A Rock In A Cold Place

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, we were just running a couple of errands thismorning, nothing terribly intersting, when the corporate comm channel lit up.  Bunto was way the hell out in Torrinos doing some border skirmishing work when somebody in a Legion showed up and started helping himself to all of Bunto’s wrecks!

Xeradeph was only six jumps out, so he headed over in his Drake.  I was still in station in Raussinen, so it was eleven jumps for me, but I headed out in the Scavenger.  By the time we got there the pirate had left.  He didn’t take very much, either, which is odd.  Well, to work we went and took in quite the haul in salvage.  Got to see some pretty fireworks, too, courtesy of some exploding Gallente control towers and a maintenance bay.

In the end I turned over all of the loot, including a nice pile of Gallente Navy dogtags, to Bunto in Isinokka.  He let me keep all of the salvage that I got and split the reward for attacking the border camp three ways, so it turned out to be a pretty profitable morning!  Leaving the station in Isinokka, I nearly got crushed between a Dominix and a Megathron that were undocking at the same time.  Quite unnerving given the fact that I just watched a half dozen or more Megathrons reduced to so much cold metal in space.

Well, the last few days saw us getting on with life without many complications.  Davios and I kept working on mining that belt that we set up with containers and really hauling in the ore!  We’re averaging about 2 million an hour, give or take a little depending on what we haul in.  We also got those other two containers anchored, so it’s an even twelve now.  Davios got such a taste for mining that he’s put his Iteron training on hold and it working towards getting certified for a Retriever of his own!  He should be set in about three days, then we can really do some damage.

Speaking of doing damage, Markos took his Caracal, the Wildcat, out for a little jaunt.  He ended up finding himself some work for a Caldari Navy agent over in Funtaninen who was looking to have a religious fanatic / terrorist compound taken down. 

Well, Markos got me on comms while he was in the middle of a fight with the terrorists, laughing all the time about how many wrecks were floating around and that he didn’t feel like salvaging them all.  I swear I could hear explosions, and I think he was a little drunk.  I went out anyway, and took in a pretty good haul of salvage and some loot.  Marko took what ammo and weapons we managed to recover and let me keep the rest.  Not a bad bit of work.  Hargatay has agreed to come along next time and is studying up on tractor beams, salvager arrays, and getting certified to pilot a Catalyst destroyer.  I personally never liked them, but leave it to a Gallente.

Barr Heavy Industries had a few new members recruited last night, some fresh pilots and some already are veterans, so it’s a good influx of raw and refined talent.  There was also one the night before, so including him we met Nonamanadus, Cirocke, Pariah Khan, Star Anole, and Xindora.

Cirocke is a crazy sonufagun who had an Ibis all tricked out and was challenging any comers to a duel.  I took my rifter, the Screamer, out and for a little spin.  He did pretty good, and took me to 50% sheilds before his own sheilds dropped.  I realized that the Screamer wasn’t doing great, so I ran out and did some updating.  When I got back I took on Cirocke again, this time with him using a Condor.  Well, I couldn’t catch up with him and he had me pinned from 40km out, so that was a one sided fight.  Pretty soon, I’m going to have to train on micro-warpdrives.

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.