Trouble On The Way

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we're in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.
Creedance Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising

I was interrupted from a profitable night of carebearing when a Neutral was called out in vent. We did nothing beyond align, and waited for him to pass. The Ishtar pilot came into system, went to each of our anomalies and each time we warped away. For myself, I merely cloaked my Cerb up and watched him come looking for me. He left very shortly thereafter, surely grumbling to himself.

As people warped to the station, they'd begun to reship in combat boats, but by the time we were ready to go, our target had gone away. So I resolved to catch the next one that came through.

Sure enough, half an hour later, a Vagabond from Triple A rolled through. As soon as our scout let us know he was in 2V, we reshipped, myself in a trusty Manticore. We had a mix of Dictor, Hic, Bomber, Curse, a ratting Machariel, a Cynabal, and a Falcon. After he frustrated us a bit, we put a probing alt on him, and camped the outgate to 2v. You don't need a lot to kill a Vagabond really, but you need a lot sometimes to catch one. So it was, Manticore, Phobos, Curse, and Machariel on our side of the gate. We sent a Flycatcher, Falcon, and Cynabal on the other side.

Our Phobos left his bubble down, and we waited.

Soon the Vaga pilot who'd been playing gate games with us all night warped to us(our probing alt was watching him as he did it). As he entered warp, we put up the bubble. Sure enough, he landed at 0 on the gate, and in the center of a Hic bubble.

He immediately jumped through. Of course, the Flycatcher pilot dropped his own bubble as soon as the target jumped, and our Cynabal grabbed a hold of him. The Falcon kept our 'dictor safe, and the Vaga managed to make it back to the gate again.

Round two was similar, only the Vaga's cap got hit hard by the Curse. Our Machariel was failing to track him as he ran back to the gate. We figured we'd just neut him over and over until he couldn't do this anymore, or the Mach got a lucky hit in.

Fortunately that wasn't neccessary, as the Mach's gun cycled at the very moment the Vaga landed on the gate and dropped to 0 speed. In a single volley of large auto-cannon fire, the Vaga went from 20% shields to dead. The folks on the other side of the gate hadn't managed to get onto the mail, but I had us hold off fire until they could jump through and catch the pod. No one mentioned the pod was in jump range(and I didn't realize until later why he'd died so fast), so after 30 seconds he jumped the gate and got the hell out. Good game.

Afterwards, everyone decided they were tired and needed some sleep. So I was left as the last Noir in the pocket. Our scouts reported a 6 man Triple A gang, and a Rapier in 2v. I just cloaked up again, since we no longer had anyone online to fight them with. Then I started up a convo with him, like a polite person would do.

[07:58:15 ] Hallan Turrek > Hey there.
[07:59:55 ] Hallan Turrek > So how's it going?
[08:00:21 ] Guderian3 > nm
[08:00:22 ] Guderian3 > u
[08:00:37 ] Hallan Turrek > Not a whole lot.
[08:00:55 ] Hallan Turrek > Doing a bit of ratting, you know, the usual.
[08:01:09 ] Guderian3 > What belt are you in homes?
[08:01:18 ] Hallan Turrek > Nah, I don't need any help just yet.
[08:01:33 ] Hallan Turrek > Besides, that'd just dilute the bounties.
[08:01:57 ] Guderian3 > Where'd your friends go?
[08:02:01 ] Hallan Turrek > Sorry?
[08:02:09 ] Guderian3 > MAch, phobos, curse.
[08:02:33 ] Hallan Turrek > Someone was ratting in a Phobos and curse?
[08:02:41 ] Hallan Turrek mutters
[08:02:42 ] Guderian3 > No, your friends that killed the vaga.
[08:02:47 ] Guderian3 > Where did they go?
[08:02:50 ] Hallan Turrek > Wait, they killed a vaga?
[08:02:56 ] Guderian3 > Yes, you were on the KM.
[08:03:00 ] Hallan Turrek > When?
[08:03:02 ] Guderian3 > Your idociy gains you no points.
[08:03:45 ] Hallan Turrek > Points are fleeting wayposts, after all.
[08:05:02 ] Tutelary > Hallan!
[08:05:07 ] Tutelary > you chased away the nice man!
[08:05:18 ] Hallan Turrek > Heh.
[08:05:22 ] Tutelary > heheh
[08:05:25 ] Hallan Turrek > I got ratting to do.
[08:05:29 ] Tutelary > uh huh
[08:05:36 ] Hallan Turrek > And all my backup left already.

I had a laugh at the failed revenge attempt, finished my anomaly, and went to bed. Good times.