A Memoir from Space

Very rarely have I ever had the feeling that I was somewhere I shouldn’t be. I was always in the presence of my friends, them ready to back me up, or relaxing and enjoying my free time, even when in the far reaches of the universe.

Today, I felt out of place.

Very rarely do I get nervous. I was always well prepared for a situation, ready to back my friends up, always calm and collected, knowing how to react to a situation.

Today, I was nervous.

“WARP WARP WARP, HOSTILE GATE CAMP ON THE OTHER SIDE!”, I blared. Why did I have to be the scout on my first flight in a stealth bomber through hostile null sec? Only when off a gate in an empty system, my Purifier nicely cloaked, was I able to control the shaking in my hands and the throbbing heart rate pulsing in the back of my head. It seemed those mythical camping fleets and destroying everything it could catch was not a myth. If the purpose of flying out here wasn’t to gain good favor with a potential friendly alliance, I would have definitely thought twice… no, four times about this.

“Ok, Masa, once you jump in system, you sit 30 clicks off the gate, aligned to a planet, I will do the same from another angle. You know what to do, uncloak, deploy, RUN” . Little did I know, my little dialogue would cost me my life.  ”Shit, Rifter on the gate, hes got me! I forgot to turn on my cloak. FUCK”. Now all I can hope to do is get my body out in one piece. Warp, warp, warp… Wha-?

“The little shit…”, I uttered as I ran out of my clone vat, grabbing the nearest robe and picking up the NeoCom on my dresser. “Masa, whats it look like out there?”. “The Rifter left and the CEO we came out here to meet JUST showed up. Let me wire you some ISK to jump into another bomber. How much do you need?”, he replied, supportive and helpful as always. No wonder I liked the guy so much, I really felt bad for what I was about to say. Checking my personal fitting files, “Ugh, 50 mil is what it will cost”. “Done”, he simply said, with my NeoCom giving me a notification of a recent deposit.

30 minutes and one trip to Jita later, I was back in a brand new Purifier and ready to go. After arriving at my recent death site, we engaged in our purpose for being out here. I left Masa and all of his charm to the diplomatic purposes of the trip. I kept my mind solely focused on the gate and my directional scanner.

Seconds went by. Minutes went by. Hours went by. At least, that is what it felt like. I swore I would start hallucinating if I kep-. Gate flash, back to reality.

“Wait for target to decloak…. Rupture, he warped off… Damn”. I don’t know what this pilot’s agenda was for today, but he decided to visit my gate a good 4 times, never wasting more than a second to warp off.

Back to waiting for the seconds, the minutes, the hours to roll by…

“Hey, TMS, someone jumped”, Masa reminded me. “Yep, its a Rapier, align to it and- damnit, jumped back. When are we going to catch any luck?”

I have never been startled so throughly by what occurred next. Our friendly neighborhood Rapier had friends. LOTS of them. Thirty, forty,  eighty, one hundred and fifty ships jumped through local. “Masa, should we engage? We could take a good chunk of them out.” “Yeah, lets do it, deploy in three…. two…”

They were gone. We had missed our chance. Or had we? I was not going to miss the fun in this!

“…Masa… Lets follow them”, a grin spreading rapidly across my face. “Entering warp, dropping out 30 clicks short of the gate…. Dropping…. FUCK”. My hear sank at the sight ahead of me. A full on gate camp with a bubble dragging me behind the gate. Luck was not with me that moment, as I decloaked, but I kept my senses together and had Aura align for the quickest route  outside of the bubble, immediately activating my microwarp drive. The moments dragged by as Auro notified me of dozens of target locks being initiated. Had I not been inside my pod, I would have been drenched in sweat by now.

My shields vaporized, my scant amount of armor peeled off into space. My pod barreled out  of my exploding ship in  the exact velocity that I was heading. Perhaps luck was with me, my ship’s explosion thrusting me out of the warp bubble, and before I could even thank the Gods, I was safely in warp, carrying my tail in between my legs.

Too bad things were not going to be getting better for me anytime soon.

“Wait… what?”. Not my most articulate response, I know. Had I not been talking directly with the proverbial horse, I wouldn’t believe it,

“It’s true buddy, we are packing our bags and moving to 0.0″, my CEO calmly replied. JohnPaulJones was a good guy. Recruiting me from very early on in my pod piloting days, I had grown very fond of him. Supplying me with knowledge, ISK, ships, help, and saving my ass a few times tends to do that. “We aren’t sure EXACTLY which system we will be setting up in, or which alliance we will be buddying up with, but first thing is first, and that is getting our tower and carriers out of this wormhole”.

Ah, I could already tell this would be a problem. While a nice guy, Jones was very stubborn at times, and easily irritated. More of the blow them up and ask questions never kind of guy. He was more than likely to open up a private comm with a 0.0 director and ask “Wanna be friends?… No? Fuck you” -beep- I knew he would be hellbent on keeping our current alliance intact, and the 0.0 alliances would want us to disband and join theirs. Not having any other Alliances with blue standings to us didn’t help either. Thankfully for all of us, Masamunesky was taking care of diplomatic relations. Masa, like Jones, was a good guy. Much more of a smart ass, but the Corp loved him for it, and anything you needed him to do got done.

As exciting as this would sound to others, my first thoughts were of apprehension. I was well aware of the dangers or 0.0; the constant war for territory, huge Alliances dropping fleets of Capitals on ill-prepared victims, “Steamrolling” them, if you will. On top of questionable mental preparation, there was my hangar to think about. At the time, the only ships I had to fly were an Apocalypse, a Drake, a Purifier, a Hookbill, and a Vengeance, and the Apocalypse was currently optimized for taking on the mysterious sleepers I had become familiar with.  I would have to ask my engineering crew the time they would need to refit my pride and glory for a more appropriate sniper set up.

Then the questions of who we would ally ourselves plagued my thoughts. For all we knew, Valhalla Strategic Command could be obliterated in one fell swoop by our own “friends”. We may be the next victim of the constant blood bath in 0.0 before we even get to taste it! This was likely, taking into account the recent flood of Corporations staking their claim in o.o recently.

“I know what you are thinking”, John interjected, snapping me back into the present. “This isn’t my first time dealing with null sec. I am going to make this work. Trust me”. He was right. I was letting my characteristically pessimistic side get a hold of me. I did trust John. I would follow him to the edge of the galaxy. Well, technically I already have, and farther. Wormholes DO take you pretty far from home… I owed everything I had to him, my Corp, and my friends. The decision was made, now wasn’t the time to start having personal doubts.

With my typical smirk on my face, I replied, “Time to take the plunge”.

Everything seems to be going as planned in Valhalla. Mining ops running near constantly now that we have some more participation going on. Last night we saw some action as our CEO (flying a Retribution, myself (flying a Vengeance) , and a handful of others (two bombers and a frigate) decided to go on a low sec roam. All was quiet during our first lap, but I decided to act as a forward scout and scope things out a system ahead.

AHA! A catalayst at the gate! I warped in right as he warped out… Right from my last system!

TMS- Catalyst in system, en route to Van. Stay on the other side, stay on the other side. Repeat- STAY ON THE OTHER SIDE!

Of course, my plan was to engage the catalyst and have him jump the other other side, where the rest of the gang would rape him, while I would warp to a planet and warp back to jump as I can’t tank the sentry guns like my CEO in his Retribution can.

So I warp back to the Van gate and engage.

TMS- Approaching, locking, point!

Apparently, the whole fleet thought point meant “ignore the plan, everyone jump in and let him jump to the other side and escape”.

So everyone jumps, and by the time they get a lock on him, the catalyst jumps through to Van and runs off, while we sit there with a 30 second timer.

TMS-…. What was is that I said… 4 TIMES?!?

No kills, but a nice bit of adrenaline, and no losses. Lesson learned? Listen to your scouts intel and don’t ignore the plan, especially when the plan works and everyone jumping and aggressing obviously will not.

Since my last real post hasn’t it?

Things have gone surprisingly smooth in Valhalla recently. Bashed a few POS’s, podded a Ukrainian intruder from a 0.0 alliance, mined rocks like our lives depended on it, and just simply made money. No casualties aside from the Goon gank on our Charon, pure profit rolling in, and things finally running like they should. T3 is on its way as well.

On the EVE wide side of things, the new changes coming in Dominion seem to not affect us at all aside from having to refit our hookbills. Though, we can’t be too sure. Depending on how things play out, we may end up packing our bags and making a stake in 0.0

Once agian, an abysmal show of participation on the Corp’s behalf. the CEO, a Dircetor, myself, and two others were all that were online to get some combat done (which nearly lost me a battleship, and harvest the c-320 cloud in the neighboring system. Of course, the money will be split amongst us (screw you, whoever flooded the market with c-320, halved the price….) but I’m less concerned with me getting my “fair share” and more with making this worth while. We were maybe halfway through the cloud when we had to leave due to time constraints and the wormhole begining to collapse.

That bitch fest aside, I have set 20 million isk aside for getting a Vengeance when the wormhole God’s deem it proper. Not much use in wormhole operations, but you never know when the  call to arms will come (such as this incident here http://www.planetriskshow.com/i-want-my-money-back/ things probable might have gone different had I been online in a Vengeance…).

As for future plans, can anyone say “T3″? We are in a wormhole, with all the resources. It can only be expected.

The force that drives Corporations. The factor that sets one alliance from the rest.

And we don’t have enough of it.

That is, we don’t have enough online at one time. Members that haven’t logged in in over a month or more, members that are on for only short amounts of time, the list goes on. And because of that, the opportunities my Corp. can take have taken a huge set back, as well as our ability to seize opportunities.

Topping my wishlist? Corp. Mates that log in.