A Meal Best Served Cold

Fighting the good fight. Flying my Rifter through Heimatar, Metropolis (The Neighborhood), Amarr space, and even sometimes back towards Gallente space; searching for the good fights. My search has not been in vain either! That's what I've been up to for the past month and a half or so. Recently an event happened that reminded me why I started this blog up in the first place, to share cool things that happened in the game with people who'd understand and appreciate the coolness of the story.

 

 I undocked my Rifter to the rusty red warmth of Avenod, Metropolis! Still causing explosions in my Black Jacket with my Black Jacket's, in search of more. Our main location is still Gultratren on the other side of the Neighborhood, but lately I've been flying out of my Avenod outpost due to its proximity to Amarr space and Gallente space which is just a few jumps away. Sweet spot between the two hunting grounds! I hit my usual route finding nothing along the way. I spot a local who I've fought before, Hamul Jinn.

I see that he's in a Myrmidon, instead of a Tristan so I continue on. I arrive in Aset, check D-Scan and see a mining barge out in space. I quickly find him near a cluster of belts, do some more d-scan work and got him down to one belt. I warp to him frothing at the mouth, EMP and Mjolnir rockets ready to tear holes into the barge. I land on the belt, and it's sitting at zero. Cool less work for me! I immediately lock, scram and web and fire away at the barge. I don't bother to orbit since there's no drones out in space and no guns firing at me. Seconds later, I'm webbed and scrammed and a fleet of vicious Hobgoblin tech one drones hit the field. I activate my afterburner and begin orbiting the barge, but I notice I'm not going my normal web speed. Dual webs?? I overheat the afterburner to not be such an easy target for the drones and begin taking them down.

The barge pilot, Shaie Arnerette, knows her stuff as she pulls the drones back into the drone bay and sends them back out. We continue this dance for a couple minutes, and I notice Hamul enters system. I check short, and see a Daredevil. Ah shit. Moments later the Daredevil lands on grid and it's Hamul himself. For a faint moment I wishfully think he's going to help me with the barge, since both of us are combat pilots. Oh Sem .. you foolish man! I get my pod out of there.









I chalk the loss to the game. In retrospect the signs were there that it was bait. Sign one was the barge was sitting at zero, not at about 20km away mining. Sign two was when I was webbed and scrammed. I guess you can consider sign three as the drones being pulled back and sent out repeatedly. Three red flags that I ignored due to a combination of my itchy trigger finger and the fact that it was a young player with tech 1 drones. Classic bait barge in a belt! I informed my fellow Black Jackets who were online and in the area, Urkhan Law, and the Crazy Englishman himself kage Huren, to not engage the barge pilot because it was bait. Urkhan was a bit irritated at this, since he had fought Hamul before and personally felt it was very low of him to have used a bait barge to get kills.

I hadn't gave it much thought, my personal pet peeves are links and gate camps, but if I fall for a bait ship then it's something that if it happens it happens. We solo pilots understand that our ship is basically already gone when we undock.

A couple minutes later, a lightbulb illuminated over our big Brutor heads at the same time. We throw some ideas around and shortly come up with a plan. We were going to come back at them Black Jacket style, destroy the bait barge and the Daredevil. Pretty much, kage was going to go in for tackle on the bait barge, draw out the Daredevil, then myself and Urkhan would jump in system, warp to kage, switch all gunfire to the Daredevil (one of us would maintain point on the barge and the other on the DD) and kill him. Awesome! I reship into another Rifter, except with two webs in order to hold the Daredevil down nice and tight. Urkhan stages one system from Aset, so I meet up with him there.    

                                                                                                                                                       
After some afk'ness between the three of us, the plan was ready to be hatched! Kage was already staged in the opposite system one jump from Aset. Just then another Black Jacket, Richard Averald, logged in. We filled him in quickly and he joined kage in his staging system. We went over the plan one more time, and undocked. Urkhan and I staged on the Aset gate, Richard did the same on his side. Moments later kage signaled us with the famous "xxxxxxxx" and we jumped in and warped to the belt to join our bro. Even though the plan was to wait for the Daredevil, all four of us were pounding away at the barge. I watched with a feeling of satisfaction as the shields of the bait barge fell slowly but surely. Drones were out on both sides, lasers, blasters, autocannons and rockets fired together to form a sweet, beautiful melody of synchronized destruction. Hamul was in system, but four frigates in a belt would be too much for the Daredevil. I continued to spam short waiting to see what would arrive.

 

A few seconds into the ambush, a Nereus appeared on short. We had broke through the barge's shields and its armor was falling apart fast. The Nereus was piloted by Hamul, as the industrial landed on grid with us. I typed out to continue fire on the Procurer. For almost a minute the industrial was on grid with us but seemed to target no one. The barge was in deep structure at this point, and I watched as it warped off! Nooooo! We switched fire to the Nereus, and right after I was scrammed, webbed, and the cherry on top was my cap was being neuted! I overheated my afterburner and tried to get outside neut range. The Nereus's drones were rocking my Rifter, but the industrial's shields were falling fast as the frigate gang focused fire on him. I activated my repper and continued my slow trek away from the indy. My speed went from 300 m/s, to a snails pace of 97 m/s! My capacitor was gone, but the industrial's shields had fallen and was taking huge hits to his armor. Seconds went by as my Rifter began to bleed into hull at the same time the Nereus was entering structure. I began to align to a celestial as I entered deep hull, moments later I escaped in my pod and left the battlefield. Couple of emotions ran through me simultaneously. First was a bit of disappointment as we didn't explode the barge. Second, was satisfaction as I knew the Nereus would die soon. Seconds later my boys in black informed me that they exploded him. I smiled and thanked the Black Jackets for taking some time out of their EVE day to help a pirate get some revenge. The pod had gotten away, but seconds later they said they got him! Apparently the pod had warped back to them at the belt! Very weird, but I don't mind. Complete Op Success!  The guys had gathered the loot from my wreckage and from the Nereus, and contracted it to me. The kindness and love just kept coming! I thanked them all again and couldn't find words to express my gratitude at their work, determination and blood lust that resulted in the success of this ambush.

 

I was sitting in station, and Hamul convo'd me.

 

[ 2015.07.04 20:12:34 ] Hamul Jinn > that kind of blew up in our faces:P
[ 2015.07.04 20:12:54 ] Sem Skord > Was hoping you would bring the DD
[ 2015.07.04 20:13:15 ] Hamul Jinn > thank god i didnt...my connection crapped out on my, almost threw my laptop on the flooe
[ 2015.07.04 20:13:16 ] Sem Skord > One of our dudes had to afk during the fight, thats how the barge got away :)
[ 2015.07.04 20:13:17 ] Hamul Jinn > r
[ 2015.07.04 20:13:35 ] Hamul Jinn > well my pod was just sitting there...so hey christmas!!!
[ 2015.07.04 20:13:42 ] Hamul Jinn > thank the lord it wasnt my asb pod
[ 2015.07.04 20:14:33 ] Sem Skord > well
[ 2015.07.04 20:14:35 ] Hamul Jinn > no wouldnt bring the DD to a vs 4 fight though
[ 2015.07.04 20:15:36 ] Hamul Jinn > wouldve been a nice fight if your mate or myself didnt bounce out of eve though
[ 2015.07.04 20:15:43 ] Hamul Jinn > that nereus...i had high hopes for it
[ 2015.07.04 20:16:43 ] Sem Skord > well it got one of us
[ 2015.07.04 20:16:56 ] Sem Skord > so it died a good death
[ 2015.07.04 20:17:05 ] Hamul Jinn > which is what matters
[ 2015.07.04 20:17:14 ] Hamul Jinn > nicely done to all of you!
[ 2015.07.04 20:17:20 ] Hamul Jinn > cheers man o/

 

Gf! Gf!

 

After all this had went down, I wanted to share this story but I knew my wife could only understand and care so much without me explaining stuff. Hey! You have a blog, share it on there! A fine thought! So if you read this, I hope you enjoyed the read :)

 

The Crazy Englishman, kage Huren.

Our parolee Urkhan Law.

The Face of Death, Richard Averald!