Connections

I was really beginning to like my Iskur. Regrettably, it is now nothing more than a wreck. Hoping to continue the slew of good luck I have been enjoying over the past few days I was out hunting for some likely targets. Having scoured my current system and finding it empty, I decided to move to a new system. Upon approaching the gate however, I was confronted by a rather formidable gate camp. I knew instantly that this would be mirrored on the other side, but had no choice but to go through. Had I attempted to turn tale and run I would have been blown out of the sky. I was banking on my ship being fast enough to align and warp out before the ships on the other side could get a lock. Upon arrival and safely shrouded in the gates cloaking field, I examined the ships around the gate and weighed up my options. The ships were a rather exotic group of Tech 2 ships, among them a Paladin marauder, an Astarte class command ship, an Onyx clss heavy interdictor and the only ship amongst them that could lock me fast enough, a Huginn class recon ship. If the Huginn hadn't been there I would have been clean and clear. But it was. I was locked, jammed, and blown to space flakes in a matter of seconds. Thanks to my own quick witedness, I did manage to escape with my life. After that sorry episode, I limped back to the station for some recuperation.

The next day I was faced with a new set of problems: an empty wallet and a lack of any imminent influxes of precious ISK. None of my current enterprises were going to pay off any time soon and my long standing friend, Kera, had been unreachable for several weeks now. She is normally the source of my money. She also transfers any ships and modules I need from high security space (which I can't set foot in) to low security space for me. In exchange for these valuble goods and services I provide her with certain services she is unable to satisfactorily obtain herself. I'll not go into to much detail, but suffice to say it is of a very personal nature. So for now I had to scrounge up some cash myself. What good is a pirate without a ship. Reveiwing the assets I had available to me, one of them in particular caught my eye. A brand new Nemisis stealth bomber. It was a bit of an impulse buy and the beautiful ship hadn't even been out yet. Hopefully I could get a good price for it and could live of that until I could reistablish contact with Kera. It was a shame to see it go, but needs must when the devil drives. No sooner had I completed the transaction, when my communicater began vibrating softly. Checking the caller id, I was delighted to see the name Caster Rom displayed in glowing green letters on the screen. Intrigued, I answered.
"Heya Caster" I answered playfully "lost anymore ships recently?" I asked, referencing our last conversation.
"Oh haha very funny" he replied irritably, followed by some angry muttering in which I distinctly heard the word bitch. Bless him, he's so easy to wind up. Anyway after that things got a bit more friendly, and to my delight he invited me to take part in an pirate operation with the Tuskers, a group I was trying rather hard to join. I immediately said that I would love to, but after explaining my own loss, informed him that I would have to buy and fit out a ship first . He laughed at this, which made me scowl. The scowl didn't stay in place for long though because he said he would make sure there was a ship fitted out and sitting in my hangar waiting for me by the time I got to the system he was in. Ecstatic, I thanked him and he gave me the name of the system he was in. I laid in a course, 28 jumps. A long way. I quickly purchased a cheap and cheerful shuttle, no room for any weapons or modules, but it was very quick. After a rather labourious journey I arrived in system and docked up at the station Caster had indicated. Checking my hangar I found the ship he had provided for me was a delightfully vicious looking frigate called an Incursus. This ships hull is the basis for the Ishkur I had been previously flying. With it fully fitted out I was raring to go.

The fleet consisted of about 12 pilots all flying frigate sized ships including assault ships, interceptors, electronic attack frigates, as well as basic frigates such as the one I was flying. Once the fleet commander, the venerable Wensly, gave the word and we moved out. The scouts went on ahead looking for likely targets. Only a few systems away our first target was located: a Hurricane battlecruiser. We all warped in and immediately got points on him so he couldn't escape. The big guns couldn't track the small frigates wizzing around it and the our combined firepower soon turned the Hurricane into scrap metal. The pilot also refused to ransom so he felt the burn of our weapons as well. He had obviously called for backup just before he died as within seconds, a second ship, an Amarr battleship called an Armageddon, warped to the planet where we were looting the wreck of the Hurricane. This ship had obviously taken time to prepare for us before undocking. His ship was fully equipped with smart bombs, the perfect weapon for taking out close orbiting frigates. We did not shrink from the deadly expanding energy waves. We adjusted our orbiting distance and kept the pressure up beating the battleship into submission, bringing our total kills for this op to two. On this kill I even outperformed some of the more seasoned Tuskers so I was very pleased. Just as this ship popped two more ships warped in to help their comrades, one was a Dominix; a battleship of Gallente design, and I didn't have time to identify the second ship in the mealstrom of combat. This is where our fleet started to become outmatched. The Dominix released drones; small automated ships. These variants were light drones and they excelled at destroying frigates. We started to take casualties. Four pilots, me among them, had their ships destroyed although we all managed to escape in our pods to safety. After this I was told another ship showed up so the fleet retreated. At this point I was called away on buisness and missed out on quite a bit of action, namely this, this, and this. When I rejoined the fleet, having concluded my buisness and aquired another ship the op was almost over. No more targets presented themselves so we all returned to our home system. Having had a very enjoyable, if hectic and dangerous, day I turned in for some well earned rest.