Closer To Home: Chapter Five

And then the bullhorn cackles
And the captain tackles
With the problems and the how's and why's
And he can see no reasons
'Cause there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die
The Boomtown Rats - I Don't Like Mondays

Start Here.

"They're here," Korvan said, looking out the window as a number of headlights shined past him and into the now darkened house.

"Finally. I though Mr. Besaka's head was going to go bad on us," Hallan walked forward and looked out the window, "Wow, they brought alot of people."

"You were counting on that weren't you?" Korvan looked amused as Hallan leaned back.

"They aren't Serpentis. They work for 'em, but they're just small timers," Hallan sighed, "This is as far as I can go up the ladder," He pulled out his gun and checked it's chamber, "And yeah, I was hopin' they'd bring everybody,"

"So, feel like keeping count?" Korvan pulled out his mono-filament blade and twirled it in his hand as he grinned.

"I use a gun. You use that?" Hallan asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Deal,"

Hallan opened the door to the front yard, where over forty people were getting out of their cars. They all walked towards a rather stocky man with a huge snake tatoo running from his chest to his back. He wore no shirt, and carried a length of chain, spinning it as Hallan and Korvan approached.

"Kor," Hallan whispered.

"Yeah?"

"I need his head too,"

The man with the chain spoke up rather loudly, "What do you think you're doing here?"

"Uhm, what does it look like?" Hallan asked rather sarcastically.

"It looks like," The man with the chain continued, "You just killed a bunch of my boys, robbed their house, stole a bunch of boosters, and now you're in deep shit,"

"Kinda," Hallan said, running his hand along the handle of the gun on his hip.

"What'd I miss?" The man was wrapping the chain around his left hand as he spoke.

"Well one: we didn't rob the house yet. Two: we won't be stealing any boosters. Three: We're not in any kind of trouble. Four, and I believe this one to be the most important: I've got your dealer's head in a nanite bag," Hallan held up the bag and smiled softly.

Korvan flicked his blade out as the tatoo'd man rushed towards them. Hallan took careful aim with his pistol and said in a very even tone, "Well. Lets get to work,".

Run Into The Fire

Every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless.

Josiah Bartlet - The West Wing

We had a bit of fun yesterday in the Bastards. We've had alot of fun recently period, but anytime I get to play a role in success, I'm happy with it.

Last night I woke up with an alarm blaring. My corp was killing people again, and I wasn't getting to take part.

I fitted out a rifter. You know, I've got sixty rifter's boxed up in my hangar. Whenever I lose one, another is usually being assembled before I even get back. Today would see the hangar techs and their automated helpers being put to the test.

Voice comms were active as I undocked, my sleek rifter cruising out of the hangar. I admired it's beauty from the camera drones. It is amazing that a ship that large can be operated by just one pilot, but I've proven time and time again it can be done. Automation and robotics has just progressed so much in the last few centuries, it's astounding what can be done today without people.

Regardless, I oriented my ship quickly towards the Arnher gate. Which brings me to a very important bit of information when you're operating out of Evati. There are quite a few gates in Evati, but one oddity, there is a gate called Arnher, and a gate called Anher. The very important thing to remember is that while Arnher is standard low-sec space(as are all of the other gates except one), Anher is a concord protected system. This can make it complicated when new folks are on voice comms, and a few people have lost some fairly nice ships due to a mistake here. One fellow even lost a clone with the best implants he could buy. Remember the arrrrr people.

As I came out of warp on the Arnher gate, I double checked to make sure I wasn't making that mistake, and contacted the gate control crew for a jump out.

The gate fired, and I was hurtled through space. Some people don't care for jump gate travel. The truth of the matter is, being throw into some connecting wormhole and shunted across lightyears in mere moments is indeed a harrowing experiance. It's also the only way to get somewhere in a hurry, and I was in a hurry. I came through and began to orbit the gate along with the rest of the crew.

There was a battle ongoing, and I caught a hound with my warp disruptor, I attempted to get into range and throw on some damage, but he exploded first. A good start.

At some point there was a call to go through to the other side, and I saw a thrasher come out of warp at that very moment. He flashed red, so I engaged, and offered the rest of the folks to take a shot. We dueled for a few moments before my rifter exploded. I was happy with the fact that his rifter met the same fate later that night.

That's one.

He was obviously well fit, and I warped the pod out. He got out too. I went back to the gate, warped into Evati, and grabbed another rifter. I undocked, warped to my undock point and then back to the Arnher gate.

As I did, there was another fight, this time a typhoon on the gate. He'd engaged already, but wasn't a criminal. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, I fired on him. The sentry guns gave me a disapproving look. The typhoon did not last. One bittersweet bit to the battle was a fellow fleet member's ship malfunction that cost him his Dominix.

However, that's two.

Back to the station, another rifter, and out again. I waited out my Global Criminal Countdown, which is among the oddest inventions of Concord. Out in the lawlessness of space, apparently fifteen minutes is as long as they'll wait to kill you, live through that and you're homefree. I'm sure some guy somewhere is trying to rush back to the Concord Assembly and change the statute of limitation for star ship crime to something a bit longer, but I like it as it is.

While sitting on the gate a bit later, an industrial came roaring in. I eyeballed it warily and quite suddenly we decided to give it hell. He actually had some sort of shield tank on it. It didn't go down immediately, and it was recharging it's shields as we fired. Soon it died, and for some reason the feds decided it didn't warrant a killmail. The sentry guns at that point had been firing at some of my compatriots rather than myself, but as I gave the pod a bit of love, they decided to take me down. I warped my own pod out, and midwarp got a message from Concord saying they disapproved of my actions against the escape pod. Good to hear.

That's three.

Back to base, another rifter, another fit, another undock, another warp to safe. The criminal timer went away shortly, and I was back on the gate.

At this point we had an audience. A Rupture was watching us from two hundred kilometers away. I noticed that from my vantage point he was roughly in line with a celestial object, so without prompting, I warped away and back in at a hundred clicks. Bam, one hundred and four away. I kicked my microwarp drive on and headed his way. He gave no indication that he even noticed my approach, and once I hit twenty three clicks I started to resolve a lock. He returned the favor and I kicked my warp disruptor on just before the lock resolved. It came on and he began to fire at me. The damage he was doing was minimal, as I was coming at an angle, I got in my scrammer range and dropped the disruptor. The talk on comms was jovial and on other topics as I literally yelled "CHECK-CHECK, WARP TO HALLAN TURREK, RUPTURE TACKLED," They obliged the request and the fellow began to align to warp as they approached. His ship was scrammed, and he honestly shouldn't have bothered.

Sometimes someone throws a curve at you out in the cold. This was one of those times. He'd warped in pretty far away, and had fit a warp stabilizer. Under normal circumstances that meant he could afford to spend a little bit of time with the tackler before warping away. I put my point on at twenty clicks, and he knew it was a disruptor, just as you'd imagine would be on any tackling ship.

So he played around a bit, and I closed the rest of the distance. I switched the disruptor for a scrammer, and his stabilizer was just a wasted slot. I can only imagine the horror he experienced as his ship melted around him and his ship refused to warp away.

I was pretty happy with myself at that point. The rest of the fleet managed another rupture on it's own, and we settled in again.

After a bit, I saw another rupture at only a hundred clicks out. He would be more alert, I imagined, but I kicked into tackle mode as I heard a few others saying they were burning in his direction. He was tackled in short order, and I waited for support to make it.

They were considerably slower than I was though, and eventually the rifter gave up the ghost and the rupture warped away. The rupture we'd killed was hanging out nearby in another one and gave him some support as well.

Oh, and four.

I don't half ass some thing, I half ass everything. I was back into a rifter and out the door before you could say "never ending rifters". As I was getting things together, the rupture decided to come back for more and the Bastards took him out which made me a bit happy. Better yet I showed up on the Concord sanctioned criminal report.

The night ended on a high note, and another rupture for rifter trade. A fellow came through and began to engage. I ended up dying, but we took him out a few minutes later.

With five, I was done for the night.

I docked up, chuckled at myself and the universe and went back to bed.

Good day.

OOC: For Your Consideration

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.
Immanuel Kant

I started blogging a bit over two months ago. I remember putting in a request to make it onto the blogroll and getting that. I also remember the wonder and awe with which I held those who had a place in the blogpack.

You see it's a wonderful thing, being part of this community. I've got ten people who've thought enough of this space to mark that they follow it. Do you read this on a regular basis? Follow it, if you'd like to. If not, I respect your decision and will skip ransoms entirely for you should you admit it mid-battle sometime.

"Oh by the way I read your blog and didn't follow it," will be met with swift justice.

Wait, that came out wrong.

Anyhow, on to the point, CrazyKinux has asked a simple question: So, you want to be part of the EVE Blog Pack? The answer is of course hell yes. But the truth of the matter is there are alot of folks that'll be saying hell yes, and I've gotta make sure my voice is heard above the din. So we're going into overdrive right now. There are two weeks until the rest of the blogpack gets to decide which of us become peers, so you guys're gonna get a post a day until then. As a matter of fact, just to make a point, you'll get thirty one posts in December and one tommorrow.

Add your comments, follow, mention me to others, and help me let everyone else know how much I want it.

Let the marathon begin.

Good Day.

Sleep Now In The Fire

"You think that life is nothing but not being dead? It is not the bread and water I fear. I can live on bread. It is no hardship to drink water if the water be clean. But to shut me from the light of the sky and the sight of the fields and flowers; to chain my feet so that I can never again climb the hills. To make me breathe foul damp darkness, without these things I cannot live. And by your wanting to take them away from me, or from any human creature, I know that your council is of the devil."'

Saint Joan of Arc

I am free.

I had a discussion today with a childhood friend. He said he didn't understand my drive to pirate. I told him, "A good sword needs a little heat to be strong. Think of me as the fire."

It's true. A capsuleer who never loses a ship ain't makin' full use of his abilities. I'm there to provide object lessons in why whatever they were doing was wrong. If I make a bit of isk from the lesson, so be it.

He was unconvinced and I cut the vid-phone's connection. I have freedom, and that' s enough.

So, I left Evati today and headed towards Amamake. I wanted to fly there without using the nav-computer, given that I may need to get somewhere fast in the future. After a few missteps, I was there.

I sat in the middle of the system for a long while really, amazed at the lack of activity in what is traditionally a deadly system. That's when I spotted the Caracal. Now, one little bit of information for those of you who don't pirate every day: If you see a single ship in a very active system, he's either stupid, looking for a fight, or it's a trap. I was betting on trap as I warped in on him. As my ship entered warp I spotted a Harbinger floating around as well, but not ahead of me, so I continued on.

I saw the Caracal as I entered the belt. My ship dropped out of warp inside my scram range, I immediately targeted the Caracal and began to fire away. I kicked on my afterburner and pulled into a tight orbit, and my shields held up remarkably well against his heavy missiles. I was liking my chances as he hit half shields. Then, and only then did he activate his own tackling gear. I was hoping he didn't have a web on him, but sadly he did. As my ship slowed down to less than half my speed, the missiles started to have an easier time with me. I turned off my own web to conserve cap and he began to burn away from me. I was forced to turn my own web back on or allow him to escape. We actually hit structure at around the same time, oddly enough, which I saw as a positive, but my cap was bottoming out, I was turning on my repper as I got cap, and had to reactivate my various modules periodically.

Then the Angel Cartel frigates warped into the belt. It wasn't a serious problem under normal circumstances, but we both knew they'd turn the tide of this battle one way or the other. Only I knew that his chances were better at that point. He could stand one of them hitting him, I was at my breaking point, and even if only one of them targeted me, I was going down. I got a rep cycle in at 80% structure, and watched his structure drop to 60%, then the locks of the Cartel frigates resolved. He got one and I got one. Not the worst scenario for me, but probably enough. My afterburner failed, as did my web. Scram and damage control stayed on. My structure was seriously hurting, I got a repair cycle in periodically, but I was pretty heavily on fire. I turned everything back on and kicked the armor repairer back on at exactly 6% structure. One cycle went through but another volley of missiles smashed my ship into bits around me.

I once again, like I've done almost 50 times since entering low-sec, warped my pod away from the wreck of yet another rifter.

I'd like to take the rest of this to mention a friend of mine. You see, most of us pilots have good luck charms inside our pods. Mynxee has Mr. Pink, Spectre's got his fuzzy slippers, just to name a couple of examples. Enclosed inside a special diamond case attached to the inside of my pod, I've got a little thing I've had for a quite some time.





















I've always held a special place for Choco the Coconut Monkey. Luckily my insurance policies include an exact copy of him to be delivered to my hangar with a single piece of tritanium inside. I'm still waiting for the day I'll have to give up my old childhood toy for a copy, but so far it ain't comin'.

Good day.

EVE Blog Banter #2 - This Is My Time.

CrazyKinux:

"This month's EVE Blog Banter comes to us from Brinelan over at The Shard (http://www.theshard.org). He asks: What drew us into EVE, what keeps us playing the game and what brought us back if we've ever left?"

I enjoy the space combat genre of games. I played an old game called TDZK which was a text based EVE, I played Elite on the NES and it's sequels. Loved Wing Commander. Loved Freespace. Absolutely fell in love with Freelancer. The truth of the matter is, I love space combat. It is by far my favorite genre of game.

That said, EVE has a hell of a learning curve, but I'm sticking to it cause I know in the grand scheme of things I'm not doing so badly. That's right, I'm sticking around cause I know I'm learning it faster than some other new guys are.

If you look around at other MMOG's out there you'll find a lot of good ones and a few great ones. EVE stands head and shoulders above the rest.

I love a universe I can just immerse myself in, I love that I can do whatever I want. I love that it gives me an entire universe to play with. I can mine, hunt, police, build an empire, break one down, or watch it fall. I can hire myself out as a merc, research ships or technology. I can explore the universe and make money doing it.

This is my time. If anyone wants to take it away they'll have to fight me for it, and I like my chances.

Good Day.

PS. If this appears shorter than you expected, realize I just found the email 30 minutes ago saying this had to be up today. I don't actually check my email... ever... so uh... yeah.


Participants:

• CrazyKinux's Musing: EVE Blog Banter #2: Space, the Final Frontier...
• Ombeve: OOC Blog Banter 2
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: Internet Spaceships is Serious Business
• Semper EVE: The Allure of EVE
• A Merry Life and a Short One: EVE Blog Banter #2 - This Is My Time
• Life in Low Sec: Blog Banter #2: EVE's Enduring Allure
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: Eve Blog Banter - What Drew Me Into Eve?
• Roc's Rambling: Blog Banter #2: Staying Power
• Sahirs Journey: Why am I sitting in an internet spaceship?
• Diving into PsychDiver's Psyche: EVE Blog Banter #2: All I Ever Wanted To Be Was A Capsuleer
• Achernar: Just gathering intel
• Sweet Little Bad Girl: Blog Banter #2
• The Ralpha Dogs: The Appeal of the Never-Ending Story
• A Mule in EVE: Mule Psychology : EvE Style
• A Misguided Adventure: Blog Banter - Enduring Allure
• One Man and His Spaceship: Blog Banter 2 - November 2008 Edition
• Letrange's EVE Blog: That Banter Thing
• Diary of a Space Jokey: EVE Blog Banter: How'd I get here ?!
• I May Find Peace Within The Emptiness…: EVE Blog Banter #2: New Eden Bearhug…
• Travels of Black Claw: Blog Banter #2: Why I'm Here
• Blackheart Pirate: A Pirate and His Dog
• The Shard: EVE Blog Banter #2

Closer To Home: Chapter Four

"No reason to get excited,"
The thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour's getting late"
Bob Dylan - All Along The Watchtower

Start Here.

It was shaped a bit like an egg. It flew end over end towards the dimly lit second floor plasteel window. It smacked into the window with an oddly wet noise. It exploded softly and clung there. On the inside the man sleeping next to the window stood up and looked outside.

"Hey guys, something sh..." He managed to get out before the grenade released a neutron radiation pulse into the room. The noise was considerable but the lights in the rest of the house didn't come on. Korvan and Hallan waited outside the house beside the front door on either side.

The house was, fortunately, all on it's own in the rural district, and the commotion they were about to cause was unlikely to disturb anyone else. Hallan was glad of that, he didn't have permits for public disturbance.

Hallan nodded to Korvan as the door opened.

"James?" The man said as he stuck his head just outside the door.

Korvan's thermal pulse laser caught the man in the temple and Hallan was already moving to take a position inside the doorway. Korvan rushed inside as well and took up a position opposite Hallan in the hall, who then moved down the hall to the living room. Hallan's silenced pistol fired twice and Korvan moved up the hall to provide cover. He noticed a body draped across a center table and on the couch.

Someone moved from the kitchen into the living room, firing a gauss pistol along the way. The impact of the round to his chest barely fazed Hallan as he fired a single shot at the man, who dropped immediately.

"Helmets on," Korvan said quickly, as the armor sprang up and formed a protective shield around their heads. Korvan moved ahead of Hallan and crouched in the entryway of the kitchen. Hallan then moved ahead of him and trained his gun up the stairway in the kitchen.

Hallan barely had time to notice the movement when a huge flash of light came flying down the stairs, bathing Hallan in brightly glowing fire. Hallan muttered to himself and looked at Korvan, who just smiled.

"Plasma rifles in close quarters, fucking brilliant," Hallan said, making his way up the smoking stairway. As he reached the top the smoking body of their assailant lay next to his rifle.

As Korvan walked by the body, he released a pulse from his laser pistol into the it for good measure. Hallan pointed at the door to the already cleared room, and then pointed at the only other upstairs room. Korvan kicked open the door of the room they'd thrown the grenade at and they both stood against the wall on either side of the door. Both men looked at their guns and then at each other. Hallan put his pistol into it's holster and pulled a Katana from his back. Korvan pulled a handle from his belt and flicked it outwards. A dark black blade formed immediately, while the handle hummed. Korvan turned the sword sideways and looked down the blade.

"You always gotta one up me, don't you," Hallan said quietly, a bit of a smirk on his face.

"I don't spend any time on stations man, I can use a mono blade," Korvan effortlessly stabbed his sword through the wall and looked at Hallan, "But yeah, yeah I do,"

The Korvan went through the door and sliced the other bedroom door off it's hinges in a moment as Hallan quickly followed him into the bedroom. A man lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, not moving.

Hallan walked up to him and poked his shoulder with his sword. The man sat up immediately and screamed.

"What the fuck man?" The man still looked rather out of it as Korvan poked him again, "You want some fucking boosters man? You're dead. My boys'll come through that door any minute now and kill your sorry ass," The man chuckled and blinked a few times.

"Horane Besaka right?" As Hallan asked, the man nodded. Hallan nodded himself and said "I've been looking for you,"

"You... you need information?" The man asked quietly.

"Kinda," Hallan switched his sword to his right hand and grabbed the man by the hair.

"Oh fuck, don't!" The man screamed and began to cry.

"Jeez, a Brutor without a backbone. I'm not going to kill you, ya big pansy," Hallan looked up at Korvan, "Cut his head off,"

"On it," Korvan replied raising his humming sword.

It Ain't Suicide If You Live

Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.
Orison Swett Marden

Hallan Turrek > Rifter, Cyclone, Cyclone, Crow, Muninn, Thorax, Omen, Vagabond, and Two Nighthawks on scan.
A Bastard > Wow, that's a pretty big fleet.
Hallan Turrek > I think we can take 'em if anyone else wants to come along.
Another Bastard > What makes you so optimistic?
Hallan Turrek > 'cause I'm already in warp.

One Rifter later... well at least I had fun. I managed to get the rifter pilot to half armor before the rest of the fleet took me down.

Then I used my scanning skills to find a Thorax and Arbitrator. It was a good scan, nice and quick. Apparently though, and don't ask me how, I got to the belt before they did. They dropped out of warp on top of me and I started targeting the Thorax. The rest of our fleet warped my way and it was on. I couldn't understand why I was dying so quickly, and soon it didn't matter.

Luckily the rest of the fleet came in right after I died and started pounding on them. As it turned out the Angel Cartel goons hanging out in the belt realized why the don't like me, and started shooting me down. If not for that I'd have likely survived long enough for the rest of the fleet to come in. Eventually they both died. They even managed to nail down one of the pods.

I had fun even if I lost a couple of cheap ships. We did 20 million in damages and took maybe 250k in hurt. That's what some drones cost.

Good day.