A Memoir from Space

“Damnit! It isn’t supposed to be this difficult!”, sweat already appearing on my brow. The worst part was I wasn’t physically taxed at all.

“It would be easier if you relaxed, you will get the hang of it sooner or later. Why don’t you just take a break before you rupture a blood vessel or something, buddy?”. “Yeah, you are probably right”, I sighed, trying to keep the pent up frustration from turning into a viscous cycle. He was right about me needing to relax, but I was not about to take a break. I was going to figure this out if it was the last thing I do.

After a quick search on my NeoCom on popular and effective probing patterns, I quickly began searching for the cosmic signature that was giving my life hell at the time. I wouldn’t let a task like this best me. After 15 minutes of slowly repositioning each individual probe and resetting their scan ranges, I finally narrowed the signature down to two possible hits, and chose one of them at random.

I blinked in disbelief. 100% signal strength. I had done it! I was in such a rush to warp to explore my figuratively beaten opponent I nearly forgot to recall my probes. I blinked twice in disbelief. Out of the wormhole I had just warped to, an Iteron piloted by an unaware pilot warped off into the distance, clearly too late to have noticed my presence. Opportunity had struck.

After such extensive time in wormhole systems myself, I knew that this pilot would be making at least a few runs in and out of the wormhole due to the lack of regular availability of access to good high sec market systems. He had no idea I was about to ruin his day. Hastily warping back  to my main station, I posed a mental debate to myself; Bring a small ship that I know can get in tackle range quickly and not risk pushing the wormhole over its mass limit, or bring a big ship that I know can obliterate the opponent quickly and risk losing it? I chose the former and immediately ordered my crew to prep my Vengeance class Assault Frigate for combat. Not a huge problem as my crew is always on their toes.

And so I lay in wait, knowing my prey would come right back to me. Temporarily cloaked in my new friend’s home, I mentally prepared myself for the short window I knew I had, instructing my crew to prepare to overload my warp scrambler. I didn’t want to take any chances with my prey escaping.

I waited… a lump growing in my throat. I knew that if the pilot took any longer to come back, their was more chance of not only the charge on his ship dissipating from  his last jump, but for his friends to pay me a visit.

My heart leaped, the familiar ripple of the wormhole shooting adrenaline through my system. Action.

Within seconds, my target appeared, slowly aligning for warp. Not today, my friend. He was mine, helpless. Unable of warping away, his ship still dissipating the charges coursing through its warp core, preventing him from jumping back to safety, unable to destroy me. My rockets buffeting his ship with all their might, slowly peeling back his shields, then his armor.

This wasn’t good, he wasn’t going down quick enough. Soon he would be able to run back into the arms of Concord if I didn’t do anything. “DISENGAGE SAFETY PROTOCOLS ON ALL WEAPON SYSTEMS, DISENGAGE SAFETY PROTOCOLS ON ALL WEAPON SYSTEMS”. Within moments, my rocket launchers were spitting out fiery death noticeably faster upon the helpless Iteron. I would have smiled with smug satisfaction at the pilot sweating bullets, no, cannon shots by now, but instead I was panicking. My mental timer was running down. He was only into 20% hull now, and momentarily he would be able t-

FUCK. Back into “safe” space my prey went, leaving me to dwell in more frustration. Today was NOT a good day.