Computer: Record. Auto-transmit to VFK for backup.
Entry: five hundred three.
I just got word that 4-AB had a few hostiles. My trigger finger is itching for some action, and I'm not waiting. I've moved from the Stiletto to the Hurricane. Standard shield buffer, nonstandard nanofiber for greater speed and maneuverability.
Warp bookmark 4-AB.
"Warp Drive Active."
So far on intelligence, I know that there are two hostiles. It's my guess that there are more, otherwise I doubt the reported Dramiel will stick around.
"Jumping. Recording Paused."
"Recording Resumed. Warping to Stargate"
I find myself wondering how large this gang is going to be, and what the backup will look like though. Ah, there's the stargate now, and there's the drag bubble. Approach the Caldari battlecruiser wreck. Activate MWD, overheat top rack and cycle. Now just for the waiting...a blackbird? Well, this isn't going to go well.
Approach gate...Jump.
"Jumping. Recording Paused."
****************
"Recording Resumed."
Approach Dramiel. Lock. MWD and top rack on. Lock. Disruptor. Neutralizer.
I know it's a trap, but I can't help myself. Even if I lose this hurricane, but I kill the Dramiel, I'm coming out twenty plus million ISK ahead. ISK wars are pretty important. My guns keep hammering at he Dramiel, reverberating throughout my ship. It's difficult to hit him, but I landed occasional glancing blows as he hits the stargate. He's not a very good frigate pilot, but he's getting the job done, because he's only now entering armor.
"Loki, Myrmidon, Dramiel, Falcon: on grid."
Shit.
"Jammed Out."
Approach gate. Request Jump on auto-spam, begin.
"The Stargate denies you permission to Jump because of recent acts of aggression you have committed."
"The Stargate denies you permission to Jump because of recent acts of aggression you have committed."
"The Stargate denies you permission to Jump because of recent acts of aggression you have committed."
"The Stargate denies you permission to Jump because of recent acts of aggression you have committed."
Auto-warp to station on auto-spam, begin.
"External factors are preventing you from entering warp."
"External factors are preventing you from entering warp."
"External factors are preventing you from entering warp."
"Ship is out of control."
"Warping to Station."
GF coming in over local communications network, what the hell, me too. GF guys.
Warp to Stargate.
"Warping to Stargate."
Funny how everything seems calm and quiet, yet high strung and tense after you lose a ship.
"Jumping. Recording Paused."
****************
Pause Recording until further notice. "Recording Paused."
****************
"Recording Resumed."
Intelligence claims Robopleasure in TNT space. I didn't have another Hurricane in VFK, so I made the trip out to XCF for my one and only armor cane. Undock.
"Undocking."
....
Warp to CU9. "Warping to Stargate."
Robopleasure has been bouncing between FMB, CU9, and XCF it seems, although he's slow on the take about moving. I'm not sure why, but maybe I'll find out.
Once in CU9, pause recording until further notice.
"Jumping. Recording Paused."
****************
To Intelligence: Robopleasure in CU9 on XCF gate.
Lock approach Robopleasure. Overload top rack and fire.
"Target is no longer locked because it doesn't exist."
To Intelligence: Robopleasure jumped XCF from CU9.
From Intelligence: shiptype?
To Intelligence: How many times do I need to repeat that he's in a Daredevil?
To Intelligence: Robopleasure CU9, DAREDEVIL, moving to approximately 100km below the XCF gate.
Pause recording until Robopleasure is webbed.
"Recording Paused."
****************
"Recording Resumed."
Overheat top rack and approach. MWD active. Just a few seconds now.
"Target is no longer locked because it doesn't exist. Killmail Recorded."
Gimme a minute to cool my nerves. Approach wreck and loot. Once looting completed, destroy the wreck. "Acknowledged."
So, there's a little bit missing in the log there. Upon his last jump into CU9 via XCF, Robo microwarped to about a hundred below the gate. Being less agile, not mention considerably slower, I kept myself in jump range of the gate so that no matter which direction he approached from, I could lock him before he go to within ten kilometers of it, and then double web and scram him as soon as he did get in range.
He played around for quite a while, maybe ten to fifteen minutes, microwarping in and out, trying to draw me off of the gate. I wasn't willing to oblige. On one attempt, I did release some some drones at him, but they did minimal damage before one was destroyed, thus I recalled them. Note, drones will not work on a Daredevil except as a distraction.
His final run ended with him being double webbed and scrammed. There was no chance for escape.
He claims that that last run was a mistake, and frankly I'm inclined to agree with him. After how long he spent zooming in and out, one piloting error on an inbound trajectory took him in too close, resulting in the loss of his ship. I didn't even attempt to pod him, the hurricane's locking speed is far too slow to catch the pod of any half decent pilot, nevermind a regular interloper like him.
To Robopleasure: GF
From Robopleasure: GF
Computer: terminate recording.
Entry: five hundred one.
The previous day was a rather nice one.
After waking up and getting cleaned up, I boarded my ship and switched to "Logged in" mode, connecting me to the rest of capsuleer civilization. Intelligence came out only seconds after I logged in that a hostile succubus was spotted only a jump away. Without further delay, I undocked my Wolf from VFK-IV's station and warped to I30.
Reports came in that the hostile was no longer in I30 as I warped. Since local reported no hostile neo-link, I warped to the only other system, 209G-D.
I jumped into 209G to find the hostiles succubus already engaged with a Dramiel sixty-eight kilometers above the I30 gate. Redlining my MWD, I practically warped within range of the target. At twenty-four kilometers range, my overheated disruptor played across his warp core, preventing escape, and I settled into an MWD orbit at thirteen kilometers pelting the target with Barrage ammunition.
It didn't take long before the target succumbed. I was especially proud of the final blow being mine. It'd been almost half a year since I landed a final blow, and that was against a friend in a friendly death-match.
Today, however, was not so pleasant.
Upon logging in, I scoured the intelligence channels, and began hunting targets in my Wolf. I traversed VFK, 2R-, YAO-, 2-K, CCP-, TXME, FMB...I caught glimpses of the targets with the directional scanner, but had no luck.
Intelligence then came over comms about a twenty man frigate gang roaming our space. A defense fleet was formed, and we pursued.
We trapped them in a system, but they were safed up. Unable to find them, I retrieved a cheetah from VFK, only to learn the frigate gang had eluded us and moved into YAO-. Again, the fleet trapped them, but they safed up yet again. I attempted to probe them out, but they logged off to avoid detection.
Frustrating is about how I would describe that.
I left fleet, and switched the Wolf to "Logged out" mode after docking in VFK-. I didn't waste much time, and headed almost straight for my quarters. I did snag a soda on my way to my bunk, my customary 'wake up drink' and 'go back to sleep' drink. I opened the soda, placed it next to my bunk in easy reach, then lay down on the mattress.
A few hours later, after waking up and collecting my wits, I chugged down some of that previously opened soda and returned to the Wolf. Flipping the ship status to "Logged in", I formed a fleet with two corpmates, Ranger Gama and Dark Masiah. We'd decided to go to the front lines and get some action.
So we traveled to Tribute. As we arrived, all action ceased, and action at Deklein increased. Frustrated, I called for a suicide assault of RED space, and we made our journey down to 6YU.
Evidence of R.A.G.E's failscade was pretty clear cut: all their systems were empty. An interesting fact struck us in RED space however: it was empty. Literally, no one was there. It wasn't as though we were at the fringes of RED space either, we were pretty deep into Geminate.
Frustated, we headed back to M-O. This was perhaps the only part of the journey truly interesting, as we found ourselves gatecrashing away from a Pandemic Legion gatecamp in M-O on the low-sec gate. Unable to return home, or even to Tribute through that system, I scouted Hakonnen, and discovered that it had become a major Pandemic Legion staging area. With local completely filled with reds, excepting myself, I returned to the previous system, docked, and clone jumped back to CU9-.
Two minutes later, Fountain was on fire, and it was at least forty jumps away. Luck was not on my side, and I called it a day.
Computer: terminate Recording.
Entry Date: four hundred ninety-nine.
It's been a slow week.
Normally, when a war breaks out, approaches your doorstep, or in general has been raging somewhere nearby, you'd expect to see action. It's strange how the reverse seems to be true. Even though war is on our doorstep, has broken out, and in general is raging somewhere nearby, the region of Deklein is mind numbingly silent.
With Deklein silent, but unable to bring myself to suicide on the forces of Pandemic Legion or the Drone Russians, I search for prey elsewhere. That elsewhere is away from the front lines of battle, but undoubtedly more action packed than Deklein. So I keep a close on the intelligence channels. Cloud Ring, Fade and Pure Blind, Fountain, Cobalt Edge, all are definitely worth looking into.
It is therefore unfortunate that the majority of interlopers in allied space are of the cowardly sort. To be more blunt, they're the type that pilots Stealth Bombers, Stealth Recons, or Covertly Reconfigured Strategic Cruisers. A case can be argued for the intelligence in piloting these vessels, exposing yourself as little as possible while disrupting enemy movements and income. A case can also be made for the cowardice and ineffectiveness of said pilots as well, that they repeatedly come, camp, and go in these covert vessels yet cause so little disruption in daily activities and allied fleets.
In an effort to parlay insane activity at the front lines in Tribute, I chased some leads on possible targets in Cloud Ring, and made my way over there in my as yet untested Shield Cane. You know the fit: 425's, shield extenders with resistance rigging, gyrostabilizers and tracking enhancers, the standard get up. Mine has a trick however. Amarr use lasers, which are thermal and electromagnetic weapons, but in close or with Scorch, the damage will be primarily thermal. Minmatar tend to use phased plasma, by and large, to shoot everything. Gallente use kinetic/thermal for their blasters, or phased plasma for their autocannons, or lasers. Caldari like their kinetic missiles. Given that the only threat of an electromagnetic assault comes from the offhand Amarr designed vessel, the Hurricane lacks the typical EM rig and instead boasts a kinetic hardener, vital against the ever popular nano-Drakes in play.
I prowled Cloud Ring for a time. Naturally, by the time I had arrived, the interlopers had departed to somewhere unknown. I waited for far too long before moving on to Fountain, a region bathed in fire lately from my observations in the intelligence channels. I plodded my way down via stargates, itching for action.
B-D, J5A, EI-, PNQY...everywhere was desolate except in the intelligence channels. I made my way to the systems linked in intelligence and plodded my way there via stargates again. I arrived in 6VDT without a hitch. What the hell went wrong? The whole point of taking stargates was to traverse the same routes as intruders, and yet I'd managed to evade them completely.
Seeing a lone bomber in 6VDT, I attempted to play the clueless pilot by pretending to be "out to lunch" at the 7BX- gate. I watched intelligence intently, making sure I wouldn't get caught by a roaming gang of twenty, hoping the bomber would at least check out the gate I sat at, and thinking me away, attack. I even had a whole plan laid out where I would wait until the bomber landed a disruptor on me before engaging, where I would be sure to destroy him.
I waited a fruitless hour with my weapons and disruptor set to overload, cycling, waiting for a lock on a target to dispense the hair-trigger wrath I'd readied. Nothing happened. Frustrated, I docked, deciding to come back another day, and clone jumped back to the corporate home system in CU9-, in Deklein.
Five minutes after clone jumping, the Fountain Defense fleet went up. I must be cursed or something. Luck this bad can only be the work of a malicious force, or possibly a lack of human intuition.
Having missed the bus of carnage leaving in Fountain by five minutes and some fifty plus jumps, I decided that perhaps a smaller combat vessel was in order. I'd have no chance against the larger targets, but I'd be ideally set up against any frigate-type vessels, and most likely also against any destroyer-type vessel.
I went about reconfiguring my Wolf for anti-interceptor work. I swear I'm going to kill someone with it.
