My agent had sent me once again into Yvangier to deal with someone else’s problem. This time he had received some intel on a Mordu operation taking place in a deadspace pocket. My job was to go over and make the whole operation a fused slag heap. I excelled at these sorts of jobs.

My new Harby was performing well, despite some early hiccups. I had fitted it for destruction and, despite my trepidation, fitted it with a flight of Hammerhead drones to deal with smaller ships. My Gallente friends had assured me that I should just focus on the bigger ships, my drones would “Murder any frigate that got close.”

Murder was perhaps not the appropriate word. Annoy, might have been a better term, and after sitting for 10 minutes waiting for a lucky shot from one of my heavy pulse lasers while my drones orbited an elite cartel frigate and made angry noises at it, I decided it best to switch out two of my heavies for mediums, at least until my drone skills were up to Gallente murder standards.

I arrived at the deadspace pocket and surveyed the situation.  There were a lot of ships here, this would take some time, but my scans and checks had assured me that I was alone in the local system, so I went to work making modern art of the ships in range.

Doing anything in Yvangier is an exercise in paying attention. In addition to the steady influx of Mordu, Angel Cartel and Gurista activity it was the home of the Blood Money Boot Camp, a training school for budding pilots on the other side of the law, and nearby Heydelies and Old Man Star were almost always war zones. So I was immediately aware of an Imicus entering the system as I was just finishing the last few Mordu.

“Aura, give me a 360 at maximum range.” Combat probes as suspected, and being that there were only two of us in system I suspected she wasn’t scanning herself. “360 Aura, at 1 AU. I want real-time updates.” It was another five minutes before the probes appeared on my scanner, and shortly after the Imicus. But she hadn’t found me yet, just the edge of my deadspace pocket. I congratulated her on her scanning skills as my ship jumped back to Charmerout.

I docked and the robotic deck crew transferred my pod to my Maller. I had no intention of salvaging the sea of wrecks that I had made, it was more the principle of the matter. “Okay Aura, let’s go shoot at the neighbors.” In a few minutes I was sitting at the first acceleration gate leading into the deadspace pocket. Moments later I was locking the scavenging pirate, now in a rifter, picking over my recent kills.

She was still at 20km, but began to spiral in using her speed as an advantage. A wise tactical move, though I didn’t much care. I had no intention of activating my pulse lasers until she got close, and she would. I commanded my ship to move straight at her. As she got closer I found myself webbed and scrambled, I returned the scramble, but kept my web offline. I wanted her a bit closer, no point in making it take any longer than it had to.

A 3,000 meters I webbed her and we both opened up with our guns. It was a tough little ship, tougher than I had expected. And was outputting very good damage. I was impressed. Had I brought my trusty punisher I would have been concerned, but the Maller was a rock and her ship exploded shortly after her auto-cannons began to scratch my armor. I quickly initiated a lock on her pod, but she made it into warp quickly, a testament to her survival skills and my cruiser class targeting system.

It was a good fight, I commended her on the local com channel for her durability as I rummaged through what was left of her ship. 400mm armor plates, no rep, aux power core to support the guns. Fly reckless, I thought, damn right. I left her wreck alone and headed back to Charmerout. She’d be back, but I didn’t want the loot anyway, and somewhere deep inside I had a vested interest in keeping her rifter supply well stocked.

2009.05.04 01:05:00

Victim: Jeneral Jane

Corp: Blood Money Bootcamp

Alliance: Blood Money Cartel

Faction: NONE

Destroyed: Rifter

System: Yvangier

Security: 0.4

Damage Taken: 2454

Involved parties:

Name: Ghenna (laid the final blow)

Security: 0.9

Corp: Endland

Alliance: NONE

Faction: NONE

Ship: Maller

Weapon: Medium Pulse Laser I

Damage Done: 2454

Destroyed items:

Barrage S, Qty: 146 (Cargo)

Republic Fleet EMP S, Qty: 708 (Cargo)

Damage Control II

Small Nosferatu I (Cargo)

Foxfire Rocket, Qty: 440 (Cargo)

250mm Railgun I (Cargo)

Micro Auxiliary Power Core I

Medium Proton Smartbomb I (Cargo)

125mm Gatling AutoCannon II, Qty: 2

Barrage S, Qty: 96

Lead Charge M, Qty: 100 (Cargo)

J5b Phased Prototype Warp Scrambler I

1MN Afterburner II

Dropped items:

Beta Reactor Control: Shield Flux I (Cargo)

‘Langour’ Drive Disruptor I

125mm Gatling AutoCannon II

OE-5200 Rocket Launcher

Barrage S, Qty: 48

400mm Reinforced Rolled Tungsten Plates I

My punisher floated in the black. A stroke of lighting thousands of miles long arced across the surface of the planet below, catching my attention for a moment. Nature was furious, and fury is almost always beautiful. So long as you are well out of range.

I refocused my attention on the directional scanner. One ship, another punisher.

“Aura, decrease the scan sweep to 180,” this was pointless, I knew where he was. “Scratch that Aura, scan sweep at 5 degrees, center on the Heydelies gate. My instincts had been correct. I stared at the scanner, my ship aligning to the gate at my subconscious command.

“Shall we initiate a warp?” Aura’s voice broke my trance. “Uh, no. No, Aura let’s get away from this gravity well.” My ship realigned and moments later the planet faded away into a point, and then further, into nothing. When she came to rest nothing was visible save the ever-present sea of stars.

“Give me a 360,” the results leaping onto my scanner before I had finished the command. Speaking to Aura was a complete waste of time, as her AI was integrated into my own brain, but old habits die hard. My decision had been a good one, a Helios was now visible in system. A hunch revealed that it was sitting in orbit of the planet I had just left. They knew I was here.

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