This Is Where We Fight.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd & thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell.
Alfred Tennyson- The Charge Of The Light Brigade

My name is Hallan Turrek.

There are people out there that think I'm just a number. They think I'm just a nuisance. They think if they throw some resources at me I'll go away. I won't cost them anything, just redistribute a bit of force and out I'll go. X force applied at Y time for Z result. To them I'm just a number.

A bit ago, a group of Mercenaries moved into Egmar. They didn't talk, they didn't care, they just started killing things. Lots of things. Things we wanted to kill. We avoided them like the plague and operated normally, because we knew who they were.

They'd bait with unaffiliated pilots and bring twenty man gangs down on a single cruiser. They started to camp the Egmar gate in multiple sensor boosted Interceptors. There started to be a Falcon around every corner. To them, we were just a number. Another small bump in the road to them getting what they wanted. Finally we'd had enough.

Concord has sanctioned our war against them. With every advantage they stack the deck with, it's nice to take away a few. Gateguns won't shoot us if we attack them. We can camp them into stations. We can show them what a few good pilots can do, and beat the hordes back.

If we're going to be a number we can be the number of ships they've lost, the total cash they've had to spend to eradicate us. The truth though, is that we're anything but a number.

My name is Hallan Turrek, and we're the fucking Bastards.

Get used to it.

Stamina

Spike: In terms of a plan?
Angel: We fight.
Spike: Bit more specific.
Angel: Well, personally, I kind of want to slay the dragon.

Angel

So, a Hurricane, Vexor, and Thorax are on scan. I'm in a Rifter. I know the Thorax pilot from an earlier conversation, but I've got no idea how reliable he is. I open a conversation anyhow.

Hallan Turrek > How would you feel about teaming up on a 'cane?
Ascipen > Got a link on the guys name?
Ascipen > or where he's at?
Hallan Turrek > EM Tae
Hallan Turrek > He's here in eifer.
Hallan Turrek > Near one of the four belts.
Hallan Turrek > Checking now.
Hallan Turrek > 4-4 right now.
Hallan Turrek > Get agro and I'll be there
Hallan Turrek > Drones will mess me up
Ascipen > im warping in
Ascipen > go.
Hallan Turrek > warpin'
Hallan Turrek > get point

So I land. The scene is an odd one, neither of the two have drones out. I pull into an orbit of the Hurricane and start firing away. The Thorax does not fair well under the onslaught and is very quickly in a pod. I however, am whole, even after he starts firing. I start fighting a Hurricane that still has about seventy five percent shields. After about a minute however I start to think this may go well for me. I open a chat with the target.

Hallan Turrek > So.
Hallan Turrek > 10 million and I let you go.
Em Tae > lol
Hallan Turrek > Offer's now or never.
Em Tae > never
Hallan Turrek > Good to hear.
Em Tae > srry ,don't ransom
Hallan Turrek > No that's cool.

The fight was obviously kinda repetitive after the first couple of minutes, as I whittled down his armor to about half, my cap finally bottomed out and his assault missiles started to rip out some structure until my Rifter couldn't take any more. I warped the pod out and continued the conversation.

Hallan Turrek > Good fight.
Em Tae > GF
Em Tae > for a frig you gave this a run
Hallan Turrek > Yeah, good fight.
Hallan Turrek > God how long was that?
Hallan Turrek > like 4 minutes?
Em Tae > about

Fortunately I had dropped the loot from my earlier excursions before this fight, and he didn't get much.

You know what though? For a while there I was going toe to toe with a Hurricane in a Rifter. Just goes to show you how great that little ship can be.

Good Day.

Killing In The Name

There is no 'overkill.' There is only 'open fire' and 'time to reload.'
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates - Schlock Mercenary

The point was on before I commanded my ship to move. I had to move quickly and did. My autocannons began to spin as they spat out their barrage ammo, which caused my sensors to pick up the faint blue flash of shield damage. This Rifter's backup would be here any moment, and I was sure that a Thorax would make my day alot shorter. I grinned to myself as another round of barrage punched through his shields and ripped a chunk of armor off his left nacelle.

A couple rounds more and the autocannons were mercilessly punching through his ship and out the other side. Finally a Gremlin rocket found it's mark and the Rifter became an expanding ball of superheated metals and gasses. I placed my scrambler on his capsule and looted his wreck while exploring my options.

Of course by this time my course of action had already been decided, and the Thorax finally arrived. I fired my autocannons twice more and aligned to warp away. He managed a lock and a point before I quite got up to speed. My afterburner was still running as I pulled out of web range. His drones were still approaching me as I broke twenty kilometers and began to warp.

So far so good.

I sat at my central scanning spot and started a conversation with the Thorax pilot. He bemoaned having to buy his friend a new Rifter, and I offered that he should've had a better tank if he was baiting.

My scans located another Rifter just as the Thorax pilot left local. I caught him in the direction of planet five, and began to warp to the second belt. I turned my scanner down to thirty degrees and watched the other belts as they fell out of the arc, to my surprise I discovered I was warping right to him.

As I started to come out of warp, I cycled my warp scrambler and watched for my targeting computers to become active. There he was, he had probably just arrived. I targeted him and began an orbit. His shields went down at a normal pace, and he had yet to target me. I imagined I was lucky enough to catch him completely flat footed as he'd just landed.

Regardless, eventually his targeting system came alive and I experienced a world of hurt. It was worrying, actually, how quickly he chewed through my shields. Then he hit armor and it was like a brick wall. His own armor was slowly eroding, and if he had a repair module he wasn't using it. Then at around twenty percent armor, he finally activated it. I got another round off and watched a single round fly through his right wing before the armor began to grow on his ship again.

Fortunately enough, my damage output far outstretched his repairing, and slowly but surely his ship became nothing more than swiss cheese. I was at about half armor when he finally exploded, and then I pointed his pod and scooped his loot.

I checked out his history, this wasn't a new pilot by any means. He'd been playing a while, so I invited him to speak about a ransom. He promptly put me on ignore.

I attempted to teach him a lesson in respect, but I think I may've gone a bit overboard.

Earlier, when I'd scooped his loot, I was literally amazed at the amount of high quality equipment he was carrying. This was an expensive ship, but upon closer inspection of the kill, I discovered that he had rigged his Rifter. My rifter costs me about two million, give or take. His had cost him forty two million.

Mr. Forty Two Million Isk Rifter, if you're reading this right now, you're doing it wrong.

So I moved back to a scanning location and waited again. Eventually a Slasher showed up on scan, I warped to him, and the ship went down in an embarrassingly short amount of time. The pod was pointed as well, and I didn't even worry about a ransom. I hoped that wherever his clone was, it was in high security space.

He opened up a conversation with me, and I managed to get five hundred and fifty thousand isk out of him for letting him rat there. Not big bucks, I know, but given the situation, I preferred that to killing him again.

Good Day.

Finding It

I will go down with this ship,
And I won't put my hands up and surrender,
There will be no white flag above my door,
I'm in love and always will be.
Dido - White Flag

The Rifter is as many will tell you, the perfect combat frigate. Four high slots, which provides the damage, a slot in the mids for a speed mod, web, and warp disruption, and three low slots to set up an armor tank. The ship aligns quickly and moves quickly even under the power of an afterburner.

It's small signature radius means that anything bigger than heavy assault missiles will not hurt you. It means that tracking you can be a pain in the ass, especially if you're moving. I have over a hundred Rifters left in my Hangar, and have lost almost fifty since joining the Bastards three and a half months ago. Each one of them called the Jokers Wild.

I consider each new incarnation a continuance of the previous one. The AI stays the same, the fit stays the same. Pod goes in, ship undocks, autocannons spin.

I love my ship.

Today started like alot of days. I got up, headed into space and found nothing. I checked into voice comms to find Hera Darkthorn and Mynxee along with a few others playing out in Resbroko. I decided to head out to where the action was. They'd already killed a guy in a Vexor, who came back for revenge in an Enyo.

By the time I arrived, things had calmed down a bit. We were waiting for a few GCC's to countdown as Hera called out a Raven in a belt. There was some talk about jumping it or not. I engaged my warp drive and let everyone know I was already on the way. It's just a Raven.

My Rifter came out of warp on top of the thing and Hera's Taranis had it down to seventy five percent shields already. I found that odd. I orbited and started to lay on my own brand of pain. He started to die, quickly. The rest of the fleet landed, and we didn't even have time to decide on ransoming him or not before he exploded. The pod met a similar fate very quickly. We all stared at the killmail in awe. He hadn't fit anything. His ship was devoid of modules.

Everyone decided to head back to Evati. As we arrived I got into a scanning position and very quickly narrowed down a Myrmidon. I warped in it's direction and was disappointing as it went offscan before I landed. False positive are annoying in scanning. You know you screwed up, but sometimes it's not clear how. I kicked it up to a three hundred and sixty degree scan, and he didn't show up either. Just at that moment, my ship interface sounded the tell-tale decloaking noise. Myrmidon off the bow, fifteen hundred meters away.

I called my friends who were in various states of disarray at this point. I orbited him, scrambled the Myrm, and waited. I didn't even turn my guns on. I hoped he didn't think I was a threat. He didn't target me.

Eventually Hera said he was in warp, and about that time the Myrm decided to release drones and start firing. I aligned to get away, but I failed, and got my pod out instead. The Myrm quickly followed though. He had a pretty expensive fit, alot of which survived the explosion.

Happy with that, I docked up. A few folks went to the Hub, but Hera was on voice comms before I could get a chance to leave. He had a Wolf and Thrasher clearing a drone infestation.

We both went inside and began to look around. Eventually we found a thrasher, and I orbited him. The pilot was non-responsive, but by the time Hera went through the next gate, the Wolf had left. Hera went back to the station as I killed the Thrasher. Just as I managed to get the Pilot's pod nailed and hammered, Hera engaged the Wolf at the station. He was also sucessful, and we were happy with our teamwork.

It wasn't until later that I discovered this pilot had earlier killed and podded Flashfresh. We were happy to send both of these guys back to the clonevats.

So Hera decided to check the Hub out himself, leaving me alone to patrol the space lanes. I decided to head to Eifer, and give my old haunt a look.

I was very quickly rewarded with a Rifter kill and a five million ransom for the pod. I followed that very shortly with a Kestral kill. I scooped the loot, smiled and went back to Evati to drop things off.

I took off in the other direction and found a bit of action in Klogori, killing a Rifter in a belt there. He died fast and refused a ransom on his pod. I was happy to oblige in murdering him.

With one one battleship, one battlecruiser, a destroyer, three frigates, and two pods dead, my day was complete.

Happy Hunting.

Trouble Can't Find Me

We're going off tonight,
To kick out every light,
To get anything that we want,
To drink everything in sight,
We're going till the world stops turning,
While we burn it to the ground tonight.
Nickelback - Burn It To The Ground

Space is a vast expanse of nothingness, with little specks of death scattered throughout it.

The Caldari, Gallente, Amarr, and Minmatar each control a swath of space near the central portion of the galaxy map. There are two areas of space closely associated with the Amarr empire, the Khanid Empire and Ammatar Mandate.

The Caldari and Gallente came back from the brink of extinction in the same solar system. They worked together to reach the stars, then went their separate ways in a war that brought unbelievable death and destruction. Caldari Prime was given to the Gallente in return for peace. The current war involves the retaking and occupation of Caldari Prime. Both empires see it as their planet and will kill for it.

The Khanid Empire formed before the Minmatar rebelled. It was a somewhat peaceful secession and the Amarr and Khanid still work together in trade.

The Minmatar had an extremly developed culture and in many ways surpassed the other empires in technology when they were found and subjugated by the Amarr. Over the centuries, the Amarr broke down the Minmatar and turned them into slaves.

When the Amarr met the Gallente for the first time, they'd met their match for the first time in their history. They wisely avoided conflict, but when the Amarr learned of the existence of the Jovians, they felt it was their duty to bring them under their empire. One ill fated military campaign later, and while the Amarr bled, the Minmatar rose up and fought for their freedom. Supported by the Gallente, the Minmatar eventually created an empire of their own. They are in constant conflict with the Amarr.

The Ammatar Mandate is simply sovereign space granted as a reward to those Minmatar that remained loyal to the Amarr. It is economically defunct.

The Jovian empire control an area of space out in nullsec that is currently unreachable. There are thankfully no conflicts in Jove space. The Jovian's gave the rest of the galaxy cloning technology and capusleer technology. It's speculated that the Jovian's never actually experienced any crash after the Eve Gate closed. It's also surmised that their culture has directly evolved from whatever colony they were before that event.

The Angel Cartel, Guristas Pirates, Serpentis Corp, Sansha's Nation, The Blood Raiders, and The Thukker Trive all control a somewhat smaller amount of space in nullsec as well.

Each criminal enterprise also has an established presence in each of the empires, killing, stealing and carving out a place to live.

There are twenty two alliances with enough power in nullsec to control an entire constellation. Some of these, like Band of Brothers, Goonswarm, or Tau Ceti Federation control such large portions of space that they rival the empires in size. These huge Alliances fight back and forth. Sometimes thousands of capsuleers fight for just one system.

Smaller groups (sometimes just a single corporation) control certain (sometimes just one) systems, or at least attempt to extend their control. Sometimes the fights are small, but sometimes they are almost as large as the Alliance and Empire battles.

But despite the fact that this Galaxy is in effect a giant meat grinder - I went on a roam tonight and couldn't find a thing to kill.

Goddamnit.

The Rest Is Silence

Will you tell the folks back home I nearly made it,
Had offers but don't know which one to take,
Please don't tell 'em how you found me,
Don't tell 'em how you found me,
Gimme a break, give me a break.
Albert Hammond - It Never Rains In Southern California

Angel Creo-Mining Station - Gusandall

"Richard?" The pitch of the voice was high, but soft. The sound of the rushing water almost drowned out the voice. The two men were up to their waists in water. The first tapped the other on the shoulder again.

"What do ya want Barney?" The man turned around and looked down at the man following him.

"I was just thinking," Barney spoke over the water, "Maybe we could get out of here?"

"Oh yeah, they're just going to let us go," Richard turned around and started struggling to turn the valve again, "Give me a hand will ya?"

Barney stepped forward and grabbed the uppermost part of the lever, and the two of them slowly turned it. The water stopped flowing, and except for the drips from them and the pipe, the room was silent again.

"I wasn't talking about them letting us go Rich, I was talking about leaving,"

"So you were talking stupid. Glad we cleared that up," Richard began to trudge through the water towards the ladder.

"Rich, you and me got alot of freedom here. We could steal a ship and never look back."

"And you want me to give that up Barn? You'll get us both killed. Or worse. Now shut up and lets go," Richard started to climb the ladder and stopped before opening the hatch to look back down at Barney, "Look, you're my friend so trust me when I say this. I've seen better men than us try it and fail," Richard looked Barney in the eyes and pointed at him with one hand as he continued, "You said it. We've got alot of freedom here. We get caught running, we're stuck for good. Give it time, and maybe, just maybe we'll find an opening. Until then, stop talking about it,"

"Rich, this isn't where I want to be,"

"It ain't where any of us want to be, even them," Rich looked down at Barney and motioned him towards the ladder, "Come on,"

_______________________

"Barney!" The woman who yelled his name was clad in a miniskirt and a blouse that showed her bellybutton. He looked over and she ran to his table.

"Hey Trixie. How you been?"

"Pretty good now baby," She sat down in his lap and ran her hands through his hair.

"Heh, Good,"

The girl looked him in the eyes, "What'd you do today?"

"We had to lock down a water pipe on level fifty six," He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, kissing it softly before looking back up at her, "This place is falling apart,"

Her expression turned stern for a moment, "This is my home as much as yours,"

"Yeah,"

"Oh god, not this again," She leaned back and rolled her eyes.

"Yes that again. I have a degree in molecular physics and they've got me working on pipes,"

"You're working on pipes because that's the best job they could find for you,"

"I'm working on pipes because the Cartel and Serpentis have no use for anyone that doesn't know drugs,"

"You know, you might want to lay off the 'woe is me' bullshit while you're talking to the doxy,"

"I'm sorry Trix,"

"So am I," She turned her head as someone walked into the bar, "Look babe, I gotta go to work, I'll meet you after. Your place this time," He nodded and she jumped up.

Barney looked into his drink before he cradled his face into his hands.

_______________________

Evati VII - Moon 1 Kaalakiota Corporation Warehouse - The 'By Jove' Bar and Restaurant

"What?" Hallan was looking over his maps again from his back office. His recently acquired bar gave him a bit of solace to conduct his business away from The Hub.

"We let them build it. They're working for us," Alfroren Karsteinn was talking to him from Balginia over comms.

"Why?"

"Because the only ones who can run a mining outpost in Minmatar low-sec space is the Cartel,"

"Look, whatever. I just need the coordinates,"

"Yeah. I'm uploading them now. What're ya going to do?"

"I'm gonna steal some shit, then run like I stole something,"

"Very, logical," Alfroren laughed and looked down at his keypad, "It's done man," He looked back up at Hallan, "Try not to kill anyone,"

"I always try," Hallan clicked off the comms before standing up and walking over to the wall of his office. He grabbed a pistol and held it up to the light. He'd recently come into a huge cache of Guristas firearms. They all bore the mark of Fatal and the Rabbit. He put the gun into his holster and hefted a huge rifle from the wall, "Never seem to manage it though,"

_______________________

Eight Years Ago - New Caldari Prime - Prime City - Mindclash Arena

"I can do this!" Barney was chuckling as he concentrated on the vision in front of him.

Hallan was taken aback for a moment and the zombies on his side of the field began to degrade. He steadied himself and closed his eyes. Suddenly in the middle of the field gravestones began to rise. From underneath them numerous zombies began to crawl out and onto the field. They advanced past Barney's tentacled monster defenders as he stood stunned and reached forward to grab him.

"Enough!" Came a computerized voice as the crowd that had gathered cheered.

The two participants climbed down from the playing field and met on a walkway along the arena.

"Thanks for the match," Hallan said reaching out his hand, "You put up one hell of a fight,"

"Hal, we both knew what was going to happen before we started. I'm glad you agreed to a match though," Barney reached out and shook Hallan's hand, "I'm going out for a meal. You wanna come? It's my treat,"

Hallan nodded and they walked off, with Barney patting Hallan on the back.

_______________________

"So you're going into Molecular Physics?" Hallan asked with a mouth full of food.

"Yeah," Barney said, sipping his Quafe, "I figure I'll do a nice six year stint with the Academy, then head out and find a job,"

"Head out?"

"Yeah, NCP is a horrible place to find a job in any kind of research,"

"Where ya going to go?" Hallan looked out the window and into the street, which was, as it always was, locked with traffic.

"Probably Alliance space, the Capsuleer corps pay very generously,"

"You sure that's safe?"

"Of course it's safe,"

Hallan grabbed his bookbag and stood up from the booth, "I appreciate the meal Barney, If ya want to go another round, you know my number,"

"No problem Hal,"

_______________________

Now - Angel Creo-Mining Station - Gusandall

The alarms outside the room made it hard to hear anything but the beat of his own heart. Barney looked dumbfounded at the commander as he spoke.

"Just do it!" The commander was screaming at Barney now. He hated it when the commander screamed. He put up his hands to protect his face as the man hit him between the shoulders with the butt of the rifle, "Get to docking bay five and shoot that fucker,"

Barney fell to the floor as the commander threw the rifle down beside him. He reached over and picked it up. He stood up and looked at the commander. The commander stopped and they looked at each other.

"Just go," The commander started, "The guards outside will come in at even the--"

Barney fired the rifle twice into the Commanders chest. He let out a wheeze and slumped onto his desk. Barney stepped against the wall beside the door just as it slid open and both guards rushed in. Barney kicked the second guard that came in into the first, and unloaded a clip into both of them before he ran out the door. He loaded another clip into his rifle and began to run down the halls.

The alarms already blared loudly as he sprinted through the deserted halls. He made his way to the fourth level, where his own quarters resided. The door wouldn't open. He banged his rifle against it but it wouldn't open. He wondered silently if Trixie was alright, but right now he had to get himself safe.

He turned around and saw a familiar face.

"Hallan?" Barney's eyes lit up with suprise.

"Barney Mullen?" Hallan raised his eyebrow.

"We have to find some kind of way out of here," Barney said banging on the door again.

"I gotta go," Hallan turned around.

"Wait," Barney called after him, "How'd they get you too?"

"They didn't, Man. I just stole something valuable and now I gotta leave. If you wanna come with me, I suggest you hurry," Hallan broke into a sprint as Barney followed after him.

Docking bay five had twenty or so guards stationed to guard the ship he'd brought in. As Hallan ran around the corner, half of them turned around to look in his direction. His assault rifle came alive and the men fell jittering to the floor.

He ran past their bodies and keyed a code into the door. It opened with a hiss and Barney came from around the corner. Hallan looked behind him and smiled for a moment before gunfire erupted behind Barney, and he fell to the ground.

Hallan quickly jumped inside the ship airlock as his old friend crawled in his direction leaving a bloody trail as he did so. Hallan keyed another code into the door and it hissed shut. He turned to his ship's door, put in another code and as it opened he hopped inside. He hit the pad on the other side and that door closed too.

Hallan looked through the two windows, sighed and ran to his pod. He hopped in, jacked in, engaged his engines and broke away from the docking clamps which had him locked down. The airlock and part of the docking bay stayed attached to his ship as he engaged warp to the Republic Justice Tribunal station. He turned his cameras behind him once to see the bodies flailing in the darkness before looking back out into the stars.

It Sure Is Smokey In Here

East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'
We gonna do what they say can't be done
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there
I'm east bound just watch ol' Bandit run
Jerry Reed - East Bound and Down

OOC: I'd like to congratulate The Bastards on a convincing win against KIA in the Sixth Alliance Tournament.

I'd be lying if I said this was unexpected. This is the Bastards.

IC: The first round of the Alliance tournament was held today. The majority of the Bastards were in the Hub drinking and celebrating. I stopped in to offer my congratulations and noticed a decided lack of Hellcats. I brought up Mynxee on corp comms and she let me know she was out on a roam with Venom, one of her new recruits. I offered my Rifter as support and she accepted. I went down to my hangar and happily undocked.

I was thoroughly enjoying myself as I warped from gate to gate, quickly making up the fourteen jumps between me and them. By the time I arrived they'd only moved on one system, so I followed them and joined their fleet.

We were a motely crew, two rifters and a republic fleet firetail. Agile and quick, we roamed from system to system, looking for targets.

Most of the systems were rather devoid of life, but I managed to scan down a Drake. I warped in on him a hundred kilometers away, and signaled to Mynxee that if she warped to the gate, and then to me at a hundred, she'd be on top of him. She followed the directions, but as she came out of warp, we discovered the Drake was aligned. He disappeared into a warp bubble before anyone could get a lock.

Disappointed, we moved into the next system. The Drake followed us oddly, and I managed to scan him down again. Mynxee warped in first this time, and I followed quickly afterwards. She pointed him and Venom came in guns firing. The Drake pilot was a bit smarter this time and his friends came to his aid. We were suddenly set upon by quite a few ships. I was already taking heavy damage from the Drake, and I died rather quickly. Everyone else got out, fortunately.

So I began to trek back to Evati, telling the girls to continue on. I'd catch up.

It seems the whole world of Eve is abuzz with love for the Bastards today though, as more than a couple of people offered a congratulations to me for our teams win today along the way. I wish I could've been a part of it.

It wasn't too long that I got back out there, covering the thirty-two jumps in no time. One thing can be said about the power of the small squad, it doesn't take much time to get back into the fight.

We began to warp from gate to gate checking for targets. I had a rough location on a Thrasher, who happened to be in line with an Amarr military complex. A Phobos showed up on scan too, but I wagered he was in one of the belts behind the complex. Turns out I was wrong, and I went completely silent on comms as I emerged from warp on a Phobos.

Heavy Interdictors are always an annoying pain in the ass, moreso when you don't have a gate cloak to give time to figure your situation out. In hindsight I could've tried to activate the gate, but in practice I started to warp to a safe I had just set up. This required me to come to a full stop, turn around, and then gain enough speed to enter warp.

A Phobos has a hell of a locking time, let me tell you. So I was pointed rather quickly. I engaged my damage control, armor repair, and afterburner. He was only seven thousand meters away, and I made a decision to head towards the Phobos to buy myself the time to figure out my situation.

As I passed under five thousand kilometers his medium autocannons found me impossible to track, and I looked ahead of me to see a planet. I aligned and waited. As I passed back into his gun's range, I began to take some heavy damage. I was not optimistic about my chances. He was following, however slowly, and I wasn't making the ground that I needed too.

Around twenty kilometers, the Thrasher came out of warp. He may've been neutral as it seemed he engaged the gate into the Amarr plex. Shortly thereafter though, two Huggins came out of warp. I was now twenty eight kilometers away, and I'd passed out the range of the Phobos's guns. I hit twenty nine kilometers and two Ishtars came out of warp.

The warm glow of webification surrounded my ship, as the Huggins began their work. I cursed loudly but though my speed was decreasing, I had enough momentum to coast out of the Phobos's warp disruption range. As the point fell off my ship, I hit the warp button, seeing ten sentry drones deploy just as my afterburner deactivated for warp.

I broke through comms at this point, screaming almost unintelligibly "Eleven Percent Structure!".

I've always heard, "You don't want to see your own obituary". I've always said "Yes you do, cause if you see it, you're not dead,". Next time your ship is on fire, remember that.

After a quick repair, I was back in space, no worse for wear. We wandered for a couple more system, finding a fan along the way. Venom did a fairly good write up of that encounter, so I suggest you go check out her commnet logs.

Good Day

Killswitch: Chapter One

Chapter List:
Prologue

Meeting the Man

There are two kinds of people in this world, those that are gonna die, and those that are me.
Cruikias Mondet, Minmatar Racing Champion.

After a much quieter second leg, Hallan finally arrived in 6NJ8-V. Venal. The home of the Guristas pirates. He checked the system beacons and found two stations, he recognized the one the instructions had mentioned and engaged warp.

He came out of the warp bubble quickly, and angled his ship for docking.

Hallan Turrek then effortlessly glided his Rifter into the Guristas Logistics Support station, just like he'd done hundreds of thousands of times in the past. This time though the hangars were devoid of crew. He wasn't sure what that meant. He slowly lowered his Rifter onto a landing pad and felt his ship clang as it held his ship down.

"I'm grounded?" He thought from inside his pod, "Oh this ain't normal,"

"We ain't normal, get out of the pod," A voice boomed inside his head.

_______________________

Hallan Turrek was being led by several armed men through the station corridors. It looked as though it hadn't been cleaned in years, the normally shiny interior of the Caldari station was stained with a puke green hue. One of the men grabbed him by the arm and shoved him against a door. The door opened and he was kicked inside. He flew into the room and came down on his knees.

Hallan looked up to see a man sitting behind a desk, who reached forward to turn on a lamp on his desk. Hallan stood up and looked in the man's eyes.

"Sit down," The man said it plainly, without the hint of command in his voice.

"I'm good," Hallan said, dusting off his coat.

"You know, you remind me of a guy who used to work for me, went by the name Zippo," The man behind the desk leaned back and put his boots up in front of him.

"That's a funny name," Hallan said, looking up.

"They're all funny names. Thing is, he had a real problem with authority. Give the guy an order, he'd find some way to shove it up your ass. It's how I ended up with him. One day, 'bout eight years ago I tell this guy before a job, 'Make sure you bring a backup detonator.'

"I mean, Zippo was a professional demo guy. He could make a light show like you wouldn't believe. This was important though, so I felt like saying it. He didn't like it, but he shut up about it. We get to the bank, we break into the vault--"

"Where at?"

"What are you a fucking cop? It's a vault. We break into the vault, we rig up the charges, and it doesn't go off. So I tell him to break out the extra detonator. And he tells me, he didn't bring 'em,"

"So what'd you do?"

"I shot that prick and used mine,"

"What?" Hallan raised an eyebrow.

The man behind the desk threw his feet to the floor and leaned forward into the light, "I told you to fucking sit down,"

Hallan looked around for a moment, laughed softly, and sat down in the chair across from the man.

"Now, who are you?" The man asked, picking up a pen on his desk.

"I'm Hallan Turrek,"

"That's what you're going with, 'I'm Hallan Turrek?'" The man let a half smile cross his face and it quickly faded away.

"That's my name,"

"I know your name jackass. You think I'd let you in this room... you think I'd let you on this station if I didn't know your ident code, what you wear to bed, what you had for breakfast this morning, and who your mom and dad were fucking last night?"

"My Dad's dead,"

"And your Mom's a prude. Let's not get distracted," the man twirled the pen quickly between his fingers, but focused his eyes on Hallan, "Do you at least know who I am?"

"You're Jira..."

"No, that's wrong. We don't play by those rules here. I'm Fatal,"

"Ok,"

"Who are you?"

Hallan stopped for a moment and looked up, "I-I'm Jack,"

"Now we're getting somewhere,"

"I'm here to work for you,"

"I know that,"

"I can be useful," Hallan leaned onto the table as he spoke.

"If you weren't useful you'd have never made it here,"

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to prove to me that I can trust you,"

"How do I do that?"

"You tell me,"

"I've been killing miners, traders, and anti-pirates for months now. I've been stealing from and killing the Cartel on a regular basis," Hallan stopped speaking for a moment as Fatal's pen fell to the table.

"Yeah, the Cartel. They fucking hate you. And I hate them. But I don't really see where killing and stealing from thieves is supposed to get you currency in this exchange," Hallan shifted uncomfortably in his seat as Fatal spoke, "You know the difference between you and me and the cartel?"

"The rules?"

"Not where I was going with that, but I like how you think. You and me? Style. Them? Profit,"

"I try both when I can," Hallan said with a chuckle.

"Me too man, me too," Fatal stared at Hallan intently for a moment and sighed, "Listen, I can't really be sure Concord wouldn't send somebody like you down here to fuck with me, or to spy on me. So here's what we're going to do. Concord's got a nice blockade set up at a stargate we'd been using for smuggling into Empire.

"It's pretty obvious we can't use the gate again, but since you just fell in my lap, I've got an idea. Go find Orvyllerier Allerande on the promenade. He'll get you the coords for the stargate. Go there. Kill them. All of them. Talk to Orvy when you're done.

"If this works out, you report to Orvy from now on. You don't want to see me again. It means something bad is about to happen. I'm letting you know because if that time comes, there's nothing you can do about it,"

Hallan nodded and stood up. He extended his hand and the man shook it. Hallan turned around and walked out the door. Hallan realized the guards were gone and as the door closed behind him, he shivered.

The One Where I Lose 70 Million

Dealin' cards with the old men in the club car
Penny a point, ain't no one keepin' score
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
And feel the wheels rumblin' neath the floor
Alro Guthrie - City of New Orleans

Jorge Belda, Mynxee, Myself, Sarvic and another unnamed patron sat at a table in the Hub, the Bastards favorite haunt. I leaned back and pushed another pile of chips into the center of the table. The rest of the players looked around a bit and put down their hands in turn, except the man I didn't know, who was sitting directly across from me, next to Mynxee and Sarvic.

"That's fifteen million," He said raising his eyebrow.

"I'm glad you can count, I'd hate for you to not know how much I'm taking from you," I quipped with a chuckle. Mynxee couldn't contain her giggle and his face turned red.

"I'm in," He said with a huff.

"Call," I flipped my hand down, "Full house,"

"Crap," he muttered, throwing his hand down, showing the two pair he'd been betting on.

The man flagged down a waitress and whispered in her ear, softly patting her behind as he leaned back down to the table. She glared in his direction and started walking to the bar. She pointed in our direction as the Bartender looked up and nodded to the man sitting across from me.

"Good hand Hallan," Jorge Belda said before taking the cards for another deal. Before he dealt the hand, the waitress dumped a load of chips onto the table next to the man.

"Lets play for real this time," He said with a chuckle.

_______________________________

I hadn't fared well after that, and after losing seventy million isk I was feeling the hurt. I stood up and began to leave the table but the man grabbed my sleeve as I passed. He was obviously drunk.

"There's that little matter of the Rifter you threw in that last pot," He stood up and looked into my eyes, "I wanna see it."

"You a pod pilot?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, or I'd already have one of those rinky dink things," the waitress from earlier passed by to give Sarvic his drink as the guy pointed in her direction and spit out, "I'll be back in a few for you sweet cheeks,"

I looked over at Mynxee who had a mix of amusement and irritation on her face and mouthed "Sweet Cheeks?!". She shrugged and laughed, and I looked up at the gambler again.

"Lets go get you that ship,"
_______________________________

"It looks like Bruzen shit," The man was leaning against the frame of the door as he observed one of the many Joker's Wilds that was sitting assembled in my hanger.

"So do you, but I had the good sense not to mention it," I said with a chuckle, interrupting him before he could complain, "How's about we take it for a spin?"

"Yeah sure, where do I ride?" He almost fell over as he wobbled towards the ship.

"Oh you know, anywhere," I said with a smile, before climbing aboard myself.

You know, he never did make it back for that date with the waitress.

Killswitch: Prologue

A Path Through The Cold

Run, Run as fast as you can. You can't catch me I'm the Gingerbread Man.
The Gingerbread Man - Traditional Gallente Fairy Tale

The Aces Wild jumped through the gate, and very loudly landed on the other side. The gate induced cloaking laid a veil over the ship as it's pilot surveyed the situation. Hallan Turrek's mind raced inside his pod.

A mobile warp disruption bubble and an Arazu laid between him and the next gate. He slowly turned his camera drones to view his surroundings and noticed a few asteroid belts behind the gate. He told his navigation computer to warp in it's direction, and it quickly did so, shrugging off the cloak as it entered warp.

He landed on three Angel Cartel Battleships and three more Angel Cartel Frigates. Hallan turned his ship around and selected the planet that the next gate orbited and engaged warp again. The Cartel hadn't even managed to target him. That was for the best he imagined, the Cartel would pay a high price for his head.

He opened his navigation menu and created a bookmark just before landing. He then stared at the scene before him in disbelief as he realized he'd been pulled into a warp bubble orbiting the planet. He engaged his prototype cloaking device and began to burn his way out of it. No ships were waiting for him, and he figured he had cloaked before they got a fix on his location as none arrived. When he emerged from the bubble, he engaged his warp to the bookmark he'd created. The Aces Wild shook as it came out of warp again and shimmered softly before disappearing again in the dark night.

Hallan's directional scanner showed five small bubbles surrounding the gate accompanied by a single large bubble and a Caldari Navy Raven. Imagining that support could be on it's way any moment, Hallan dropped cloak again and engaged his warp drive. The Rifter sparkled in the starlight as Hallan's heart began to beat faster. He came out of warp inside a warp disruption bubble, pointed his ship in a direction and engaged his cloak. He was twenty eight kilometers away from the gate. He watched as the Raven headed in his direction. He'd cloaked fast enough to avoid a target lock, but not fast enough to avoid detection.

Hallan cursed mentally as the Raven passed four kilometers from his ship. The cloak would malfunction if anything came within two kilometers and Hallan knew it. Suddenly the Raven released a full load of Ogre's that began an orbit. The drones were regularly coming within three kilometers of his ship. Hallan selected the gate, and readied his microwarp drive. He turned the camera to see a web of warrior one in the direction he was flying. He changed his trajectory and headed towards the gate. He zoomed his camera out and saw that a huge web of warrior one's surrounded the gate. These guys were good.

Suddenly the Arazu came out of warp within five kilometers. So these two were working together. It released it's own load of Hobgoblin two's and began to perform an orbit around the Raven. It inched closer.

"Arazu's don't usually carry warp scramblers," he thought "That Raven would take to long to lock me if it carried a scrambler,"

The Gisti-B type microwarp drive he'd stolen from the Cartel had netted him nothing but trouble from them in the past, but today, he imagined it could save him. If he was right, there was nothing these guys could do about it. The gate was now twenty six kilometers away and his reduced speed while cloaked made that a long wait. The Arazu worried him though, and he decided to stick to plan A until it became prudent to make a run for it.

Then the cloud of Hobgoblin's disappeared into the Arazu's holds. It stopped in space for just a fraction of a moment before warping away. Hallan smiled inwardly and decloaked. He activated the microwarp drive and headed for the gate.

He was faster than the Raven by a long shot. It's lock hadn't even resolved by the time Hallan signaled for gate activation.

His smile melted away as he realized that another bubble awaited him on the other side of that gate.

It was unattended but Hallan knew the Raven was lumbering back to the gate while the Arazu was likely in warp to the gate as well. This system was full of capusleers and his name was probably plastered across all of the local intel channels. Hallan decided to take all available precautions.

He warped to a belt and cloaked. He was thankful the next gate was in scan range. No activity on the scan. He warped in, activated the gate and landed in an empty system.

"That's better," he thought, before engaging warp.

Till The Firing Stops

Just because I'm losing
Doesn't mean I'm lost
Doesn't mean I'll stop
Doesn't mean I will cross
Coldplay - Lost!

"Connection to Probe Lost"

I looked over the system map, it was gone. No signal at all. I traveled to planet five, and it really was gone. Oh well. I put another probe out and began another round of scanning.

"Connection to Probe Lost"

Another one just disappeared. Ok, that's out of the ordinary. I'm willing to blame a malfunction for one, but two in such a short time is unheard of. Most weapons systems won't even lock a probe, so I was left wondering who was doing this and how.

"Hey Mynxee," My corps comms were lively tonight, but I cut through with a question, "You ever had a probe just disappear?".

"No," Came her reply, "You're probably experiencing a glitch,"

"Connection to Probe Lost"

"No, uh, the only probe I have left now is the one I dropped between planets. All of the ones at the planetary orbit points are gone," I was still trying to figure this out.

"I'll load up a ship and come over to take a look," She offered.

"Yeah, that'd be fine. There's a radar site in here, and a combat plex," I paused for a moment, "Maybe someone is smartbombing them,"

"It's possible," I heard her say as I warped to a hit.

_______

I'd narrowed down the combat complex by the time she showed up in system. She'd also enlisted the help of another corpmate of mine, BravoFox. He sat in a well heeled combat ship on the other side of the gate. If we encountered any trouble, he'd be ready.

I knew a Prophecy was wandering around, and while Mynxee laid some probes at the planets, I began to set some up off of the planets. My new probes went untouched but it wasn't long before Mynxee spoke on voice comms.

"He's here, he's approaching the probe. He just smartbombed it," she paused for a moment, "He just left,"

So that's it.

"My systems are glitching out," I lied in local, "My probes are just dissapearing,"

Mynxee and myself began to probe for the radar complex. I imagined it was worth quite alot of money for the trouble this guy was causing to keep others away. She eventually got a hit, while BravoFox chased the Prophecy into a station. I warped to her location and the two of us dropped Sift probes to narrow the location down.

In moments we had it.

The smartbomber must've noticed our activity, because he became irate at this point. He told us he already had the location and he'd alert the Angel Cartel to our presence. Bravo assured us he was still stuck inside the station. I called up the station manager as I got a Caracal from Evati, and it very shortly suffered a communication shutdown. Moments later the Prophecy pilot was hurtling out of the station, but it was too late. I landed on the complex just as the Cartel began to mobilize to move their base.

Cartel bases are pretty mobile, but they couldn't do anything with my missiles raining on them.

As Mynxee watched cloaked, soon nothing was left but us, debris, and the Cartel computer systems.

I slowly extracted everything of value from the site while our new friend pleaded with us to leave it alone. We're pirates, he said, wouldn't it make sense to let others find it and then kill them?

He must've been getting paid well for protection of the base, and I was happy to remove his cashflow. Thirty-Five Million isk later, our little pirate fleet moved back to Evati.

He cursed us the entire way.

Good Day.

The Horror

You don't understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.
Marlon Brando - On The Waterfront

Why in the hell do you care? Is there something you're not sharing? Something about your ship, your implants, or your statistics that's important to you?

Give it up.

I don't understand people who don't just live in low-sec, but make their living there and are afraid to die. What in the hell is wrong with you? Did you miss the memo about being a pirate? You don't have to care.

I go on roams with people that refuse to engage, I hear people talk about how they don't wanna lose their ships. Those of you that talk like that, think like that, or work like that are idiots. You forget yourselves.

What do you hope to achieve? You fly with pirates, you give the finger to the law. You laugh in the face of danger. You achieve greatness.

I swear to you, that isn't going to happen while you are cowering inside a station, no matter how expensive your ship is.

Put away your insecurities, put away your fears, put away your misguided notions of profit, put away everything. Become primal. There are primordial instincts. Bring that to the table. You can be that person. Know where you are. Know where they are. Use all your skills.

If money is an issue, fly only what you can afford to lose. When it's all said and done, just have fun.

Glory follows.

Hard to Capture

Homicide's illegal and death is the penalty
What justifies the homicide, when he dies?
In his own iniquity
Wu Tang Clan - Da Mystery of Chessboxin'

I've been pirating for months now, and I've come to a conclusion: I like to kill people. I know I've gone into detail on this before but it's more true than I let on. I really enjoy sending people back to the clone vats. I really enjoy making a ship explode. My first reaction upon jumping a target is not to ask for a ransom, it's to kill them.

This can be problematic for a pirate. It comes with the territory that I should be ransoming people. Getting folks to give me money to go free. I've had a couple of successful ransoms. Nothing spectacular. Maybe forty million total, including group work. We killed a drake today, then we podded the guy. We asked for a ransom and he didn't answer. Turned out he had nice implants in that clone. Sucks to be him.

I don't know why, but I seem to attract kills from people who just won't pay me. Sometimes they won't even talk to me. They probably think they're doing their friends a favor, making themselves less of a target next time. Making me less likely to attack them or their buds in the future. They fail to understand a very important point. I like killing people.

Over the last couple of weeks I've turned my first profit as a pirate. I'm up about a hundred million now compared to a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty happy about that. Profit in piracy can be an elusive thing. A lot of folks have alternate methods of cash generation. I have one at my disposal right now, in that I can find hidden computer systems. The various pirate factions have alot of hidden bases out there.

The one site I did with a partner yielded about fifty million. Twenty five of that went to me, and has helped me on the way to sustainability. Hopefully this is the solution I've been searching for.

I dunno if piracy will remain a profitable venture for me, but I do know this:

I love my job.

Good Day.

The Winds Hit Heavy

Well, if you go when the snowflakes storm,

When the rivers freeze and summer ends,
Please see if she's wearing a coat so warm,
To keep her from the howlin' winds.
Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash - The Girl From North Country

I had quite alot of fun last night with comet projectors along with a few members of my alliance. It's a novelty I know, but it's fun to fling them around this time of year. Celebration day may be past, but it's never to late to have some fun with your friends.


That said, I went on quite a long roam with Mynxee and MatarRae. Matar's a new Hellcat that's been wandering around Evati for the last few days with Mynxee. I gotta hand it to Mynx, she tends to bring in some good pilots.

I managed to get my own fool self caught at a gate. For the first time ever I got caught aligning my Rifter. All night the ship'd been sluggish in response to my commands. I'll never know what was wrong with it because a few interceptors made spare parts out of the damn thing. Mynxee and Matar were kind enough to wait for me to get into a new ship and we continued on.

Unfortunately the interceptors decided to follow our little roam a bit further down the pipe, and I suggested we divert from the normal path. We did so and lost the tail. We were wandering a bit in another branch of low-sec for a while before we returned to the pipe. We went into Amamake and for about ten minutes could not find a target. Not even a trap to spring. We decided to move on.

Sadly for us Matar had to head back about halfway to our next waypoint, but Mynxee and myself continued on. We continue into Vitrauze. I used to live there for a short time, and Mynxee had based the Hellcats there at one point, so we reminiced with the locals a bit while Mynxee sorted some inventory.

So far the only targets available had been to elusive to nail down. After arriving in Old Man Star we were surprised to find that hadn't changed. We flew around a bit but couldn't find anything. We decided to head up to Tama, a place I've visited on more than one occasion, before returning to Evati. Along the way Mynxee spotted a target.

"I've got a Kestrel and Catalyst in a Minmatar Installation," she said as I was about to activate the next gate.

I turned my ship back around and met her at the entrance gate. She engaged the gate and I did as well, but it took me a bit longer to get through. As I landed I saw the Kestrel warp away. The Catalyst however had decided to test his chances and Mynxee's Rifter sped in his direction. I did my best to catch up. She started to engage and as I closed I saw both of them going down fast. Mynxee's ship went up in a orange flare as I reached the target, already at half structure.

He popped before he even got a shot off, and I hammered the pod with all my ordinance even before Mynxee managed to yell on comms, "Pod him!" I scooped the loot from both wrecks and waited out my Global Criminal Countdown, as Mynxee mentioned she had some ships in Tama to replace her Rifter with.

In Tama we accosted the locals and threw out a few hellos. Mynxee managed to convince another pirate in the area to come down to Evati with us. They hopped into Stabbers and I hit the gate in my Rifter. We sped through high and low sec even past Rancer, which at the time was empty of the Smartbombing battleships I normally expect. I did take note of the Crielere labs along the way.


I have no doubts that if they were not Research Outposts, the two stations would be firing at each other daily.

Back in Evati I wasn't sure what to do. I'd had a pretty full day already, but I was interested in the fleet that seemed to be forming around Mynxee. I have to give the girl some credit, if you want a fleet organized, she's the best one to get it done. Not many people can tell her no.

With quite a little fleet under our belts we decided to set out. Somehow I got voted as the squad commander and I set our destination as Katugumur. Mean Coalition's home.

The trip was rather uneventful but the Katugumur gate was camped by a Deimos, Abbadon, and Hurricane. We all broke the gatecamp and formed up in the system. After a bit of hunting and chasing shadows Mynx volunteered to be bait. She took her new Rifter into a belt and began to shoot. I had the rest of the fleet align to her and we waited. True to form, the Deimos and Hurricane jumped in to kill her. The rest of the fleet were on them in moments, and I managed to warp to the wrong belt. I called the Deimos as primary without even being in the battle and the fighting commenced. As I arrived I started shooting the Deimos, who was at about half shields.

I asked if anyone had a point on the Hurricane and someone volunteered to do it. The Hurricane was pointed and the Deimos began to melt. Someone said they were removing point for the pod and I told everyone else to burn for the Hurricane as soon as the Deimos popped. The Deimos pod managed to warp out as the pointer accidentally moved out of range, but we continued to engage the Hurricane who soon too met his fate. I designated looters and had everyone else warp out. It was a quick affair, which was to be expected when in enemy territory.

The trip back to Evati was mostly uneventful, with a few ships trying to chase us down. We could've taken them as a group but I wasn't taking chances. Eventually they stopped pursuit and we made it back to Evati with loot in hold and everyone else intact.

Then we had another snowball fight.

Good Day.

I've Done a Lot of Foolish Things

Like a fool I went and stayed too long
Now I'm wondering if your love's still strong
Ooh baby
Here I am, signed, sealed delivered I'm yours
Then that time I went and said good-bye
Now I'm back and not ashamed to cry
Ooh baby
Here I am, signed, sealed delivered
I'm yours
Here I am baby
Stevie Wonder - Signed, Sealed, Delivered

My quest probes literally blanketed the system. The same pilot stared back at me in local as he had for the last twenty minutes. He was probably getting a bit impatient, waiting for me to find the site. Every crack was plugged, every gap covered. It was only a matter of time.

A hit. Finally. I warped to the signal and dropped a comb probe. Another hit, this time ten thousand kilometers from the site. I warped again and dropped a sift probe. In a few moments I was warping into the site at a hundred clicks while cloaked. I bookmarked the location and headed back to Evati.

I've got a Drake outfitted for just such a purpose, with code breakers to break into the Angel Cartel computer systems I'd found.

I warped my Drake into the site a few minutes later and began to destroy the Cartel pilots. I kept a three sixty degree scan going for a while as the initial guards exploded. I broke into the first can and took it's contents. Before I could move on to the second one, another wave came in. Once it was destroyed another came. As I fought. I managed to hack into three different sub-systems in the Cartel base.

Then, on my scanner I saw a spook probe. Time to go. I warped out and turned my cloak on. I cursed as my drones didn't make it back to me in time.

I waited for over twenty minutes before going back for my drones, as I knew the spook probe would only last that long.

A few minutes later, after checking the gate, I was out and on my way to Evati.

For a short time I was the hunted, and given my knowledge of hunting, I was able to escape as soon as danger reared it's ugly head.

Despite the fact that I missed out on what could've been nice loot, I had fun.

Good Day.

Till You All Just Disappear

Boiling heat

Summer stench
'neath the black
The sky looks dead
Call my name
Through the cream
And I'll hear you
Scream again
Sound Garden - Black Hole Sun

Pirate fleets are always quite a sight to behold. Flash, Shae, Mynxee, Sarge, Jed, and myself along with a huge group of Bastards and assorted other pirates went on a rampage through null and low sec space. By the time we were done we'd even streaked a path across high sec. It was an ultimately fun and productive roam.

I woke up and jacked into the corp comm channel while enjoying a morning drink. I was amazed to find massive amounts of people online and the plans for a roam being discussed. I hopped into my Rifter in anticipation, but after looking at the fleet I decided to try something a bit different and got into my Caracal.

We headed towards the first null sec gate and encountered a couple of ships. They made a couple of really poor choices and became the first victims of the night.

The first null sec gate itself was then clear but we had some fun with a few ships that warped in at a range that left them exposed. A Taranis was tackled and I managed to take it into half structure before it warped away, despite a Falcon's presence. I switched to the Falcon but it managed a jam cycle finally and I cursed. The rest of the ships managed to escape. The rest of the fleet held position and we began to move again.

A Brutix was tackled and taken down along the way, melting beneath the onslaught of our fleet.

We began to dodge in and out of null sec, finally catching a small fleet on a gate. The Huginn, Myrmidon and Tempest were left alone by their already scant backup to meet their fates. We had alot of fun spoiling their day.

A couple of people were being chased by a Vagabond while trying to get to us. We saw him on a gate and the entire fleet warped towards him. As we were about to land we heard on comms that he'd agressed, and the gate crew wouldn't let him through. Laughs were had at his expense as twenty ships came out of warp in unison and quickly destroyed him.

We finally dived headfirst into null-sec and began to make our way across Red Alliance, Goonfleet, and Intrepid Crossing space among others. We cut a path through The Great Wildlands and a few other pirate controlled systems as well, finding a Goonfleet base along the way that was unprotected. After destroying a few frigates and stealing some things off a Badger Mk II, we left it and continued on

We managed to nail down a Typhoon before we left null sec, and we emerged unscathed(save a Rifter loss by someone other than me).

We emerged in Konora and intel told us we might find a target on a station. A few folks had already decided to leave before we'd resurfaced, and took the opportunity to do so. We still managed to hurt a Taranis who made a couple of bad dance moves outside of the station. I was almost pleased to hear "I missed, someone else get him," as my missiles struck and the poor Inty exploded. I so seldomly get be the last to fire at a ship.

Myself, Mynxee, and a few other fleet members decided at this point to break what had turned into a Thanatos, Nidhogger, Raven, Claymore, and Purifier. We even heard tale of a Heavy Interdictor as we undocked and broke for high sec. We'd all taken alternate routes, and a few folks ran into trouble in null sec, while the high/low route was entirely clear. Everyone made it back in one piece except for Sarge.

You hear about pod malfunctions sometimes, and I've yet to have it happen to me. But basically it's when your pod blanks your brain and transmits the data away without your pod ever being breached. Sarge had this happen to him and his Tempest died afterwards. We were mostly happy to have him back, but he's likely going to sue the cloning company for the damages.

I had fun, I'd do it again.

Good Day.

Can You Hear the Scream?

Move over, dad, 'cause I'm a double dipper!
Upside down on the zip-zip-zipper
1,2,1,2,3, I′ve got a ticket so ride with me
Mary go down on the merry-go-round
All is fair on the fair ground
Love go slow, love go fast
Licorice twist gonna whip your ass.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Roller Coaster of Love(Remix)

When I first decided to work for the Minmatar and resign my Caldari commission, it was pretty apparent I couldn't stick around in the Caldari Navy. I had to find another corporation, and the very first Corp I joined was called Da Miner Elites.

Most of our business was terrestrial in origin. Those who'd started the corp were pod pilots who mined under the watchful eye of Concord. The terrestrial business was actually more of a telecoms company and the name never did fit it. Given the expansive nature of the corp by the time I'd joined, the name was changed to Lost Connection.

As a part of LoCon I helped lead the way in Brutor tribe relations. I'd been working for them for such a long time already, and I enjoyed helping the cause of freedom. We slowly turned our company into a powerful friend to the Brutor and never looked back. Eventually we learned that subsidiaries would be needed to operate on more robust level, and we formed an alliance. It wasn't too long after that, that I formed Good Arms Incorporated, which still exists today.

Given my new freedom, and because of alot of the infighting I saw among the Minmatar during the time I worked with them, I had decided to strike out on my own.

Sometimes I still find my old corpmates and talk about old times, yesterday being one of those occasions.

The Bastards were all drunk in the station, and I was cruising between the stars in my Rifter. I checked my old protocols for LoCon's voice comms, and upon finding they hadn't yet been revoked, I logged in.

I was greeted with friends and strangers, and it wasn't long before my old high-sec friends began to ask about my criminal exploits.

You already know, if you read this, about most of what I've done and am doing. They were surprised and amazed that I was still at it out here. They wondered how I could make any money at it.

Someone offered that he was planning to learn the life of the Criminal as soon as he could fly an Astarte. I mentioned that he was, with all due respect, out of his god damned mind. To anyone who wished to learn piracy, I had a simple suggestion. Bring a bunch of frigates. Loads of them.

A metric shit ton of them.

The guy scoffed, scoffed, at me. At the very least he'd bring a battleship. I told him to tell me when and where, please.

Most of the others were pretty seriously considering what I had to say. One even offered to come out to Evati and go for a roam. Given that most of the corp's missioners are Caldari, he was forced to take the worst of the four combat frigates. The Kestrel works perfectly against the Angel Cartel, but against pod pilots, they're a bit more difficult to use properly.

I didn't care, I've used them before and they are alot of fun. He asked me where I intended to take him on his first trip with a real pirate. I set course for Amamake and told him he'd see when we got there.

We arrived in Amamake and I took us to my central scan point. From there we chased a few ghosts until I noticed a Rifter. After a bit of chasing I figured he was warping to each belt around each planet. Once he headed to planet four, I took the last belt and my wing man took the first belt. We worked towards the middle and my wing man found the target first. He pointed and engaged. The Rifter wasn't very damaged as I showed and burned in his direction. I set up an orbit at around three clicks and let loose with my new Barrage ammo.

The target melted slowly, his armor tank unable to withstand our hammering and he exploded. I tried to get the pod but the pilot was quick on his feet and warped it out. I scooped the loot, pleased to see tech two loot inside and warped back to my central scan. He'd carried five thousand barrage of his own, so I asked if I could have that and gave the modules over to my wing man. He agreed, we aligned to a belt and I kept scanning.

Suddenly a Taranis came up on scan. Interceptor. Properly built that thing could kill both of us. I decided it was worth my time and headed for a closer scan, dragging my wing man with me. Before I was even out of warp I knew the target's location. I said very clearly and calmly on comms "This guy is going to kill us," and initated warp for the squad. He protested vainly as his ship entered the bubble.

We came out of warp five clicks away from the Taranis and before I could even lock he got eleven clicks away. I cursed and headed his way. He then did something both suicidal and unexpected for any Inty pilot. He began to approach me. As he fell back under ten clicks, I threw on a web then, as he fell under seven, on came my scram.

A drone boat, with insane speed that is unable to move is a dead one, and his 'ceptor dropped way faster than his Rifter had. I heard a cheer from my wing man and we scooped some more tech two loot.

I know the fellow has picked up on and now reads this log, so I'd like to make a point. Use a disruptor, not a scram and use your drones next time.

At that point we decided to head to our respective homes, he took a shortcut through Osoggur, as Amamake isn't far away from the home of Lost Connection.

I know that these folks are at odds with Mean Corp as well, so I'm encouraging them to take frigate swarms out and have some fun. One day maybe I'll see them out here in force. For now, I'll be content with showing them a bit of the fun I see every day.

Good Day.

Hold On, Lets Not Be Hasty.

A drowning sorrow floods the deepest grief,
How long now?
Until the weather change condemns belief,
How long now?
When the night watchman lets in the thief.
Whats wrong now?
The Skids - The Saints Are Coming

Thukker Mix obviously knew what they were doing. The Cheetah is such a nice sleek ship, one almost couldn't imagine the death and destruction that ship has been able to cause in my hands. As it slipped out into the cold again my ship entered warp.

The bubble collapsed and I reoriented to warp to the Todifraun gate. As I entered warp I engaged my covert ops cloak. Space around me shimmered for a moment before the ship disappeared.

I requested clearance to jump through as I arrived, and my cloak never dropped. When I arrived in Todifraun I warped to planet six. The cloak reengaged immediately. I arrived and reoriented myself, hitting full speed before decloaking, hitting my afterburner, dropping a Ladar Quest Probe, and recloaking in one swift motion.

One hundred and thirty seconds later, I had a hit on the Hurricane. I warped to thirty and was surprised to find him in an open mission. He was literally five kilometers away from me. I called my support to warp to me and they did. He was pointed and after running a ship scan to determine he wasn't worth a ransom, he was killed in short order.

I warped back to the gate, then jumped into Evati. I docked at Kaalikota and smiled as I hopped out of my pod.

Good Day.

Lead Your Shots

I want to glide down over Mulholland

I want to write her name in the sky
I'm gonna freefall out into nothing
Gonna leave this world for a while
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Freefalling

So tonight I had quite an adventure trying to track a friend down and do someone a favor. Lets cover how it all began.

First I decided to head out to Vitrauze to sell off my belongings there. The ten million I made will be of much use to me elsewhere. After docking I went to check out a bar in the Federal Navy Academy. There was a particular waitress, who of course wasn't there tonight, who I'd been wanting to see again. She found me.

A ragged shell of a girl came up to me in that dingy bar and asked me if I could track someone down. She looked so helpless that I found it hard to refuse. I got her cleaned up, fed, and welcomed her aboard my ship. It was a mistake and wasted my time, but I'd do it again.

The person I was looking for was actually a friend of mine. She operated out of Evati just the same as I did, but was on a holiday. I had to find her.

Her last communication was from Dead End, and I figured that'd be a good place to start. Upon arriving there I found no trace of her, and moved back towards Vitrauze. As I did, a bit of intel came filtering in. A place out in null-sec called C9N-GC. I've barely ever ventured into null-sec, but I was determined not to dissapoint the girl that was surely pacing my ship at that very moment. Until a few jumps in, it was a fairly uneventful passage. Then instead of dropping out of warp at the gate, I was fifteen clicks away. I kicked on my microwarp drive and was jumping out as a single volley smashed into my shields. The ship barely rocked.

I passed by some Smuggler Gates along the way. They're of interesting design.

The remainder of the trip was completly uneventful until I arrived in C9N-GC. The system was completely deserted, and I keyed up a bit more info. In fifty jumps it had taken me to arrive she'd moved back to Evati. I cursed but discovered the wreck of a titan in system. I visited it.




In AZN-DZ, which was an unavoidable obstacle on my trip home, I noted a larger number of kills and pilots on the galaxy traffic maps. When I warped in, I discovered a huge camp on the gate I needed to travel through. I cloaked up and waited. Shortly the fleet moved, and I passed through. It was a simple waiting game. The path was clear for the rest of my trip back to Evati until the final piece of null-sec.

As I came out of warp on the Paala gate in LXQZ-T, I was almost seventy kilometers from the gate. I kicked on the microwarp drive and burned hard for the gate. A Manticore and Crow locked me and managed to place a warp disruptor on me. From what I understand these folks are more used to people cloaking when they run into trouble, and were probably better prepared for that instance. I was burning over thirty-five hundred meters a second towards the gate and actually jumped out just as their first volley passed through where my ship would've been and smacked off the gate. They were likely angry as my lowly rifter ran their gamut.

The trip back to Evati was alot more subdued and finally I was docked. I told the girl to go on her way, that she could find my friend in that station any time now. She thanked me and walked away.

A hundred and twenty jumps to end up back where I started.

Good day.

Diplomacy At The End Of An Autocannon

Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.

Lloyd Bentsen - Bentsen/Quayle Vice Presidential Debate

Why smack talk at all? Is there a good result that comes from it? I've seen Mynxee put it to deadly effect in ways I normally wouldn't think about. If used effectively you can get folks to engage who might not have done so before. That is generally it's only use.

The problem is when people smack to vent anger and frustration. You're at your least witty when angry. Friends don't let friends smack angry. Once you do that, people know you're riled, and you're alot less effective at it. It's just a means to an end.

You've gotta have some wit about you, a bit of class, and for god's sake, spell correctly.

Lets examine the various types of smacktalk.

The most common of all leads off: Cursing. Anyone who can type can string together a line of expletives. It doesn't help you, if anything it indicates you are indeed pissed off. Don't do this. Once they know you're mad you've lost.

After that? Self Promotion. Lets be honest, plenty of people go around talking about how great they are. If you can't back it up this is a waste of time. It don't help much if you do it docked either.

Who cares about how many kills you have? It's not a big deal. Skill points? Nope. This is the basis for alot of the smack I see, and yet again, no one cares. Stats don't matter a tiny bit.

Challenging someone as a coward can be the most effective type of smack. Stay off yourself and start asking questions. Be nice about it. Invite them to show their strength, courage, intellect, whatever. But be nice about it. There's nothing more annoying and sincere sounding than a bit of passive aggressive kind smack.

Oh, and I know I mentioned this before but... for god's sake, spell correctly.

Good day.