unity

Continued from reunion.

The situation had me in a tight spot. I wasn’t about to fire upon my alliance mates, and as the alliance executor was in the STUGH gang, I’d likely be asked to fight if it came to that. I flipped over to alliance chat, and began my usual work as a liaison trying to sort things out.

Fortunately, a fight wasn’t necessary, and the BS heavy STUGH gang was willing to let the ERIS (Aggressive Dissonance) gang go. I relayed to the news to Cephas, dropped gang and switched over to STUGH comms, joining their gang as I did so. It didn’t take long for things to get interesting from there.

In the time it took for me to join the STUGH fleet, a scout one jump over in Ostingele reported two bumps in local, shortly preceding the arrival of two neutrals at our location in Pelelie. A Stabber decloaked over a dozen kilometers away from my position: too far for me to tackle, and the nimble cruiser warped away unmolested. The Rupture he was paired with wasn’t as lucky with his arrival, decloaking less than ten kilometers from my scrambler fit Brutix. I manage an overheated tackle, and begin ripping into the cruiser with my blaster arsenal.

The STUGH gang hesitantly followed my lead, combined ordinance culminating to the quick demise of the Rupture. The cruiser duo weren’t operating alone however; our pilot in Ostingele reported another ten bumps in local, which we took as our cue to leave. Battleships began entering warp just as Pelelie local began spiking, and after entering warp myself, I managed to glimpse the greater composition of the enemy fleet: ten or so BC, a few cruisers. It’d had been a losing battle to entertain them with sentry aggression on a gate.

Landing at a different celestial than the fleet, I continued watching scanner as I aligned to a new destination in case any hostiles followed my escape. Our FC had warped the gang to a station, which had promptly docked to escape and assess the situation. Inquiring how he intended to proceed, he replied that due to his lack of experience in lowsec, I should take FC in his stead. Brilliant strategy, commander.

Spying a newly arrived Nidhoggur on scan, I dropped any aspirations of combating the BC gang, and docked myself. Alliance attendance was limited due to the time of night, and we couldn’t expect any blue reinforcements. Grinning, I shot a chat invite to Cephas, and quickly worked out a compromise: the reinforcements we needed, without the expected drama, courtesy of yours truly.

Leaving Cephas to sort out his people, I concentrated on keeping tabs on the enemy fleet, which didn’t seem in the mood to camp a station at length. Roughly twelve minutes after losing their Rupture, the BC gang began filtering out of local, back into the Ostingele system. From there, they flirted with our scout still remaining in Ostingele (who flew an Armageddon, a very heavy scout) yielding precious more minutes to wait down GCC and for ERIS to mobilize.

Finally our GGCs expired, and the STUGH gang undocked, entering warp towards the Ostingele gate. The plan was to use our known force as the anvil, and once the enemy fleet was engaged, jump the ERIS force in as the hammer. The only trick with the situation would be to engage the enemy fleet in such a way that they didn’t merely cream our ships before our comrades could turn the tide.

Landing on the Ostingele gate, the plan began to deteriorate as the situation within Ostingele shifted. The BC fleet kept moving about, at some points chasing our geddon within the system, at other points warping to stargates or stations. I wasn’t about to complain, as this gave time for ERIS to converge a jump from Ostingele, however indecision has its costs. Amidst the confusion, the BC gang filtered from Ostingele local, until only three enemy pilots remained.

Fearing the worst, I ordered all ships to jump, and converge on the gate our scout estimated they had left through. With the ERIS and STUGH gangs together, we no longer had the element of surprise, but with our combined force of arms, I wasn’t much worried. Landing on the Alperaute gate, I readied to send our HIC in to investigate the adjacent system, when a lone battlecruiser, a Hurricane, landed on our gate at 10km.

I decided to force the issue once and for all, tackling the Hurricane with my Brutix, while calling for the rest of the gang to hold fire. Holding the BC down should force his comrades to jump back and join the fight, leaving us in a good position on the gate for remote repairs and deagressing. I wasn’t disappointed, as local began to increase as the enemy fleet returned to aid their comrade.

The Hurricane pilot was pushing the bait card a bit too much, and hadn’t taken any hostile action on our gang. Not wanting to lose my Brutix needlessly in the opening moments of the fight, I warped off, giving my active tank time to recover before returning to the greater fight that was about to take place. As I warped off I placed Cephas in charge of target calling, and began the grim wait between warp hops.

With my ship departing, the Hurricane took its cue as well, leaving the field just after my Brutix. The hostile fleet took its time decloaking, and I was able to land at the celestial and start aligning back before any hostilities broke out. Curiously enough, the Hurricane had decided to follow me in warp, landing several kilometers away from my position. I tackled the Hurricane just as Cephas started taking fire at the gate, and had begun directing primaries for our fleet.

Initially I hoped by tackling the Hurricane at the celestial, we could have our engagement at a celestial without the worry of sentries, but with the fight underway on the Alperaute gate that hope was dashed. Additionally, the Hurricane decided to return the favor, matching my tackle kit with a point of his own, and had begun returning fire. Lacking optimal range for my own arsenal, and capacitor from running repairs tackling his ship at the gate, I was in poor condition to win this fight on my own. As I jockeyed closer to the Hurricane, the other two pilots which had been curiously absent from recent action arrived, sealing my fate.

Cephas, while losing his Armageddon to the combined BC fleet had carried the day, his target calling resulting in the in total destruction of the enemy fleet. The three ships that had split off to deal with my Brutix arrived too late to affect the outcome of the fight, and had been taken apart piecemeal. The overall engagement can be seen here.

Distancing myself from any possible drama within the alliance, I had never understood why STUGH had decided to purge those members that eventually formed ERIS. That an ERIS FC led a STUGH gang to victory merely cemented my dislike of the current situation. At least I proved to the two alliances that cooperation is still possible, which will hopefully lead to more joint operations in the future.

destination

Scheduled combat report put off in order to build anticipa. . . because I felt like it. Conclusion to previous entry in a few days.

A reply from Ombey after commenting on one of his recent blag posts got me thinking about my future in EVE, specifically what I could be doing right now. Well, I’m quite content with what I’m doing, however there’s a distinction between awesome solo lowsec PvP, and awesome small gang lowsec PvP: one can be done anywhere, while the other can only be done in a populated corp. Lacking comrades in my own organization, I’m left considering whether I should leave to join another. This quandary leads immediately to who I could possibly join that could meet my needs?

I have my friends in Rote Kapelle and Aggressive Dissonance, who have proven themselves able gang mates both past and present. However their emphasis on nullsec PvP has always estranged my relationship with them, especially STUGH, which has lacked coherence of late. That aside, it’s an easy bet that I could return to visit, joining gangs to do exactly as I do now with them. So the tried and true is out.

My old allies around Molden Heath have for the most part moved on or faded away. Triksterism, while never much of an ally but a friend regardless left to do his own thing, leaving that association fallow. Capital Punishment folded some time ago, and its principle members are now spearheading Aggressive Dissonance, dismissed previously. The Black Sinisters crowd is still functioning in Molden Heath, however I don’t feel like being that one guy in the off time zone, logging in when corpmates are either waking up or going to bed. So that’s out of the question.

In my time combating Foundati0n and now Republic Alliance, I’ve drawn the respect of several of their pilots, so I probably have a foot in the door with their organization. However, they’re NRDS, so sod that.

Well, what’s left? What’re some of my dream corporations I could join?

Well, I hear Club Bear is starting up again. The Bears are also in the same alliance housing Garmon, Laedy and a few other friends from my Molden Heath past, all flying together under the banner of PvP movie pwnage. Having flown with Garmon, I’d definitely enjoy working with him as well, if there wasn’t that nasty time zone difference between us.

The Accursed are home to another dream team of pilots whose names coincide with my favorite EVE PvP flicks. I’m unsure if they’re even open for recruitment, though I’d like to imagine my resume would be up to par, considering our methods for PvP run parallel with each other. Definitely a good option if I could get in.

Raxip made it into Veto Academy; I always have the option of joining Veto proper, especially with my old corpmate vouching for me. From all Raxip has asserted, PvP in the VETO fold is a glorious thing. Now if only I could catch the bastard online to iron out details, I might give this some serious thought.

Last but definitely not least, there’s the alliance that started this whole line of thinking: Ursha’Khan. They RP. They fly Minnie. They shoost Amarr. They’re cloak-faggy. They’ve been around forever doing what I love best, small gang PvP. Just about anyone who’s played this game at some point wanted to join them or shoot them, without ever having seem them in space, merely due to the concept behind their alliance being that cool. They represent what this whole Minmatar thing is about, or at least that’s what it said in the back story. Well, I can’t remember distinct details, but that sounds about right.

If it were up to me, I’d have a run with all these corporations/alliances like a man through a buffet, sampling each in turn for a few months until I found the one that suited me. The cool thing about most of these organizations is that I know a few pilots from each of them: I know they’re full of nice people, and are chill about details like that. It’d be okay for me to move on after giving my best, and come back if I decide they were actually ‘the one’.

I’m not sure where I want to end up, and considering the dynamic theater of EVE, I’m comfortable with that. I know what I like about this game, what I dislike, what I want and what I need to avoid. It’s amusing to consider that these concepts were in flux for so long; however it’s only after a few years that I have really established with myself what is enjoyable about this MMO, and what will likely bring about that joy in abundance. So with that in mind, I think I’m going to send out a few mails, join a channel or two and get a feel for just what’s available out there. Who knows: perhaps by 2010, Sard will once again be trying something completely different.

reunion

After spending my first days back in EVE around Molden Heath and Goinard, my alliance began to pick up on my activities and once again started to chide me to join them in Syndicate. While I wasn’t about to move my operations into nullsec out of personal preference, planting a hanger in the nearby Placid region would place me in comfortable roaming distance from my comrades in arms, as well as acting as a staging point to launch roams into Placid itself. I like the lowsec of Placid. It houses an ample number of both PvPers and PvEers, both of which are concentrated within a cluster of roughly a dozen systems: high target density if you hunt at the right time of the day.

However, Placid was not a target region in my logistics planning months earlier, and it would take several days to acquire and move sufficient assets for a new hanger to be readied. Not to be deterred, I decided to finalize my withdrawal from Huola by jumping to my clone there, and moving one of my last remaining ships out of dock: an autocannon fit Punisher. Setting my destination to a system in Placid, I had only an even twenty jumps to travel. Even with a 400mm plate fit, my sturdy frigate slew the distance between regions in little time.

Arriving in Placid with no plans and nothing larger to switch into, I decided to see how much mischief my little bleeder fit could get itself into before going pop. Flying about the region in a hasty ship would also allow me to reacquaint myself with the locals as I could quickly scout who dwelt where and with what forces I could expect to face. I decided to check northern Placid first, and work my way south from there toward the area my alliance is currently active.

Two jumps from Maut, a pair of assault ships started trailing me: an Ishkur and Hawk. My quota of mischief currently unfilled, I decided that I’d experiment to see how much tolerance the AS pilots had for bumping. After landing on the Alparena gate, I waited for the frigate pair to catch up. As each ship landed on the gate, I maneuvered my Punisher to collide with each ship, eventually ping ponging my ship between the two. The opposing pilots retaliated by locking my ship and attempting bump back, which I laughed at as I exited through the gate into Alparena.

The pair followed me into system, and performed the unexpected: they both decloaked with haste, and as I attempted to warp to Maut, the Ishkur locked and placed a point on me, deploying a flight of Hobgoblin IIs my way as he did so. Standard missiles screamed from launch bays nestled in the Hawk, speeding ahead of the drones to strip my Punisher of shields in a single volley.

Shocked, I approached the Ishkur, moving into range to place tackle and mete out Barrage S justice. I couldn’t understand why the AS pilots thought they could engage under sentry fire and survive the encounter, but I wasn’t about to let them flee from their folly. My hefty armor buffer barely registered damage as the Hawk’s missiles and Ishkur’s drones began their assault on my plated hull, all the while my SAR reduced damage accumulation to a slow trickle.

I had overheated and applied my webifier before the Ishkur could rush into blaster range, forcing it to wade into range all the while taking significant damage from sentries and my ACs. The combination proved too much for the Ishkur, and he predictably kersploded less than a minute into the fight. Turning my attention to the Hawk, I was pleased to find he had coasted within 10km of my ship. It was a simple matter of easing into scrambler range to pin the assault ship down for the gate sentries to finish off.

The entire flurry of action left two T2 wrecks adjacent to the gate in less than a minute. Throughout the duration of the fight, I didn’t have time to fire even 50 rounds of munitions into targets before the sentries finished picking them off. I lightheartedly consoled the two rookie pilots as I scooped their loot, and then continued on my journey to Maut to deposit the spoils there.

A short break for drink later I undocked my Punisher, this time setting my sights south toward TXW-EI, the gateway system into Syndicate my alliance had chosen for their base of operations in the area. A rather uneventful nine jumps later, having chased one T1 cruiser/frigate gang to highsec, and another to a complex, I was chatted by an old friend Cephas Boaz from STUGH, who had split off to form the splinter alliance Aggressive Dissonance. While exchanging pleasantries we decided to form a gang to try for the cruisers raiding the complex, my friend logging in his main in a Cyclone to supply DPS. Unfortunately, the three jumps Cephas had to travel were too many, as the cruisers finished their work at the plex and had begun to land on my gate to leave.

Doing the only thing I could imagine to pique their interest to stay, I rushed to bump the nearest ship, bumping between the three cruisers in the enemy gang as they landed on the gate. Incredibly they paused in their flight, each in turn locking me after several seconds of my irritating actions. A Thorax was first to open fire on me, followed soon by a second Thorax, both unleashing their drone and blaster arsenal on my minor frigate. My Punisher slipped between streams of Antimatter rounds, deftly avoiding fire while tanking what little managed to land on its golden hull. I traded tackle with the nearest Thorax, closing in to a tight orbit around the cruiser, using my small Nosferatu to fuel repairs while waiting for my DPS backup to cream the cruisers on the gate.

Additional aid became unnecessary as I realized the novice pilots of these cruisers had fit little in the way of a tank. The first Thorax exploded brilliantly before Cephas could even enter the system, and I had to pull back my pitiful DPS from the second to ensure Cephas got on at least one KM from the engagement. My companion was barely able to lock in time before the second cruiser evaporated from sentry fire. The third cruiser, a Caracal, choose to jump once Cephas had arrived at the gate and placed two volleys of EMP M into his shields.

Cephas warped off to wait down aggression, and I once again moved through the wrecks to scavenge anything of value. Not wanting to wait the full fifteen minutes of GCC, Cephas prompted me to continue scouting adjacent systems, which I readily relented to. While I scouted, Cephas opted to switch to a passive tanked HAM Drake nearby, and began to head in the direction I was probing when I found us another prize: an Ishtar, this time likely belt ratting.

I quickly narrowed down the belt the Ishtar was engaged with, noting the number of wrecks already on scan at the belt: it appeared the Ishtar was done with the rats there, and would likely move on to another belt soon. Predictably, the Ishtar moved one belt down, which I immediately warped to in hopes I could catch him at zero kilometers from the belt. No such luck: the Ishtar had sniper BMs from the belts, and was engaging rats with light drones at distance.

My AC Punisher devotes the vast majority of its power grid and CPU to a massive tank; there is little enough room for weapons, none at all for a speed mod. I didn’t have the luxury of being able to rush out 100km to tackle the HAC. Instead I’d have to approximate a way to warp on top of him using celestials as a midpoint, warping to the celestial then back at the belt at range, hopefully closer to my target. Picking a stargate roughly in line between myself and the Ishtar, I warped off, and after arriving at the stargate, back to the belt at 100km. The Ishtar was now 40km away from me.

With Cephas a few jumps out, I was left with little other choice as I slow boated to the Ishtar, hoping he’d either ignore my smaller frigate or decide to engage me. Kilometers crept by every few seconds as the distance between our two ships deteriorated: a hasty ‘Look At’ later I found that the Ishtar had begun to approach me under normal speed, making my task easier. He was still enamored with destroying pirate frigates with a flight of Hornet IIs; no hostile action was taken until I came within twelve klicks of his ship. It was then we both locked each other, I placing my tackle first while the Ishtar began to recall his drones to deal with my Punisher.

It was slow going trying to move within a close orbit of the drone carrier, as a webifier had reduced my march towards him to a crawl. Small hybrid fire from the HAC lanced into my frigate, soon joined by the flight of Hornet IIs which quickly combined to savage my frigate with devastating effectiveness. To make matters worse, the Ishtar pilot had opted to fit a medium energy neutralizer, evaporating my ability to alleviate my woes via SAR. My fate sealed, I steeled myself to my task of immobilizing the HAC, employing my Nos to keep tackle equipment active. Roughly two thirds of my armor was gone by the time Cephas arrived in system with his Drake.

While the drones made steady progress into my armor, I had incredible difficulty tracking their progress around my ship with autocannon, as I couldn’t spare my webifier in fear the HAC would flee before Cephas had a chance to arrive and exchange tackle. Cephas finally landed at the belt at my location, resolving lock on the enemy HAC with practiced ease to loose deadly volleys of Caldari Navy munitions into the Ishtar, as well a flight of light drones to counter those demolishing my vessel. It was too late to make a difference for my frigate however, as it was moments after the Drake landed that my Punisher hit hull, and succumbed to the Ishtar’s drone flight.

Cephas’ flurry of HAMs turned out more than a match for the passive armor tank of the Ishtar. The drone carrier’s tank failed a short two minutes after contact with the Drake, granting us a worthy prize for our endeavors. Cephas scooped loot, and we headed back to his base of operations in Placid.

Before setting out to scout for Cephas, I had joined him on his vent server to smooth out communications. By the time of our Ishtar kill, voice comms had become much more active, with many old comrades from my earlier days in STUGH logging in for their piece of action for the night. Upon reaching his hanger Cephas sold me a Brutix, and we formed a gang to continue our roam through Placid. We set out BC heavy, with my dual MAR Brutix spearheading the gang, scouting one system ahead in hopes another gang would engage my tanky vessel first. It wasn’t long before I arrived in Pelilie, jumping into a small BS gang of none other than my allies in STUGH!

The situation was made all the more awkward as not only were my friends in Aggressive on shooting terms with STUGH proper, I was FCing for their gang. To say the least, the next half hour was an incredibly interesting flurry of explosions, which I’ll report on next post.

Fly reckless folks.

greener pastures

Hard to believe I haven’t written up a combat report in over half a year. Vacation’s over; let’s see how out of practice these fingers are.

During the three months of my absence from EVE, I’ve redistributed my ship and fitting assets from older hangers, mothballing them in preparation of the time that I’d return to the game. After the interesting discovery that Sard had been banned during my absence, and the two days it took to get him back in action, I was in the perfect position to return to my bread and butter of EVE: lowsec PvP!


Raxip Elamp had set me up with the coordinates of an awesome lowsec system, Goinard, which is less than a dozen jumps from the major lowsec areas in EVE while itself only a jump from highsec space. Having a hanger there also allows me to quickly join Raxi for PvP, something I’d been looking forward to in the time since our last venture together. I quickly assembled a Rupture, deciding that I needed a hastier option than my normal battlecruiser arsenal to explore the lowsec regions I had set myself to conquer.


Raxip’s approximations about the richness of the area didn’t disappoint: three jumps after undocking I arrived in the Angatalie System, to a duo of battlecruisers who couldn’t possibly be up to any good. I grew a grin, gave the mental shrug of the borderline insane and launched my ship into alignment towards one of the gates in the system. The Harbinger/Myrmidon pair didn’t disappoint, immediately locking me up and placing disruptor points on my Rupture. Without missing a beat, I returned the favor to the Myrmidon, matching his point while loosing a volley of Barrage M.


Before the fight was underway, I had quickly formed a few guidelines to make victory possible: keep the Harbinger at 20km distance or greater, as well as keeping the Myrmidon within 15km. These distances would allow me to engage without the withering effects of turret or possible capacitor warfare modules affecting my ship, as well as drawing out the Myrmidon’s bonused drone flight to a distance where it’d be difficult to recall them back to their bay before myself or the sentry guns annihilated them. Fifteen kilometers is also the distance where my loadout of ACs do roughly 50% of their maximum damage; enough with sentry turret fire to wither a dual MAR Myrmidon down given enough time.


Putting my plan into action, I angled my ship away from the Myrmidon, and moved to establish a distance that placed the Myrm directly between myself and the Harbinger, as well as away from the stargate. Autocannon fire glittered from my ship, creating a lethal trail of ordinance as my Rupture nimbly maneuvered from the stargate into position, occasionally connecting with a member of the drone swarm hastily approaching my ship. Tense seconds passed as I switched overview settings to lock up the majority of the enemy drone flights: my Rupture didn’t have an armor repairer fit, and any incoming damage that could be avoided had to be hastily neutralized for me to survive.


Sentry turrets cycled off my battlecruiser aggressors to aid with the near dozen of medium drones buzzing around my ship; between my own drones, ACs with webifier and the damage from the sentries the drones were subdued, at the cost of a third of my armor. With that threat out of the way, I settled into position to hammer at the Myrmidon, while bursting my MWD to keep the Harbinger at an arm’s reach. It was around this time another combatant decloaked his Nemesis 25km away from my cruiser, firing a volley of torpedoes to at least contribute to the fight. His ill planned gesture ended on a bright note.


Fortunately for me, it seemed the battlecruiser duo weren’t expecting the war of maneuvers that I was giving them. The Myrmidon was shield tanked, meaning that I was able to afford drifting a few kilometers closer to it than planned, as I had no additional enemy tackle to worry over. Both enemy ships were fit with afterburners instead of MWDs, which meant I was easily able to keep the Harbinger at range, while tantalizing the Myrmidon with being *just* out of reach. After traveling several dozen kilometers from the gate, the Myrmidon began to slow, until reaching normal velocity. It then turned tail and began a slow crawl back towards the stargate.


With the Myrmidon’s will and capacitor broken, it now became a game of keeping the Harbinger away from the Myrmidon so that he couldn’t cover his ally’s retreat to safety. Once again, good fortune smiled on me, as a glance over to the Harbinger’s armor reserves suggested that the pilot neglected an armor rep in his fittings: he had roughly 60% remaining, slowly whittling down as gate sentries cycled from the Myrmidon to his ship. I switched my drone flight from the Myrmidon to the Harbinger, exacerbating his worry until finally forcing the Amarr BC to warp off towards a nearby celestial and flee the field. I was finally alone with the stricken Myrmidon, and turned the full force of my weapons to bear upon him.


Overheating my ACs saw the last of the Myrmidon’s shield reserve destroyed, and it was a hasty matter removing the unresisted plate underneath. With the Myrmidon destroyed, I set out to locate the Harbinger, who was still in system. Several minutes of chasing later, I moved on to repair in an adjacent system as he had opted to warp to a midsafe instead of engaging my damaged Rupture. Unknown to him, I had my alt ready for the occasion a mere four jumps away, and within minutes had him probed down and finished the damaged Harbinger in the deadspace of his manufacture.


I happily scooped loot from the wrecks strewn about the system, and returned to Goinard for repairs and munitions. While I still disagree with Raxip that Molden Heath is a dead region as far as PvP goes, I have to admit that his slice of space definitely has a nicety of action to it!

for Kane

In responding to Kane Rizzel’s latest blag post, I instigated a strong response from the old pirate. Since Kane did me the honors of expanding his response into the form of entirely new blag post, I’ll do the same. I’ll not attempt to cheapen his writing by picking it apart with quotes. Rather, I’ll reply by addressing the underlying theme behind his post: solo piracy.

EVE piracy to me is self sustained PvP at the expense of others, achieved through ransoms, player kills, assorted theft and griefing. Given every player’s experiences of solo activities in general, solo piracy must be a difficult task. Taken from a solo PvPer’s experiences, solo piracy is an amazing accomplishment. Borrowing finally from a pirate’s perspective, what Kane suggests he's accomplished with NovaKane is downright unbelievable: two and a half fucking years of solo piracy in Heimatar and beyond.

Kane, I think I safely state for the entirety of the EVE blagging community that we’re all impressed by your accomplishments and associated tales of victories and defeats over the past few years. Many pilots, including myself half a year ago have been inspired by you to break away from their fleets, and give solo PvP or piracy a go. Thanks in part to you, I founded a new corporation and have been running amok about Molden Heath and beyond causing havoc and grief at my leisure and others' expense. However, in responding to my comment, you fucked up. You decided to state that one can’t be a solo pirate while flying in a populated corporation or alliance. And I call bullshit.

So what if you’ve flown in your own corp for two and a half years; it doesn’t secure that your way is the only way for solo piracy. After bothering to check your personal KB for the past year of combat you’ve had, a solid half of your combat kills have other parties contributing to the mails. You know this, however you state that you’ve been doing your thing for years, without the option of backup? No. Just because your help comes from an organization outside your corporation or alliance doesn’t make your kills solitary accomplishments. It makes you the corp loner, the hermit that comes and goes as he damn well pleases: an approach to this game we all should take up and try out, honestly.

So I’m happy to see you making trails on the blag again, Kane. Even vacationing from posting & playing, your class act bests mine over here at Broadside. It’s not due to your stubborn approach to PvP, or your incredible feats as a solo pirate. By itself, you could writing could lose the ego, and I could care less about the quotes. However, combine everything: the attitude, the content, the (once) regularity of it, and you have a winning formula from the self proclaimed pirate dinosaur of EVE. The hat is off to you, sir.

Fly reckless Kane, and hopefully see you in space.

for Roc

An invitation to a private conversation flashed before Sard's eyes. Glancing between the two retrievers in the asteroid belt and the invitation, Sard accepted the invite. It'd take some time for his Arazu to approach the miners while cloaked.

"Coffee, make it brief, I have friends in need of liberation from their ships."

Good Coffee grinned manically from his visual feed. Something about his prior enslavement with the Amarr broke his bonds with reality. He had since been tied to several terrorist elements within Amarr space.. of all things, sabotaging their coffee production. He was a wiz at the markets though, which was why Sard tolerated his brushes with insanity.

"Any faster and the brew doesn't percolate properly. And you know I must be the best there is."

Sard gave a mental sigh, thankful that Coffee couldn't see the frown forming on his face.

"What is it Coffee?"

Coffee straightened up slightly, the wild look in his eyes draining as he read from a terminal. "Colonel Roc Wieler has been exonerated of murder charges against Daul Halwick. However, an investigation into the good Colonel's fiscal assets have revealed a startling development. Sard, he's been dealing Matari slaves through a third party."

"He what? That man's cast of stone, he'd never knowingly betray his people! Not for money, power, or friends." Thoughts of Mynxee's latest encounter with the law sent a shiver of rage down Sard's back. The good Colonel did nothing but sit on his ass and wait for her to die.

Sard blinked. Fifteen kilometers from the mining barges. "Anyway, he's had this coming. His latest run in with Mynxee was just the tipping point. I don't see why you're so excited by the whole mess."

"While contacting one of my sources in the Empire, a name came up, as well as this story. A name we know." All the wildness was gone from Coffee's face, replaced by a frigid stare. "Minara Dawn, Sard. She's alive, and just screwed Roc as she screwed yo-"

"FIND HER! Find her and report her position to me immediately!" Sard had just decloaked on the barges, scrambling their warp drives when Coffee related his findings. Antimatter blasts ripped apart the hapless mining vessels, tearing and blasting into the fragile hull until finally destroying reactor containment. One after the other, the barges exploded with sapphire radiance, briefly illuminating the entire asteroid belt with their glow.

Debris floated past his Recon cruiser. Several identifiable corpses rotated lazily in the void, contortions of agony literally frozen into their forms. It was not enough to contain the rage. Nothing would be enough until blood was on his hands. Her blood.

Minara Dawn. The bitch had finally surfaced, in a most fantastic fashion as well. Typical of her. Fortunately for Roc Sard was feeling magnanimous. He might just interrogate her about her involvement with the Colonel before removing her ability to speak ever again.

under construction 4

Short update: Sard is alive and well in EVE killing more dudes than ever, however relaying his stories into written form just hasn't been a priority for me of late. Blame summer break lethargy, nihilism, or just a need to try something different.

On that note of change, I may be starting a new blag project in the next month, or just revive this journal. I will try to update with the next two weeks to give old fans an idea of where I'm going with this.

Anyway, fly reckless, and I hope to see y'all in space.