Sunday 18 January 2009

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

"Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes."

-- (Terry Pratchett, The Truth)

...Is to track down and kill a Raven infesting the Ingunn area.

Well now, who am I to refuse such a mission. A key participant in tonight's hunt was already in place, sitting silent and invisible in a spot carefully chosen to give best coverage for her scan probes.
I had a few things to take care of in station before boarding my Pilgrim and heading out into the black.

Keira had just Clone Jumped back to HQ so she could take care of the paperwork whilst the hangar crew got her Broadsword ready, I would need her help if things went south and I really hoped they did.

Our sneaky friend had reported multiple hits, three Ravens were doing the rounds and I asked her to set up the first warp in, within moments of my request I was told she was ready and I entered warp.

WARP DRIVE ACTIVE

Bursting out of warp under cloak I spotted our mark, a mere 5 clicks away... Perfect.
He was chewing through the mercenary force and would shortly be done, but not before his life got that bit more interesting, a little Kane to spice up his night.

I uncloaked at point blank range, he was aligned to warp out but not up to speed so the slightest nudge would give my targeting systems enough time to recalibrate from cloaking to lock on to him. The seconds ground away, it felt like an age as my systems locked onto his ship. I was relieved to see my lock confirmed and my warp scrambler started its gentle glow. The Raven wasn't going anywhere in a hurry. I took my time now, savouring each second, Two energy neutralisers bridged the gap between us, only moments before he would be without any energy to power his shield booster. He had at this point targeted me and set about introducing volley after volley of cruise missiles to my recon, a flight of medium drones spewed forth from his drone bay and opened up on me.

Don't panic, no need to, things are under control. I pulse my cap booster as it charges my capacitor, the two medium energy neuts are no longer needed, instead a small energy neutraliser kicks in to keep him capped out. I start taking armour damage and pause a moment before my armour repairer goes active, a few seconds pass before it finishes its first cycle and my armour starts to creep back. My capacitor spikes as another round of boosters goes in.

The Raven is no longer boosting its shields, his shield hardeners have turned off without any power to run them, the time to strike has come.

Five Hammerhead IIs are released from my drone bay, like rabid dogs they set upon the Raven and tear his shields away, chewing at his armour and dining on his structure. The explosion is violent, debris raining down on Kumano-San-Zan, a beautiful sound. The flash disipates and I'm kind of disappointed that my scans hadn't picked up reinforcements in the shape of the other Ravens.

While all this was going on my friend in her Cheetah was busy probing out other mission sites and setting up the necesary warpins, unfortunately they all had acceleration gates and the other Ravens had taken to employing scouts. Keira had warped in on one but was just that bit too far away to get the tackle before he warped out and we missed a few others due to said scouts.

A Caracal did warp in to the first site and was duely dispatched.

A bit disappointed I cloaked up and went about having my dinner and a much needed cigarette. I accomplished my mission obejective but would liked to have had more.

I'm back, more or less, depending on how I feel and hopefully I'll start writing a bit more and with a bit more creativity, unfortunately there's only so many ways you can describe a kill/loss and sometimes I just don't know how to make them sound interesting. I may just go back to doing this for my own amusement, to help me analyse my hunts, my success and my failures as I originally intended for this blog, I just hope y'all will find that interesting

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I enjoyed that, nice write up. Goes to show how a CovOps Recon can be effective against a BS under the right circumstances.

I always like reading up on stuff I don't do myself, keep it up :)

John Holt said...

Keep on writing--I enjoy all of your posts.

Carole Pivarnik said...

Your posts are always interesting and insightful, particularly from the perspective of solo pirate tactics. "How would Kane Rizzel handle this?" has crossed my mind more than once at the outset of a solo (or nearly so) engagement.

Anonymous said...

Your posts are always full of humour and intelligence; besides it is your blog and you can post what you want. Analysing your actions and breaking it all down would be a very interesting read. Your readers will devour such insight!

Flash

Sard Caid said...

Glad to see you're back in action!

Xephys said...

Good to see you back and I enjoyed this writing style, if only to learn better on how you use your pilgrim effectively.

Nice job, keep 'em coming. :)