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.

This is my first entry of many that will be written in Character. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I did writing it. Feel free to critique!

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Location: Unknown

System Designation: Valhalla

Ship: Apocalypse class Battle Ship

Few things compare to the beauty of space. Even after spending week on end in your ship, traversing the universe in the blink of an eye, I simply cannot grow tired of of its majestic qualities. At times I get lost in a trance, taking in all its-

My comms overlay flashed open, the familiar voice of my CEO blaring. “Everyone, grab your bombers. If you can’t fly a bomber, grab a small fast ship, preferably an Assault Frigate. We have a wormhole to a neighbor and we are going to pay them a visit”. Great, I was just starting to relax. Obviously my time tested Apocalypse wouldn’t do, so I informed my crew to keep my Battle Ship primed and ready to go just in case things turned ugly, and situated myself in my Vengeance class Assault Frigate.

The fearsome fleet jumped through the wormhole, all cloaking up but myself. A group of battle cruisers. Perfect. “Myrmidon and Brutix leaving the bubble, warping to planet 100.”

“Finally, permission to engage?”, I tentatively asked. “Warp and hold. TMS, engage, others hold! Damnit! The Myrmidon is leaving”. Ah, my cue. My nimble frigate quickly entered warp, shuddering slightly as its relatively fragile hull strained under the pressure. Reacting instantly, I locked the Brutix. “POINT!”. All at once, the fleet decloaks, leaving me to only chuckle at the reaction our new friend must be having at what he thought was just an assault frigate prowling around. Never losing focus as others would at an easy victory, I quickly focused my targeting systems on the pod, but this was no dumb struck rookie, and he got away. “Lost the pod… Wait a second… FRIENDLY DOWN!” In the heat of the the fight, we failed to see that one of our bombers warped to 0, and was caught in the blasts of our own bombs. After many apologies, a few exasperated sighs of disapproval, and a trip to Empire space to replace our fallen Manticore, we decided to pay null sec a visit. Even with the kill under our belts, we all knew we had some problems to sort out. Losing a bomber to friendly fire was MUCH too sloppy, and we all knew it.

Two jumps later found us in a system crawling with potential targets, but not what I would have liked to see. Our scout reported a Scimitar, an Ishkur, and a few other ships sitting at a station, all in the same Corporation. Not the best situation. “Combat probes on scanner. TMS, you better get moving, they are coming for YOU.” One step ahead of you, FC. I was already warping in and around 3 bookmarks, waiting for permission to engage whatever target is called. The scimitar warps out, leaving the Ishkur warping in between the belts I was nearest too. Heh, good look with that.

My ships comm opened up again, blaring in my ears. I really need to get that fixed. “Guys, I’m not sure what we are going to do about this guy. He’s no fool. He knows TMS is here, and he knows we are here, but not what we are in.”, said our CEO. Back to enjoying the beauty of space then, all the while warping between my safe spots. What an interesting color for ice rings. I wonder what chemicals present would b-

“HE IS AT THE GATE, ISHKUR AT THE GATE”. God damn, if the link between me and my pod wasn’t mental, my ears would be bleeding right now… “WAIT, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DO NOT ENGAGE!” Ugh, what the fuck are they doing? “BOMBER DOWN!” You have got to be kidding me…

At this point, I was preoccupied with a mental debate, wondering which was more annoying; the fact that I had a headache from hell, or the fact that one of the squad members was stupid enough to engage the tiny assault frigate with a bomb, alone, without him being tackled, painted, permission to fire, etc, to pay too much attention to the reprimand the FC was giving the pilot.

“Fleet, jump through the gate and jump through our wormhole. This op is over”. Ah, finally not blaring your thoughts into my mind. Thank you, FC. “TMS, the Ishkur followed us to the other side, jump through and warp out as soon as possible.”

Of course, on the other side our new friend was waiting for me, narrowly missing getting a point on me by 4 clicks as I warped off into the distance, rocketing my sleek Vengeance closer and closer to home.

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.

Funny how I get the best and worst of luck, all at once.

Things were going slow in the worm hole (we really should name it, I guess I will just refer to it as Valhalla from now on), so I decided to keep myself entertained in good fashion with a low sec roam, alone. First jump into low sec, eyes on my overview…  Someones there! In… a Navitas? 12 clicks off the gate? What is going on here? I close into orbit, lock him up, and convo him. After getting no response or movement, I figured he was afk.

Great news right? Free kill first jump into low sec with no risk? Nope. Flying a T1 frigate with no way of surviving station guns -_- Knowing I couldn’t suicide him, I aligned, took a shot at him for shits and giggles, and warped off before the guns could kill me and continued the roam. NOBODY in all 5 jumps. Quite a boring night. Ah well, I’m sure to see some action soon.

For both of my toons, I was recruited into Corporations without even looking for one, I’m just asked to join. As I was flying around in low sec with my newbie character, someone noticed that my bio states “anyone wanna pew pew?”. Person asked in local for a 1v1. Now, of course, me accepting and meeting him up with him able to prepare is breaking every rule of PvP ever. Good thing I’m not in it for serious business. I request that if its ok, we go to structure, I’d rather fly more later into the night without sinking money into a new ship. So, I warp on top of his Griffin, lock him up, and open fire. First couple of shots gets his shields down nicely and he drops a warrior. Time to take that sucker out… Fuck. Jammed. Almost popped it too! So, I keep in tight, orbiting quickly as I try to get a lock on him. By this time, he is VERY slowly biting into my armor. I ask him if he can has me perma jammed and cap stable, to which he replies yes. He lets the jam go, allowing me to eat his armor in short order. In response, he jams me again. So, I warp off and exchange “good fight”’s. What next? I let him know this is just my alt for shits and giggles, getting into piracy, and he offers me to join his Corp. Why the hell not?

Great bunch of guys I must say. Met up with two of them, one which recruited me, and went flying in low sec. Didn’t run into anyone we could take not at a gate, but fun none the less, dodging Catalysts, Drakes, Vengeance’s, and the like. I see some fun times on the horizon.