Shiny Shiny

I had moved a small stash of ships out to Stain to do some null-sec roaming, my ship choices being the shield Rupture, MWD Wolf, MWD Jaguar, and also a mixture of various Thrasher flavours. Overall, a nice selection of Minmatar bloodstock to test the waters in what is a very unforgiving place, especially for solo work. I fully expected to lose all of my stock, it was just a case of seeing what I could drag down with me.

My very first foray into the black soup of Stain ended with the loss of an Artillery Thrasher, but it was so very close to ending with two killmails of my own. I was close to the Catch border when I noticed a Malediction shadowing my movements, I tried to get a fight started on several occasions but it proved unsuccessful. Then, a short time later on my next in-gate the Malediction aggressed and I immediately lit him up as we danced around the stargate. 

Multiple gate flashes, uh oh.

The Malediction began to pull some range as it entered deep armor damage and as it spiralled away from my artillery shells a Daredevil decloaked. It was decision time, do I chase the Malediction and finish him off but risk the Daredevil's webs bringing me to a stop or do I turn my attention to the Daredevil who was sitting inside my optimal? I chose to go for the Daredevil and I hit him good, so good in fact that he was in hull damage in a couple of shots. Then the rest of the gang joined in the party including a Scimitar which immediately brought back to life the Daredevil, and it was soon game over for the plucky Thrasher. I exchanged gfs with my foes and warped to a safespot to self-destruct my capsule.

After a short break I decided another Thrasher would be taken out and this time I settled on a maximum dps Shield/Autocannon fit. I undocked and spotted a Sabre on scan at a nearby gate, it was time to say hello. I warped to the gate and immediately jumped through and waited. The Sabre pilot followed and I held cloak for the maximum amount of time to hopefully fool the pilot into thinking that I didn't want to play. Once I had uncloaked I burnt straight back to the gate and the Sabre put up his bubble and started to lock me up. I returned the favour and the fight was on, albeit a very short one. The Thrasher comfortably obliterated the Sabre without taking even half shield damage in return, maybe the kick of the Thrasher surprised him? 

The next day I found myself fitting up another Artillery Thrasher, so good was the alpha and my original plan was to try and play with some more gangs and kill tacklers or at least die (again) trying. There was one other person in my local, in fact he had been docked up with me for some time and I thought of him as being afk.

I was wrong.

As I undocked from the station I was soon followed by a Daredevil that was spat out behind me. I warped to my insta-undock and safely landed some 170 kilometres off of the enemy ship. As I sat there idling I noticed he was burning straight for me, and fast. I primed everything with heat and noted that he was going over 4000 km/s. As soon as he got to 40k off of me I would pounce and lurch straight for him with everything that I could throw at him. I hoped for a good fight but in reality the Thrasher yet again went into blitz mode and a shiny Daredevil exploded under the shadow of the station.

Over on the Molden Heath border in the murky wastelands of the Derelik region, intel was reporting that a Bhaalgorn Battleship was tackled and the call was made for backup. I jumped into a Hurricane and headed over. Dirty Protagonist and his Gunpoint crew had been engaging a gang of locals in their frigates and things had turned sour for the Bhaalgorn pilot who couldn't shake off the tackle of DP's heroic Stiletto. Everything that came to save the Bhaalgorn and stayed on the field long enough was slain by the pirate fleet and as the Bhaalgorn pilot cowardly initiated self-destruct the call for overheats was made. The Bhaalgorn soon died. Op success.

Blasting through Aliette solar system in my Wolf en-route to some far flung land I spotted a Loki on scan. As I landed on gate I decided to go back and have a look. He was in the asteroid belt and I wasn't going to turn down the chance to test my wits against the advanced cruiser, even though I knew that if this Loki was fitted good it would eat my Wolf alive. I landed at zero and as I did the Loki was warping out towards the station. Damn, had I spooked him?

Nope.

The Loki soon returned and he was now 30k off of me. Not ideal, but I thought what the hell and returned the lock and tried to make my way over to him with my overheated afterburner blazing. It was soon clear to me that it was time to say goodbye to this Wolf and sure enough, not long after I was webbed down and eating medium projectiles I was soon warping my pod out, leaving behind my wrecked Wolf.

But the story doesn't end here. As I was warping my pod out I noticed a Curse on scan. It was Jyren's Rage, a local pvp maestro belonging to HYDRA RELOADED. I stayed at my safe and watched the fight via directional scanner hoping for the Loki to pop. My corpmate, Kaeda Maxwell  had also randomly entered the system in a Thrasher and was watching the proceedings. Sadly the fight petered out to the Loki docking on station and the system emptied.

A short time later in the neighbouring system of Egghelende I noticed a conversation request pop up from Jyren's Rage. He was a man with a plan and was now fitting up a Blaster Cannoned Talos. He asked a few questions about my Loki/Wolf fight and the plan was then made to try and get the Loki back in the belt at 30 in line with the station, where myself and corpmate Kaeda would be waiting to tackle it in the hope that it landed at 30 and right on top of us.

It did. 

It is always nice when a plan comes together like this. The end result was one dead Loki.

MB.