Foiled Again

I’ve never been so unhappy to see Oz in my entire existence in New Eden.

I had just logged on to find Mel online but afk. I also find a Covetor by its lonesome in our system! I immediately start grabbing the bookmarks out of our hangar to load them into my nav computer. I jump into my Purifier but he has already jumped from the system. Drats! Well I see he has a can and decide to park myself on the worm hole to wait for him to flash back if he decides to come get it again. I should have been smarter and sat on the can and waited for the hauler, but what can you do.

Sure enough he comes through the wormhole, I warp to the grav site he’s heading to but end up 67km from his can and his ship. I can’t close that distance before he warps off and leaves the system again. Disappointed I warp out of the asteroid cluster and then warp back to it, setting myself up to approximately where I think his mining ship will park if he decides to come back.

Bob is really on my side today! the Covetor is back, but he’s still a little too far for a successful bomb launch or torpedo salvo. I start working my way towards him, my heart racing. The kilometers are ticking down. He has no idea what’s coming. My mouth is watering, I can barely keep from shaking with excitement. Finally my first bomb launch that might matter! 40km, almost there…

Oz logs in. I use the watch function to see what the miner does, he shouldn’t know Oz is on but it looks like he does as his propulsion systems immediately come online and he warps out to the wormhole and vanishes again. I curse Oz out for a good 10 minutes for ruining such a prime opportunity. It turns out that he had engaged the same miner before. He must have gotten Oz’s name and added him to his watch list. Too bad.

I scan down the system, now that the fun is over. Oz logs off shortly after showing up, but a healthy group from the corp logs on shortly after that and we get to work mining the grav sites from our system. There is something strangely satisfying about having a real mining operation going on in your home wormhole system.

Bombs Away!

Melcron and myself are in the home system. I have just logged on and notice a set of probes about. I ask Mel if they are his, and he says no. Looks like it will be an interesting evening. I check in on the bulletin to see that we’ve been visited a few times by our C2 neighbors already. I grab my Pilgrim and punch the latest data into my nav computer. I throw the burners on and head off to the C2 to see what I can see.

Before I even get to the wormhole I spot a Tengu  on my scanner. I begin thinking to myself, well that’s not going to be fun, when I see a second Tengu on the scanner as well as a few wrecks. Ah, now I see what’s happening here. I use my directional scanner to narrow them down and warp into the anomaly they are currently working on.

There is no way I’m touching that kind of firepower, but I assume they will be bringing in a salvager to clean up afterwards, hopefully unescorted. For now I head back to the tower and grab my stealth bomber for a little fun, and fit it with a salvager. I then proceed to start looting their anomalies. Jumping from one to the other after they’ve finished with one and moved on. I like this system! I don’t have to do the tedious combat and I get all the goodies! Oz and Azx log on and I quickly inform them about our trespassers.

We hobble together a small fleet and start trying to track down the destroyer that just entered the system. We assume it is their salvage boat. Eventually one of their pilots ends up dropping out of warp right on top of Oz. His Harbringer engages and Azx and I rush to his aide. We’re noticing the flood of new ships on the scanner and decide it’s time to bug out. We all get away, damaging their ship and taking few scrapes ourselves. After that it’s just about a stand off. We don’t have the number to engage them and they’re not really looking for a fight with the salvager around.

I decide to hop into my stealth bomber again and head to their wormhole to see if I can bomb one as a going away gift. I start orbiting the wormhole and wait for all but their last Hurricane pilot to pass through. As he approaches the hole, I decloak, and fire the first bomb I’ve ever used! Unfortunately I was unaware that the bomb was a dumb bomb, and it didn’t approach the ship at all, but rather flew off into a random direction of which I was pointing at the time.

Oh. That’s how those work.

Between the fits of laughter on my voice comms, I suddenly realize the enemy ship is engaging me. Obviously a rookie stealth bomber that doesn’t know what he’s doing is no threat. His drones hurtle towards me and I’m already just about out of armor. I’m already complaining about losing a ship but somehow I managed to get free! All in all a strange encounter. They stole some of our anomalies, but I stole some of their loot. We damaged some of their ships, and they did the same to ours. Really the only loser in this skirmish was my pride.