Your Kill Right was Used!

One of my favourite phrases in Eve Online.

However, first, the back story.

It was a comfortable Wednesday, the wind was still from the south east, the humidity was low, the grass is green from sporadic rain, and my neighbours were not trying to teach me the finer arts of Cold Chisel.

In Eve Online I often use a Leopard to zoom around in.  If you're not familiar with the Leopard it's a relatively expensive shuttle that warps quite quickly, but has very low hit points and is easy to destroy.  As I always use manual flying with the Leopard they couldn't target it at a gate, but it, like most low hit point ships, has a weakness.

Smart Bombs.

I knew eventually I'd lose the Leopard, as they're a high priority target for dirt bags with few resources except time.

I'd visited Jita that day to check on some items, and upon leaving it happened.

When I'm warping, jumping, warping, jumping, etc, I go into a bit of a trance and it took me a few moments to realise I'd not left the system when I should have.  Local was still spewing posts from pilots doing fire sales, promising to give ISK if you follow their bio, or not give ISK if you follow their bio, and the usual manifesto that certain individuals seem to share in trade hubs.

Why do I have a red timer?

I was zoomed out a bit, and shuttles are small, then realised I wasn't in a shuttle anymore.

I was in my pod.

I'd been smart bombed by someone near my out gate, he'd direction scanned me and activated the smart bomb at the correct time, destroying my ship.

Very soon afterwards CONCORD took a close and personal interest in him.

Well then...

Warped off somewhere, and then back to Jita 4-4 and docked up again.  The same place I was only a few minutes before.

Checked the notifications in my bottom right hand corner, found the kill mail, discovered I had a bounty, and looked at the other pertinent information.

First thing I needed was a new ship, but as I knew the Leopard was always a target, I chose something else, fitted it appropriately, and left the station.

On my way out of the system, this time using a dog legged route to avoid the smart bomber just in case he was going to try for a "two for one" deal, I realised I'd have kill rights against that guy.

Left the system, activated the kill right and made it accessible for everyone, and set the ISK amount at one hundred and fifty million ISK.  That would be approximately my break even amount for that loss.  The ISK wasn't the real issue, but as I'm old, it's the principle of the thing.

My safe assumption was the attacking pilot was an Alpha, who now wouldn't login for at least thirty days, or even just be bio massed and that account slot recycled, as the training requirements for such a basic attack are low.

Then I effectively forgot about it.

However the following morning, as I'm doing my daily mission, I see a pop up in notifications, "Your kill right was used".

Really?  Can it be?

Yup!

He must have undocked again much later on, in the same type of ship, with the same fittings, and a pilot called Arch Opir in a rail gun fit Ferox, spent one hundred and fifty million ISK to activate the kill right and blew him to hell!

Sometimes I love Eve Online.

The Others

Way back in the early days, the dinosaurs had barely cooled, and the sky was a looming rain of meteorites for a thousand years or so, Captain Chuckles turned to Reverend Kev and said, “Sadye would be a great place for a citadel”.

So it was created.

Fast forward a few years or so, and then rewind one, and we have our Sadye market, now known as Market Best Market (MBM), plugging away as our own personal market, and a burgeoning marketplace for the surrounding systems.

Little did we know a terrible time bomb had been unwittingly set.

One day, I noticed some folks were buying and selling PLEX in MBM and I thought that was cool.

“That’s cool”, I said.

Over time, and not much time, the PLEX market grew, and grew, and grew. It became so big that others noticed, others who didn’t like what it had become.

The “terrible” time bomb that had been set long ago was a brokerage tax rate set so low, that it became an affront to The Others.

Little did we know, The Others had set their rate at about 2.0%, ours was at 0.2%, this was fine for us as we needed very little ISK, but The Others needed ever more ISK, and soon they plotted against MBM.

One day we received a war dec, then another, then another, and some more. Soon we were marvelling at the amount of war decs, but having weathered a few wars before, we were confident in our ability to defend what was ours.

The Others didn’t have numbers, they had ISK, mountains of ISK. The Others paid others to fight for them, and they paid large amounts of ISK, and large amounts of others came.

The Others, and the others, put MBM on the brink of being lost.

So, the alliance members decided to move, as an alliance is the people and not the things.

They moved into a bigger home, one that is stronger, one that a new market can be established in, and protected, as this home cannot be destroyed.

The alliance set up their new home, and then looked outwards, towards other systems, some far away, some closer, and planned the retaliation.

For the alliance had kept everything that was important. 

- Yosagi Yojimbo

- L0G0F CEO

Too Many Shades of Grey

Rokusaburo started a convo with me while I was sitting cloaked in space keeping an eye on some war deccers.

"So I heard Chuckles quit the alliance leadership and disappeared." he asked.

"Yeah, sorta.  I was away enjoying some R & R as it was that time of year." I replied.

"Of course." he replied with a voice that suggested he'd also tilted his head forward as he said it.

"When I came back from the festivities, and bothered to check my comms I found the message that he'd quit, given me the CEO position, and vanished."

"Any idea where he went?"

"None whatsoever.  So I've been constructing a fake mental reality that puts him down on some planet somewhere herding goats, or whatever the local equivalent of a goat actually is, and some day he'll appear again and ask us if we missed him." I was smiling a bit while saying this.

"Will you have missed him by then?"

"Yeah ... probably, but I'll be buggered if I'm going to let him know that."

"So you're in WGP now, obviously not the CEO of The Grumpy's, how'd that happen." he asked, getting a bit nosy.

"I knew that Chuckles was the alliance glue, so I put it to the remaining members what the direction should be, every answer was different, so I disbanded the corp, well I tried to, and removed it from the alliance.  Corps come and go, people come and go, this is New Eden, but eventually you meet up with them again, especially as we all now live forever." I said.

"Oh okay.  Oh before I forget have you seen the news about these Drifter people?" said Roku changing the subject.

"Yeah I did.  Kick arse ships and tactics worries me a bit, But what's with all the grey?"

"I know!  The suits they appear to be wearing look pretty snug, with some implants or whatever the hell is going on there.  The female one looks pretty hot.  How many shades of grey do you think she is?"

"I snorted in a sort of laughter, "She'll probably kill you and wipe your remains off her shoe. You think every female that looks at you is hot, even from a damn holo image!"

"Well most of them are, especially pod pilots.  Have you ever seen a fat one?"

"Well no, but perhaps all the fat ones are stuck in their pods never to leave and that's why we don't see them.  That's not pod goo my friend, it's just extra pod pilot clinging to the inside of the egg."

"Ewwwwwwww!" he exclaimed a sound not out of place in a school yard.

"Yeah I know." I said trying not to think of the actual image.

"Anyway we have war deccers to keep an eye on so we'll catch up soon, yes?"

"Certainly will, have a good one, out." he broke the connection.

In The Flesh

For one reason or another I found myself in the Olo station again as it was roughly in-between where I was and where I wanted to go, a short detour was not a problem. I've not moved most ships and material to the new alliance location, partly because it's not really all needed and also my ingrained cynicism about anything new.

“These carbon based life forms will never last!”, I say to myself, a little laugh, almost a grunt escaping my lips.

I knew Roku would be in station, or at least close by, and I'd organised a meeting in the flesh, the first in over two and a half years. The obvious venue is one of the station pubs. Thinking back to when I stepped upon this stations floors again after all the null security operations, I compared the stations down there to here, it was remarkable how much like home it seemed here. The problem with null security stations is they are either filthy or empty and almost haunted by capsuleers of the past. However the majority of your time is spent in a ship dispensing death, or more often these days, watching the bad guys while cloaked up and hoping to get in a sneak attack before you're once again out numbered and out gunned.

Olo station was clean for the most part, but it looked lived in, it had a life over and above the people moving about. It has shops, clubs, pubs, and a myriad of other attractions for whatever your desire. While I'm not a huge fan of people as a rule sometimes it's useful for a pod pilot to be reminded they're around and ultimately they are what this is all about in the end.

I find the pub I'm looking for and locate Roku, he waves me over.

“Roku!”, I loudly call out, even though I'm close to the table, it's noisy in here tonight.

“Hey Yos, good to see you! Damn I'd almost forgotten what you looked like as it's been nearly three years!”, he says putting an emphasis on the “three years” part.

I sit down and try to look sheepish, and fail.

“You know how it is. A week goes into a month, that month goes into a few and before too long here we are, nearly three years down the warp tunnel, although it's more like two and a half years for the record.”, using a rather amused tone.

“So how do you like the changes to the warp governors? I heard CONCORD made them make the change New Eden wide to try and slow down our expansion.”, Roku has sort of leaned over by this stage and tries to say this in a conspiratorial manner, he's not very good at it.

“Well they've made space bigger that's for sure, as it now takes what seems like a hell of a lot longer to get anywhere in any ships that matter. How is it with the Orca and Freighter?”

“Not great to pretty damn boring, it's certainly slowed down the hauling operation, but we get there in the end”, mumbles Roku.

I'm wondering how much he had to drink before I arrived.

“Although on the bright side I can now catch up on heaps more Holo Porn while in transit from gate to gate!”, he adds rather unnecessarily.

It's at this stage my communicator starts buzzing, surreptitiously I have a look and the news isn't good, it is time to go. I bid my farewell, by this stage Roku's actions are confirming the earlier drunk suspicion, I recommend he call it a night.

As I'm leaving, and on the threshold of the establishment I give a flourish with one arm while saying, “Time, tide and wormholes wait for no man. I bid you adieu!”

I'd be surprised if anybody heard me or cared.

My Sansha Incursion

Emerging from the medical wing I walked, still in a bit of a stupor, towards my quarters.  The medical wing is some distance from my abode, my route also takes me past my favourite bar, but after jump cloning I'm rarely in the mood to imbibe in my favourite consciousness altering beverage.  Nearing the door of my quarters my newly inhabited brain finally caught up with the surroundings, the usual raucous noise from the bar was gone and the station had a green tinge from some sort of hidden lighting.

Suddenly the synapses kicked into gear and breaking into a run I charged at my door, entered the room and accessed the computer terminal.

"Damn! It's a fucking Sansha Incursion!", I yelled.

I'd known about the Sansha problem for some time but we'd never had an issue with them so close to Jita, in fact looking at the star map the boundary of the incursion was only two jumps from Jita.

"That must be making the scum and villainy of Jitters nervous", I chuckled.

Checking to see if Roku is on the net I sent a chat request and wait for the connection, which is not long in coming.

"Yosagi my old bean how the hell are you?  Haven't spoken in weeks, I hope everything is well down in null sec", Roku said with far too much enthusiasm.

"Yeah cut the crap, I've just JC'd back to high sec and now I've a sore head.  Why didn't you tell me about the incursion?", I said fairly grumpily.

"Oh that?  Well I didn't think you'd be coming back for another week and with luck the locals will have them cleared off in that time."

"So how is the "clearing off" going then?"

"Ahh...not well, they thought it could be cleared from Olo in about four hours but it's been a couple of days, they can't get their shit together for some reason."

"Okay.  Well how does this effect production?  I'm assuming negatively?", I ask.

"Well it doesn't make it any easier", Roku said jovially.  "Token and I are mostly just running the production facilities until empty and then waiting for the Sansha to leave before undocking Sushi Train."

"Yeah that Orca would make a nice target for those guys.  Where is Token by the way?"

"She went back to her bolt hole when these guys turned up, she'll be back when they go I'd say."

"Yeah fair enough.  Well I have some manufacturing to catch up on so I'll chat up with you in a couple of days.", I said, accepting the situation as something I cannot do much about at the moment.

"Talk with you then.", and with that Roku broke the connection.

So the Sansha are going to slow down production, but probably for everybody in the local area.  I would prefer to have production slowed down than risk large expensive hauler ships at the moment, so it's probably a good time for maintenance of the PI facilities.

In the mean time I need to make some Maelstroms, get some real sleep, and then jump into something dangerous and see what I can do about these Sansha folks.

The Locals are Grumbling

I finally caught up with Token Prophets the other day, only via communicator but better than nothing.  It seems she was many jumps away chasing some market goldmine as she put it and became distracted.  Sometimes it's better not to ask.  So soon she'll be back at our base area which will improve our cash flow, at least I hope.

One thing Token mentioned was the Sansha's, now I've been busy with a few things for a while and lost touch with the local goings on.  She mentioned the incursions which I knew about, in the abstract anyway, but also the mood of the locals out where she is.  Their is little protection there so the Sansha have been abducting hundreds of thousands of people at will.  The pod pilots are mostly safe, unless they directly engage the Sansha but the ground dwellers have nowhere to go, right up until they float into the sky and are sucked into the Sansha harvest ships.

Token said the locals are terrified, with good reason probably, and the cashed up ones are trying to pay their way to high security space for the increased safety. Makes sense to me, though it must be a pirates paradise at the moment as they interdict these desperate people and at best steal all their remaining wealth.

So I decided to get out a bit and wandered down to the mixed bar, this place has pod pilots and also station crew so noisier and not as safe but I wanted to gauge the mood.

Grabbed a drink and sat down, employed my station bodyguard to keep an eye out, the usual contract, half now and the other half transferred into her account should I survive.  It's a deal I've done before and she is good at what she does.

Listening to snippets of conversation I hear the system name Yulai a few times.  Now Yulai is a boring system, nothing ever happens there so I didn't know why they were mentioning it, but with the current Sansha thing I was rapidly connecting the dots.

I asked the bodyguard, her name is Zeta, to ask a local over who I'd observed talking about Yulai, it didn't hurt that this local was pretty, but I wanted to find out more.  So buying her a drink I asked my questions and found out the Sansha had hit Yulai with a sizable force and even the citizens of high security space are now scared.  If they can attack Yulai they can now attack anywhere, which it would seem was happening.

So I bid this local goodbye, gave some ISK for her information, from the way her eyes opened quite wide I must have over estimated the local currency exchange rate but no matter, a drop in the Iteron as they say.

I thanked Zeta for a job well done again and retired to my apartment, not forgetting to send the other half of the payment to her least she is not as trustworthy the next time we meet.

Right now though I have some thinking to do, how can we turn this Sansha incursion into profit.

Undercurrents

alliance in local system

one enemy red in the local system

supposedly friendly banter between the local blues and the red

underneath is a murderous undercurrent

the threat of discovery and death

moving from system to system exchanging companionship for desolation

wanting both

Embrace

When I’m in a ship my pod feels like a womb, a warm nourishing embrace.
Once the pod is ejected from my ship due to its destruction it feels like a coffin.
So we are trying to hone our combat skills for the upcoming joint operations with our new alliance.
To just talk about that in passing for the moment. We have joined the Alliance I was with when in Sto-vo-kor.  This should bring benefits to the corporation and with luck we can contribute to the alliance.
So anyway we had setup a gate camp for worthy targets, however most ships seemed to be Buzzards, we were just about to call it and head back to the bar in Olo when a Scorpion hit the gate and Roku, the scout on the other side of the gate, let us know.  Combat had arrived.
The scorpion finally uncloaked and we destroyed him very fast…however…and we have pieced together this information after the fact… he was being chased and ran out of luck when he hit our gate.  Soon afterwards so did we.
He was being pursued by a larger group, quite a mix of ships including a Strategic Cruiser, Battleship and others.  They engaged us, we were scattered due to the Scorpion kill and they cleaned us up. Sanjuro managed to warp away, but my ship and one other was destroyed, we both warped our pods away.
Later on during the debrief we gathered the fragments of information together to conclude the Scorpion pilot was going to be destroyed by us or them, that much was clear.  However their fleet was better than ours, and more organised at that stage so we lost, it was unlikely we would have won.
We live and learn to fight another day.

It’s gone Jim.

Walking back to my quarters from the Hanger with Roku we had a chat.

“So my new corp roles have come through”, I said.

“Yeah? Cool, probably just means more work though”, Roku responds.

“Work means opportunities. Something interesting is now I can see more of the corp background movements, which includes ships destroyed and killed”

“Uh huh”, Roku says warily.

“To my surprise I see my Megathron, the one I loaned you on the destroyed list.  Care to tell me what happened?”, I ask.

“Yeah sorry about that.  We had a short war with some folks, forgot who they were now, have to look it up, and we attacked a couple of their Battleships.  We killed an Armageddon for the loss of the Megathron and a couple of Battlecruisers.  Considering the fit of the ‘geddon we were ahead on ISK.”

“So you were going to tell me about this when?”

As we approach one of the bars to pass by the noise becomes too loud to hear each other, once we are past we continue.

“I was trying to find the right time because of something else.”

“What is this something else?”, not liking what I was hearing.

“Well it’s like this.  In the rush to fit the ship how I like it, undock and attack them I forgot something.”

“What did you forget Roku?”

“The insurance.  So I was only paid the basic amount.”

We arrive at my room. Gesturing vaguely in the direction of my drinks cabinet Roku gets the idea and makes two drinks. While he is doing this I force myself to sit.

While rubbing my temple with two fingers of my left hand I ask, “So let me get this straight.  You lost the ship I loaned you, it was also not insured and given what I know now about more recent activities it gets worse doesn’t it?”

“Sorta yeah as the ISK I’d saved to pay you back was then lost when my Battleship, the Hyp was lost in the most recent war in that weird attack of theirs”, Roku explains.

Staring out of a window of my room I think about what to do.  Not much point in chewing him out about it. The first attack was a success on paper and the second was strange, not sure what any of us could have done.

'”Yos?”, he asks.

Turning back towards him, “Okay here is what’s going to happen. We’ll work a bit harder to replace the lost Battleships, I want to change the roles here anyway so after talking with the CEO earlier today your role, amongst others, is going to change.  I’ll let everybody know more soon.  I need to get some sleep, you probably do also so we’ll catch up tomorrow, okay?”

Roku stands up to leave, “No problem”.

Just as Roku is almost to the door, “Oh is Token in station, or even system?”

Roku turns back, “No I don’t think so, I’m not sure she’s even in this region.”

“Okay thanks man, catch you tomorrow”, I say as Roku leaves.

Reaching for the communicator to fire a message off too Token for a face to face meeting.  She’s not online at the moment and probably not even in this region so it could be a few days. With that done I kill the lights and fall onto the bed, sleep comes very soon.

Saddle Up!

We have been sitting near this moon for what seems like days waiting for our war targets to show themselves.  Roku and I have been piloting Stealth Bombers, staying hidden and trying to keep our enemy off guard.

We are outnumbered and outgunned, as I did not join the corporation until after the decision to declare war had been made I was not there to decide.  Given the situation we are now in I would have wished for a no vote.

However here we are, defending another corporation that is unable or unwilling to defend itself, we are barely able to provide an attack ourselves given the beat up nature of the corporation at the moment.  I’ve been promised the situation will improve but you fight with the tools you have available.

We have a war target in system, he is sitting outside one of the stations trying to goad the industrialists to undock, I am also trying to convince them to undock and together we can attack the ship, a Rattlesnake, a faction Battleship.  Our fleet is a motley affair, two Stealth Bombers, a Drake and an unknown combat ship, perhaps some of the other members of the industry corporation will undock and fight when it begins, I certainly hope so.

Minutes go by, I am anxious to attack this thing, Roku is almost making his bomber bounce with anticipation, he is on the comms to me constantly.  The industrialists are taking much convincing, all this time I am worried the enemy will leave the station or maybe the system.  One of the things keeping him there is his confidence, his arrogance, something I’m hoping will be his downfall.

Finally I get an agreement on a battle plan, however tenuous it is.  So the two industry corporation ships will tank with some attack and we in the bombers will be all attack, we have no damage mitigation.

“Here it goes”, was the only message I received from the primary tank pilot in his Drake, he sounded tense.

We warp to the station, the Drake is taking the damage well, also hitting the Rattlesnake for some damage.  The enemy has deployed heavy drones, just as we appear.  Both Roku and I target the Battleship and let loose volleys of torpedoes, the damage on his shields accelerates rapidly.  He pulls in his drones.

I chat with Roku, “Lookout for light drones, he’ll go for one of us”.

“Yep on it”, replies Roku.

The bastard targets me, drones come streaming out, flashing red as they target and start attacking the ship, I’m still attacking the Battleship but looking for an exit, somewhere to warp to, I choose a destination and warp away, almost in hull, I’m out of the fight for now.

The warp tunnel collapses and I immediately set warp back to where I came from but a little further out, engage the cloak and head back. The warp tunnel collapses once again and I can see how the fight is progressing.

Roku is now being attacked by the same drones and also warps away, though doesn’t seem as badly damaged as I was, he’ll be back soon.

“Don’t break my cloak when you come back”, I request giving him directions on how to avoid my now invisible ship.

“No worries.  While you were gone one of the indy ships undocked in a Frigate and flew away”, Roku said.

“What the fuck! Who was it?”, I yelled.

He told me, I was not happy.  So our promised local support was gone, non local support was too far away to help, though coming very fast.  However on the plus side the other guy acting as the tank was doing a great job.

We both un cloaked and re entered the battle, this time doing slashing attacks, I noticed the heavy drones, which he had brought back out to attack the Drake, were expensive ones, so I targeted them, he soon brought them back into his drone bay.

He was disengaging and trying to leave the fight, as we both had him warp jammed the only way was to dock up, at least thirty seconds away.

The tank pilot signalled he was shutting down the launchers and will disengage, I asked why but saw why at the same time.

Some local nobody had seen the attack, decided the Rattlesnake was in trouble and started repairing his shield using heavy reppers, his shields were coming back quicker than normal.

I called off the attack, told the Drake pilot to dock up and both Roku and I warped away to a safe spot, disgusted as we had the damn thing.  His shields were going down, he was trying to disengage and some local prick ruins what would have been a great war kill.

The rest of his corporation finally turns up a few minutes later in system, they are quite happy and tell everybody about it.  They regard it as a win.  They do not realise, and I would be surprised if their ‘snake pilot told them, how close he came to being destroyed if it were not for the random hand of fate.

We leave system and head home.

The Safety of Being out of Range

Woke up this morning feeling terrible, slept longer than usual.  Wiped the sleep from my eyes and shuffled off to do my morning bio’s.

Couldn’t figure out what to have for breakfast, settled on the usual, seemed easier.

I think a fairly heavy depression was sitting on my shoulders, I should take a pill for it I suppose but for now it can stay, sort of like having an old friend over for a while.

So I finally left the corporation.  They were a great bunch of guys but my feeling was their soul had moved on.  The remains are still there in Sto-vo-kor but for me it was over.  I’d hung on for a while to see if the feeling of loneliness and change would evaporate but each day I would wake up and feel the same. I assumed I would feel better once I left, turns out I don’t.

Low and zero sec wars are a war of choice, you can escape to high security space and enjoy the safety of being out of range, something I was about to yearn for.

I joined Yojimbo Heavy Industries (YHI), or re-joined rather as I had been here quite sometime ago.  I have some good friends here, Roku is also here and some others I know but little did I know about the nasty little war that was brewing.

YHI has some other friends (.ARR.) whose corporation was war decced by either a small mercenary corporation or a local pirate group in training.  These friends are not fighters, they are making their way by mining and manufacturing, with the odd mission for the various factions.  So YHI decided to declare war against the, lets call them merc corp, to try and help the friends of YHI.

YHI is outnumbered three to one, but it was assumed that .ARR. would help out and augment our fleet with some combat ships, sadly we were mistaken and at the time of writing they were corp hopping to try and escape the merc corp.

So we fell back on one of the few tactics that are available in a situation like this, hit and run, annoyance and ambush if possible.  For a short period of time we were able to accomplish the task quite well and probably drove them mad either trying to find us or sitting outside our station waiting for our undock when in fact we are at the bar trying all the blue liqueurs.

Once or twice we saw some opportunities but as this is an ongoing operation it would be remiss of me to describe something in detail that may be of some use to the enemy.  However I can say that so far we have lost a Battleship and nothing more which is within budget.  Roku had a Hyperion destroyed due to a successful trap which involved a bait Typhoon on station and a long range warp in of a Megathron, his name didn’t even appear in local until the last second.  Suffice to say we gave him a few “told you so’s” in the de-brief and that tactic is unlikely to work again.

From my point of view the purpose of the war is diminishing, .ARR. have moved on so they no longer need protection so all we are doing now is trying to save face, sometimes you just have to accept a defeat and move on when the odds are too great.

Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert!

So the authorities have given us access to most planets for exploitation.

This is a first time, well at least as far as I can recall, that we have been given official access to pillage most planets in high, low and zero sec.

So I studied the proper subjects, jumped in a hauler and picked up the Command Centre of my choice, found a planet and setup my base.

Awesome now the ISK should really roll in, go!

I am still waiting.

I have also had another prospector setup his base very close to mine, potentially robbing me of minerals and therefore I will not stand for it!

Retaliation!  Blow up his base, set fire to his goats, eat his corn etc etc.

(Looks up the CONCORD rules for Planetary Interaction (PI))

Hmm it seems I can do none of that. A war declaration will possibly catch him/them when the materials are picked up, but the base can be remotely controlled so this could be at anytime.  Setting an ambush at that planets customs station for all eternity does not fill me with any joy.

What to do…

I know! I have some spare marines, I will let them loose on his base and leave it in ruin!

Hmmm I no longer seem to have any marines.

(Quick investigation)

Turns out if you leave some marines in close proximity with exotic dancers you end up with janitors, with no marines or dancers to be seen.

Least the hanger is clean now.

Corporation Death

It's funny how quickly a corporation can die.  Often they don't disappear totally but just last week I was happy in the warm embrace of Sto-vo-kor, chatting with the other members over the sub space.

Something has changed, the mood, the feeling, something.

The CEO, or co-CEO I'm not sure, has stepped down.  Many of the pilots are not jacking in, not coming online.  It could be the recent move to a new zero security area has damaged the morale in some way, I'm at a loss to explain it.

So we will see what happens.  I suppose I could head back to the corporation I founded, I assume Roku would be okay with that, sort of makes training those new guys redundant though.

Change of plans new guys!  You are now forming the nucleus of a new corporation! YHI is no longer a training corp!  YHI is now a war deccing corp that will also roam low sec looking for trouble!

Yeah and watch them all shit bricks and I think one of them would explode.

I need a drink.

Damn refugees.

"Damn and blast the mother fucking Sansha driving this human refuse into my station!", the walls ring to my sudden shouted outburst.

Now I really need a drink.

Leaving my room behind me I head towards the bar.

History

I was chatting with Token Prophets the other day, nice girl, a bit hyperactive but I suppose that's what makes here a demon on the markets, twitchy and ready to strike.

She asked me how I became a pod pilot, we talked about it for a while and then after she had left for Dodixie I decided to record some of the details for your reading pleasure.

I was in my teens and always wondered about space, we all knew about the galaxy and the many planets, spaceships, crew and the almost mystical pod pilots.  So one day some people came to my school, I was a few years away from finishing and it was time to decide on a career.

I remember when the guidance counsellors said the word career it sort of thudded into my brain, like each letter was made of stone and dropped from a great height to crash into the ground like a biblical message from those on high.

Career.

So once I had recovered from the shock that here and now my future was being decided I noticed  that they were introducing some visitors, and a couple of them had sockets, they were pod pilots!

They looked almost human, I had always thought of them as very tall and more than a little bit god like, but they looked normal, like adult humans, they looked almost like me.

So I started listening, they were offering a potential career first as a crewman and then, maybe, as a pod pilot, I was fascinated, the male pilot, I never did get his name, had such a deep timbre and even voice.  Later on I surmised it came from being in many deadly situations and talking to some school kids was not one of those.

He should have talked with Mrs Mason then!

So he mentioned a test, the Elite test, I immediately said yes, as did some other people, the test was uploaded to our personal devices.  Essentially it was a simulation of what was actually happening out in the real universe except the planet names had been changed, the starter planet for me was called Lave.

So the Elite test gave me a rating, the powers that be noticed this and I was offered and accepted a place as a trainee, fast forward a bit and I became a pod pilot, that is where it gets interesting.

I'll recount that in the future.

Exposure

Every once in a while the station attracts some sort of space junk, I suppose the local gravity sucks it in.  Eventually the station staff head outside and collect the garbage for recycling, what is old is new again.  Even rarer is this, I call them floaters, some poor soul has lost their life somewhere in the system and their desiccated shell has made its way to the station somehow.  I'm looking out my apartments window just staring into the eyes of this human that is staring into infinity.  For some reason I'm fascinated by the visage before me, the dried and damaged skin, bulging eyes and one hand gripped in a fist.  Suddenly I realise that it is a she, not much hair, maybe singed off or made too brittle in space and they broke away, individual strands orbiting some object for a while, maybe forever.


[buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!]

The communicator breaks me from my apparent trance.  Hitting the receive and waiting for the signals to sync it would seem the station staff have also noticed the floater.  Some stations believe it is bad luck to bring them into the station, normally they will attach a small engine, or sometimes just give them a shove, into the larger gravity well to burn up, usually the local planet.  She gets smaller as she moves away and is soon blocked by some of the station superstructure.

Finally the communicator syncs and I find it's Roku.

"Hey man what's up" I ask in what I think is an interested voice, still a bit spooked.

"Yosagi!  Oh this and that.  Still looking after that Megathron you loaned me, she's purring like a dream", Roku says perhaps a bit to enthusiastically.

"Yeah?  Did you take it in for those repairs, and what about the insurance, what level did you buy?"

"Ahh the top level yeah, can't remember how much it cost right now but it's all good.  We did have that little war recently though, have to tell you about it sometime".

"So the purpose of this call is?", I ask.

"You're famous man! You know that little thing you write?".

"Little thing, nice one man.  Yes I know about it, as I write it", my response is a bit chilly.

"Well it's hit the airwaves, near and far, you are now on the list!", Roku enthuses.

"List? What list?", I reply quizzically.

"The free press round up!  You know the one with many of the writers who spread the word about what happens in this universe, away from the official channels".

I think about it for a short while, Roku's signal has gone to shit anyway so while I wait for the system to fix that up I try and remember what he's talking about.  I'm not sure if I recall it properly but maybe I saw some guy trying to hand out flyers for some press thing.  Trying not to enter the greater station in recent times has been my mission as the influx of refugees has made the place much less pleasant than normal.

His signal has come back.

"So what do you think about it?", he asks.

"Not really sure to be honest.  In one respect I'm shitting construction blocks about it but I guess I'll just keep on doing the same thing and see what happens.  Might have to give it a proper name though", suddenly realising that some sort of cool name or description may be better.

Some silence on the line for a few moments.

"No you don't need to do that, just keep it as your name because the system lists them alphabetically, so yours will be the letter Y whichever part of your name they use."

It dawns on me, "Ahh so it will be at the bottom of the list so the odds are people will not make it through all the writers above me and I might as well report on purple monkeys for all the good it will do".

"Exactly!  You can write any old crap and nobody will ever see it.  It's perfect!  You get the fame of being on the list without ever having to produce anything worthy of actually being on the list!", Roku appears to find this fairly hilarious, so much so that I think he accidentally disconnects the signal.

I'd had enough of him for now anyway, though I'd better chase up the maintenance guys in Olo station and find out about my Megathron soon.

I try to catch another glimpse of the corpse but she is long gone.

Is this the room for an argument?

[Door creaks open]

"Hello?", dressed in basic clothes the new applicant asks hesitantly.

"Yes yes come in, sit down.  You are?", the interviewer briskly instructs the applicant.

The applicant hands over his data card.

"Okay so now I can see who you are, but why are you here?"

"Is this the office of the Convicted Alliance?"

"Well it's an office of a Corporation in the Alliance, so you want to join up hey?", the interviewer answers flippantly.

"Yes I do, my skills should be an asset to the Alliance as a whole."

"I'll be the judge of that"

The data is sifted through while the applicant sits and looks around the spartan office.  Mostly white with a few office devices here and there, he gets the impression the office could be vacated in about five minutes should the situation demand it.

He coughs and says, "I have my first born child in the hallway also."

Looking up the interviewer tilts his head to one side, "Whatever for?"

"Well for the application of course, as one of the requirements."

"Really? Hold on a sec", the interviewer looks at some information on his Holo screen.

"Where did you say you were from again?"

The applicant answers.

"Okay that explains it, you must have old recruitment information.  I'll bet it's even made using paper."

The applicant sheepishly pulls the paper from a pocket.

The interviewer explains, "The requirement to supply your first born child was done away with many years ago, probably before you were born.  We found the levels of recruitment we needed could not be met due to the vast amount of study and computer time our potential applicants had to undertake.  Thus many never had the time to meet a partner and actually create the first born child."

"Oh.   Well what should I do with him now?  He was born just for this purpose."

"Not sure, down the hall are some offices for the Marines and Exotic Dancers, you make the choice"

The interviewer continues, "So what I'll need for the application is ten thousand ISK and also the usual amount of Kruuls DNA."

The required items are handed over.

"Right the changes have been made, report down to Hanger Bay 13 for your life of excitement and adventure."

"Just one question before I go.  Why does the application need the Kruul DNA?"

"To be honest we don't really know, our best guess is the CEO bathes in it, gives his skin that silky softness he is renowned for."

"Dismissed!", barks the interviewer.

What Could go Wrong?

The war targets are in Abagawa, docked at the moment.

This exercise is to give the members some combat experience, two of them have some and the other guy has little to none.

So we form up, Battleship, Battlecruiser, ECM ship and tackle Frigate.  The two targets should be in either Battleships or Battlecruisers.  My alt sitting outside their station has a good view of their undocking bay.

As our fleet approaches their system one of them undocks in a Battleship, an Abaddon.  So I warp my Battleship to their station and engage him, I call for the rest of the fleet to enter the system and warp to me, the second enemy Battleship then undocks.

All DPS is on the first Battleship whose shields go at an acceptable rate, then we start hitting the armour, a bit slower than I would like but okay.

However the bad news starts piling up, I hear over voice chat that we've lost our ECM ship, most likely to drone agro, though I later find out it had been shot at also.  The armour on my Battleship is going down, in hindsight we probably should have switched targets to the other Battleship, but it undocked second and I was fixated on the first one, potentially a mistake.

So my Battleship dies, I call for everybody to get out, my pod warps away, at this moment I think we have failed utterly.  The tackle Frigate gets away but the Battlecruiser is caught and destroyed.

The vultures descend on the wrecks.

I have an alt on the field, via this alt I start to take stock of the situation, trying to salvage something from the disaster, but somethings wrong.  Too many wrecks are on the field, taking a minute I realise we actually did kill one of their Battleships.

Yes!! This wasn't a total waste of time after all!

We make our way back to the home system, dock up, but the counterattack is not long in coming.

While we are trying to put the best spin on the battle we could, the war targets turn up in our home system, via the alt now sitting outside our home station I can see they have a Battleship, a Tempest and also a Proteus, a tech 3 Cruiser.

We discuss the situation, one of our guys undocks and they stare at each other for a short while, then they engage him.  So the decision is made to primary the Proteus as that is the smaller ship and should go down fast.  (hindsight laugh)

The pilot of the Tech 3 Cruiser, upon reflection, was very confident in the situation, this should have been a warning.

So anyway we start hitting the Proteus, its shield goes away fairly quickly, then we start hitting the armour...well I think so, it's not moving very much.

After a bit I check to see if my guns are still working, they appear to be, but it's all going wrong.

So the end result is the enemy Battleship docks up as we had changed targets from the Proteus, he was getting hit pretty hard but just disengaged and docked up.  We lost another ECM ship, our tackle Frigate, his pod.  Our Battlecruiser and my Battleship (a backup) survived the engagement, for a while the Proteus and I just stared at each other outside the station, after a bit I also docked up.

The previous night I had destroyed an enemy Battlecruiser for no loss, we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.  Now we had destroyed a Battleship worth about 200 million but we lost a Battleship worth about the same, also a Battlecruiser, two ECM ships, one Frigate and a Pod.

However the worst knowledge is the Proteus is now on the field, we cannot kill it and they know it.

Time to think.

Share Holders Report

"Hmmm I wonder what this is", idly fiddling the mail program while waiting for the message to appear.  The mail system has been very slow lately, no idea why.

"Ahh it's a shareholders report from YHI"

[INCOMING TRANSMISSION]

Shareholders Report on the recent war with Federal Biohazard Research corporation.

The war was active for a period of 10 days, actual combat took place over a period of 3 days.
Enemy ships destroyed are as follows: Myrmidon, Amarr Shuttle, Retriever, Iteron Mark III, and, a Pod.
Corporation ships destroyed are as follows: None.

Enemy ship fits were poor and pilot alertness was low initially, this improved as the campaign progressed.

The main enemy operations area was Misneden, also where their corporation office is.  After hostilities began some of the enemy scattered to other systems, they were not aggressively pursued as this was not part of the contract.

Towards the end of the war they drafted numerous more experienced pilots which changed the odds.  This triggered the end of the war as per the contract instructions.

The war has now ended, hostilities are now over and corporation assets have moved to the next target corporation.

Medals have been awarded to Rokusaburo Michiba and Crowley Bertrand for combat operations.  A special mention must be made of [name withheld] of the corporation [corporation name withheld] for intelligence services provided during the conflict.

[END TRANSMISSION]

I will have to chat with Roku about this, looks like the contract went well.  I suppose I should pay them the agreed contract fee for a job well done.

~ 1 ISK transferred into the account of YHI ~

The Tense Boredom

The warp tunnel is about to collapse, the shuddering begins, I begin to make out some features of the stargate, damn a bubble!

In this system we do have some "reds" and "nuets", both are potentially dangerous so this bubble could be a trap, however with the amount of friendlies also in the system I don't think it is as the hammer would come down on them pretty hard.  In this case it is not, next to the gate are an Alliance Deimos and Harby, I assume as gate guards.  As my warp in had put me at zero kilometres from the gate I jump through.


To be told when I was on the other side of the gate, "Watch out for the drag bubble Yos", from an Alliance member.

"Good one dickhead", was my seemingly light hearted reply considering I had to navigate through it to arrive in the system and the subsequent warning.

My purpose here was to meet with an agent I had to work on standings with.  He is aligned to Caldari so my standing with him and his corporation is already okay but to work my way up the ISK chain I have to accept his missions to gain reputation.

We have a chat, he offers a mission which I accept, complete and repeat.  In the system at the same time the Alliance has a mining operation in progress, which explains the bubble and the attempted heavy mob on the other side of the gate.  We chat a bit, keeping an eye on local chat all the time for red or nuets, they call me in once or twice to dispatch some Serpentis battleships that warped in trying to disrupt the mining operation.

Finally with as many missions done as I can do before my brain melts out my ears I head for home and dock up knowing a corporation likes me that little bit more.

Zero Sec Happened

A while ago, while leaving zero sec space I had one of the more intense encounters I have had in a while.

My corporation was once again moving to a new area, I had already moved my gear and some other ships to the high security area as that was the staging point for the next step in the journey.  The final ship to bring out was a Battleship, a Megathron.

The ship was fitted with short range blasters, a webber and some drones, a fairly typical PVP fit, though it was never used in that way as we moved before I had the chance.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION

"Yosagi this is Roku, I've scouted that route for you and it has no camps and little in the way of ships.  So it should be clear, out.", and the line disconnected.

Grumbling about another typically short message from Roku I receive permission from docking control to leave the station, the local system is empty, align to the stargate and I am away.

Jump through the gate, align, warp, gate the sequence goes on for a few systems as I begin to leave the zero security home and head towards the safety of the Cat system.

As I enter the next system I know I'm in trouble, about six locals are around the gate in Frigates.

They target the Megathron, I try and target them but for the Battleship this takes about 20 seconds, the time seems to slow down as I'm waiting for the first target option to appear, more Frigates also appear.

Finally I can start shooting somebody, but first the drones, I eject some light T2 drones, set them on the first unlucky customer and think what to do next.  The problem I have, which is now dawning on me is the fact I have large blasters, most suited for larger ships than Frigates zipping around my ship faster than flies, and about as numerous.  The second problem is time, I am now warp scrambled and webbed, they are smart enough to have jumped a couple back through the gate so if I go back I'll be in the same situation.

Oh nice, the drones have destroyed a couple.  Ahhh that new ship is a cruiser.  What I have been concerned about is the fact this could be a delaying tactic before some bigger hitters arrive.

Target the cruiser, attack with drones, web and large blasters, yes that fixed him up, he warps away in structure and doesn't come back.

The damage caused by a dozen Frigates is starting to build up, my shield is gone but being an armour tanker this is not a real problem, though even with the armour reppers on full time my armour is still going down.  They are shooting my drones, I am ejecting more drones to replace the destroyed ones, webbing Frigates, trying to shoot them once webbed with the large blasters, I also have an Large Energy Vampire which is messing up their Micro Warp Drives, I have killed a couple more.

By now a few wrecks litter the area, most of the Frigs have damage of some sort, they are warping in and out to try and escape my attack.  Given the chance I will have some more frigates on the other side of the gate I have to make a decision.  I align for a moon.

Risky?  Yes but in the current situation, with my armour failing and running out of drones it is worth a shot.

I concentrate on the warp scrambling Frigates as not everybody seems to have one, a couple more die, I am not scrambled and warp away!

I leave in my wake six destroyed enemy Frigates and also (I find out later) a noob entry level ship!  Boy did he pick the wrong day to come out.

While the situation might have improved I would not call it great.  I'm still in the same system with some seriously pissed off Frigates, I don't know what is on the other side of the destination gate, I only have twenty percent armour left, and I just noticed some hull damage also, no shields left obviously.  The drone bay is also pretty empty as most of those have been destroyed, all I have left is two mediums and three lights, so my last group of five, and they all have varying degrees of damage also.

I'll be very surprised if I get back to empire space.

Align for the gate, hope my Frigate friends are not sitting on it, this system has a couple of exits but they might be camping them all.  In warp wondering what is waiting for me, the shuddering starts as the ship decelerates, I'm leaning forward trying in vain to gain a better view of the rapidly onrushing gate.  It's clear!!!  Jump through.

Crap!!!

On the other side is a Battlecruiser, a Hurricane, he targets me.

So to update my situation I'm now being targeted by a Battlecruiser, I have almost no shields, little armour, not many drones and in the system behind me a hornets nest of angry Frigates.

So I do what has to be done, I target and attack!

Eject the drones, target the Hurricane, all blasters, Energy Vamp and webber.  I'm out of optimal for the blasters but they are having some effect, which should get better as I approach.  Oh and I'm running out of Capacitor Charges also as this thing is heavy capacitor negative.

He has ejected his drones, he is attacking, he can see how damaged I am, my ship is mostly in the red, obviously he wants to finish me off.

His drones are gone, he is aligning?  He warps away!!  I thought I was gone for all money, maybe he thought I was still going to be too tough, or the aggressive all or nothing attack scared him?  Guess I'll never know.

Only four jumps from Empire, no further incident, I enter Cat with damage to nearly every system and the ship is on fire.

When I appear in Cat a local hovering at the gate asks me what happened, referring to the burning ship.

My reply?

Zero sec happened.

The End.