“Who the hell are you, and want do you want?” asked the overalls wearing lump, slouched on my ready room couch.
“Who am I?” I shot back, glaring as I stepped inside the room.
“This is my hanger, those are my ships, and you're one of my employees.” Stabbing my finger at each point for emphasis.
“You're Mdih Lihu?” he asked perking up in his seat.
“You've been gone a while, you owe me over 3 months pay”.
“Uh.. wait a minute, this isn't deck 17.” Shaking my head, I quickly backed out of the room.
A short crawl through the station's ventilation system later, I was back in my trusty Incursus and coasting away from the station. Having only had a few short chances to undock over the past several months, I was itching for a good explosion. My last had been over a month ago, when I'd caught a defenceless Mammoth industrial mining in a belt, making short work of him with my new tech2 ion blasters.
I roamed for several hours, evading large gangs of ships, solo battle cruisers, assault frigates and interceptors. The few frigates I did see, were generally rifters being piloted by some extremely experienced outlaws. I felt like the bottom of the food chain, everywhere around me were better equipped and more deadly predators. Several times I was tempted to throw myself at one with blasters blazing and try my luck, but each time the desire for self preservation told me if I was patient and careful, eventually, I would come across another pod pilot even lower on the food chain than myself.
As I made my way through low sec, I marked safe spots off grid on gates, and created instant undocks for stations I was likely to dock in the future. As I marked several vantage points between belts in Aeschee, my directional scanner detected a Vexor fielding a flight of four tech1 hammerheads. The pilot, one 'Ben Gibson' had failed to rename his ship. Quickly accessing his pilot license in the local channel, I discovered he was a mere 9 days old. It was time for some low sec hospitality.
Anxiously scanning the nearby belts felt horribly slow, every second that passed spent picturing my prey recalling his drones as he warped to safety. Finally narrowing him down I initiated warp, my heart pounding as I closed in on his position. The belt raced into view and the Vexor sat a mere 12km away, his four hammerheads swirling around a nearby Serpentis cruiser. As my Incursus aligned toward the cruiser, for the first time I used one of my newest skills, ordering my afterburner and warp scrambler to overload for added performance. Before the young pilot had a chance to react, he was locked and his warp drive rendered useless.
Orbiting Mr.Gibson's trapped Vexor, I stopped overloading the modules so I didn't risk burning them out. Deciding to go straight for the kill instead of picking off his drones I rained blaster fire into the Vexor's shields, overloading my guns, watching as his drones swooped toward me, I launched my single hobgoblin in return. I noticed that he didn't return my tackle and his drones were having a hard time even tracking my nimble little frigate. Without so much as a scratch I stripped his shields in seconds, the cruiser not once returning fire. The overloaded blasters bit into his armour as his drones began landing a few hits. The Vexor's armour repairer clawing to repair his armour he dipped into structure as I casually toggled my small armour repairer to keep at full armor.
Ben Gibson's Vexor exploded, his drones going dead in space. Reacting automatically I locked down the pod and slagged it without concious thought. Setting a course for the wreck, my overview flashed suddenly, cursing I realised I'd stopped scanning for incoming ships.
(combat) 250mm Light Artillery Cannon II belonging to Man Barthelme hits you, doing 513.9 damage.
(notify) Man Barthelme [TSKRS](Thrasher) has started trying to warp scramble you!
The Thrasher's first volley obliterated my armour instantly, sending me into structure. Seconds later the second demolished my fragile Incursus as I struggled to overload the small armour repairer. Not wasting any time, I repeatedly issued the order for my pod to warp as the ship came apart around me.
Mdih Lihu > gf
Man Barthelme > gf
Mdih Lihu > I shouldnt have got greedy and gone to check his wreck ;)
Man Barthelme > heehee
Man Barthelme > yeh i've seen you around but never in a belt..i was surprised to catch u
Mdih Lihu > I was surprised to be caught haha, wasnt checking my directional scanner enough I got excited to blow up my first cruiser
Man Barthelme > haha..nice kill..and thx for the lootz :)
Mdih Lihu > haha np *grumbles something about damn tuskers*
Later on the tuskers killboard I also found the following.
"Bart:
Dude just killed a cruiser in his Incursus and I popped in and shot him :( Should've been congratulating him instead. OH WELL!"
A good reminder of just how quickly your luck can change in this crazy universe. A few jumps later my pod docked in my home station, stepping out onto the hanger floor, I looked around at the huge empty space. That is not good, that is not good at all.
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