In the Pale Moonlight

So... I lied; I cheated; I bribed men to cover the crimes of other men; I am an accessory to murder. But the most damning thing of all is... I think I can live with it. And if I'd have to do it all over again... I would.

Benjamin Sisko - Deep Space Nine

I'm on fire. As the Jokers Wild, my Rifter, flew in a death spiral towards the gate I smiled a bit. The trap was laid, the Hurricane would die and I would have his corpse. Everything was as it should've been.

Lets dial it back a day and talk about setting traps and tricking people. My word is my bond, I think you should know that by now. That doesn't mean I'm above playing a trick or laying a trap. I had a couple of bits of fun with that lately.

I'm hanging with the Bastards lately. A solid group of folks I hope to join in mayhem and destruction. You know, of others. Anyhow, I've been hanging out in Evati for a bit, looking for targets and just flying whenever I see an opportunity to kill something.

I scanned down a Stabber near a planet. The planet only had one belt around it, so I warped straight to that. Nothing. I scanned again and saw him in the direction of the planet, but I didn't know if he was in a safe or actually at the planet. I warped his way anyhow and didn't see him at the planet. My scanners didn't show him in range anymore, so I went back to my central scanning spot and started again.

Once again I saw him at another planet with one belt around it. I decided to try for the planet this time and caught him there. I tackled him and called out on the Bastards voice comms that I had a stabber tackled but no one was in range. I died gloriously and warped my pod out.

I went straight to the station I keep my ships in, but discovered my ammo was at another station in system. I have locations set up in my navcomp to undock and leave the station before it's sentry guns fire on me, even if Concord has sanctioned my death, so I equipped my Rifter and headed back to my scanning location.

By this time Ard UnjiiGo had made it in the system with his Rapier. He started tracking him from planet to planet while cloaked, but couldn't get him to stay still long enough. I brought up a private comm channel with the fellah and told him I was going to kill him. He asked me how I intended to do that in another Rifter and I told him I'd fit it a bit differently this time. This was true, as my Rifter had no ammo this time.

Eventually I got a call for which planet he was sitting at and warped in. He stayed for what he obviously thought was another easy Rifter kill. After I had him pointed Ard UnjiiGo uncloaked and began to fire. He was taking damage rather quickly just as Prophet came barreling through in his Amarrian Battleship.

The Stabber died.

Pay attention to exactly what I say kiddies, this is low sec.

The next day I watched Marovinchian podding the hell out of haulers as they filtered through Gusandall from Eifer. He let me know that one of the wrecks contained about fifty thousand mexallon, so I hopped into a Badger and scooped it up. Once he was done there I grabbed my rifter and went into Eifer lookin' for trouble. It found me on the gate there, I saw the guy who's mexallon I'd just stolen in a Hurricane also looking for trouble. I reported this to Maro, who asked me where he was, but by the time I was back through the gate, the Hurricane was gone. I tried tracking him but he was too fast and got away.

Then I had an idea. I opened a comm with him and asked him a question. I said "Do you want this Mexallon back? I think it's yours,".

"Yes," he answered quickly, "Where are you?"

His mistake here was assuming I was offering it back to him. I just asked him if he wanted it.

I stopped a moment and asked Maro where he was. The Gus/Ingunn gate. I told him I was in Ingunn, since it was unlikely he passed that way without Maro noticing.

"OMW," he told me, and I booked it to Ingunn so I didn't show up in local as he passed through.

He showed up in Local a few minutes later, and Maro tells me he missed the tackle.

The guy docks up at the station I said I was in and asks "Where are you?,"

I wait about two minutes and say "Someone shot at me, I was lucky he didn't have a scram on that Rifter or I'd be dead right now. I'm in Gusandall right now," At which point Maro tells me he's moving again. This is getting troublesome so I say, "I'm going to keep your Mexallon," and close out our chat.

I go sit next to Maro and wait. Minutes later the fellah warps in about fifteen kilometers out. I burn hard in his direction to make the tackle when he does something extremely stupid. He cycles his guns and shoots me down.

Maro says "I've got the tackle," just as I explode, "But it won't matter because he'll just use the gate,"

"He's got gate aggro," I chuckle, as I warp my pod out.

I wait, two minutes, three. Nothing. No reports, no anything. I ask Maro what's happened and he tells me, "Oh, I didn't have a web on this thing, he used a MicroWarp Drive to get out of my scram range,"

I throw my hands up and chuckle.

"Eh, it's just a Rifter,"

And you know what? It's true. I die gloriously all the time. Despite the missed Hurricane that was a heck of alot of fun. I pay for my fun in little packets of five hundred thousand isk. A fair trade I think.

Good day.