OH SNAP!

"When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators, Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life."

-- Management slogan, Ridcully-style (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent)

I've not been out in the black much recently but when I have it's been in either a Succubus or Dramiel. Both fun little ships.

This evening I was in the Dramiel bumming around Eifer and I was starting to feel very alone, nobody seemed to stay in system long enough to warrant any excitement. A Raptor and Hawk passed on by with not so much as a "hello"

What's a man to do? Well, this man is patient, it's not always white knuckle rides but as with everything in life, patience pays off.

Local climbs and falls as the traffic through Eifer continues and every now and again I check the scanner to see if anything tasty has dropped into one of the belts. While I wait, I rickroll the Independence channel with a great rendition of "never gonna give you up"
Mid song I was interupted by my scanner, which showed a rather tasty target had presented itself, in the shape of a Stabber Fleet Issue. Quickly narrowed down to a cluster and then a belt I warp in, systems primed and ready. I initiate lock as soon as I get in range but the Fleet Stabber simply warps away.

AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH

I curse my luck and head back to my safespot as the pilot leaves the local comms net. I get back to my song.

Minutes later the very same pilot appears in local, I decide it's time to get serious and head back to Gusandall to grab something a bit more appropriate. Once in the new ship I headed back to Eifer and warped straight to my safespot to start scanning. Cluster confirmed, warp to first belt. There he is but he's already in warp... To the next belt.

WARP DRIVE ACTIVE

The warp bubble envelopes my ship as I follow. I burst out of warp on top of him and initiate lock, it resolves and I introduce The Stabber Fleet Issue to my own Stabber Fleet Issue.

OH SNAP!

We are now fully engaged in a deadly dance, he's webbed and scrammed, the favour is returned as our guns start to play merry havoc with each others shields. His shields break and round after round of Barrage ammunition bridges the gap. His armour is melting as my shields give in but I have faith in my setup that this fight will end only in Victory.

His armour is ripped away, exposing his juicy hull to the discretion of my autocannons as he explodes in violent fashion. Flubber™ once again proves why she is one of my favourite ships.
The pod is locked and scrambled, ransom is offered and declined and a fresh corpse joins "The Morgue"

A rather fun fight and made my night.

Grand Theft Raven

I had dropped off the loot from the Fleet Stabber kill and once again took the Dramiel to Eifer.
A few covops were present in system, probing out cosmic anomolies or wormholes, I didn't care which, but what caught my eye was a Raven on scan.

I go through my routine and quickly narrow him down to a belt, time is of the essence and the ability to quickly scan a target is paramount to success. I warp in to see the Raven engaging Angel cruisers, I just can't stand by and let this happen. Me and the Angel Cartel don't really get along but us Pirates have to stick together so I engage the Raven. He sends a heavy webber drone and two Ogre I drones my way and I quickly dispatch them all the while keeping the Raven locked down. I mention in an intel channel I have this Raven locked down and an old friend expresses his desire to teach the Raven not to violence the Angels.

Laneth jumps into Eifer with his Absolution command ship and initates warp to the belt where the Raven was now having a really bad day. The massive Amarr ship bursts into the belt and closes quickly the Raven now in some rather serious trouble as Laneth's lasers tear massive holes in his shields and then armour. Raven hits hull and is about to go down when the pilot ejects his escape pod.

Not on my watch, the pod is quickly locked, scrammed and popped for his insolence, how dare he come in here, attack the innocent Angels and then expect to get away with nought but a Raven loss.

We both stopped firing at the Raven and Laneth said he'd be right back to pick up our prize. I kept the empty battleship tackled so it wouldn't wonder off on its own until Laneth returned to secret away our shiny.

A rather nice nights work if I do say so myself. I head back to Gusandall for a much needed smoke and cup of tea.

Stay Classy Heimatar