Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

Dear Marlenus:

Still having a good time in 0.0. My ship losses aren’t too bad so far, and I’ve had quite a bit of luck getting faction mods off the local rats.

Last night I had a fun encounter in the system next door to the Steel Fleet home base. Some of the boys (and one girl) were forming up for a combat roam that I was not planning to go out with, due to it being my bedtime; so I went out in my Cheetah covert ops ship to look for faction spawns and whatnot. Basically, I was just cruising around looking for opportunities and trouble.

When I jumped into the system, I found an unknown neutral (Ferry092 of GNocide corp) in local, who immediately hailed me in friendly fashion:

Ferry092 > Woah
Ferry092 > The legendary Jim Bridger
Jim Bridger > LOL, hello
Ferry092 > What’s happenin
Jim Bridger > not much, just wanderin’ around
Ferry092 > lol, syndicate is a pretty bad place.
Ferry092 > LOTS of pvp down here.
Jim Bridger > My guys are based out of [one jump away], we do OK most days
Ferry092 > Cool cool
Ferry092 > Huge No Trademark gang around here
Ferry092 > Attemping to avoid them while still finding some pvp
Ferry092 > So what brings you solo out here?
Jim Bridger > just exploring
Ferry092 > Ahh. :P

I took his “legendary Jim Bridger” greeting to mean that he’s a reader of Ironfleet.com — I guess word gets around!

While we were having the quoted conversation, I was warping cloaked from belt to belt, checking the rats. About the time he asks “what brings you out here?” I picked up his Myrmidon and Hobgoblin II drones on my directional scanner, and a moment later I landed (cloaked) in the belt where he was ratting … with his drones still out.

So, of course I get on Ventrillo with the Steel Fleet cutthroats who were (when last seen) sitting on “our” station undock, shooting aimlessly at each other and bullshitting about ship fits.

“Break, break, I’ve got eyes on a ratting Myrmidon battlecruiser, he’s sixty clicks away from me with his drones out, I am cloaked and approaching him, can I get a fleet invite so you bastards can come warp to me and blow him up?”

[interested fleet chatter]

“Roger, thank you, I’m in a covert ops ship, yes I’ve got a point but those Hobgoblin IIs of his will eat me alive, you’ll have to be fast as hell. Let me know when you’re ready to jump into the system…”

Right about this time I notice him pulling in his drones, and I see that one of our Steel Fleet guys has jumped in prematurely. There is cussing. Then the Myrmidon warps off in the direction of a planet. I tell my guys to hurry, and I warp to the planet at ten klicks.

Imagine my glee and surprise to find the battlecruiser ten klicks from me. Did he really warp to zero? Yes, he did.

“Guys, get your asses in here, tackler, please tell me when you’re in warp to me.”

Moments later, I heard a tackler announce he was in warp to me, so I uncloaked, pointed the Myrm, and went into the fastest orbit I could manage — which is pretty fast in a Cheetah.

The battlecruiser locked me (faster than I expected), warp scrambled me, and launched his drones. My pain began. Our tackler landed and announced a tackle, the whole fleet began screaming for me to disengage. Which I attempted to do, as by now I was in deep armor.

Then I discovered I was webbed, maybe even double-webbed. Yikes! I’m in structure now, and crawling for distance. The whole fleet has arrived and is pounding this guy, but will it be fast enough?

Finally I got some distance, and my warp drive engaged. I landed at another planet, streaming flames, with about 40% structure left. Too close!

Ferry092 got his pod away, and exchanged a few pleasantries in local before he left. He was pretty cool about the whole thing, at least until one of our guys got a little bit smacky. But I’m still wondering, why did he keep ratting after I effectively told him my guys were one jump away?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Today In Ironfleet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.