So life is grand. Lots of soft carebears about and not a lot to cause concern in the grand game of high-sec warfare. No targets who bare teeth when poked until suddenly there it was in my mail. A paid dec against another merc corp...
What you need to understand is that deccing the most elite null-sec PvPers in the game means we get their industrials and mission runners in high-sec. Their PvP boats and players are all home in Null-Sec and it's mostly easy pickings in High-Sec. When you dec another merc corp you are deccing another elite PvP grp that live breathe and eat High-Sec and know it's ins and outs as well or even better then I do. This means constantly watching over ones shoulder or shiny ships of my own go *pop*
Well after a week of cat and mouse with them we renewed the war for a second week and to be honest it hadn't gone our way the first week but thats the contract so again I prepared to play with them for another week. It was uneventfull for me as they were heavy in another timezone and I really didn't see alot of action from them. Then there it was a gate camp setup one jump from me with a Talos and a Jaguar. Surely they couldn't have not scouted the other side of the gate with neutral eyes and spotted my characters chilling in station. Perhaps they even had eyes on me...
So I down shipped a little, fitted for the fight ahead and sent out my un-named alts about the place to find the rest of the fleet if this was just bait. After checking every likely spot I decided that these two were infact alone or at the least I had about two minutes to end the fight. So I sent out the assult frigate first and my neutral reps. Just before I jumped the AF into the camp I undocked my good old faithful thorax which had been with me since my time in the uni and was a vetran of 4 roams and several small engagements in high-Sec. So risking a ship that had nearly made it to my trophy hanger and was just waiting for one final moment of glory I sent it on its way to the gate as I jumped the AF. Then all hell broke loose.
As the AF jumped local list lit up like a christmas tree. A log off trap. The oldest trick in the book and I was webbed and scrammed as i expected but with local fast filling up with flashies I decided that losing one AF was better then losing one AF and one remote rep ship so I backed off the RR and quickly refocused to getting the pod out and pulling out on the thorax ASAP. Well they were through the gate and had me pointed on the other side before I could turn around. With a tear im my eye I aligned for a safe and spammed the warp on both chracters. The AF broke first and it was off to a mid way safe prepared against such emergencies. When the Jag passing me in warp I knew it was the right call. Moments later the Thorax popped too and once again the midway safe was made. I gave GF in both Local chats and docked up at my safe stations. Well that wasnt good enough for one member who proceeded to smack talk me a little and link the war report in local and then smack talk a little more...
I had followed the pirates code to the letter and had respected them for their crafty trap and superior tactics (if it works blobbing with shiny is a supeior tactic, after all the victor writes history). Well with my favourite thorax dead and my AF removed, not to mention my skill as a high-sec merc damaged in the eyes of both my opponents and my native potential targets, I was stuck with a dilemma. I could either accept what had happened and continue my day, or I could seek vengeance. Well It doesnt take much to guess I'm not the rolling over type. The question was how was I, a realatively new pilot compared to my opponents, going to harass a 6 man group packing a heavy tackle Jag, a Talos, a Deimos and three Proteus? These guys had broken our home system gate camp time and again with equal aged pilots defending.
The answer was so black and white for me and i couldn't work out why no one else had done it yet. I took out a T1 frig and went after them to do something that all our shines weren't able to achieve, to kill one of them. Well it didn't take long to track them down. Our Intel channel was buzzing with warnings telling us all to dock up in those areas they were hunting. But I was no longer going to be easy prey!
Well they laughed I had come in a Tristan. Apparently I wasn't worth their time. That is until I caught the talos on the gate and proceeded to start burning the big boy down while the rest were in warp. Clearly not being able to hit me with those big guns he turned around and headed for the gate. It was a battle cruiser and wasn't going to get killed by my tiny Tristan anytime soon so after it arrived at zero on the gate ready to jump his friends started arriving on gate too. Finally I had some attention. So I burnt to a 'safe' distance about 80km away unaligned and sat there daring them to chase me off the safety of the gate. Well thats exactly what they did altho it was rather cautious. I knew they smelt a trap. What could this one tristan hope to accomplish? I wonder what is backing him up? Well those would have been my thoughts but clearly they wanted the kill so they followed as a pack.
Finally it happened the Jag seperated form the pack and burnt at me full prop. It seperating a good 60 km from the group after being kited. I then 'lost distance' and got in long point range. Sure enough we pointed each other and he started shooting and I did the only thing I could on that boat. Launched a wave of 5 warrior II drones. Staying outta scram and web range but still within point range I kited him further away from his companions while still letting him think he could catch me. Finally he hit armor and began to back off. I knew with how well he was repping that I couldn't possibly kill him before he made it back to his friends. So I did the only thing I could think of to keep him interested. I let him web me. Once he webbed he turned around and shot at me again. However I was burning hard at him and he was turning so within seconds I was out of web range and kicked it back up to full speed and hoped I had bought enough time to score the kill. Slowly his armour chewed away and he realised he had to get out. He aligned to a celestial and tried to escape. As he went into structure his shield booster kicked in agian and repped him up full. At this point a Proteus who I hadn't notice warped out landed about 12km behind me and started trying to blap away. If he had of changed to null m I'd have been dead at that range with 0 transversal however thanks to his mistake I stopped keeping speed with the Jag and turned hard...
Sadly it was the break the Jag needed and with shields still keeping up for the moment he warped out with tail between his legs. I hadn't managed to pop him as planned but I had forced a 6 man gang to save a t2 frig from a t1 frig and take their focus off the rest of the alliance for those precious few mins. At this point they all warped to station and the jag docked up and repaired, he then offered to 1v1 me without links or help...
Sure I believed him completly and mashed dscan while I microed my drones back and forth off of him. after about 3-4 mins of this and his cap charges undoubtedly running out and myself still having 6 drones to play with having only lost 2 a omen navy issue appeared on my short scan. Being a gate and not 1 of the fleet I had seen I kept going well sure enough it was one of them and I promptly kicked up the speed outta range as the shots fired from it...
Apologies flew in local about he didn't know that it was supposed to be a 1v1 and blah blah blah. I came back and had 1 more swing at which point he had clearly refit and was both scraming and webbing my drones. Now facing a t2 frig built to kill me I backed off and shot the talos again for good measure. After I docked up and bought a new set of drones ready to harass them further as down time was fast aproaching and the war was due to end right after the jag pilot said in local 'I like you noragen, you have big cojones'.
This made my bio for some time. Well no kill to report but it was worth it for the respect earned and the fun had. They all jumped back into the Marmite one idiot gate camp on the other side who didn't bother to hop on coms to find out the situation or look in the intel channel and promptly killed him ending their night by docking up at the marmite home station.
Altho the only person who lost ships in our engagements was me I also felt like I had won a great victory. Lets face it ships come and go but respect can be a lasting currency (cheesy quote)
Enjoyed the read. Nice work ;D
ReplyDelete