers, bringing their own little towers along. And while this was probably very character building for them, it meant that it was time for the full Frequent Flier Wormhole Setup to be brought into play again - besides, I had caught up with all the other things I needed to do.

...right after we finish that big rock over there!

Horrible Agony

2010-04-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

It was quieter now, here in our settlement in w-space.

Over the last couple of weeks, we had a few new alliance mates joining us out here, but it soon became obvious that we had crossed the point of diminishing returns: even exploiting our daily neighbors, we were no longer able to extract enough profit. Plus, folks were starting to get stir crazy, so the new course of action is to move out of this w-space system, and find a higher class one to settle.

And if there is a thing the Frequent Flyers are good at, it’s getting things done once they have been decided: within just a few days, the majority of our combat and mining ships, as well as most of the ore, had been moved out.

But w-space didn’t intend to let us go that easily, as over the last days we just didn’t get any good exits, leaving us with naught to do.

Yesterday was another one of these evenings - all possible exits had been scanned out, and all that was left to do was shooting the breeze on Alliance comms. As people traded references to obscure pieces of modern pop culture (at some point there was even singing!), I dug up the video footage from our Agony roam last month. I had shot it primarily to evaluate my performance afterwards, so it wasn’t really visually appealing - but maybe I could make something out of it anyway.

And come to think of it - what was the song again which had just been “performed” on comms? Hmm..

...I really shouldn't be allowed near video editors late at night :) (Click on the above preview to get to the actual video page).

A Grand Night Out

2010-04-04T18:59:00.000-07:00

Caldak: What do we have to be careful of?
MoHawk Nephilium: An Agony Basic class :)

“Yo! D!”

I stopped in my tracks, hearing that familiar voice from behind. The other pilots pushed past me, eager to get into their pods.

“Heloisa? What are you doing here?”

“Same as you: Agony Advanced class, shiny explosions, more pew-pew goodness.” She cocked her head. “However, I am surprised to see you here - aren’t you supposed to be bravely crumbling the ‘roids in your w-system?”

I rolled my eyes. “There are only so many Sleepers and asteroids you can put down before you go stir crazy. Besides, I need the practice.”

“Indeed you do...”, she grinned, “...as yesterday’s fleet exercise showed. Well, see you out there!”

And off she was before I could think of a reply. Oh well, time to get podded up.

-----

About an hour later, the ambient noise of the Impro Factory station in Stacmon gathered an urgent note as the engines of 60-some cruisers sprang to life. Pilots ran through their last checklists, while the Intel channels in the region were probably buzzing with the news of our imminent departure. Not that we had much time to think about details like that - too anxious we were to put yesterday’s theoretical instructions to the test, while hopefully not messing up too much in the process.

[ Hey, D. What squad are you in? ], asked Heloisa over comms.

“Echo, why?”

[ They made me SC of Golf - don’t you want to do that? ], she asked, adding [ You have better skills. ]

I hesitated - while on paper my leadership skills were better, I had never commanded a squad before, whereas Heloisa has quite some experience in 0-sec gangs.

[ Oh, c’mon, do-it-do-it-do-it. You know you want to! ]

“Ok”, I relented. Free-Move was enabled, she demoted herself while I took her place, then I took a quick look at my little group: two Ewar/Artillery Arbitrators, two Ruptures, a Thorax, and my Maller. Not bad for a squad - if only it had a real SC in charge.

[[ Right, everyone undock. ]], ordered Caldak, our FC and instructor.

Good thing we had practiced this yesterday: all cruisers undocked almost simultaneously, accompanied by a few Agony Interdictors and skirmishers. A few seconds later, we fleet-warped to an undock point. Our scouts moved out, and after making sure that our little fleet was complete, we followed them.

Through Ostingele and Harroule our way led to Syndicate, and in MHC we already had our first hostile contact. In fact, the Falcon, Harbinger and Hurricane were defeated so quickly that it was over before I could even target the my own weapons. After a short break to replace a few lost ships, we pushed deeper into Syndicate - UM-Q, T-LI, V4-L... all names I had always marveled at in GalNet news, imagining how it must be to fly there. And now that I was here, I found myself fully occupied with following the commands and recon reports on comms, while trying to keep up with the fleet.

From the ongoing conversation I gathered that a hostile fleet was suspected to be somewhere ahead of us, possibly even connected to the Loki which showed up occasionally to taunt us. We held in V4, and Caldak started ordering squads to split off the main fleet. Looking at the map, he appeared to trap the enemy fleet in AAS...

[[ Golf Squad...]]

Golf Squad? Damn, that’s us!

[[... go to KTH, 1-N, QWF and hold at the gate to AAS.]]

Good thing I had already checked the map - we were to cut off another avenue to our suspected hostile fleet. ...uhm, did I need to acknowledge the order?

“Acknowledge. Golf to move to KTH, 1-N and close the backdoor to AAS.”, I replied over comms, followed by my very first order as SC: “Golf, align KTH gate.”

I gave my squad a few seconds to align, then I warped us all to the KTH gate. We jumped on contact, and moved on - trying to find a compromise between good speed while making sure that we didn’t get separated. Luckily it was only a few systems, and we arrived in one group and took up position.

And waited.

And waited.

Listening to comms I could deduce that the hostiles had eluded us - Delta and Echo were moving somewhere to the north, but apart from a small skirmish in T-LI had no luck. Finally, the order came to move up on our own to Poitot. Relieved, we left our position and got on our way. We were halfway to Poitot, when comms became very lively again: the group with our FC had run into a gate camp and were engaging.

I was unsure: should I divert and have my squad join the fray, or continue as ordered? It was only a few systems away, but in all likelihood the fight would be over before we got there - so I had my squad continue towards Poitot. We had just entered our destination, when word came through that a squad coming from the north had made contact just one system over in X-BV, and was in need of assistance. Our group in Poitot didn’t need a second invitation - we jumped into X-BV and made short work of an Astarte. As we returned to Poitot, two Nighthawks met an untimely end at the hands of the last groups arrived from the south, and we all docked up for a short break.

As the engines of my trusty Maller fell silent, I was able to relax for the first time since our departure from Stacmon. While my little group had seen only little combat so far, just following the fleet had been surprisingly demanding. At the same time, I have had an easier time following the fleet comms than in Basic class. Maybe because we had a slightly smaller group, or maybe I really had learned a thing or two in the meantime.

EVE System > Channel changed to F67E-Q Local Channel
Apathetic Brent > EVERYONE LOG OFF NAO!
Apathetic Brent > wrong channel soz

Twenty minutes later, our fleet was back in space. After a short circuit through the south, we moved to the north of Syndicate, but this time we had no luck: whereever we went, the systems were deserted - obviously the news of our class had spread. We were contemplating looking for alternative areas to visit, when a recon report caught our attention: a battlecruiser fleet of the Dead Terrorists (IKILU) was spotted coming from the Outer Ring in our direction.

Cautiously we moved to meet them, from PF-349 through FD-MLJ, X-M2LR and onward to 8V-SJJ. From the reports of our scout it became clear that IKILU had set up camp and was waiting for us jump into it. Obviously, that wouldn’t do: even though we had the numerical superiority, we were still only in cruisers - we had to get them to engage on our terms. Our only chance was to bait them into moving towards us.

Our fleet jumped into 3KNK-A and held there, except for one squad which was to move ahead towards the system leading to the IKILU camp (RL-KT0?). Their orders were to linger around the gate, pop a bubble and in general look juicy, but to not aggress - IKILU surely had a scout in that system and would relay their presence.

Minutes passed - then the bait squad reported a spike in local: IKILU had noticed them and was sending a group to investigate. The bait squad jumped back to C0T-77, holding at the gate to 3KNK-A, waiting to see if IKILU would follow them.

And follow they did! Our scout reported that the main body IKILU was abandoning their camp and was moving towards us - now the trick would be to keep them moving.

As IKILU entered C0T-77, our bait squad waited just long enough to be seen again, before jumping into 3KNK-A. The same time, our main fleet moved back into 8V-SJJ to set up station at the 3KNK-A gate. And again, our bait squad lingered at the 8V-SJJ gate in 3KNK-A - as IKILU arrived, the bait squad jumped through to 8V-SJJ, signaling the immediate begin of hostilities.

And then - nothing.

What was going on? So far IKILU had seemed to be willing to play ball, were they now backing away, afraid to jump into our camp? Did they need a few minutes to get organized? Or was this now a game of chicken, each side waiting for the other to lose nerve first? We bantered on comms, to easen the tension, but everybody kept an eye on the gate.

Gateflash!

IKILU had blinked - I switched my weapons hot.

A Harbinger appeared just 10 km away - I put my weapons on him, as did several others of our fleet, and for good measure a tracking disruptor. As our weapons made short process of the Harbinger’s shield and started biting into its armor, the rest of the IKILU fleet decloaks: I see a Manticore, an Arazu, a Prophecy, and hordes of Drakes and Harbingers.

The first Harbinger goes down, and I target a nearby Prophecy and another Harbinger - three Lasers on the Prophecy, and two Lasers plus the Track on the Harbinger. The Prophecy goes down - not very quickly, I shouldn’t have split my weapons - and I target a third Harbinger, while now aiming all five Lasers at the second Harbinger.

Klaxons shrill, signaling the loss of my shield. I am taking damage, but I can’t immediately see from where, so I turn on my small repper and warp to our designated escape point.

That is: I intend to warp out, but too late I realize that I maybe should have maneuvered clear of our own bubbles. Well, if I have to go down, I will go down fighting - six enemies are now tearing my Maller apart, but I keep my Lasers focused on Harbinger #2. My armor is gone, the enemy lasers and missiles are ripping my structure to shreds - and I find myself in my pod, floating in the middle of a pitched space battle. I set course for the border of the bubble, and for a few seconds actually make progress - but then a lance of fire approaches my pod, and I opened my eyes in Stacmon.

As I exited the stations’ clone bay, more and more vats began to activate - the battle must have turned against us. I hastened to get podded up and plugged into my spare cruiser (a Thorax), but by the time my systems went active, our fleet had lost 90% of its offensive force and all of its ECM, so the survivors were ordered to fall back and regroup in Stacmon. To my delight, Heloisa was under the survivors - I had seen her Arbitrator well away from the main battle, so our enemy probably had underestimated the danger an Ewar Arbitrator can pose even over longer distances and didn’t target her until the very end.

It would take some time for everybody to return, so I took the opportunity to look at the battle statistics. On the surface it looked like a rout: we had lost 42 ships out of 62 vs. IKILU’s 19 out of 43 - but that was only half the truth. All of our lost ships had been cruisers, cheap to buy, yet we had managed to take out almost half of a fleet comprised of more powerful (and more expensive) battlecruisers. Heck, we even managed to take down a command ship and a battleship in the fight!

Caldak> Nothing like killing pirates to make you feel good.

It took about half an hour to get the fleet re-established - as some pilots chose to end the roam at this point out of exhaustion, our fleet halved in size. Again we were headed into Syndicate, this time entering from the South through TXW and then working our way into the Cloud Ring.

This time around, targets were rare - most people were smart enough to stay well clear of us - and to Heloisa’s annoyance most of the targets we did find happened to be allies of hers. While this was not very satisfying for the adrenaline junkies amongst us, it provided a lot of opportunity to practice the art of the hunt: fleet movements, independent squad maneuvers, pincer movements, shotgun entries into systems - and all the time following the reports sent back by the skirmishers to try and anticipate the fleet’s next move. It became a running gag that the FC announced the wrap-up of the op within the next half hour, only to be sidetracked by yet another possible target just a few systems away. But all good things had to come to an end eventually, and we left the Cloud Ring for Alsavoinon and our 8-Jump journey back through Placid. Given that we were in lo-sec now, we could relax and fly our own best speed back home.

It was on the last leg, in warp to the Stacmon gate in Ostingele, when suddenly one of our skirmishers spoke up on comms:

[ This is Aether at the Agoze gate in Ostingele - I have a tackle on a flashy-red Navy Slicer. He’s trying to run, but I am keeping up. ]

Orders were given, but not really necessary - everybody knew what had to be done. As we dropped out of warp, we immediately turned our ships around and accelerated back the way we came. Those fleet members who were still behind us stepped up their pace, racing towards Ostingele. All the while Aether’s reports grew more urgent:

[ I still have a tackle on the Slicer, but I am in armor now - you better hurry up. ]

The warp bubble collapsed, releasing me some 70km away from both Aether and the Slicer. Around me, a handful other cruisers popped back into normal space. Afterburners and Microwarpdrives flared up, all of us burning as fast as we could towards the Slicer. Our Ewar ships got in range first, dropping their Damps and Tracks onto the Slicer, reducing its effective combat range to about nothing, saving Aether’s ship just in the nick of time. Behind us the gate fired, admitting a Republic Fleet Tempest into the system - a friend of the Slicer’s pilot, coming to help. But too late - our target locks resolved, and the Slicer exploded under an onslaught of missiles, turrets and drones. The Tempest, seeing that it was outnumbered, made the smart decision to reapproach the gate and leave before we could get back to him.

It was the perfect end for the roam - elated, chatting excitedly, we made our way back to Stacmon and docked up, only now noticing that we had spent nine hours on this roam, only now noticing how exhausted we actually were. Yet we were loath to leave just yet, too much adrenaline was still in our systems, and for most of us it was the first chance to look at the whole of the battle reports. Eventually, however, tiredness got the better of me, and I left for my quarters in the station, lest I’d fall asleep on my feet.

The way to the quarters led me past the ship hangars, and here I stopped, looking at the majestic ships which just a short time before hurdled us through the depth of space. Suddenly the prospect of returning to our Wormhole was much less appealing to me than it was just one day ago - it just didn’t compare against the excitement I had just experienced. Yet I knew that I had to go back, if only to make sure I could continue to afford excursions like today’s.

Maybe I could delay my return a bit - our Alliance was interested in renting a system in 0-sec space, and while we had done our research, none of us had actually found the time to take a first-hand look at the possible systems. With my Covops I should be able to get down there without too much trouble, and collect some bookmarks on the way.

Yep, that sounded like a plan - the Sleepers could wait a little longer.

Trouble in the Neighborhood

2010-03-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

One of the ahem pleasures of wormhole life is the daily scan for new signatures - both in our own w-system as well as whichever new neighbor we happen to have. New sites, possible hostiles, exits to hi-sec - the usual intel. Standing order is that whoever gets up first, is in charge of scanning.

This Sunday it turned out to be me who got up first. Grumbling, second cup of coffee in hand, I padded down to the pod bay, to begin the ritual of podding up. A quick scan around the system, I told myself, one hour tops - no biggie.

Out in space, the scan of our own system went quickly. We were having another dry spell, so apart from one anomaly there were just the customary lo-sec and w-space connections. Oh well, might as well poke my head in.

Materializing in the other system, I immediately hit the d-scan.... oh-ho! Two towers, lots of guns, and a few Badgers and Retrievers toiling around. Jumping across the system to the outermost planet revealed two more “spare” towers. I start working my backwards through the planets, locating the exact locations of those POSes and taking note of their owners.

Hmm, one Russian POS, with just one gun battery, one shield hardener, a corporate hangar and a ship array; the others were owned by the Stellar Defense Alliance, with pretty decent setups. Oh, look! Another POS at the inner planets. Not much point in scanning for sigs here, all will be gone anyway.

Kat VonHeise > o/

What? A quick check of my systems reveals that I’m well away from celestials, and my cloak is still working. Reply? Ignore? Slink away and pretend I’ve never been here?

Aryiel VonHeise > how do you like our ore? :o)

Ok, they can’t mean me then - I’m nowhere near the ‘roids. They must be talking to the Retrievers I have on scan.

Kir Friar > да

Meanwhile, back at our POS, our other corp mates are starting their day, and I begin relaying back the situation. Which for the next half hour consisted of nothing, except the Russians anchoring a second gun battery. Then...

Plinth Alon > Guys - we are not looking for any neighbors here. I prefer that you not set up in this hole.
Plinth Alon > You have two hours to leave, or we will have to kill you.
Plinth Alon > We have a Revelation Dreadnaught at our POS - Planet VII, Moon 4. Come look. But come in cloaked so you don't get shot. We will have to kill you if you do not leave.

And indeed - there’s now a Revelation on d-scan, plus an assortment of battleships. Word spreads quickly on our comms - breakfast forgotten, safety checklists ignored, people are scrambling into their cloaky ships, all for the chance to see one of these behemoths up close in action!

At the same time, bewilderment. Who begins mining a w-space system before their POS is even set up? And who sets up a POS in a system that already has five foreign towers to begin with?

[ Total noobs ] opined Calcinus.

All the while, I moved myself into a nice observation spot near the Russian POS. The local residents show an astonishing amount of patience, holding a negotiation in English and Babel-Russian in the local channel. We’re passing our time shooting the breeze, including the discussion of a couple of harebrained schemes to install Popcorn dispensers into our Pods (it’s the amniotic fluid, see? It makes the popcorn all soggy). The two-hour-mark ticks closer and closer - and finally the Russians give in.

Bonevsky > ok, Fitz, we not instal battery and any othe structures
Bonevsky > we scan new wormholes to hi sec and out here. Ok?

Hmm, they must have lost their original entrance. If they scan for exits and find the connection to us and decide that our cozy lil’ system might be a nice place to re-settle... Cal had voiced this concern before, but now it had a distinct chance of becoming reality. ‘An ounce of prevention’ and all that.

“Cal, do you have anything cloaked with teeth?”

[ I have my Pilgrim - let me get back to our system and guard the WH from our side. ]

“Thanks!”

Jaana was thinking along the same line: [ I’ll get to a TAC on this side of the WH. ]

“Excellent.”

Now we had eyes, but we were still lacking in the teeth department. At the same time, I didn’t want to give up my station at the Russian POS - I wanted to know what else they had. Plus, so far nobody had noticed our presence here - I didn’t want to tip our hand before I absolutely had to.

[ I’m in my Pilgrim and at the WH ], reports Cal. [ But don’t we have some of those warp probes? ]

“You mean Warp Bubbles? Yes, several - aah, good idea! Wake up Sparky and let him anchor some at the exit.”

[ Will do. Oh, and if their Prober gets through? ]

Good question.

“The bubbles should deter him. But if they don’t and he tries to burn out, shoot him.”

Minutes pass, Sparky anchors (under much grumbling) the two bubbles, and not a moment too soon.

[ Russian Heron at our WH ], reports Jaana.

“What’s he doing?”

[ Don’t know - nothing at the moment. No, wait, he’s moving away from it now. And he put probes out. ]

“Maybe he realized that this is not a hi-sec exit?”

[ Maybe... ]

In Local channel, meanwhile, chatter was going back and forth between the (still patient) residents and the Russians - most of it incomprehensible to us. I was close to calling it a wrap, when a change on the scanner tickled my neural receptors.

“The Russians have brought out an Eagle. ” A quick scan of the ship register pulls up the related information. “A Caldari HAC.”

[ People fly them? ]

“Cal, can you take on a HAC?”

[ No, not in this ship. ]

Now that was a pickle - it was too late for me to get into something heavier, and I was not sure that we could get our Battleship pilot into the game quickly enough. We just had to let it play out.

“The Eagle warped off.”

[ Eagle is at the WH ], reports Jaana. [ He’s approaching... he’s gone through. ]

[ WH flash. ] confirms Cal. [ I don’t see him yet. ]

Friggin’ jump cloak!

[ There he is. ] announces Cal sixty tense seconds later. [ Nice - he’s in the middle of one of the bubbles. ... He’s heading back to the WH - and he is through. ]

And indeed, shortly after, the Eagle dropped out of warp near the Russian POS.

“You know,” I admitted, “I wasn’t sure that this would work.”

[ Heron warped off. ]

We stayed a little while longer, but it became clear that the main entertainment for the day was over: the Russians continued to try and scan for an exit without much success, but everybody stayed well clear of our WH.

“Ok, let’s call it.”, I announced finally. “Nothing will happen here anytime soon. And should they come to us after all, we’ll deal with it later - though I doubt it.”

[ Too bad that we didn’t get to see the Revelation in action. ]

“Yeah - guess we have to build our own for that to happen.”

We leisurely made our way back to our POS (leaving the bubbles in place, just in case), in a surprisingly good mood, considering that we just spent one hour and 220 minutes doing pretty much nothing. And of course we were now curious about the fate of the Russians - would they make it out? Would Space Defense Alliance lose patience after all and pop them?

Maybe I should write the SDA and ask.

Blinkenlights

2010-03-17T00:38:00.000-07:00

*beep*ticktickticktick*feep*tick*

*beep*tickticktick*feep*ticktick*

*beep*CLACK* *bzzm*bzbzmbzmm*

“AARGH! Turn the fracking lights off!”

“Oops, sorry.”

*CLACK*

“”Sorry“ my arse.”, I growled. “You knew exactly I was here.”

“Well, ok, I knew.” I heard Eta making her way through the cramped POS control room. “But what’s up with this blackout?”

“I’m trying to relax for a few minutes - and have you seen this room with lights on? I prefer the Blinkenlights.”

“Point.” She found her way to my spot, and made herself comfy on one of the consoles. “So, Sis, what have you been up to?”

Good question - what have I been doing?

“Uhmmm... ”, I hedged, “you know how it is: this and that, and afterwards you can’t remember exactly what it is you did.”

“Tush! I didn’t fly all the way to your hi-sec connection just to listen to Corporate Speak!”

“Ok, well - we had some more Corpies coming in here, but we also had our setbacks: Our Wormhole system has been rather dry recently, Lance lost his brand-new Hulk...”

“Ah, that’s why he was so happy about the Covetor I brought in.”

“Exactly. During a spatial disturbance yesterday, LC got podded - again.”

“Implants?”

“+5s, and a 5% mining implant.”

Eta whistled through her teeth. “Ouch.”

“...and we lost Heloisa about a week back.”

“That cute Khanid girl in the ‘dictor? What happened? ...oh, and whatever you’re having, I’d like some, too.”

I handed her the can I had been sipping from, and tried to recall that night. It had been a bit of a mess, as I had been involved in negotiations with business associates, so my role that night was mostly one of hovering around cloaked and providing occasional scraps of Intel.

“Business associates?”, interrupted Eta.

“You don't wanna know.”

We have been exploring a neighboring wormhole system, which as usual these days involved figuring out if the inhabitants were friendly or not. We had only seen one guy active, going by the name of Meditril, but he was really good: I saw him clean out a CA in just a Wolf. Of course, he noticed us as well, and we began a game of cat-and-mouse with scan probes. Unsurprisingly, he found the entrance to our wormhole and took a look around - and few moments later we got a rather surprising comm from the scout we left behind:

[ Uhm, this Meditril guy, he just talked to me local. He claims that we’re blue to him.]

“What?”

“That’s what we thought.”

As it turned out, their corp had given us standings some time ago without us knowing, and in the light of this (and his generous offer to play in his wormhole’s sites), we no longer pursued him, but instead our group continued blazing through the anomalies (ok, the rest of my group, while I was sitting at the wormhole connection), and Meditril continued his scanning for signatures.

Except - the scan probes we saw weren’t his. The extent of our mistake became evident when a complete heavy gang appeared at the signature site: Buzzard, Huginn, Zealot, Drake, Typhoon, and a Scimitar against our Devoter, Onyx and Damnation. The Onyx and Damnation managed to warp out, but the gang got a point on Heloisa’s Devoter, and started to to take it apart.

On our side, not having prepared for this contingency, hesitation reigned. Jump back to help? Ambush the gang on their way out? Flee? Our Onyx pilot did make an attempt at a rescue, but was intercepted long before he could get into fighting range. Heloisa held on for a surprisingly long time, but even the Devoter’s tank could not withstand the onslaught forever and the ship exploded.

“Did she get her Pod out ?”

“Yep - bounced off a planet and then back into our wh system.”

“...mightily pissed, I presume.”

“You could say that. That Devoter has served her well for the good part of a year - while we did pool together so that she could buy a new one, you can’t replace that history.”

“Yeah...” Eta chewed her lower lip. “Though I don’t see what you could have done differently - they had the superiority on the field, and sacrificing T2 ships for the remote chance of a ‘Good Fight’... - it might have made her feel better, though.”

“Mhm - I was pondering that, too, but I don’t have a good answer for it either.”

“You’ll find one - that’s why you are the CEO!”

“...and as CEO I get the best drinks. Gimmie!”

We sat there for a while, watching the scanner tracing Tar as he was testing his ships around the POS.

“Where is she now?”, broke Eta the silence.

“She’s back in Empire - got herself a new Devoter, but will probably go back to 0-sec. Her corp has gone on the offensive again, and can use every pilot they have.”

“Too bad, I’ll miss her.”

“Me, too.”, I admitted. “But this reminds me - next time you fly to Stacmon, could you please be a dear and drop this stuff off for me?”

“I wasn’t aware that I was flying to Stacmon...”, Eta took the data chip from my hands and studied it. “Hmm, a Maller, a Thorax, a Rupture - and a whole bunch of mods. Agony class again?”

“Yep!” I grinned. “Fun, fights, and shiny explosions!”

“Well, in that case I think it’s an endeavour worth supporting.” Eta slipped the chip in one of her innumerable pockets, and then pushed herself back onto her feet. “But I gotta go - the wormhole will close in a couple of hours, and I still have to get my pod warmed up.”

“Sure,” I hopped to my feet as well, and feigned a punch at her which she easily blocked (she was never one for sisterly hugs), “It was good to see you again. Fly safe, will ya?”

“Always.” She threw me a mock salute, then carefully picked her way out of the room. At the bulk head, she turned back on more time.

“Oh, shall I turn the lights back on?”

“NO!”

Quiet Time

2010-02-23T22:29:00.000-08:00

The Scan Probes sped away into the dark of space, and on the screen the intriguing dance of the scan signals began. After a few seconds, the dance ended and with a *beep* the system announced ... nothing.

After a bit over a month in our home away from home, we were again going through a dry spell; where all the good sites appear to spawn in other w-space systems, just not ours. But after the excitement of the last weeks, a bit of down time will do us good - and I’m not just talking about the excitement incurred by a juicy ABC belt.

Being in low-level w-space always has the disadvantage of curious people poking their noses in, and while we don’t mind visitors that much, they better stay away from our sites. About three times in the last weeks we had to show our grim side, and while it wasn’t always successful, our esprit-de-corps was greatly strengthened. It helps that our alliance has recently switched from CVA-NRDS to NBSI - though for us industrials it will probably always be more a case of NB-Can Shoot If Really Unavoidable.

But it’s not all work and battle in our home - our ever-changing exits sometimes lead into interesting areas, like recently when our scouts brought back the news that we had an exit to Gateway - yes, that Gateway . Of course our little band gathered together and we went for a little trip, visiting the famous EVE Gate.

Should you happen to be in that area, definitely give it a visit.

Baptism by Laser Fire

2010-01-30T23:24:00.000-08:00

It’s been two weeks into our sojourn in to w-space, and while the system had not yielded quite the riches we hoped, there was enough to find to keep us busy. Especially after we got into the habit of exploring the neighbouring w-systems and collecting their valuables.

Today it was a gas site we were after. Heloisa - a friend to the corp taking a breather from the 0-sec wars - was holding at the site in her Devoter, waiting for the inevitable Sleeper patrol to show up. I had jumped back to the POS, to switch into something more suitable, but right now was just futzing around with some security detail.

[ Shit. There’s a Typhoon here. ]

“What?”

[ There’s a Typhoon here. And he has me locked. ]

For a moment I was frozen. We had known that sooner or later it would come to this, we did prepare as well as we could, but finally being in this situation was whole ‘nother story. Without thinking I began the process of disentangling my pod from my current ship.

[ He is shooting at me, and he has drones out. ] Panic began to creep into Heloisa’s voice.

“Coming! Coming!”

I knew that neither her nor myself had previous experience in this kind of combat. Granted, we had our share of battle experience, but it was either at the receiving end of a shiny explosion, or we were in the comfortable embrace of a fleet with a competent FC. Facing a single enemy without preparation - that was a first.

What do you use against a Typhoon? What class of ship is a Typhoon anyway?

[ Any help would be appreciated! ]

I noticed that without thinking I had boarded a Harbinger I had bought some years ago from a friend. Not exactly a combat fit, it was setup as a hardened 0-sec ratter - and I had never flown her before in anger. But Harbingers are my second skin, and there was no time for dawdling.

[ Hurry the F up, ok?! ]

The pod connects to the ship’s systems and initiates an emergency power up - I undock and enter warp while the gun crews hastily load Multifreqs into the laser batteries. It’s a journey of only a few seconds, and I finally emerge from warp, hardeners, repairer and DCU humming. 10 klicks away from me, the hull of a Minmatar battleship shimmers in the sun.

Right then. I put a point on him, command the ship to enter an orbit for now, the target computer resolves its lock, and my lasers throw out their deadly beams. Warning sounds inform me that the Typhoon is trimming his guns on me, his drones target me - and I lose my lock. ECM drones!

I’d need drones to fight the drones - duh, I hadn’t launched my drones yet. The drone bay opens and swarm of T1 drones speeds into space. The target computer just finished re-resolving the Typhoon lock, and before I can tell it to target one of the drones, I get jammed again. Lacking other commands, my drones start attacking the Typhoon. At the same time, the Typhoons guns and torpedoes break through my shield and start eating into my armor, and my ship helpfully informs me that there’s also a point and a target painter on me.

This was getting hairy.

But! now that the Typhoon was focused on me, Heloisa got a chance to strategize.

[ Ok. Calm down now for a moment. ] I heard her over the comms.

A moment later, the Devoter’s warp disruption generator springs to life and creates a bubble around us - nobody was now going anywhere. I drop my attempts to point the Typhoon to preserve some cap, but at this rate it wouldn’t be enough: the faction Bane torpedoes were scouring my armor at a frightening rate.

[ Come closer to me, I have a remote repper. ]

Instantly I change course and hurry towards the Devoter. The repper lights up, and my armor deteriorates not quite as fast. Also, the Devoter’s lasers spring back into life - this time not directed at the mighty battleship, but at the vastly more fragile ECM drones.

Vlodovich > gf so far
Druur Monakh > Indeed

It’s a race against the clock - one by one we pop the ECM drones, me getting in a potshot once a minute or so, while my armor vaporizes into space. Finally, the last drone explodes and we target the Typhoon, only to be thwarted by two more ECM drones swarming towards.

My Harbinger shrieks a Hull Breach warning while Heloisa pops the the remaining drones as quickly as possible. Smoke is wafting through my compartments, but we redirect our efforts back at the Typhoon. My drones (remember my drones?) had managed to eat away his shield, and our lasers start working on his armor. Just now the Sleepers decide to drop by, and in their hostility towards everything breathing Oxygen hit the Typhoon first.

The Typhoon’s torpedoes are still stripping away my structure, but his tank is broken: within seconds he is into hull and then explodes. Heloisa drops the bubble, yells at me to warp out before the Sleepers get me, but I just have to try and lock his pod - too late, he smartly warps out.

Seconds later, I warp out myself with just a bit over 50% structure remaining, barely remembering to pull in my drones before I leave.

Vlodovich > lmao that was a sweet as fuck fight
Vlodovich > best i had in several weeks
Druur Monakh > It was a close one - good job.

Back at the POS I am met by our repair truck, repairing my structure as my own reppers do their work on the armor, and Heloisa collects the spoils of our victory.

[ Sweet! Sisters Combat Probes! ]

It took us hours to come down from our high. For all the experienced combat pilots this kind of encounter is probably nothing special anymore, but for us it was our very first face-to-face fight on even terms, and for once we even managed to come out victoriously.

In hindsight, there were a couple of things we could have done better: the Devoter - a ship that can tank a Class 2 Sleeper site without breaking a sweat - was hardly in any immediate danger; had we payed attention, we would have noticed that neither of us were webbed and that we could have outrun the Typhoon at any time; with any better organisation we could have further minimized the damage dealt to us - and of course the Typhoon had a rather unusual fit.

But as a friend commented afterwards: “A fit is a fit; but a win is a win.”

Boo-Ya!

A New Year

2010-01-30T22:57:00.000-08:00

[ ] Write a post

There it was, looking at me accusingly. Turned out that writing is not quite as simple as expected, especially when there are so many other things to do. Like the impending expedition into a w-space system - there had been fuel to buy, transportation to be staged, people to be enthused and just in general details to be managed.

But now everything was in place, and all we were waiting for was a good wormhole to go through. The previous days had yielded no such thing, and with the rest of the corp having called it a night, all that was left to do for me was some paper work - including that darn TODO item. And I didn’t have the slightest idea what to write.

Just then, comms flashed with an incoming call.

[ Boss, you won’t believe it! ] It was our wormhole scout. [ We have a wormhole, just three jumps from HQ! ]

Damn!

“Give me details”

[ Class Two system, wormhole is good for 2B kg, 300M kg jump limit. ]

Which was good enough to bring an Orca in and out a couple of times, despite its lousy cargo/mass ratio. On the other hand there was no way to get any of the other corp mates back, so it would be just me and him. Not what I hoped for, but this was a chance to be taken.

“Right. Hold position and keep me posted. I’ll bring the Orca and we set up the basic POS with defenses.”

[ Understood. ]

I closed comms and was almost out of the door, when I remembered one last thing..

[ x ] Write a post

Small Universe

2009-11-24T20:29:00.000-08:00

“...which part of ‘best speed’ is so hard to understand?”, grumbled the FC over intercom.

*Coming! Coming!*

A few hasty commands, and the engines of my Tristan went to full power, accelerating the ship to warp speed, along with the remains of the fleet.

I was out with the Basic PvP class from Agony Unleashed, flying along through 0.0 in a gang of 80 frigates, and we had for company even such luminaries as Dread Pirate Wensley. Not that I see myself turning into a combat pilot any time soon, but having the knowledge could only be advantageous - especially next time a PvP corp decides to wardec us. Know thy enemy, and all that.

The theoretical part was relatively easy - you can’t be a successful industrialist without knowing a thing or two about the scanner or tactical bookmarks - but as soon as it came to fitting ones ships, any familiarity evaporated. And then the roam began in earnest...

The mechanics of flying from gate to gate weren’t the problem - it was all the other little habits and experience we nublets were missing, like returning to a gate orbit after an engagement, to be ready to jump, or keeping a mental image of the fleet’s operation in order to anticipate the FC’s next commands.

Which brought us to the situation we now were in, with half the fleet racing towards the last reported location of a Loki, while the other half (myself included) literally hadn’t gotten the memo and was now trying to catch up.

As we were speeding through systems, for a moment I thought I saw a familiar name showing up in Local - but we were after a Loki, and keeping up with the fleet took my full attention, so I dismissed it. Sadly, the Loki escaped us, and after a break the fleet ambled back, looking for new targets.

And the name showed up in Local again - I couldn’t believe my eyes. A friend of mine was flying in the class as well, so I gave her a nudge over comms:

“Hey, look at who’s in Local. Look at the Broadsword pilot.”

“Who... No Way! Him!?”

“Yes, him. What do you think - can we bribe the FC to engage him?”

We didn’t need to worry - after not getting a hit on the Loki before, our fleet was lusting for blood. The Broadsword pilot was no easy target - after seeing a fleet of 40 frigates arrive at the gate he was holding, he smartly avoided a fight and jumped through the gate. Unfortunately for him, our other 40 frigates were waiting for him on the other side, and his end came quickly.

We weren’t done with the roam yet, of course, and my little Tristan would manage to get on a few more kills that night, including the final blow on a mighty Armageddon , but I couldn’t help sharing the news with the Alliance right away.

“Guys, you surely remember the corp who had wardecced us last month,”

“The griefers? Yes, what about them?”

“We just came across their CEO ... Bwahahahahaha!”

Run for your life!

2009-10-13T21:02:00.000-07:00

“BTD Ganymede, this is Ealur Traffic Control. You are cleared for departure. Fly safe.”

“Ealur Traffic Control, acknowledged. And I’ll try.”

The tugs, who had towed my trusty bestower out of the docking bay into the departure pipe, shut down their tractor beams and let inertia take me out. As my vessel crossed the boundary of the stations environmental shield, the main engines sprang to life and filled the hull with their deep thrum.

‘Fly safe’ - ETC probably savored the irony. It had been about a week since I had rejoined the ranks of active capsuleers, but business hadn’t been good. I tried to tell myself that it was just a slump in the courier contract market - but truth to be told, I had grown weary of this line of work. This contract would be last one - a simple delivery from Akila to Amarr. The only interesting aspect was the minor detail of Akila being a 0.3 system - my first journey into low-sec since my ...accident half a year ago. Which is why I stopped in Ealur to exchange my Expanded Cargoholds for Warp Stabilizers, and let all extra hands leave the ship

However, the pipe turned out to be quite deserted, and after the first two jumps Aura was able to reduce the tranquilizer dosage in my life support system. Two more jumps and I docked in Akila, greeted by an eager young dock master. I had the paperwork ready, and was able to undock again within minutes.

What the... - a new name showed up in the Local list - -9.8 security status, not too promising...

...but I needed to get this cargo out. If not for the reward, than for my self-esteem. Warp drive engaged, I made best speed towards the gate - but my warp bubble collapsed just one klick outside of jump range - time enough for the pirate to lock me up and drop a volley on me. My shields dropped by 140 points, then the gate fires and yanks me to temporary safety.

I knew he’d follow me as soon as he could, so I wasted no time aligning towards the next gate. Eyes glued to the speed readouts, I iniated warp.

...50%...60%...70%...

The gate fired - my pursuer was here. He acquired a target lock - and I entered warp.

westerferer > boo
westerferer > stabs
Druur Monakh > Sorry mate. Armor against weapons. Stabs against scramblers.

Now the race was on, towards the exit of the pipe. He was just seconds behind me, but whatever he was flying didn’t seem to align much faster than my hauler. One last jump, and I emerged in CONCORD-protected Ealur. In my excitement, I almost forgot to pick up my crew at the station.

It was good to be back.

Homecoming

2009-10-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

About a year ago...

“Honey, I’m home!”, I called out as the bulkhead clanks shut behind me. The backpack flew into the nearest corner, followed by my boots. All lights were on, yet no reply - exactly as I expected it. Walking into the next room, my feet caressing the softness of the carpet, I found my little sister in her favourite position: slouched in a comfy chair, eyes closed, the neuro-transducers streaming knowledge into her brain.

Noticing my entrance, she opened her eyes for a moment, and held up two fingers: Two minutes. Which was fine with me, as I was about three months overdue for a strong drink. The house bar quickly obliged with something frosty, tall, and positively flammable, and I let myself drop into one of my other comfy chairs.

On cue, the “Active” light on Eta’s transducers blinked off, and she returned to the land of the living.

“Welcome back, sis!”, she smiled, “How was it?”

“Ah, you know...”, I gestured into the vague direction of the planet visible through the window. “Hot, sweaty, lots of buff folks doing pushups - and totally classified.”

“How classified?”

Instead of an answer, I just grinned at her and took a sip from my drink. The liquid burned my throat and made my eyes water ... perfection!

“How have things been around here?”

“Well,” Eta began counting off her fingers, “I’m almost done with Analytical Mind, your corp has given you the boot, the hangar master in Hisoufad keeps asking when you’re going collect your ships, aaaaaand your bank account is down to 40M.”

“40M? Oha.” I took another sip. “I thought I had around 600M?”

“You did, but that was before you got blown up with a 500M collateral courier in your hold.” She shot me a curious look. “What _did_ you do the last weeks to forget that little detail?”

“Obviously I practiced denial, among other things.” I drained my glass. “Well, time to get back into the saddle, get some cash to flow. Are Markovian still around?”

“Yep, but their contracts are fewer and less-well paid these days. You’ll have to find other employers, I think.” She hesitated. “You sure you want to go back out there?”

Was I sure? My previous foray into space didn’t exactly end on a high note. But yet there was only one answer.

“Yeah, I’m sure. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t. I’ll be breathing pod goo again - ”, I looked at my empty glass, “right after a second drink.”

“...and a shower.”, quipped Eta.

OOC: RIP Mate

2009-09-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

This is not the post I had in mind for today, but logging on tonight I was greeted with the news that a fellow pilot and friend had succumbed this morning to a heart attack. EVE may just be a game of bits and pixels, but that doesn't make the relations between its players any less real.

RIP Psi Cloned - you made a difference.

Introduction

2009-09-20T21:55:00.000-07:00

"You should write about your adventures!"

"'Adventures'!" I roll my eyes at my little sister. "I don't have 'Adventures'. Running BPOs to the market, shepherding our miners, general carebearing - that's what I do." I wave at a screen where various capsuleer blogs are scrolling through: "Exploding ship! Ransoms! Tight fights! That's what people want to read - not how the fr**ing damsel got rescued yet again!"

"How do you know?", insists Eta. "Just because not many people write about what we do, doesn't mean that there is no interest. Besides, who here recently lost an Interceptor in Providence?"

"Allright, allright, I can give it a try. If only to shut you up." Eta just stuck out her tongue. "And I wager you already have a name in mind?"

"Yup. 'Hazardous Goods.' Just think of how often you woke up in a new clone after heading out in a hauler."

"I prefer not to," I reply, suppressing a wince. Getting into a new clone always gives me a headache. "Very well. But if this doesn't work, there'll be a bounty on your head!"

"Promises, promises... Listen, sis, I have pay attention to my flying now - the gauntlet is upon me. Talk to you later - Eta out." With that, her holographic image flickered and disappeared from the viewer.

Leaving me with the task of entertaining you, my dear readers, with tales of the life and many deaths of a carebear in EVE. Enjoy!