WTF? A full freighter,afk'ing?

Luck sometimes does shine on you and last night; it's searing light was illuminated on us. I was in my rupture and was out scouting around our patch along with Z0de when I arrived in Gultratren. I sat there, the rupture still under the gate induced cloak hiding me. The scanner was flipped open and I ordered my survey crew to perform a 360 degree sweep; to the maximum range of the scanner.


"Nothing to report Captain." Replied my surveyor master.
"Scan once every five seconds for another 30 seconds then we leave."
"Yes sir." I settled in and cycled through the seven or so other pod pilots in local. Checking the new, unfamiliar pilots for their corporation affiliations and security status. There were some reds in local. The scanner piped up. I glanced over.
"Surveyor. Report."
"Sir, a fenrir-class freighter. Based on the vector. It's on approach towards this gate."

My heart skipped a beat.

"Surveyor. Confirm!" I nudged the rupture towards the gate and hit the micro warp drive.

"Sir, freighter, fenrir-class confirmed as being inbound." I toggled the communications array and flipped into fleet chat. Just as the other fleet captains appeared on the chat window, my rupture was buffetted by the sudden appearance of a massive, block-like shape of the minmater republic's own fenrir-class freighter. It landed about 14-15km from the gate. A quick glance and I had the pilot's name: 'Mustaffa Goodtime' from the M4G corporation. Oh, we were going to have a good time on his behalf. From the angle of entry; it looked like the freighter was also on autopilot.

"Check. Check. Check. This is Flashfresh. Fenrir freighter at the Arnstur gate in Gultratren gate! It is approaching the gate and will be in Arnstur in approximately two minutes. The replies from the pirates was swift; a quick response is expected when freighters are in the equation!

"Am burning around." Said RnProphet.

"Coming in 'phoon." Replied RoninData.

"Point it!" said someone else.

"This is Z0de. Am in Arnstur, will get to the gate and hold."

I did not lock the freighter as the gate guns would shred me before I could kill it; it was best to catch such ships on the exit side with help. The trick was to spread yourselves out around the exit gate with warp disruptors and scramblers primed and over-heated. As soon as the gate cloak is dropped; everyone should see the target and with luck, someone would in range to point and tackle.

I jumped into Gultratren and waited; praying that the freighter Captain would follow through and not get spooked by the fact that I jumped ahead. Surely he saw me? Z0de in his taranis zipped around the gate, poised and ready. I decloaked and got into position. We waited as, in my mind's eye, I could imagine the slow crawling progress of the massive ship, inching it's way towards the gate. Four Angel cruisers had appeared, as if they too, knew that there would be blood. They locked me and started firing at my rupture, much to my displeasure. I held off on firing back for now. My impatience was building and what if the freighter Captain performed an emergency stop and docked up? I should have stayed at the entry point and risked a tackle. Just as I was about to order the ship back through when there was a flash of gate activation and the local communications net updated itself with the name of the frieghter pilot. RoninData, having come into the same system also spotted the name.
"Freighter pilot in local. Go! Go! Go!" We both announced.

"For feck's sake; point it before any one webs it!" Ordered Ronin.

The frieghter held cloak for a few seconds and decloaked 7 kilometers from my position. My warp disruptor, already over-heated, snaked out and punched through the freighter's plasma containment fields - preventing the ship from warping.

"Point!" I said. The sentry guns, detecting my illegal act, spun around and smothered my ship in ordnance; combined with the four Angel cruisers (I should have fired on them) - I was in danger of going down as my shields started to shrink awfully fast.

"This is Flash. Am taking too much damage. Need to bug out soon."

"Point!" Shouted someone, I think it was Prophet.

"Point! Go Flash, we have it covered. Go." Said Z0de.

I didn't need telling twice as I whipped out from under the sentry gun's range, my ship well and truly on fire. The small armour repairer was in danger of burning itself out as I had it patch the numerous holes dotted all over the super structure of the ship.

Meanwhile, the firepower was poured on as we had a typhoon, an armageddon class battleships, a myrmidon and Z0de's interceptor attacking the freighter. I could hear the conversation over the communication net with Ronin demanding a cool 1billion isk ransom. There was a muffled laugh from someone as the reply was something similiar to: 'Damn, I was on auto-pilot and I only have 400 million isk....'

I had to see this and warped back; my global criminal flag still very much active.

As I arrived back, the sentry guns were busy cycling through the fleet; I had a minute or so before it was my turn. The freighter pilot was too slow in responding and Ronin, fearing that he was calling for help gave the order to pop it. So we did.

The freighter burst apart as our weapons tore it to pieces. The pilot, traumatised from his loss was too slow in getting the Captain's pod out and he was snagged and then ransomed once more.

He refused to pay and we dispatched his capsule with glee, the sound of organic matter flash freshing in the cold vacuum of space heard clearly by all the pilots.

"Let's check the wreck!" Said Prophet, exciting clear. The golden hued 'geddon approached the wreck and salvage crews dispatched.

"Oh my Gods! Blueprints! Blueprints and shit. The freighter was almost full! Oh my God!" I got close and glanced at the wreck with my own crew examining it and the inventory list was massive. It included ships, all packaged up neatly for transportation as well as tech 2 equipment and ammunition and ores and minerals and compounds. We had, indeed, hit the jackpot.

The kill mail is too long to post here but the link is here.

Highlights include:

• Minmatar encryption methods skill book
• A Jaguar-class assault frigate
• A Hulk-class exhumer
• A Hyena
• A Wolf-class assault frigate
• Tech 2 mining crystals of most types
• Cloakings (improved, covert-ops and prototype)
• Electron bomb blueprint
• Jump drive calibration and operation skill books
• Some Cosmos storyline blueprint for a very nice 200million isk afterburner. The BP could make a 1000 of them? (Need to confirm this one, Flash.)
  

and much, much more.

We did lose the packaged maelstrom and huginn however. There was an intact interon type-V in the freighter's hold as well; too big for us to liberate. So we left it and another two hoarder-class industrials along the wreck, a gift to anyone who had the space to carry them.

It looked like the contents of someone who was moving their personal contents due to the range in goods being transported. Oh well. It was a nice haul for us; the kill board has a 5.6billion isk value but while the exact figure is in dispute; what isn't in dispute is that this was a massive haul for us. Some laughed, some cried and we did the ewok dance.

It's great being a Bastard.


Oh, if one wants to see some cool merchandise, click here for some Bastard merchandise and for cool, kick-ass shirts and stuff. We'll try and wear these for Fanfest 2009!