Let The Glory Out

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Maya Angelou - Still I Rise

I imagine the replying comm chatter was pretty calm at this point.

"Just point him and try to kill him, he's been doing this all day. He'll make it to the gate and go through."

_____________________________

I really had been doing it all day. GIS started the shenanigans with a couple of ships sitting on our station. A Nightmare and a Drake. Ships with tanks that could easily hold up until the cavalry arrived. We refused to engage them, but I decided to try some shenanigans of my own.

I darted through the Arnher gate, saw a GIS gate camp on the other side and warped away. None of them were small enough ships to point me, and I counted that as a good thing. I then followed through to Egmar when I spotted a new unaffiliated gate camp. Some corp named Shrodingers Question was camping the Egmar side of the Egmar/Arnher gate.

I almost felt like throwing out a warning, but decided against it. It probably didn't matter, they must've figured I was a part of the GIS squad, because they jumped through when I uncloaked. They continued on into the meat grinder at the other gate, and both sides lost a couple of ships. The engagement was short and to the point.

I warped back to the gate and into Arnher and started to play games. I initially wasn't willing to chance reapproaching on the heavily camped side, but the other side had only an Ishtar. The thing could easily kill me, but not before I made it back to the gate. So I started to see-saw back and forth. Each time they locked me and fired. After about twenty minutes they brought in two interceptors, so I began to reapproach instead of warping on that side as well.

After about thirty minutes I started to hear murmering of tech two frigates camping the Egmar/Arnher gate. I had a funny thought.

I headed to the other gate, and started to repeat my insanity. No one came to the aid of the two frigates on the other side, they'd point me, I'd go through. A couple of our guys got into place on their own, and finally I changed my plans.

I reapproached the gate again, the Crusader and Ishkur approached me at high speed. They hoped to hit a double web I suppose, but this time I approached the Crusader as well and activated a scram and web of my own. RodneyStar began to warp to me. He landed and piled on the damage.

I know the Crusader pilot is screaming to his mates camping the other gate, his mates in space, his mates docked up in system, and his mates in Evati to help him.

I imagine the replying comm chatter was pretty calm at this point.

"Just point him and try to kill him, he's been doing this all day. He'll make it to the gate and go through."

For a few long seconds, no one showed up. I kept applying damage as long as I could. Finally I died. I warped my pod away and did my best to remain silent as I eagerly awaited an update from Rodney.

"Crusader is down, I'm burning away from the Ishkur," Short and oh so sweet, and followed quickly by "I made it, but a huge fleet landed just as I warped away,"

I laughed, alot. I warped my pod back through the gate, both gatecamps in fact. I docked up and stared at a new Rifter with a smug smile on my face.

Under the nose of over twenty GIS and ComStar pilots, in their own system, we traded a Rifter for a Crusader. I call that a win.

Good Day.

The Girls Are Pretty

Rags to riches or so they say
Ya gotta-keep pushin'
for the fortune and fame
It's all a gamble
When it's just a game
Ya treat it like a capital crime
Everybody's doin' their time
Guns 'n Roses - Paradise City

What is it about Evati that's so appealing to me? Kaalikoata is such a boring station. Standard Caldari architecture. We've got the Hub, and I've got the By Jove there, but bars don't make the place a home.

I've lived alot of places in my time as a Capusleer. I've lived in the heart of Heimatar, near Rens. I've lived near Jita. I've lived out in Vitrauze, in Gusandall, even spent a bit of time populating Amamake. No where have I had as much fun as I've had in Evati.

The Bastards live there, but that isn't it. It's just... I just can't put my finger on it.

I guess I'll just have to go ask the Hellcats, maybe they can come up with something.

Do Overs

Steady hands, just take the wheel...
Every glance is killing me,
Time to make one last appeal ,
For the life I lead.

Stop and stare,
I think I'm moving but I go nowhere,
Yeah I know that everyone gets scared,
But I've become what I can't be.

Stop and stare,
You start to wonder why you're here not there,
And you'd give anything to get what's fair,
But fair ain't what you really need,
Oh, can you see what I see.
One Republic - Stop and Stare

The cloning companies tell you that you don't die. I'm not so sure about that. I mean, if anything we just die more than the average person. I don't know if non-capsuleers can understand.

How do you get used to the terror? There's something ingrained in each of our brains that says when you're dying to do everything in your power to stop it. The one time I've lost a clone, I was struggling inside my grave for twenty seconds before it finally popped.

The pod itself kills you, ironically enough. As soon as the hull of the capsule is breached for any reason it copies your brain and transmits it to the new clone. Design wise it makes sense, but it doesn't alleviate the fear you feel every time you drop down and jack in.

So what does that mean to you? A lot of capsuleers tell me that their biggest worry is the price of the implants in their heads. I've known people to lose a billion or more with their bodies.

I know I might die every time I fly, but if you're not prepared to lose your life, you're not prepared to be a pod pilot.

I suppose that's something they looked for when they did my training.

What I do know is that the threat of death didn't stop me from solo tackling a Vagabond until my friends could arrive to take it down.

It also didn't stop me from coming to the aid of another crazy corpmate who tackled a Hurricane alone in his Rifter, with my Rifter as his nearest backup. I'm glad I went.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if they tested me for it, I passed.

Pass the Ammunition

This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.

A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you. Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

"Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

"Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

Leo Thomas McGarry - The West Wing

We live by the gun. Those we trust, those we respect, our friends, and our corpmates all lead us inevitably from death to life. Sometimes all four are the same person, sometimes not.

What makes us band together and fight?

On the 16th of April, 1746, on the moors of Culloden, seven thousand Scottish Highlanders threw aside their kilts and charged straight into the cannon and musket fire of waiting British troops. There was no question in their mind, they fought alongside their friends and brethren for their way of life.

You follow your orders, because you trusted your leaders the moment you joined the gang.

Between August and September 480 BC, three hundred Spartans held off two hundred thousand to two million Persian troops. Were any of them questioning their leadership as the battle was joined?

You trust the man next to you, and when he needs help you do whatever you can.

Twenty riflemen were ambushed in the Solomons by a machine gun nest on July 31st 1943. Roger Young crawled on his stomach towards the machine gun nest and threw grenades until he was killed. He did what he could to save his squadmates. They survived and he did not. He didn't care.

I fly with some of the best and brightest Eve has to offer. I know they have my back, every time. I know they're on their way, every time. I know I can trust them every time.

And every time I fleet up with a Bastard or a Hellcat I'm proud and honored. I've chosen to only fly with people I trust.

Who do you fly with?

OOC: Hauler Roam

See to them, you're just a freak. Like me!

The Joker - The Dark Knight

Jedziah, Snaptz, Sarge, Kulmid, were already preparing for a Hauler roam and invited me along. I couldn't possibly give up such an interesting concept and away I went. I loaded up a battle Badger Mark II and was on my way. Fifteen jumps through high sec later, while flashing, I was in the low sec meetup system.



After shooting at each other for a bit we were on the way.

We warped into G-5EN2 and almost immediately a Vagabond piloted by Habk came through.

EVE System > Channel changed to G-5EN2 Local Channel
Habk > lol
Habk > i saw this youtube
Habk > fuck that
Fraud > GRRRRRRRRR
Snaptz > o m g thats awesome
Hallan Turrek > We are innocent haulers.
Habk > yes
Hallan Turrek > Please return.
Habk > flashy red innocent haulers

It was no dice, so we decided to move on.

9-F0B2 was somewhat less exciting to start with, but that was soon remedied by an Arazu, Rifter, and Rapier coming through. The Rifter sat off the gate quite a ways, and the Arazu and Rapier jumped through. We waited a bit and finally the Arazu came back. We started to kill it.

At this point I should mention that everyone else started trying to kill it. I was one of only two non sensor boosting ships involved, and my Badger had a 40 secound lock time on that Arazu.

EVE System > Channel changed to 9-F0B2 Local Channel
Snaptz > L O L
Fraud > BITCHES DONT KNOW BOUT OUR MONSTER MAMMOTH DPS
Galligher > \o/

I got about 20 seconds into a lock when the Arazu either damped me or went out of my range. Regardless my lock failed and I was forced to try to reapproach him. I got in range again and tried a lock. I was five seconds away from a lock with my guns primed when he popped. Just as it happened, Vercingetorix died in a Mammoth and the Rapier was apparently not very friendly to the Arazu as he managed to get onto the killmail a bit.

After scooping a true sansha warp disruptor, we moved into the next system and into a huge gatecamp.

EVE System > Channel changed to 4B-NQN Local Channel
Snaptz > For those about to Die ~~~

And we did die, gloriously.

Galligher > sad times
Galligher > all this for haulers?
Galligher > *

My lossmail is only half the story, check the engagement on the AAA killboard.

It was quite a blob for haulers.

Still a good day.

Picking It Up and Taking it Out

I think that any lovin's good lovin.
So I took what I could get.
She looked at me with big brown eyes and said:
You ain't seen nothing yet.
Bachman Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

The night started normally enough. I woke up and jacked into the comm systems. A roam was out near Amamake, which is my kind of party. I hopped into the Jokers Wild and was in system with them before their GCC's had counted down.

We had some people who're running through the Bastards recruitment process along for the ride, with Hrothgar Frood and RodneyStar providing some heavy firepower in the form of a Brutix and Hurricane respectively. Hera was our FC in a Taranis, Herdzo was in a Falcon, Nova Blackadder was in a Hurricane, and a new Hellcat named Reyna al'Thor flew a Punisher. I added my Rifter to the mix and we were off to Dal.

Hera mentioned there were some tasty targets about. After a minute we narrowed a CVA Astarte in a belt and no one wasted any time warping to it. He was tackled and began to crumble under our firepower. We got him to 75% structure and decided to attempt a ransom just as a huge CVA fleet came down on our heads. We proceeded to pop the Astarte and everyone warped out except for myself, Reyna, and Nova. Reyna and Nova were pointed and going down, but I was being sneaky.

While the fleet was occupied with my gangmates, I creeped over to the Astarte wreck and removed a full load of tech two loot. I warped away before anything even locked me. The Hurricane and Punisher loss made the engagement a bit less efficient, but a Command ship makes for a nice killmail. We were up twenty million in loot at that point, and I was happy with that.

So we ran back to Evati, dropped the loot off and reshipped. As we were getting situated, we narrowed down a Stabber and Caracal in a belt. They melted like butter under the onslaught, and we picked up everything that wasn't nailed down.

As we waited out our GCC's we heard Nova fighting a Gila in Eifer, and wished him the best. It was a long battle, and we started to make our way towards him as our GCC's went away. Unfortunately the Gila's backup arrived first, and Nova was forced to flee.

Around this time I took over as FC, but myself and Hera began an odd and completely unscripted dual FC role. Before and after battles, I took over, directing ships and assigning roles. During the fights however, Hera would take over, calling points, targets, and giving orders. Neither of us noticed it until after the roam was over, but it worked pretty well.

Just then we heard about an Apocolypse slow boating away from a station in Otosela, so we started to make our way there. We decided to wait for a bit more firepower, and by the time we got in system he'd finally made the wise choice to warp away. We got back into Akkio and almost made it to the Todi gate as yet more intel indicated a missioning Dominix in Todifraun. Raelyf got in a covert ops in Evati and tracked him down fairly quickly. A few of us ran to the mission, made our way through three gates, and finally found the Dominix in the last room. He was pointed and thus began a somewhat epic battle.

It started with a Rifter, Taranis, Claw, Harpy, and Hurricane against a Dominix. He launched Hobgoblin II's and I started to get hit. I aligned away but they caught up to me and I popped almost immediately. I raced back to Evati and tried to reship.

Hera's battle instincts are amazing, and slowly but surely they took down every drone that Dominix carried. He'd already denied a sixty million ransom, and I was resolved to teach him a lesson about that. We popped him. We caught his pod and I offered him a twenty five million ransom. No dice. We popped that too.

We scooped all of the loot, and moved on yet again. This time we at about thirty five million in loot for the night. Once again, I was more than happy with that. We moved back into Evati. I docked up.

Two Sacrileges in a belt. That was the call on Comms. I looked at the pilots, and I thought it smelled funny. Hera was keen on engaging, but I offered up my gut instinct and said it would be a bad idea. Herdzo just watched them while cloaked in his Falcon.

As we discussed it, a neutral Megathron came in and started attacking the Sacs. They engaged back and we watched local for a spike. Nothing. The Megathron amazingly bit hard into the Sacs, downing one, then the other after a little bit of time.

We were already in warp before the second Sac went down, and as we landed, we applied just a little bit more damage, and ended the Mega's killing spree. Very shortly thereafter, we had a bit of chaos, as the two Sacrilege's backup finally arrived, in the form of a Crow and Rapier. Not enough to take us, they wisely turned tail.

An unaffiliated Rupture came down and tried to crash the party as well. We set him on fire. Then the fleet surveyed the field of battle and we were amazed to discover the extent of the loot. Two Sacs, a Mega, a Rupture and almost ten tech two drones.

I set about directing the looting. Hera went for his salvager after we were done and grabbed six Capacitor Consoles worth twenty seven million each from the two Amarr heavy assaults. We recovered three Arbalest Heavy Missile Launchers worth about thirteen each. Every ship that died was fitted with tech two or best named equipment.

An unofficial and conservative tally of the loot for the night reached two hundred and fifty million. That'll be mostly split among five pilots.

Good day.

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.

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: 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.

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.

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.

I Found my Place in Nowhere

My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed
Dried up and bulging out my skull
My mouth is dry
My face is numb
Fucked up and spun out in my room
On my own... here we go.
Green Day - Brain Stew/Jaded

Neapolis Antioch > you know we don't have to play like this
Mynxee > i never get to play
Shae Tiann > not as much fun without the foreplay, though, is it?
Neapolis Antioch > Oh I love forplay
Neapolis Antioch > I just don't like finishing to fast
Hallan Turrek > We'll help ya reach the final climax. Promise.
Shae Tiann > depends on how good the climax is
Hallan Turrek > Lets make this a group job.
Neapolis Antioch > lol
Hallan Turrek > I'll get behind you.
Kerblamo > Dibs on first shot
Hallan Turrek > They'll get in front.
Neapolis Antioch > wow, well you guys have a great night
Mynxee > lol
Hallan Turrek > Then we'll just pound you with everything we have.
Hallan Turrek > It'll be awesome.
Hallan Turrek > You'll think you're ok, then I come from behind you and yell surprise.
Hallan Turrek > It's not a gank if you yell surprise.
VB Sarge > i prefer it if i dont' even know their name

We aren't quite right here in the Bastards, but that's pretty much how we like it. We get a few hangers on sometimes, we get a few fans even, but mostly we just get idiots. One particular fellah's been throwing expensive rigged ships at us for over a month now. He's entertaining to say the least, taking out a Thrasher or a Rupture, or a Republic Fleet Firetail is always a good thing after all. I got to help out with a bit of that, but mostly he just kept throwing stuff at us until he ran out. He promised to get more and be back. I sure as hell hope so.

I ran into Colonel Wieler at the station today. I was a bit intrigued to see him in Evati but apparently he's set up shop and brought down a few ships. He's even had the good sense to purchase a Bastard Pass. What that means is that I can fleet up with him and not have to worry about any of my corpmates killing him. That's always a positive when you're planning to work with someone. After a bit of discussion about any loyalties I might still have with the Caldari Navy, I offered to help him fully secure a few bases in Evati. I passed Jedziah on the way to my hangar and persuaded her to load up a ship of her own and get flying.

We sat at the first base as Wieler began to secure it. We knew he'd take a bit of time to get his Marines in the base and insure it's loyalty. Me and Jed had brought a couple of tech one frigates to the party and waited for any visitors while the soldiers did their job. Sure enough a Rupture dropped out of warp on top of us. I targeted him, and began to fire. His guns began to really lay down some hurt on me and my Rifer died quickly. He turned to Jed's punisher and burned it down as well. Roc's Jaguar reached the same fate. I grinned as I placed my pod inside my Stabber.

I undocked the cruiser, and as I did twenty people appeared in local. I was already enroute upon hearing my voice comms light up with warnings to stay docked. I came out of warp on a Rupture and pointed it. It's shield tank was alot stronger than I expected but I began to slowly whittle it down. As he reached about 25% shields the rest of the passing fleet went out of the system. Jed and Roc were on him in moments and he died quickly. It took a while to realize it wasn't the same Rupture, but that detail was unimportant. He died.

So we secured that installation and moved on. In mere moments the next installation lit up with an Ishkur. I moved to tackle and applied a heavy layer of damage. Suddenly though I was in a pod and my systems locked up. It was an uncomfortable experience, knowing my pod was sitting in space with no control over it's direction. Luckily he failed to lock me down and I headed back to the station. Jed had him down into extremely low structure as he exploded, but Roc got in at the last minute with Mynxee to take him down. We welcomed Mynxee to the fight and reshipped.

As the last of the Evati bases were secured, we joined up and Wieler asked how we would feel about taking the fight to the Amarr. The Bastards are natural rebels, and as long as their is profit we'll follow anyone. So we went. I went.

We warped as quickly as possible into Oyeman, from there we tracked down a few Amarr bases and began to do our work. I understand the Minmatar Militia may have more leaks than the Minmatar's Water Navy. It was just a few minutes after Weiler informed the Minmatar of a system that was contested that the Amarr fleets began to check the area out.

The next few moments are a blur to me, because of a very uncomfortable problem I suffered. According to the logs we had a Minmatar come into the system who was part of the Militia. He joined our fleet for a short time but began to act suspicious. He left and began to fly around watching us.

In the mean time we managed to down two griffins, and two thrashers.

I tried tackling a Catalyst and was smacked hard. Fortunately we had just commandeered a Kestral in system that someone had left. I hopped in and began to fly it around. The same Militia member from earlier started following us to planets. I tackled him down and he very quickly exploded my Kestral.

My warp system failed to engage. I had been commanding my pod to warp out since before my ship had exploded, but for some reason it failed to listen. My pod began to crack and that's all I remember.

The lovely Shae Tiann was kind enough to scoop my corpse and sell it back to me for only thirty million. I took it out into deep space and destroyed it. There is something really strange about losing your first clone. The twisted irony of your conciousness being effortlessly ripped from one body and placed in another.

I do know this: I will live forever.

Good Day.

A Little More Action Please

Come on baby I'm tired of talking
Grab your coat and lets start walking
Come on, come on
Come on, come on
Come on, come on
Don't procrastinate, don't articulate
Girl it's getting late, gettin' upset waitin' around
Elvis Presley - Little Less Conversation

"I've got a cyclone tackled in Ofstold," was all I needed to hear.

Ignoring my already active GCC, I undocked and warped to my undock point. I then turned my ship and entered warp to the Ofstold gate. The anticipation was so thick that I barely noticed as my GCC expired. I came out of warp on the gate and activated it.

The experiance of being shunted across lightyears in moments will always be a bit disconcerting, but I had no time to think about that as I warped to Maltrox, who'd already begun to engage the target. I heard on comms that the Cyclone was already falling apart around it's owner, and came out of warp with my Stabber's weapons hot.

I targeted, scrammed and began to fire. The Cyclone was already at half armor and as a few others came down on him, his pod disengaged from the ship. The Cyclone let out a rainbow of beautiful colors as it exploded around him, and we immediately nailed down the pod.

We asked for fifty million. We asked for a singing ransom. We got his corpse. At least we tried.

I had barely redocked when I heard a corpmate asking for support against two Crows. Not one to be left out I fitted out a Rifter for fast tackle and was on my way.

The Crows were playing with their food at this point, which was probably a bad idea for them, as we began to put out the birdcatchers. I heard "Crow is triple webbed," and burned in it's direction. The Crow was already venting plasma as I got in weapons range and popped suddenly.

The other Crow apparently got stupid at this point and got himself nailed down as well. He ignominiously popped as well.

It wasn't long before they came back to play, and he managed to kill my Rifter trying to nail him down again. I called it a night and chuckled. We'd lost an Incursus in the battle as well as another rifter compared to two interceptors. I call that a win.

Good Day.