A Harsh Introduction

So here’s the situation. I have just gotten home from work and only had a few hours before running all the way back uptown to catch the midnight (actually the 12:05, damn 12:01 was sold out) viewing of The Hobbit (it was awesome by the way, although to be fair I’m heavily bias towards rowdy dwarves). I’m convinced though to make the most of my time in-game and immediately get to work.

It doesn’t look like anyone has scanned since I did so yesterday, so that seems like a good place to start. Four signatures doesn’t take long, and I’m left with two ladar sites and two wormholes. One hole is the same static as yesterday. It must be on its way out pretty soon. The second is an unknown K162 which leads to more w-space. This hole is noisy as heck though, and I thankfully check the info on it before jumping through. The hole is at critical mass. Apparently whoever is on the other side attempted to collapse it but didn’t want to risk the last jump through to finish the job. Sloppy. Oh well, they seem to not want me to poke around and I’m content to leave them be. I have plenty of other things on my plate.

I run some necessary PI around to keep my grunts manufacturing their precious rocket fuel and coolant. Shortly after that I commandeer Oz’s gas suckling ship and zip off to the first ladar site. The harvesting goes well, I manage to finish the entire site with only minor complications from a small fleet of sleeper frigates. On to the second one and its pair of sleeper cruisers. Just as I settle into a cloud with the gas guzzler again, a ship pops up on my directional scanner. A Venture! The new mining frigate is a welcome break from the tedious gas sucking task at hand and I immediately head back to the tower to grab the Oracle. I assume the ship came through the static that’s about to close and head in that direction. Except the static is already closed.

This is a monkey wrench. I have a hidden U210 hole and a new hole that this intruder has come through. I don’t like unknowns but as a set of core probes come up on the overview I determine the Venture has opened a new K162 which led him here and he’s looking to steal some gas. I zip back to the tower and grab my Anathema with sister’s combat probes ready. Directional scanning puts the Venture somewhere below the solar plane, and I start scanning for his ship. Oddly the Venture seems oblivious to all my ship swapping and the fact that a host of combat probes are now flying around the solar system. I begin to wonder if this guy is a total n00b or bait.

Either way I quickly lock down the ship’s location, hoping that he’s in a safespot and unable to escape back through the wormhole he came through. I decide to use the Pilgrim, since, well, I fucking love the Pilgrim. The Oracle would probably be a better choice, able to one shot the ship. But this is my first fight in over a month and the Pilgrim just feels right. I enter warp and check my scanner every second. If the pilot is concerned about my presence, he doesn’t seem to show it. His probes are still out in the system and he hasn’t moved. That “it’s a trap” feeling is starting to set in. In a big way too, but there’s nothing I can do now, I’m in warp and I’m going to land right on the bastard.

The cloak sheds upon arrival as I’m within 1km of the ship and the adjoining wormhole. I lock onto the ship and launch a fleet of light drones. It’s over quickly. The pilot never moved, and in fact his pod didn’t either. That blew up pretty easily as well. Another corpse for the collection! The loot is sparse. Very sparse. Oh good god this guy is like seven days old. I am that asshole in Eve.

Sweet.

It’ll be a good learning experience for him. If nothing else he has learned to fear the wormhole, and that is always a good lesson. The 255k isk loss shouldn’t set even a brand new player back much. Especially one in a corp with an alliance. The wormhole leads to hi-sec, conveniently very close to Amarr. This has turned out to be a handy little ambush I put together. With all quiet in system once again I turn my attention back to gas guzzling for a while longer before running off to my movie. Nothing like a little blood letting to get the evening off on the right foot.