Close call

"And Howondaland Smith, Balrog Hunter, practic'ly eats the dark for his tea."
-- Gaspode the wonder dog
(Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures) 

A lone buzzard appears on scan in Eifer, in the direction of a relic site.

A cloaked hunter enters system, a new class of ship, designed for a specific purpose but this one refitted for something entirely different, something more malevolent

The cloaked hunter warps into the relic site, the Buzzard appears to be having issues as a scatter container explodes, the hunter approaches under cloak, tackle systems primed as it he uncloaks in range and engages with a full compliment of drones. The Buzzard experiences more issues as it explodes in a brilliant flash just as a Hurricane warps in.

The hunter quickly draws range but has a change of mind and corkscrews in to engage the Hurricane at point blank range. After dispatching the Hurricane's drones, the hunter concentrates all fire-power on the battlecruisers shields, the medium guns of the massive in comparison ship not able to track the small frigate as it zipped around the stricken vessel, it would only be a matter of time before it exploded.

At half shields another ship joined the fray, a Wolf class assault frigate.

The Hunter had to make a choice, an epic kill lost but now it became a fight for survival. Choice made, afterburner shut off and microwarp drive engaged, quickly out ranging the Wolf, but not before the assault frigate put the hunter deep into hull, fuel and atmosphere venting into space, in flames.

The hunter cloaks, a close call.

How do you EVE?

 Basically, there were two sides to the world. There was the entire computer games software industry engaged in a tremendous effort to stamp out piracy, and there was Wobbler. Currently, Wobbler was in front.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Only You Can Save Mankind)

This is how I EVE

The Battle of Arnher

Greebo's technique was unscientific and wouldn't have stood a chance against any decent swordmanship, but on his side was the fact that it is almost impossible to develop decent swordmanship when you seem to have run into a food mixer that is biting your ear off.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad) 

A rather dull evening locally, very little happening other than me being impressed at my skills with a 36km infinite point on an old Broadsword, which was put to good use catching a stabbed Procurer who thought he was immune to old school gate Piracy.

Started playing around with a Strateo fitting but I'm not convinced yet, but holy shit, have you guys seen the Mobile Depot?

Anyways, I was bored so boarded a Tristan and headed to Amamake. Very little I could engage realistically en route, cross jumped a rather large frigate gang on the Amamake gate, but I liked this Tristan and wasn't going to just throw it away.

I docked up in Ama for a bit to have dinner, the Vegan Mac n Cheese is particularly delicious.

Setting my nav com to Bosena I headed on out again, still not much I could fight until I hit Arnher. Scan showed a few frigates about, possibly together or fighting amongst each other, who knew, so I warped to the Novice plex at 50km, soon enough A Firetail warps in and we start a slow dance around each other, to see who would make the first move.

we hover at about 24km from each other and the Firetail engages with a long point. he's not moving terribly fast, possibly on afterburner but he could always be duel propped. I start to spiral in as he starts to apply damage at range... Artillery, goddamn artillery and with the Firetail being more agile and faster this was going to be a problem.

I launch my drones and engage, I land a web but he seemingly has me dual webbed, as he outruns me and gets out of web and scram range. At least he's not dual propped.

A Magnate warps in at range, things are about to get interesting, it seems the Magnate is waiting to take on the winner, who would most likely be severely damaged giving the Magnate the high ground. The fight between me and the Firetail isn't over yet as I'm deep in armour, my overloaded repper clawing back vital hit points as my drones continue to go to work on the Firetails armour, but he is repping great big chuncks back, I can see the nanites working furiously to keep him intact.

He moves out to 30km and eventually loses point, it seems he's running but still applying damage to me, I'm just about out of armour, my repper decides to reload... What the actual fuck!

The Firetail explodes... Instead of warping out he tries to kill me off with a last volley or two, but my drones are tenacious little bastards and quite deadly.

The Magnate decides now is the time to try steal the loot, he's faster than me and closes on the wreck quicker, but I get in range to get point and web on the golden ship. He engages, with me in deep armour already, an easy kill.

My repper finishes it's long reload and starts to burn, repping great big chunks of armour, I change ammo as this fight is going down eyeball to eyeball.

The first module to melt on my Tristan is my afterburner, then the web and finally the scrambler... This isn't going to end well, I can't get away.




This is it.




I'm in structure




The Magnate explodes, he was in deep trouble but the thought of getting that last shot in was too tempting.

Who needs tackle when you just need to look like you're one shot away from dying?

GF in local before I headed off to find a place to put out the fires and repair all the damage. Eventually made it to Bosena, saw Sard Caid in a Dramiel and took a break. The rest of the night was a wash, I went back on the Amamake route, saw nothing I could fight so went home.