I was overseeing the refitting of practically my entire fleet -- and cursing myself inwardly for not remembering to pick up new rigs -- when trouble walked into my hangar. I knew she was trouble because she was a Naraka pilot I'd spoken with a few times.
'Hey, Heyna.'
'You need to come out with us, Shae.'
'Why's that?'
'We just popped a Drake out there. C'mon, it'll be fun! My first time FCing.'
I scrubbed my hands over my face. 'What kind of ships?'
She shrugged. 'Something that'll tank sentries.'
Tanky. My Hyperion was still back in Evati; that left the Brutix or the Myrmidon. And the Myrm was...
'I'll have to go to the other station for a ship.'
'No big rush, we're all waiting out the clock.' Heyna headed back out, leaving me looking at three half-fitted ships, four fully-fitted ships that lacked rigs, and a bunch of bewildered hangar techs.
'Yeah, drop it, guys. We'll finish up in the morning.'
As soon as I got to the Tekeli-Li, I realised there was a problem: she was still wearing an older fit from a year ago which wasn't quite up to withstanding sentry-fire. I'd have to engage carefully.
I joined the gang on the gate to Onne, and as we were waiting for everyone else's timers to finish, a Nighthawk warped in and started shooting Morwen. I considered getting involved, but a fragile battlecruiser tank vs sentries plus a command ship didn't seem like good odds; I was left sitting on the gate watching and fretting over what I could do.
Morwen escaped, then the Nighthawk turned on Myrhial and pursued her fully a hundred klicks off the gate til she finally got out of his scram range and warped off with her Drake's hull smoking and riddled with holes. The command ship warped off to the planet and Myrh went to the station for extensive repairs.
We sat there for a bit while the scouts checked Onne and the next system, and Heyna made the call to wait in safes in Vitrauze til Myrhial was repped up and ready to go. I was just about in warp when the Nighthawk came back to the gate, slapped a scrambler on my warp drive, and started shooting.
I sighed and rolled my eyes, considered the situation, then politely asked the gate crews if they'd let me jump.
Of course they would.
I considered my options in Onne. The Nighthawk would have to wait for a minute before being permitted to jump, the rest of the fleet was on their way to the gate. Best part was that the moron had aggressed me, and I could fire on him with impunity for the next fifteen minutes. With that in mind, I engaged warp to a safe-spot in system to wait for the call to engage.
Remember, kiddies: Label your safe-spots accordingly. I cursed as the bookmark I chose turned out to NOT be the one near the gate, but the one furthest away. Note to self...
Despite a couple of the Naraka pilots jumping into Onne to wait, the Nighthawk pilot entered the system and got snared by the tacklers. The rest of the fleet pounced, and I finally coaxed my Myrm back into warp, landing 10 km away as the Nighthawk's shields passed peak recharge. For some reason, the silly fool decided to launch his drones at me, for reasons I can't begin to fathom. A set of five Warrior IIs are not going to make much of a dent in a battlecruiser, but better me than one of our smaller ships. With his shields broken and unable to recharge due to the heavy cap neutralisers Inara was wielding, the Nighthawk's structure failed in short order.
Looking the fight report over, Jude chuckled. 'Hey... I think that was the same pilot as the Drake we blew up earlier!'
Then someone noticed the specially modified items in the command ship's fit, and comms flooded with an excited babble of voices. The sale of the items would be profitable, indeed. We stashed the loot and continued on the roam in high spirits.
A few jumps along, the scouts reported Old Man Star filled with capitals and a massive heavy fleet on scan. We decided to power through and hopefully go unnoticed. Unfortunately, as we hit the exit gate, the whole of Advocated Destruction's fleet warped in on top of us.
What followed was a merry chase through several systems with a cloud of battleships, battlecruisers, strat cruisers and logistics ships just seconds behind. A Harbinger nearly had me in Murethand, and in the next system they managed to catch Amaterasu's Hurricane. Ama got her pod out, and we managed to lose the pursuers at the next gate as they went the other way towards Placid.
We did some idle hunting on the loop back, but the pipe was empty save for a Scorpion in a safe-spot in Onne, and a non-outlaw Vagabond that decided he didn't want to engage us as we sat on the gate waiting for the scouts' report.
It was a fun roam, if a little chaotic; you don't think about it at the time, particularly not when being pursued, but after the fact, we all laughed and agreed we should do that again sometime. Heyna did a good job for her first time as FC, and the sale of the Nighthawk loot fully covered Ama's loss with a bit left over to split amongst the rest of the gang.
And for myself... I docked up in Vitrauze and saw about upgrading the Tekeli-Li's armour. Next time, I'll be better-prepared.
Thursday, 12 November 2009
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
An Aside
IntenseDebate is eating my comments again. I'd love to respond to comments; I've been trying, but the system is b0rked >_<
Friday, 16 October 2009
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Dust
What sort of person do you have to be, to turn your back on everything you ever knew?
The tip of her knife drags through the thin layer of dirt, blade grating harshly against the stone beneath.
When your life is ruled by the almighty ISK, what do you cling to?
The lines she draws form a map. She doesn't notice; the map is etched more permanently in her mind than it is in the dust: we are here, they are there, and soon, we shall be there, too. And they won't be.
She could be Intaki, Civire, Ni-Kunni, Sebiestor... with her hair shaved back to stubble, dressed in a sleeveless shirt and fatigues, distinguishing marks erased when she gave up her name for a number, it no longer matters.
The toe of her boot, scuffed and weathered, broken straps replaced slapdash with a strip of elastic splint wrapped around her ankle, rubs the map from the ground.
Her detail only arrived here this morning, but already she's been here forever.
When she first started, every place was new to her; she had never before left her homeworld.
Staring too much lost her an arm. But that was alright, because she died later that day, victim of an enemy groundsweeper run.
After too many iterations, the field shrinks. It becomes little more than a game on paper: your location, your target, your obstacles, your support. Circles and crosses; everything else becomes circumstantial.
She stares with grey eyes across a field littered with the detritus of human civilisation, canyon walls of chrome and crystal rising away to form a deadly labyrinth, mined and riddled with traps. She sees through these, only focussed on the target three miles away.
It will be gone tomorrow, or she will be.
The pay is good; it would have to be, for all the risk they take. She used to save it, hoarding against the day when she could buy that little apartment in the city; now, she spends it on better armour, better weapons. New iterative clones of herself, her memories preserved and injected into each new body as the old one is killed.
She remembers every death.
It no longer traumatises her as it did in the beginning. Too many iterations have inured her to that flash of light, that moment of red agony as parts of herself move in directions they were never meant to, mingling on the ground with parts of her comrades before her last memory ends.
Her comrades used to be people, once. And still there are nights when she and another will take comfort in each other, reassuring themselves that they still live. But like thousands of others, she and they have become faceless ghosts, pieces of meat directed to live and die by iron-clad gods who stride the night skies, whose only concerns are their personal loss and gain, heedless of the souls who scrabble for their will in the dust.
The tip of her knife drags through the thin layer of dirt, blade grating harshly against the stone beneath.
When your life is ruled by the almighty ISK, what do you cling to?
The lines she draws form a map. She doesn't notice; the map is etched more permanently in her mind than it is in the dust: we are here, they are there, and soon, we shall be there, too. And they won't be.
She could be Intaki, Civire, Ni-Kunni, Sebiestor... with her hair shaved back to stubble, dressed in a sleeveless shirt and fatigues, distinguishing marks erased when she gave up her name for a number, it no longer matters.
The toe of her boot, scuffed and weathered, broken straps replaced slapdash with a strip of elastic splint wrapped around her ankle, rubs the map from the ground.
Her detail only arrived here this morning, but already she's been here forever.
When she first started, every place was new to her; she had never before left her homeworld.
Staring too much lost her an arm. But that was alright, because she died later that day, victim of an enemy groundsweeper run.
After too many iterations, the field shrinks. It becomes little more than a game on paper: your location, your target, your obstacles, your support. Circles and crosses; everything else becomes circumstantial.
She stares with grey eyes across a field littered with the detritus of human civilisation, canyon walls of chrome and crystal rising away to form a deadly labyrinth, mined and riddled with traps. She sees through these, only focussed on the target three miles away.
It will be gone tomorrow, or she will be.
The pay is good; it would have to be, for all the risk they take. She used to save it, hoarding against the day when she could buy that little apartment in the city; now, she spends it on better armour, better weapons. New iterative clones of herself, her memories preserved and injected into each new body as the old one is killed.
She remembers every death.
It no longer traumatises her as it did in the beginning. Too many iterations have inured her to that flash of light, that moment of red agony as parts of herself move in directions they were never meant to, mingling on the ground with parts of her comrades before her last memory ends.
Her comrades used to be people, once. And still there are nights when she and another will take comfort in each other, reassuring themselves that they still live. But like thousands of others, she and they have become faceless ghosts, pieces of meat directed to live and die by iron-clad gods who stride the night skies, whose only concerns are their personal loss and gain, heedless of the souls who scrabble for their will in the dust.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
A Series of Moves
The Eve blogoshpere has been too quiet, and I've been too busy with other things to blog, much less properly play Eve. Where did I leave off? Oh yeah.
So... I decided in the end that, since there were only three days left til my alt could fly my recon ships, I might as well move the small amount of gear I had in the wormhole into the lowsec system we were currently linked to, grab a shuttle to fly back to Evati, and have my alt fly the rest back at the earliest convenience. Moving out didn't take very long. I think if we'd had more people in the w-space and active, it might not have been so painfully dull, and we may have scored something. As it was, with only a handful of alliance members on sporadically, there wasn't much to do.
I'd left the bomber and the Arazu in the incredibly quiet(!) lowsec system our wormhole dropped me in, bought a shuttle and was partway home when I passed through the Hellcats' old main base of Vitrauze. It felt good to see the place again, and being inundated with cheerful welcome comments in Local from our old blues was even better. If only I'd not been in such a rush and decided to fly the bomber back, I could have got in on the fun they were having -- I was sad I had to turn the fleet invite down.
But it got me thinking. It'd been a while since we'd used the secondary base out in Amamake. In every corp I've been in, I was always happier if I had a secondary base to go to when I wanted a change of scenery. Why not move my stuff from Amamake back to Vit?
To the alt!
It took a couple days to get everything moved over, and I've spent the last couple weeks out there, saying hi to old mates an especially the Tuskers (<3 ya, guys!), Ghost Festival and Veto. The Hellcats have reopened our old office, and our other members have invitations to stick a couple ships in, as well. Once I'm back from holiday, the corp will reopen recruitment(!), using our secondary base as a place to run Hellcats-only ops from, so that we can get a sense for how well the recruits work within the corp.
Unfortunately, I've not been able to do much, since I've been working on the last chapter of Space Captain Starke (it is epic, and will be done tonight!), and spending the rest of my time trying desperately to find a job before I face deportation (my student visa expires in a month. It's not fun).
Tomorrow, when my boyfriend gets off work, we'll be catching a train across to Glasgow to spend the night, then an early-morning flight to London, and then up to Reykjavik for a week of fun and geekyness. I've been looking forward to this trip all month! Hope to see some of you up there ^_^
So... I decided in the end that, since there were only three days left til my alt could fly my recon ships, I might as well move the small amount of gear I had in the wormhole into the lowsec system we were currently linked to, grab a shuttle to fly back to Evati, and have my alt fly the rest back at the earliest convenience. Moving out didn't take very long. I think if we'd had more people in the w-space and active, it might not have been so painfully dull, and we may have scored something. As it was, with only a handful of alliance members on sporadically, there wasn't much to do.
I'd left the bomber and the Arazu in the incredibly quiet(!) lowsec system our wormhole dropped me in, bought a shuttle and was partway home when I passed through the Hellcats' old main base of Vitrauze. It felt good to see the place again, and being inundated with cheerful welcome comments in Local from our old blues was even better. If only I'd not been in such a rush and decided to fly the bomber back, I could have got in on the fun they were having -- I was sad I had to turn the fleet invite down.
But it got me thinking. It'd been a while since we'd used the secondary base out in Amamake. In every corp I've been in, I was always happier if I had a secondary base to go to when I wanted a change of scenery. Why not move my stuff from Amamake back to Vit?
To the alt!
It took a couple days to get everything moved over, and I've spent the last couple weeks out there, saying hi to old mates an especially the Tuskers (<3 ya, guys!), Ghost Festival and Veto. The Hellcats have reopened our old office, and our other members have invitations to stick a couple ships in, as well. Once I'm back from holiday, the corp will reopen recruitment(!), using our secondary base as a place to run Hellcats-only ops from, so that we can get a sense for how well the recruits work within the corp.
Unfortunately, I've not been able to do much, since I've been working on the last chapter of Space Captain Starke (it is epic, and will be done tonight!), and spending the rest of my time trying desperately to find a job before I face deportation (my student visa expires in a month. It's not fun).
Tomorrow, when my boyfriend gets off work, we'll be catching a train across to Glasgow to spend the night, then an early-morning flight to London, and then up to Reykjavik for a week of fun and geekyness. I've been looking forward to this trip all month! Hope to see some of you up there ^_^
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