Day 499

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.