They had not moved and there was the welcome sign of a mining can.
Narrowing them down on my scanner I had them down to the third belt off the fifth planet. Excellent I thought to myself as the pickings had been quite slim. I warped to the belt and landed 80Km from their operation. No problem, I anticipated this and quickly book marked their can and warped to the nearby planet. On arrival, I whipped the ship around and warped back, this time towards the can. With luck I would be on top of the operation.
Exiting the warp - I crashed into one of the barges. I quickly locked all three, scrambling one of the retrievers and firing on the thrasher. The thrasher engaged me and as the second mining barge warped out. The scrambled barge probably tried the same but found his engines all scrambled. The thrasher meanwhile was being pummeled into scrap - it's thin armour no match for the T2 auto-canons on my jaguar. I had to juggle the distances between the thrasher and the scrambled barge. I had to keep the barge scrambled thus needed to be within 7.5km but I also needed to keep in my optimal range of the auto-canons to ensure that I could finish off the thrasher.
Then the thrasher turned his ship around and warped out.
LOL - some escort huh?
I concentrated on the barge and blasted it to hull and then decided to ransom the pod instead. Hopefully, it would drop one, maybe both strip miners. The ship exploded and out popped the egg. I had it scrambled and open up a conversation. Asking for some isk, my captive closed the window and blocked me. Well, taking that as a firm 'no' - I killed the pod and gave the mining pilot a free trip home to the cloning vats.
2007.11.07 9:22
Victim: Tebes
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Kosmische Hanse
Destroyed: Retriever
System: Auren
Security: 0.4
Involved parties:
Name: flashfresh (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Independent Pilots
Ship: Jaguar
Weapon: 150mm Light AutoCannon II
Destroyed items:
Expanded Cargohold I, Qty: 1 (Cargo)
Strip Miner I, Qty: 2
2007.11.07 9:24
Victim: Tebes
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Kosmische Hanse
Destroyed: Capsule
System: Auren
Security: 0.4
Involved parties:
Name: flashfresh (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Independent Pilots
Ship: Jaguar
Weapon: 150mm Light AutoCannon II
Destroyed items:
Now, with the criminal flag expired. I switched to the rifter for a change. I love that ship. Entering Eifer, I spied another two rifters - both pirates. These chaps were called 'A Death' and 'Hitoshiki'. I didn't know them and I was hoping that they would pluck courage to engage me; I would love a 2 v 1.
Nothing like engaging other pirates as all would be set up for combat and therefore would be a challenge. 2 v 1 would be even better.
So we danced around, trying to time our warp into the belts in order to intercept each other. There were plenty of targets and no doubt we both waited for each to engage before ambushing the entire group. After three minutes, I spotted a thrasher. Seconds later, I saw the two rifters in the same scan area. Narrowing it down to a belt and it was confirmed. Either the two pirates were engaging the thrasher or working together did not bother me. I hit the warp with a kill lust in my blood.
Bursting out into real space I landed in the middle of all three; I hit the lock button on all three. It appeared that the two new rifters were NOT engaging the thrasher. So a potential 3 v 1. Opening up on the first rifter (piloted by Hitoshiki) - I was trying to knock it out but kept a point on the thrasher. The other rifter whipped his craft round and warped out. Hitoshiki's rifter hit his afterburner and powered out of the fight leaving me with the thrasher. The fight was short and sharp but the thrasher could hit hard. The pilot was not a rookie but gave as good as he got. However, the rifter is tough and even with no capacitor - it can still dish out pain.
I was into armour but the repper was doing a superb job.
The pilot (MrValera) was in trouble and his pod popped out. Since we had two more pirates in local, I was nervous about the ransom so I decided to blow it up. Maybe I can chase the other rifters? Hitoshiki was still in the belt but was about 100km away - I think it was trying to get over 150km so it could warp back to me?
Whatever, the pod was destroyed and I gave chase.
The chase however was fruitless: the two pirates did not engage at all.
Pity.
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