Thursday 25 February 2010

Sky is Over



OOOOOOOOUUUCCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH!!!

The searing pain behind my eyes tells me I'm not dead... Yet. Might as well be, this last fight was rather harsh. Vague memories at this stage but soon enough my entire consciousness will be downloaded into this new clone. There's a reason training new skills takes so long, the mind can't handle all that information in one go. Of course they didn't think about this during cloning, the sheer volume of information being downloaded right now is enough to make my head explode violently.

I slowly open my eyes, I'm in a cloning vat, that much is clear from the liquid around me and the breathing tube in my mouth. Through the liquid and with new eyes I make out a single figure sitting at a desk. With a new hand, attached to a new arm I knock on the glass tank which contains my new body. The figure at the desk jumps out of the chair as if shocked and moves towards my cloning vat.

With a sound that can only be described as a vacuum cleaner unclogging a drain, the clone vat opens and I fall to the floor of the Gusandall cloning facility.

"Welcome to the Republic Justice Department cloning facilities Mr..." says a female voice.
She looks at her datapad
"Mr Rizzel"

MOTHERFUCKER THAT HURTS!

"Uhm, no need to curse"

Look, miss?

"Betincourt"

Look Miss Betincourt

"Alise Betincourt"

Look, my mind is capable of a great many things... Being civil and rational after being violently sent to the cloning vats isn't on the list. Where's Krieger?

"Dr Krieger has been called away to an emergency, I'm his assistant, how can I assist?"

Vodka! Krieger normally gives me vodka to take the edge off, there should be some in his desk.

"I'm not sure alcohol is the best thing right now"

EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH VODKA!

"OK, calm down"

I AM CALM, I'M THE CALMEST PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE, WHEN PEOPLE AREN'T SHOOTING AT ME OR DROPPING BLOODY BIG FLEETS ON MY ASS.

"You sound like the universe is out to get you" she says handing me the bottle of vodka

You have no idea

"A little paranoid?"

It's not paranoia if it's true

Wow, her eyes are really blue. The vodka has helped take the edge off, good old Krieger and his bottle of vodka. I can focus a bit better and notice that Alise is rather good looking with the bluest eyes I have ever seen, I file this information away for later use, right now I need to get back to business.

You have a comms unit?

"Yeah, it's on my desk"

I walk over to her desk, bottle of vodka in hand, taking more of the edge off as I punch in the number for my hangar.

Jarek? You there?

"Yes boss"

Good, get the new Dram set up and go over to my office, there's a box of implants on my desk labelled 'Snakes in my Brain', bring it to the cloning facilities ASAP.

"No can do boss"

What?!

"Sorry boss, but the station is on lockdown, there's been an explosion"

Really?

"Yes boss, near the M34N Corp hangar"

Fuck, anybody hurt?

"Don't know, station got locked down rather sharpish, haven't been able to get any information"

Shit, I hope it's not that stuff we ordered for the party, ordering something to drink 'that' volatile might not have been the best idea.

Jarek, as soon as the lockdown lifts, get those implants to me, I feel naked without implants.

I terminate the conversation and take another swig of vodka.

"Speaking of which" said Alise

I look down and I was indeed standing at her desk in all my naked glory.

Don't suppose you have any clothes handy?

She just pointed to a locker next to my cloning vat. I casually made my way over and grabbed a jumpsuit, got dressed and walked back to her desk. I take the comms unit and punch in the M34N corp hangar number, Nomi answers.

Nomi, what the fuck is going on?

"Delivery guy dropped a box of that stuff we ordered for Kurtz' welcome home party"

Anybody get hurt?

"Delivery guy got a little burnt"

He alright?

"Well... They found one of his shoes"

Alise barely contained a giggle, which made me laugh more. I like this girl, good sense of humour.

"What about you? Heard you got exploded"

Yeah, took on a Drake in 1-1, bait of course, had a whole fleet dropped on my head, fuckers got the Dramiel and my bounty.

"Sorry dude, shit happens. Listen, when this lockdown drops, come on by the hangar, one of the boxes survived, we'll have a drink"

Sounds like a plan.

I terminate the convo and look at the now empty bottle of vodka, the edge well and truly gone. Alise is writing something on her datapad.

"Bounty? You some kind of Pirate?

I'm not just 'some kind of Pirate', I'm Kane Rizzel.

"Well, pleased to meet you Kane Rizzel, Would you like to authorise a new clone?"

Probably a good idea, could we make this one hurt less?

"Don't know about that, cloning is a rather delicate science and being in uncivilised parts, makes getting the right materials a touch difficult, I'm amazed Dr Krieger is able to operate this facility at all"

He is a bit of a genius.

"True, but his skills could be put to much better use in the trade hubs or at least in more secure areas of the universe"

Hah, Gusandall is safe.

"Says the man who just got podded"

Well, that wasn't entirely my fault, it was a trap, unfortunately I have the innate ability to find traps and then explode.

"Happen often?"

The exploding yes, not so much with the cloning, it's been a long time since I got violently cloned. Forgot how much it hurts. What's the damage on that new clone?

She hands me the datapad.

Thirteen Fucking Million! Are you mental?

"No, not mental and yes, the figure is correct, it is a rather advanced clone"

Advanced? well it better fucking be for that price. Don't suppose you have any cigarettes?

"This is a medical facility, no smoking"

Anything else to drink?

"There's some coffee, that's about it"

Coffee is good, I like coffee.

Alise gets up to make some coffee, blue eyes, very blue eyes. She hands me a mug of black coffee, I take a sip.

Coffee goooooood.

Station comms come to life and a rather flustered voice announces the lockdown is over. The seals on all doors are released. Right, time to get back to work.

Alise.. It's been a pleasure to meet you but I really must get going.

"What about your implants?"

How about dinner? Least I can do to thank you for your help.

"Uhm... Sure, but your implants?"

I'll get Jarek to plug them in, he's a rocket scientist you know.

"And your clone?"

Oh right, almost forgot, thirteen million, sure. Tell Krieger I owe him a bottle of vodka too.

I race out of the cloning facility, a grin on my face. It's good to be the King.

Wednesday 24 February 2010

[OOC] The Lost Art

"If we find a cat I'm going to kick it!"
-- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)

I offered a 1v1 to a Dramiel pilot, my Jaguar against his Dramiel, which he declined stating "I don't trust you"
Something about having friends in system and a command ship pilot in the next system.

Well, I was rather insulted.

1v1 to me is sacred, I have never and will never dishonour them. This is something taken very seriously by Mean Coalition too.
I take great pains to put my opponents at ease, letting them form gang, choosing the safe spot etc.

The fact that dishonoured 1v1s have become such common place that even those that follow the unwritten rules of 1v1 are left being ridiculed as untrustworthy, is in my opinion a sad state of the universe and the game in general.

When I say unwritten rules of 1v1, it means those often agreed to before the fight, such as: To the ship, to the pod, no ECM etc.

I quite often offer 1v1s, as I find them a good test of my abilities and skill. I have in the past had some epic fights in such situations.

Now, the other nights insult got me a bit riled up and I had a small outburst in local chat, something about the Dramiel pilot lacking balls. On reflection this was not how I should act, even as a pirate I hold myself to a higher standard.

1v1s, much like ransoms have been spoiled by others, to the detriment of those that feel honour, even amongst thieves is something to keep.

(Highsec ransoms then gank are a different kettle of fish, I understand the reasons of these kinds of actions)

1v1s may be a lost art, but there are those out there who will honour them and I salute you and I for one will always hold them sacred.

Disclaimer: Well, the art isn't really lost, we know exactly where it is, now just to convince others to enjoy it.

Saturday 20 February 2010

Big Three

People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, "Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else."
-- Carrot travels to Ankh-Morpork
(Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

Has it been three years already? Damn it must be, can barely believe my eyes.

Three years.

Time sure does fly when you're having fun and things are looking up.

We put a POS into reinforced on Thursday and it came out early this evening, a large Caldari tower with 6 mobile labs, 5 advanced mobile labs and a single experimental lab. A very nice haul if we are successful.

I came in this evening around the time it was due to drop out of reinforced and inquired as to what was going down. I was informed they had a defence fleet consisting of a few battleships, a few carriers, a dreadnought and a few unknown. Mean Coalition were out in force along with some business associates based in Hrondedir.

AsssassinX warped in with his Armageddon to see if they would fight and it turns out they did, we warped in with a sizeable fleet and got the remote reps onto Asss, just in time too as they had engaged with three armageddons, a Harbinger, a Raven and a Thanatos carrier. There was another Thanatos in the shields of the POS but it was game on.

Asss did a great job calling primaries and they fell one by one until just the stricken Thanatos was at our mercy, he was webbed and under severe fire. The combined fleet carried massive DPS and it wasn't long before the Carrier split apart.

All our attentions turned to the POS now and we engaged with our conventional fleet.

After a few minutes the decision was made to bring dreadnoughts onto the field and Keira undocked the Moros. Once the dreads entered siege the POS wasn't long for this universe and soon it exploded, the fleet springing into action to unanchor the labs and scoop them into waiting haulers.

A very slick operation.

NovaKane Incorporated turned three last month and as is becoming customary I totally missed it. But it has been one helluva ride. From small beginnings to capital operations, as my friend Tessa Vaako would say "The future is exciting"

Monday 15 February 2010

It's good to be Mean

In the Beginning... It was a nice day. -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)

Grand Theft POS

A particularly mouthy resident of one of Eifer's adjacent highsec systems moves his Orca between Emolgranlan and Atgur. Always very well scouted and always leaves with a word or two. Nomi and Mandaro decided to have a butchers at what he was up to in Atgur this evening and it was by chance that a business associate of Mandaro spotted the Orca pilot's POS unanchoring. A cunning plan was set in motion to liberate the POS from under his nose.

While the POS unanchor timer counted down, the pieces moved into place. A business associate of Nomi would be ready cloaked in a transport. Various other assets were in place, along with Keira in a Machariel, to bump the Orca away from the POS.

The counter hit zero and the Orca uncloaks, our transport uncloaks and Keira gets a good head of steam, knocking the Orca off centre.

The POS was scooped and off we went on our merry

Keira Rizzel > Unlucky

Cheeky girl

House Cleaning

[Request - NovaKane Incorporated Capital deployment: Hrondedir POS - Pending]

"Really now?" says Keira, "You want me to bring the Moros?"

"Well duh, wouldn't have called otherwise"

[Request NovaKane Incorporated Capital deployment: Hrondedir POS - Approved]

Jump Fuel - Check
Siege Fuel - Check
Ammo - Check

This would be the third deployment of the Moros in the space of 5 days and probably the most risky of them all as the POS owners were online and in system.

This particular POS had been scouted before and the mods were the same, however the corp was different which created a bit of confusion. It took us a while to commit to taking out the guns with a Battleship gang so I decided I would try and solo the warp disruptor battery to get the ball rolling.

Now you may be asking why we would be engaging the guns and warp disruptor batteries first? Well, if we deploy our dreads, we would want a support fleet. The warp disruptor battery could prove annoying were a defence fleet dropped on us, so it had to go.

I had warped in, alone and vulnerable, my shields stripped almost instantaneously before I could build up transversal so that the medium and large artillery batteries couldn't track my Armageddon. But once up to speed it was plain sailing. The POS owners were kind enough to position all the defensive modules in a cluster at the top of the tower so it made this rather easy.

At 75% armour Sarvic warped in with his remote rep Dominix and gave me some armour loving, followed by Serenetor and AsssassinX's Guardians. Darthimus then came in with probably the most needy ship in game, the capacitor hungry Abaddon. His crystals had mostly burnt out so I dropped some spares I had.

Eventually we had incapacitated the disruptor and online guns so it was time to focus our attention on the tower. Five Dreadnoughts engaged in the initial siege but with hostile entities in local we sieged red and only did one cycle before removing the dreads to the safety of the station as a hostile interceptor started setting up snipe points.

The POS owners now decided it was time to anchor and online some resistance mods, it seems they were slightly loath to lose a faction large POS tower. But our fleet grew larger with battleships coming out for the fireworks.

With the POS owners doing one or two suicide runs in stealth bombers and the surrounding area seemingly empty the decision was made to bring the dreads back on to the field. The possibility of this escalating into an massive fight had me giddy with anticipation.

With only four dreads and a sizeable support group we continued to rain down on the POS, even as the owners unanchored one of the Advanced mobile labs. They tried to do another but the shield had dropped below the magic 50%, making this attempt futile.

We went through about five siege cycles to drop the large faction tower into reinforced, Keira running low on ammo and myself having burnt out most of the crystals on my mega pulse lasers.

With a time now set for a fight we withdrew the dreads from the field and finished knocking out some offline guns with the support fleet. This whole operation took us a while but was quite entertaining on voice comms.

Now Keira needs to get more stront, more ammo and some new sentry drones as some of hers went walkabout inside the POS forcefield, I need to get some new crystals and hopefully we will be available for round two.

Official NovaKane Incorporated Announcement

NovaKane has joined Mean Coalition.

I fly with them enough that it just seemed right to make it official. I will however still retain my independence and reserve the right to cause havoc on my onesy.

Wednesday 10 February 2010

[OOC] Oh it's on

Crowley was in Hell's bad books. Not that Hell has any other kind.
-- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)

I'm back. Sorted out my technical difficulties in true Minmatar fashion... Ductape and a ball of string.

Hopefully it holds together to give me many more years of joyful explosions.

On my return I have lost another Dramiel, a good fight and worth the loss. They killed my Dramiel, a Jaguar and a Thrasher. We killed two Dramiels, an Ishkur and two Rifters, their Vigil got away.

New Dramiel is up and running but I've run out of spares.

[WTB] Dramiels


Seems Electus Matari have taken to farming the local 2/10, well, we can't be having any of that. As long as it brings good fights I'm well up for it.

Will try and start writing In Character posts soon, with some twists along the way.

Just a quick shout out to my friends in Unfortunate Incidents, who are trying their hand at this Piracy lark. Good luck guys, I'm sure y'all will do well and I look forward to flying with you soon™
This lot got me into EVE and it's thanks to them I've had many good years terrorizing space. Due to some e-Drama and a need to try new things they have formed corp and moved to lowsec, trying to see what I've been on about all these years :)

Well... Stay Classy