Ach no - scan probes FTW!

Complacency is a great teacher. It taught an expensive lesson today. Little did I realise as I undocked from Gusandall that my day would end in fire and destruction of me, my ship and my loyal crew. The stabber class of cruiser was typical of minmater ships: fast and looking like it was held with duct tape and prayers. I love them and after a refit it was time for a shake down cruise just to work out any last minute oddities about the ship. We had replaced the dual-Nosferatu with two assault missile launchers, they were needed after a few disappointing encounters with fast frigates.

My crew ( a right motley mix from across New Eden) joked that they could see through the clingfilm that were being used in place of plasteel glass more common on other ships. Oh well.

The stabber responded to my mental commands and the new GUI interface (version 3.14.31081) was a tad quicker. All good it would seem.

I sifted through the intelligence reports and it appeared that once more Eifer was a busy little hot spot so I set course to the system and set the ship to yellow alert. The stabber responded like a frigate and flowed into warp the engines glowing brightly as the my camera drones kept a respectful 500m from the ship.

Eifer was indeed hot, ADF were back out in force and I recognised two Captains instantly: Muhaar and Dueft. Alongside them were other ADF ships and they looked like they were busy. A quick scan already revealed numerous wrecks of various class ships. I quickly sent the ship to a safe spot and waited them out. Scan probes came out and I quickly moved from one safe spot to another, ADF have proven to be very competent when it comes to scanning ships out. Always good to be on your toes.

I switched my GUI to another overview filter and checked the system scanner. The local comnet exploded with chat as yet another unlucky pilot was blasted back to the cloning vats. I chuckled to myself and congratulated myself on my intelligence and experience at not getting caught. Something flashed past the ship. I froze and checked the overview: nothing.

However, my sixth sense was screaming at me that something had just warped in close. I quickly sent all the camera drones into a wide 360 parabolic arc and as they moved, my heart stopped and my blood froze. It was a Lachesis-class cruiser.

My mental commands shot out to the various sub-routines around the ship; all geared to get the hell out of here. I set the ship to battlestations, the klaxon ringing loudly as my crew bolted to their stations, I snapped on the micro-warpdrive, I checked the weapon levels and cursed the overview. There was a bug in the software, now I remember, in which certain class of ships did not appear. One had to manually adjust the GUI software.

Cursing myself for being stupid and no doubt dooming me and my crew to a certain death - I accelerated away from the Lachesis-class cruiser. A quick glance revealed that the Captain was one Muhaar Gemeinian.

Great.

I hit warp drive to get out.

'You are unable to warp because you are warp scrambled'

Shit.

Then the space around my exploded with light and colour as four more ships tore themselves out of the warp. With a sinking feeling I recognised an Armageddon, Drake and Tempest. They locked me and opened fire.

There were screams from the crew as a horrific mix of laser fire, projectiles and missiles slammed into the shield of the stabber. In an instant the shields disappeared as I tried, desperately you maneuver into safe space. The armour was holding but against this firepower it was impossible. So I gave the order to my crew:

'Abandon ship. Abandon ship. Save yourselves.'

My crew, seasoned veterans all, leapt into escape pods and shuttle craft and left the stricken stabber. Like rain, they exited the cruiser, now shuddering as the last of the the armour was ripped off. I had to wait until the capsule was ready to be ejected. I also knew that the ADF Captains would want to either capture or destroy me. The ejection countdown wound down from 5 then 4,3,2,1 and I readied for the ejection.

There was a bump and a screech as the capsule ejection system vomited me out but there must have been damage to it as ejection was not far enough away. I tried to instantly warp out but was too close to the debris of my ship. Seconds later, I managed to get away from the wreckage but in that few precious moments, the ADF ships had my capsule locked. I ordered the capsule to warp.

'You are unable to warp because you are warp scrambled'

I laughed as I knew I had less than one second to live. No matter - the ADF pilots deserved their kill. There was a flash and a moment of disorientation. Then a delicious nothingness as the backup scanner inbedded into my brainstem squirted my last moments to a receiving station thousands of light years away.

I fell out of something onto a cold floor. I was covered in a rapidly cooling gelatinous goo. The air was cold and harsh. My head hurt and my limbs felt like fleshy appendages with no bones in them. They flopped.

Someone wrapped a blanket around me and said something. I didn't understand anything.

Re-cloning and reanimation hurts more each time.

2007.04.18 16:55

Victim: flashfresh
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Independent Pilots
Destroyed: Stabber
System: Eifer
Security: 0.4

Involved parties:
Name: IchIro
Security: -9.5
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Armee der Finsternis
Ship: Drake
Weapon: Scourge Heavy Missile

Name: RealZonk
Security: -10.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Armee der Finsternis
Ship: Tempest
Weapon: Tempest

Name: dueft (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Armee der Finsternis
Ship: Armageddon
Weapon: Dual Heavy Pulse Laser II

Name: Muhaar Gemeinian
Security: -10.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Armee der Finsternis
Ship: Lachesis
Weapon: 'Arbalest' Assault Missile Launcher

Destroyed items:
Nuclear M, Qty: 249 (Cargo)
Fleeting Warp Scrambler I
Carbonized Lead M, Qty: 476 (Cargo)
220mm Medium Carbine Repeating Cannon I
Type-D Altered SS Nanofiber Structure (Cargo)
Small Armor Repairer II (Cargo)
Y-S8 Hydrocarbon I Afterburners
Sabretooth Light Missile, Qty: 412 (Cargo)
Assault Missile Launcher I
Piranha Light Missile, Qty: 300 (Cargo)
Titanium Sabot M, Qty: 1000 (Cargo)
Gyrostabilizer I (Cargo)
Phased Plasma M, Qty: 213 (Cargo)
Large Shield Extender I
EMP M, Qty: 621 (Cargo)
220mm Vulcan AutoCannon I
EMP M, Qty: 80
Sabretooth Light Missile, Qty: 60
EMP M, Qty: 80

2007.04.18 16:57

Victim: flashfresh
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Independent Pilots
Destroyed: Capsule
System: Eifer
Security: 0.4

Involved parties:
Name: dueft (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Armee der Finsternis
Ship: Armageddon
Weapon: Dual Heavy Pulse Laser II

Name: Muhaar Gemeinian
Security: -10.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Armee der Finsternis
Ship: Lachesis
Weapon: Lachesis

Name: IchIro
Security: -9.5
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Armee der Finsternis
Ship: Drake
Weapon: XR-3200 Heavy Missile Bay