The Threeway

On nights such as these the gods, as has already been pointed out, play games other than chess with the fates of mortals and the thrones of kings. It is important to remember that they always cheat, right up to the end...
-- (Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)

Harrassing an ISK farmer by making it difficult for him to run the 2/10 plex is a favourite past time of mine, his frustration, my jollies. He doesn't like, me, he doesn't like Keira and her uber links, in fact, I don't think he likes the EVE universe much as he chooses a poor way to venture through it, all cloaks, very little dagger, means I care little for his opinion, or his anonymous comments on my blog.

Anyways, whilst waiting for him to come back and try his hand at running the plex, my associate in Eifer reports a Myrmidon ratting. I recognize the name, the corp and the alliance, not ones to fly alone so I ask about to see if anyone has spotted his corp or alliance mates. Eventually it seems like this fellow is ratting solo, in Eifer... I know right?

I undock the Fifth Elephant™ once again, I'm liking this again, a white knuckle ride of a ship. I enter warp to the Eifer gate just after spotting an Electus Matari pilot warp the same direction in a Hurricane, he jumps through to Eifer, followed by me. The Myrmidon is in the belt closest to the Gusandall gate and as I enter system I see the Hurricane warp to said belt.

I warp at range and land as the Myrmidon goes red, engaging the Electus Matari pilot. Deciding it's a nice day, I light the Myrmidon up, he goes down faster than a choir boy at an Amarr church service. Then it's just me and Karum... He engages me...

Say what? Here I am, being a pillar of society, helping this man out of the goodness of my heart and he shoots at me.

Well, I can't stand for this, stand idly by whilst my good intentions are spat upon, so I lock him up and start shooting.

The shooting is going good, I'm easily able to tank his damage whilst obliterating his shields and armour, things are going well until...












BLACKBIRD! piloted by Ekkeko, for those keeping track












Karum's friend warps in at 100 clicks, lights me up and negates any use of my targeting systems what so ever.

I pop a blue pill, a strong one as I'm going to need it.
First jam cycle is a given, a cap booster charge is consumed, my shield booster repping massive chunks of shield, but it is hungry.

Second jam cycle, another cap 800, I'm smashing the targeting console, hoping, for even the slightest chance. Karums Hurricane is humping The Fifth Elephant™ like a rabid poodle, his warp scrambler and web meaning I'm dead in space, unless I get lucky.

Third jam cycle, this is getting tiresome, there's no chance I can fight back, my drones start taking damage as Karum's Hurricane is in hull and his only chance is to kill off my autonomous damage.

Fourth Jam cycle, another cap 800, more shield reps, more damage being applied by Karum, strangely no energy neutraliser, I'm being hit by... what the fuck are those... Rockets?

Fifth Jam cycle, cap booster 800, shield rep, smashing target button

Sixth jam, cap booster, recall drones, down to three of my brave friends.

Seventh, booster, repping like a Boss, deploy drones.

Eight...

Nine...

Ten...

TARGETING!!!

The Blackbird misses a cycle, lock resolves, Karum has two thirds structure left, guns overloaded, drones aggressed... GOGOGOGOGO!!!

It's a race, despite it's name being associated with a lumbering animal, this was one The Fifth Elephant was destined to win, Karum's hull not able to withstand the ferocious onslaught of sheer ECM hating destruction unleashed upon it.

A very good fight, sentiments shared in local chat.
For all the haters out there, Keira wasn't in system during this fight :P

Took some shots of the Rizzel's in formation, rather shiny if you ask me :)





Edit: It also helps to read this story whilst listening to this song as it was playing during the fight :)

Epic 1v1

Wash: "Hey, I've been in a firefight before! Well, I was in a fire." (beat) "Actually, I was fired from a fry-cook opportunity."

This evening was one for the books, it started off slowly with me setting up a new killboard, it's going to take me some time to move all my kill and lossmails over so please be patient.
Halfway through some uploading of mails I decided to undock and go check the local 2/10 plex, only to be greeted by flashfresh who was patiently waiting for some prey to return, so I headed to a safespot and watched the local banter between a Myrmidon pilot and some of the residents of Gusandall. I went back to the plex once more to check things out and spotted a Wolf class assault frigate on my scanner when all of a sudden my overview flashed with a target entering the 2/10, it was a Rifter and was very quickly dispatched and podded without much undue fuss. My real target was the Wolf and I warped to the 1/10 and activated the ancient acceleration gate. Bursting out of warp I was greeted by the familiar visage of the Wolf, about 30 clicks away from me. I hit the afterburner and closed the distance, the Wolf locked me and I returned the favour, once within range I activated my disruptor and stasis web and opened fire. I know from flying the Wolf that it's lack of midslots leaves very little options in tackling and he wouldn't have a web but it does pack a punch, more so than my Jaguar. I'm intimately experienced in both ships and have extreme confidence in my abilities and knew from the start the outcome and so it came to pass, the Wolf's armour tank unable to cope with the sustained assault from my guns and rockets, it failed and this resulted in a shiny explosion, the pilots escape pod instawarping out before my lock could resolve.

I returned to station to offload the loot, still watching the local comms with interest, it seemed the Myrmidon pilot was after a 1v1 but was being selective of who he'd fight. I offered a 1v1 against a Hurricane build I've been toying with but he left Gusandall before he could see my offer. It was however relayed to him by some other pilots and he accepted, I quickly boarded the Minmatar battlecruiser and undocked, heading for Eifer.

A gang was formed between us and once in system I warped in at 20 clicks, allowing me to dictate range to some degree. I had received Intel that his Myrmidon had a passive shield regen tank and was very tough, I loaded faction EMP rounds, locked and set myself to an easy 10km orbit, he locked me in return and the fight was on. His tank was very impressive and he launched drones, I in turn launched some ECM drones and set them on him but he recalled his flight to engage them, I recalled my drones and targeted his, trying to pop them. This was going to be a very tactical fight with drones being deployed and recalled. I was easily maintaining range as he had no web and the fight was going nowhere, I had dual NOS set on him to feed my tank, along with cap booster 800s. I overheated my guns and saw his shields dip somewhat but not fast enough and my guns came dangerously close to overheating and going offline so I had to repair them midfight. Repairing half the rack at a time seemed to take forever and it was at this time he asked me if I was cap stable stating "If you are this is pointless" but I'm a firm believer in finishing what you start, no matter the outcome. I had just run out of cap boosters and it was only the two medium NOS that were fuelling my tank, the endless dance of deploying and recalling of drones continuing. I was starting to struggle for cap, my medium armour repairer eating away at it like a fat kid at a candy shop, his cap must have also been low as the NOS had been sucking him dry but he didn't need cap for his tank. Mine started to fail, I was at zero cap trying to repair my NOS from overheating, desperately close to them going offline. My Amour hardeners turning off as my cap vanished, his shields still holding strong. I knew I had lost the fight and could have bailed at any time as he had no tackling gear on me but I don't run, not from a 1v1.

After about 25 minutes the fight ended, my Hurricane no longer able to withstand the battering it had taken, 53k damage and it exploded after having been on fire for what seemed an eternity.
An epic fight, an honourable fight and one I'll remember for a very long time.

Respect to Jax Savage, fucking epic.

I returned home, physically and mentally drained, it's very rare for a fight to go on so long and even rarer that it goes off without a hitch. I docked up and lit a cigarette, made sure to make a note for Keira to move some Hurricane hulls down to HQ for me and slumped into my bunk.
I could really do with a good nights sleep