A Rock In A Cold Place

Well, the last couple of days have been pretty exciting.  Davios finally got certified to command a Retriever and we had our first trip out to the belt with two barges yesterday.  Focusing on plagioclase, we managed to haul about five million ISK worth of ore in an hour.  Not too shabby, if I say so myself.  I’ve gotten my refining skills to an intermediate level, and can use mining crystals for any common ore, so I’m in pretty good shape.  Next step, the Hulk.

Unfortunately, that’s going to have to wait for the moment.  There’s been another war declaration that is taking effect today.  Markos is ready to help fight for the corp, but unfortunately his training was still in it’s beginning stages when he deferred to Davios’s agenda.  Well, now it’s time to start getting seriouse about defense so he’s taking over on that front and I’m deferring to Hargatay so that he can advance his scanning skills and do a little bit of reconaissance, since he’s not actually a member of the corp.

The corporation that decced us is The Protei, and eleven man corp operating out of Ichoriya.  They all seem to be fairly experienced, and among their ranks is Humuhumun…. .  Hum, as I will refer to him from here on out, was a bit of a thorn in our sides about a month ago, and reared his ugly head recently in a can flipping incident that ended in him loosing his Mauller.  Seems he found a corp that was more in-line with his philosophies, and seems it’s time that they’re all taught a lesson.  We’ve got friends coming to the party this time, too, so things should get very interesting very soon.

Mining will have to take a back seat for now, though.  Time to do a little damage.

Yesterday was my 30th day withBarr Heavy Industries, and consequencially the end of my probationary period. I sent a message to David Barr and within moments he hailed me on a private comm channel. We had a quick meeting. Seems we’re both pleased and I was made a full member of the company. I requested assignment to the Excavation Division and was granted the title of Excavation officer. David also granted me an honorary title as Strategist of Last Resort, due to some unique tactical thinking on my part (Plan B: Kill Everybody).

My first act as a full member was to refer a new applicant to David; Marko is now a probationer with BHI. He’s aspiring to join the Security Team. Some teams are starting forays into wormhole space, so I think he’ll be seeing plenty of action soon. I’ll personally stick to my asteroids.

Hargatay got qualified to run a salvaging destroyer, so he’s taking a break from training and I’m back to work on my refining courses. Davios is only a few days from joining me in a second retriever, which is a good thing becaus Markos is itching to get back on the stick.

Meanwhile, the cash flow is starting to look good with several contracts of ore being closed the other day.  Half of that went towards a cybernetic implant, but we can’t make money without spending money!

Well, things are starting to come together quite nicely.  Scoped out a nice even belt in Rauss last night and Davios and I laid two strings of secure containers.  Thismorning I managed to fill the whole set with ore.  We need to pick up two more…maybe tonight.

Heard from Marko Greggos again.  This is the loose cannon I mentioned before.  He let me know that he was going to set up shop in Raussinen and then just showed up!  On top of that he handed me a conveyance contract to pick up a bunch of his stuff from Kakakela.  The nerve!  Well, we got him all moved in after I finished working the belt thismorning.  His hanger is an absolute mess, but I’ll let him sort that out on his own. 

He did, however, unload a LOT of salvage my way.  That combined with a little stockpile I had going really added up.  Between that and the ore from the last couple days I’m looking at getting about 15,000,000 ISK!  Even after getting Hargatay set up with the two frigates that he trained for we shouldn’t have to worry about money for a while.  Meanwhile, I’m back to working on finishing my Refining course and working that belt as much as I can. 

Marko did mention some interest in joining Barr Heavy Industries’ security team, and I think that his gung ho attitude and borderline psychosis would fit in very well with that crowd.  I don’t know how Commander Lyon ended up in Excavations.

I’ve been working on a training plan using EveMon for Davios.  I’m starting with learning skills and some basic ship command.  The most immediate goals other than learning are getting him into an Iteron V so that he can do the heavy hauling, and then a Retriever so that he can do some effective mining.  I’ll have the necessary fitting skills interspersed, including mining skills before I seek the retriever.  After that, focusing on trade skills for the most part. 

Down the road we’ll be looking into research and production.  I’ve remapped his skills accordingly, pretty much dumping into Memory with the points left over going to Charisma and Perception, with Charisma getting the lion’s share.  The perception is only really for the spaceship command.  Maybe once he’s in the Retriever and Iteron I’ll remap again, or I might work on Transports and Freighters before I do that.  I’m in good shape for now, so we’ll see where we go after the immediate goals are met.