The Race

The Ramkins were more highly bred than a hilltop bakery, whereas Corporal Nobbs had been disqualified from the human race for shoving.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms)

I'm sitting here in my hangar, leaning back in my office chair that I nicked from some station administrators office, watching The men who stare at goats, a rather funny movie about men who stare at goats

"Dramiel, in the 2/10, piloted by DEATH RIGHTS"

The comm so loud I fall out of the chair as I was balancing rather precariously. I get the boys working on firing up Ridcully, a Jaguar class assault frigate which is rather suited to the job at hand.

Undocking can sometimes take an age to accomplish and it's at these times where patience is truly tested.

Once in the black, I set warp directly to the 2/10, hammering the scanner in that direction, making sure the Dram would still be there. Of course it was, it's a Dramiel, piloted by the most fearsome of warriors, scared of nothing and armed to the teeth.

I activate the ancient acceleration gate and warp into the first room, where my scanner says the Dramiel is. This is conformed as I land, the Dram 35km away. I start to close, the Dram, here for a fight, does the same.

He's quick, very quick and soon we are engaged in mortal combat. He deploys a flight of hobgoblins, they start in on me. Shields holding, for now but he is actively tanked and is doing well against my damage. I overload, his shields start to fail, as have mine, he starts to get range, his drones still on me but I make short work of them as he has now gained about 50 clicks on me.

My shields start to recharge, large chunks of my light armour is missing but the fight is far from over. He closes to within warp disruptor range and holds me in place, another drone is sent my way but it meets a sticky end. He's far quicker than I am, so I need to be smarter.

I hit my afterburners and burn away from him, making straight lines, waiting for him to chase, waiting for the right moment to perform an old and trusted maneuver, the Crazy Ivan.

I gain some range and I can see him make to close, I overheat my afterburner, full thrust and turn directly into his trajectory. He almost runs right into me, but is now webbed and scrammed. I can no longer overheat my weapons as they'll burn out leaving me at his mercy, but I'm firing everything, the race is on, his shields break, my shields break, a Sabre interdictor rocks up, makes my life a little more interesting and I explode...

A moment of worry as my systems freeze up as I try to warp my escape pod out of harms way, I panic like someone who really panics but the lag subsides and I whip the escape pod to safety.

Kane Rizzel > great fight
fukitbucket > yeah good fight mate
DEATH RIGHTS > yeh sorry needed a hand lol
Kane Rizzel > no worries
DEATH RIGHTS > 2006 be hard
DEATH RIGHTS > lol
Kane Rizzel > :)

And it was a great fight, what was probably two minutes felt like twenty. I will never know what the outcome of the fight would have been had his friend in the Sabre not shown up but that's life :)

Scrapheap Challenge Ganknight 10.5

Mal: "Oh! That was bracing. They don't like it when you shoot at them. I worked that out myself."

Saturday was some great fun, I had initially planned to go out drinking but a migraine cut that plan short so I took some painkillers and settled in for the night, of course by settling in I mean I grabbed a Sabre interdictor and headed for Bosboger where I would be meeting up with about 60 mental patients in destroyers.

Scrapheap Challenge was initially a Minmatar community but now caters for all races but on occasion plan events like Ganknight and Frigates of Fury. Saturday just happened to be destroyer night and so it was I decided on the Sabre as we would be heading into nullsec space for shits and giggles.

The Ganknights work on a simple principle, NPSI (Not Purple Shoot It) so woe betide any who falls out of gang as they'll end up being a statistic. There were members from many different corps and alliances, many of which who are red to each other but for a few hours were all on the same side, that of the gank.

After some initial trouble in finding an FC, Dinique stepped up to the plate then the decision on where we would go was next on the agenda. After much deliberation, Syndicate was the target region and navigation coordinates were programmed into the nav systems of the assembled fleet and off we went. For us -10 Pirates we would have to take a slightly longer route before meeting up with the rest of the fleet in Haroulle.

There were some casualties early on as members dropped from gang only to warp in and be vapourised, there was even some fun as Sarmaul was booted from gang and exterminated as he appeared on our overviews. This was of course after a Huzzah carrier piloted by Jags undocked and redocked ASAP as he saw his overview filled with ships. Kill of the night had to be a Scrapheap members Sacrilege that exploded in under two seconds and he was podded with a full set of High Grade Snake implants, he wasn't part of Ganknight so was a target, simple as.

All in alll the night was a massive success, 20 odd kills and a fair few losses, mostly at the hand of The Monkeysphere who just happened to be in gang with us but made a fitting end to the night.

Yours truly made it onto 15 killmails and only barely made it out with 33% armour after landing right on top of Monkey's Discophoon. I also got to fly with an old corp mate again, was good to be in fleet with you Steve Dave.

It's quite amazing what 60 destroyers can accomplish when in the hands of mentally retarded monkeys frothing at the mouth :D