Kill #8: The Distant Merlin

In Old Man Star, I found a Merlin-class frigate on scan. I was quickly able to track it down to a planetary orbit, but when I arrived it was 250 klicks off, sitting motionless. Was it powered down? Did the pilot think that sitting so far off from the standard orbit would keep him safe? Or was it a trap?

I aligned the Rust III towards another planet in his direction and warped out, returning moments later by warping in 100km off the mark - this put me at about 150 klicks from the Merlin. I set my navigation for flat-out approach and burned hard towards the target. I realize at about 80km that I've accidentally had my crews fit a Warp Disruptor II module instead of a Warp Scrambler - normally not what I'd want on a Rifter, but at least this time it would let me lock down the target as soon as he was within targeting range.

At 24km, my targeting systems acquired a lock, and the disruptor kicked on. The first of the Merlin's missiles was already in flight, and impacted against my shields a split second later. I was still 20 klicks out from effective range, and only gaining slowly as the other ship fled. I was taking a barrage of missiles and railgun fire. My shields melted and my armor took enough damage that I kicked on my repairer.. but then finally I was within 10km and caught the Merlin in my stasis web. From there, it was all over. I was too close and fast for his missiles or his railguns, and the battle was almost one-sided.

I had almost forgotten how much I enjoy piloting Rifters.

Kill #7: Ratting Fat Man

Back in Old Man Star, I was sitting at a safespot avoiding the large fleet of Battleships and Assault Cruisers that had been called in by some local militia pilots to scare off their enemies. Scanning everywhere but the gate they were gathered at, I did manage to find a Tristan in an asteroid belt, hunting bounties against the local Serpentis.

Militia pilots, and pilots used to high-sec, often erroneously consider systems with large numbers of friendly militia as ‘safe.’ I wondered if that was why he was so leisurely fighting in that asteroid belt.

Despite the easy catch, the Tristan put up a good fight. He managed to destroy 70% of my armor before exploding.

Loss #10: The Heritage Three

dé-jà vu –noun

1. Psychology. the illusion of having previously experienced something actually being encountered for the first time.

2. disagreeable familiarity or sameness: The new television season had a sense of déjà vu about it—the same old plots and characters with new names.

After defeating a Tusker pilot in his own home system, I was feeling a bit on the brash side again. My confidence bolstered, I resumed my route through low-sec space and ended up in Old Man Star. The system is a constant war zone - militias are constantly battling it out for control of this system on the border of Federation high-sec space, and pirates take advantage of the increased activity in the system to find their targets.

I just so happened to be scanning down a Rifter, and attempted to pounce on him in an asteroid belt. Only, it turned out I had miscalculated - the ship wasn't in this belt. I realized this as I came out of warp, and commanded the Heritage III to come about and warp to a nearby safespot, but it was too late. A Thorax cruiser came out of warp almost immediately after I did, and snagged my ship with his warp disruptor before my warp drive finished powering up. Whether he had been scanning me down, or had been tailing the same Rifter as I had, I'm unsure. But as was expected for a Thorax, I was still pounding on his armor when I lost the Heritage III.

I exchanged compliments with the pilot as my pod warped to safety. Another Vengeance lost; it was time to start flying cheaper ships.

Loss #7: Setting a trap

“You aren’t seriously thinking of buying another one, are you, sir?” I could feel the muscles in my face tighten. I hate it when machines talked back. If I could afford an actual human secretary, that would be one thing. But an AI assistant program should know its damned place. “I am. We didn’t get the right kind of test out of the first one. Now run the damned numbers.”

As it turns out, I had splurged a bit and purchased a Vengeance-class Assault Frigate. Fully fitted, it had cost as much as five fully-fitted Rifters. Some of that had been offset by finding the un-looted wreck of a Stealth Bomber, with its high-tech cloaking device still intact. Or at least it would be, once Guillome paid me for it.

I dubbed the ship the Heritage One, since it was a ship of Khanid design. Taking it roaming through all my usual systems, I wound up in Old Man Star, but there I found nothing but a Rupture-class cruiser and a Rapier-class Force Recon cruiser. I sat outside one of the stations in that system for a while, pondering my next move and hitting my scanner from time to time.

It hadn’t been long, when the Rupture warped in close to me, and his icon on my HUD flashed red, a warning that he was an outlaw. I could shoot at him freely, without worrying about incurring the wrath of the sentry guns… if I thought I could take him. But one doesn’t get to outlaw status without being good at combat, and I wasn’t sure I could take as much damage as he could deal, even with my superior Khanid armor.

Then my HUD flashed. The Rapier pilot had been tracking this Rupture, and asked for my help killing him. So we followed the Rupture as he warped away to another station, and I sat just out of docking range while the Rapier was cloaked nearby. I targeted the outlaw and fired a single shot, then began moving away from the station. I kept my speed down as to not lose my lock on him, but in retrospect the Vengeance isn’t a fast ship, and I should have taken her up to full speed. The Rupture was on me almost instantly, and I managed to both give and take quite a bit of damage before I exploded. The Rapier had indeed de-cloaked, and was hammering away at the Rupture as I warped my capsule out. Getting in on the kill might just be worth the loss of my ship. I warped my capsule away, then back to the station so that I could see the action and dock if combat was still going on.

I cursed at what I saw: two Dominix-class battleships had arrived and had joined the fight on the side of the Rupture. There was to be no kill tonight. The Rapier pilot managed to get away, however, and as I arrived at my hangar, I found several cargo cases on the floor, with a note taped to the top one: “Thanks for the help. This should help cover your loss – from a frigate I took down earlier..” I opened the top one to find it full of high-tech focusing crystals and other expensive equipment.

This should make Guillome quite happy. If only he would show up with my damned money…

Loss #5: A false start

After failing to find prey while hunting, I was sitting outside a station in Old Man Star, thinking I might keep an eye on any passing traffic. After a little while, an Incursus-class frigate warped in, and sat outside the station as well. After a moment, he approached my Rifter and jettisoned a piece of ammunition from his hold. I knew the drill - he wanted to fight, and taking the ammo he dropped trick the sentry guns into thinking I had stolen from him so that we could fight without intervention.

I targeted him, grabbed the piece of ammo, and waited. My ship flashed a notice on my HUD, and I punched all my weapon systems into action. Apparently, that notice had not been about incoming fire, as the sentry guns spun up and tore through my Rifter in seconds. The other pilot was good-natured, and let me know over the local comms channel that he wished the sentries had not intervened, he'd been looking for a fair fight. Looks like I'll have to give him a rain check..