Slippery Iteron

Several days spent navigating the tenuous links of wormhole space, poking my head in and out of kspace like some kind of interstellar gopher (mental note: good ship name right there), I online my pod and quickly cloak my Loki in the hopes of going undetected, that is, if there is anyone around to detect me.

The C2 I chose to sleep in having a bevy of good sites and corporation that formed just over a week earlier. With any luck they'll be more active, yet less prepared than a more established wormhole entity. A directional scan reveals a new tower has gone up in the few hours I've been sleeping, damn, opportunity lost. A narrow scan reveals no defenses, an Iteron IV hauler and a cargo can at the new tower.

Warping in to the new tower at range shows it belongs to a different corporation, the Iteron slowly entering the shields near the canister. Saving the location of the can I warp back to the original tower seeing only one occupant I'd observed earlier in his cloaky Loki. My watch list not showing any other members I'd gleaned from killboards. I set myself up in position on the far side of the can so I can align to a safe spot, I sit in wait. It doesn't take long before the hauler moves back towards the edge of the protective shield.

With no online tower defenses to worry about I align to my safe spot, decloak, and locking delay permitting, open fire. He swings around almost immediately, heading back to safety. His shield's drop slower than I would have expected, I'm assuming he is shield tanked to leave low slots free to expand cargo space. One shot to his armor taking half of it, I suddenly lose my lock.

He crawls to shield safety and I initiate warp, humbled by a defenseless space trucker. The other resident warps into the tower in his Loki, the trucker switching to a Cynabal. Grumbling to myself I realise I didn't even overheat my guns, more rust. I forgot the same thing when attacking the Vexor, although fortunately in that case, it wasn't necessary. I could have aligned into him and tried to ram him off course with my microwarp drive, but instead chose the safer option of aligning out. I wonder what was in that can, I should have locked it and shot it as a parting screw you.

The element of surprise well and truly gone, I decide to go check out the neighbouring wormhole I jumped into briefly earlier.

Lowsec, I still like you.

The rust is showing, and not just on my freshly assembled Loki. Fumbling with my scan probes it takes me a while to realise there has been a change to the filter system, causing the signatures to disappear once their type has been resolved, after enabling the filters things go much more smoothly, although I am still quite slow and clumsy resolving each signature.

I've saved the location of two different wormholes and I'm working on a third signature in the system when I notice there is another pilot registered in the local channel. How long has she been there? Is that the same gal from the last lowsec system I was scanning? What was she flying again? Even though I am safely cloaked off grid, I need to remember to pay more attention to these sorts of things.

Directional scanner reports a Vexor and ten scan probes within range, five of them are mine, of the Sister's faction variety, the others however are the generic tech 1 version. Those probes and the cruiser weren't on scan when I arrived, so its a good bet that they belong to the new arrival. Narrowing the range on directional I try to track down the Vexor's location, losing it several times as it warps around. It is good practice however, and judging by how long it takes me to find them each time, shows it is sorely needed.

Finally I have a good bead on her and she appears to be sitting still, whats more interesting is that all the probes are also showing on the narrow angle scan, meaning she is likely at the signature I was just working on. I quickly finish probing it down, revealing a Magnometric site. I initiate a warp to a reasonable distance off the signature, hoping not to be decloaked, and drag my probes outside the range of directional scanner, although by this stage the pilot has had ample time to spot them.

Landing a mere 15km from the Vexor surprises me, was I planning on engaging them? I guess I was, although I hadn't given it a great deal of thought beyond "Lets see if I can locate this mofo for practice".
She is moving away from me at a fair clip, my cloaked ship unable to keep pace with her as she quickly out ranges me.

A quick check of the pilots history shows she is only a few months old, losing a different Vexor at the start of the month, the fit aimed at lowsec exploration. I completely outgun this poor las, even if my tech 3 cruiser is configured primarily as a scan boat. The site's residents are moving to intercept her cruiser and a flight of tech 1 drones are plopped out in response, its only after they start zooming towards the locals that I realise I'm directly inbetween the two sides and stand a fair chance of being decloaked by the mechanical minions, a quick course correction and they end up skirting just under 10km from me.

Watching as the mag site's defense fleet is slowly whittled down, I wonder how I'm going to actually catch this cruiser, my Loki having a substantial locking delay after decloaking and the Vexor cruising around the outskirts of the site far outside my range, as the drones do their dirty work. I try to align myself to where the Vexor is going to be, judging by its speed and orbit but can't quite seem to get it right, before realising that I don't have to chase her, I know exactly where she is going to head.

The prize loot being held within the canister's at the center of the site, she is going to head towards them sooner or later. I work at keeping myself in between them and my intended victim and it isn't long after the locals are dispatched and the drones recalled, that the Vexor's heading changes directly toward me.

Aligning directly towards the cruiser, I wait until she is within 30km before decloaking, activating my micro warp drive and barreling straight towards her. Repeatedly ordering my targeting computer to lock as our ships collide head on. The lock is finally established, disruptor and guns activated as I order a close orbit, her goose is shortly cooked.

I make an attempt to lock down the pod but it zips away post haste, and once again proving that New Eden has the universe's nicest victims, she congratulates me on the kill in local. A private conversation is struck up and I'm more than happy to explain how I snagged her and offer some advice on avoiding the same fate again in the future.

Warping to one of the wormholes I scanned earlier, I can only hope I'll be so friendly and well mannered when I meet my explosive end.

The year that wasn't.

I look sad because I've 
accomplished nothing.

12 months give or take, it feels like longer. I haven't been completely absent, I've jumped in my pod every now and then, I've got a new face, some fancy legs with which to strut on my lonesome.

As much as I loved wormhole living, the upkeep of the tower given my sporadic pod time became too much, yes yes, you can fuel a tower once a month and just not think of it. But our small band was skating the financial line between minmatar booster whore and a twice divorced noble metal extraction laborer with child support payments. That is to say, we were barely scrapping by.

It's not that C2 wormhole living isn't profitable, it certainly can be. It is just that our merry band was too small and infrequent to take full advantage of everything our home offered us. As our already small numbers began to dwindle, with people retiring their pods or just straight up sitting in the POS shield ship spinning, the burden and costs fell on the few remaining and we decided to pack it in. The logistics and time involved in moving even a small group of people's assets out of the hole crushed the remaining dedication some of us had left.

Looking for something to do that didn't require huge amounts of pod time. Being ex-Ushra'Khan and at the insistence of a friend (who quit almost immediately awww), I joined faction warfare on the minmatar side. But what I learnt from that was that despite the profit of FW missions, I don't like to shoot at people who expect it. A fair fight, or worse still, one where I take a complete nut stomping, just means I've failed to properly assess the situation. In faction warfare people sign up for the 'good fights', or to roll over each other in the bigger/badder fleet, and more power to them if they enjoy it, but it is just another thing that's not right for me.

I'm all about the ganking of some poor chump who doesn't know whats coming, stacking the deck in my favor and then slamming them in the face with an antimatter royal flush. Does that make me a poor sportsman? Probably, but a poor sportsman with a hold full of what remains of said chump's ship, and the satisfying afterglow of knowing I've just committed the New Eden equivalent of space rape.

So what now? The holiday season is in full swing, the powers that be seem to have done a complete 180 in their priorities, fixes abound in Crucible, and I seem to find myself with some time to butcher the English language and with any luck a few unsuspecting capsuleers.