Archive for March, 2009

I’d like a moment of your time to evaluate how you all feel about the current low interest in low-security space.

Our motley crew of python and ex python members had gathered up once more to sow terror across the high…er…stars.

We were to do a simple roam to the infamous Old Man’s Star and back again (preferably with our lives, and some plunder). What an excellent time to test my new dark and golden beauty, a Malediction interceptor!!

After some shenanigans and shadow games in the pirate system of Tama, we decided to be smart for once and not tangle with a larger, better equipped group of foes, and went on our merry Yarring way.

The ever-sharp Andrea skye was manning the scanprobes in his fabulous cloaked force recon vessel, a minmatar rapier, he had brought three of his friends along for some added firepower and emergency repairs. Regulars Kerblammo (who had almost annihilated my beautiful ship in a friendly fire incident before departure; the asshat) and Spectre were also with us for death-dealing.

It was not long after arriving in OMS that the fun began, Skye had managed to find and lock down a Vagabond, a notoriously fast vessel. We sped to assist him and landed on the vagabond at point blank range. My malediction screamed and tossed under me as I orbited the stranded ship at ridiculous speed, my Warp scrambler keeping it’s warp systems from functioning after Skye had to warp his damaged vessel out of combat for repairs. He did not last long, deprived from it’s main advantage;- speed, the Vagabond was reduced to a flaming heap of shrapnel in space. It’s pilot was canny enough to elude us in his escape pod. We did not care much, there were some quite valuable goods left in the wreck.

We scattered after looting for all we were worth, hiding in dark and forgotten parts of the system while our security status reset.

Not long after Skye and Spectre were back to the daily business of scanning down enemies in asteroid belts, it took only minutes before Spectre and Skye had hit paydirt and quickly sent me a pair of coordinates to warp to. Skye had disabled the warpdrive of a Huginn and he and Spectre were already pelting it with missiles and Blaster slugs. Right nearby however floated a ship I recognised well… a Khanid Sacrilege was engaging.

I put my ship in orbit around it and applied the tender love of my warp scrambler to it’s engine system, preventing it’s escape. To my amazement, the huginn had somehow managed to escape my friends (now reinforced with the rest of the crew), who, in their typical unadaunted fashion simply began pelting the sturdy Heavy assault cruiser with fire now. It was slow going, Khanid ships are tremendously resistant to damage and the Sacrilege in this belt was no exception, but slowly his defenses were failing.

Just as we started to see gasses being vented from fractures in it’s hull the huginn pilot returned, apparently in a foolish bid to save his companion. He targetted my Malediction, but the speedy vessel was much too small and fast to hit until he closed range more. I gritted my teeth as I watched the scans of the enemy Sacrilege for signs that it was about to be destroyed, not willing to let my Warp Scrambler off it and potentially let it get away.

A stray shot from the huginn collapses my weak shield… the next hit would perhaps be the last…

A bright blue flash bathed my glossy interceptor’s hull as the Sacrilege’s power core went critical. It was also too late for the huginn pilot, though he had succeeded in destroying Spectre’s cruiser, Skye had disabled his engines and he was not going anywhere. Not willing to take the chance of getting hit again I slammed the Malediction into warp as another shot sailed perilously close past my fragile little death machine. As the belt quickly became a spec in the rear view cameras, I could just make out the blueish glint of it’s engines exploding.

We quickly scavenged their ships for loot and made good our escape.

After selling off the regular ship components, and starting a nice auction for the advanced amarr navy equipment we found on the sacrilege, we set a course for home.
Along the way we destroyed a poor neophyte pilot’s ship. Hopefully this will teach him that it’s called low-security for a reason, he was so harmless I even managed to test my rockets on his pitiful ship.

Surprisingly, the missile launcher model he had (not) been using ended up being even more profitable than the advanced tech-2 modules we had recovered from the wrecks in Old man’s star! Everyone had made a profit, even poor Spectre, who somehow always seems to draw more fire than rest of the gang combined.

As I docked up in Aurohunen, I wore a great big smile on my face. This new ship was a flying coffin, but damn was it fun to fly it.

Helicity shuffled around her quarters in her fluffy pink slippers. She was still on Khanid local time and the rest of the newly reformed Cartel (such as it was) was already either sound asleep or had collapsed in a drunken stupor earlier.

Helicity was wide awake… and feeling the itch, that niggling thing, deeply ingrained in her mind, that compelled her to commit lawless acts and fly into the face of danger, rather than away from it.

The itch would need to be satisfied, but reports of local space revealed that no prey would be forthcoming, unless she wanted to tangle with other criminals. Criminals in very big, very bad ships.

As she slumped in her beat-up leather chair she glanced at the hangar security cam, and something caught her eye. Sat in the darkest corner of the hangar was an old, barely maintained Impairor frigate. The most wretched of all the ships she owned. It had no guns, no speed, no armor to speak of and was not even very mobile.

It was, however, utterly unassuming and likely to be ignored. As usual, a creepy grin worked it’s way onto her face. She slammed her hand down on the activation panel for the Coffee-tron 5000 and it jetted forth a quadruple espresso.

Moments later the old and decrepit power systems of the impairor hummed into life once more. As the creaking mass of the tiny frigate glided out into open space, there was a moment of hesitation. “I must be out of my mind” Helicity mumbled to herself.

A quick (as far as anything on the miserable frigate could be done quickly) scan of the system revealed only a pair of the usual local ne’er-do-wells. They could probably be avoided simply by keeping an eye on their movements. A few quick warps through the system’s belts revealed little of value. Next stop, the warpgates.
Warpgates are often a treasure trove of forgotten loot, if you’re brave or stupid enough to maneuver your ship to the wrecks located there from time to time. The korama gate was (as expected really) devoid of salvage. The Dantumi gate however had two abandoned and burning wrecks and a conspicuous cargo canister hanging near it.

The afterburner that was crudely welded onto the frame of the impairor lugged it’s unwilling host closer to the wrecks. The proximity alert suddenly started blaring in Helicity’s mind.

“Crap!”

A Moa cruiser had just warped onto the gate. Helicity started to align her ship to get the hell out of dodge, but the moa simply activated the gate and vanished in a shimmer.

Just as planned. Nobody cared about a puny impairor. Helicity sent a mental command to the retrieval subsystems to open the cargo canister and inspect the wreckage.

Happy day, a bunch of big fat rockets, some salvageable energy tranfer units in the container, Helicity had them transferred to the cargo hold.

The wreck however was much, much, nicer. Three tractor beam modules and two salvager units had survived the violence done to the craft. Not a fortune, but definately worth several million isk.

Two trips back and forth to the station and the wreck was emptied of it’s last working parts.

On to the next system! Dantumi had some more hostile local fauna, but they seemed uninterested in the old rickety frigate flying through their turf. A quick snatch and grab under the noses of a threesome of Guristas cruiser yielded 4 drones, Warrior MKIIs, that had been left behind by their former owner. Ka-ching!

Just as Helicity steered her ship out of the belt it was engulfed in a massive explosion that sent shards of gilded tritanium hull flying everywhere, alarms sounded in her head and the shock of the impact felt like a sledgehammer. A guristas battleship had appeared and it was sending missiles the size of the damned frigate her way. The battered ship trailed fire as Helicity did everything she could to get the warp drive going again. Another huge missile streaked past, impacting a nearby asteroid. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the warpdrive fired and the impairor wobbled away at breakneck speed.

—-

A smallish repair bill later the even-more-battered impairor lumbered out of the local repairshop, a pair of crude unpainted plates welded where once had been a gilded sheen, the technicians visible behind a porthole of the station were still laughing.

—-

Helicity was also laughing, not ten kilometers from the station hung a battered cruiser wreck, she could see the sluggish, tiny vessels of the local cleanup crew slowboating their way towards it.

“Laugh at my ship will you…”

She blasted through them with the afterburner on, making them tumble wildly out of control, her coms erupted with indignant cries, threats and citations of salvage right codes. A simple mental command cut their protests short.

“Take everything…”

A nice selection of usable modules remained on the ship…

“Give nothing back!”

…and was quickly devoured by her cargo hold.

—-

Thought of the day: Make your own damned adventure instead of being bored, even if it means getting shot at by people while you’re in a newb ship.