More roams and more booms

More new faces.
We have welcomed more recruits to The Bastards so let me introduce to you all:

DJ Akula
Fenneck
Vanamoinen
Kerblamo
Maltrox
Shader24

We are stronger with these chaps and they have been busy adding to our kills and loot. We have 14 applicants in the queue and the next batch will be processed as soon as this post is complete. In fact, the month of December has been a magnificent period for us, both killboard and loot-wise. We were posting up 1billion isk in kills per day for a period of five days....and this was only the first five days of December! However, it did start to slow down but, for a small corp like ourselves, this sort of activity meant plenty of loot and ransoms.

A roam into null-sec

I FC'ed a roam into null-sec, hopeful that we could re-enact the 'Saving Private Frog' episode from a week ago. However, it did not go according to plan as we ran into some rather recaltriant members of Southern Cross Alliance who kicked our asses royally at the FDz gate in M-MD31. We were all in T1 cruisers ('cept Viginiti) and managed to knock down a drake and arazu but we were over-whelmed.

Fight summary here.

They were much better than the IRC chaps and I am sure we'll pay that part of Geminate a visit soon for some kills and loot and ransoms.

Moving down the pipe then?

So, a few days later I found myself in a rifter and decided on a solo roam. There were Bastards about of course, in stations and in many of the neighbouring systems but no sanctioned corporation excursions, so we were left to our own devices. The Bastards does expect pirates to have a bit of get up and go and to personally lead roams in search of loot and kills. So it was around Egmar, I met up with Khaled Urduni, on a shake down cruise with his Hurricane. We both had the same idea and I set up a two-man fleet and we continued on our merry.

It was wasn't long before I had spotted three ships in local: a rifter, rupture and zealot. A quick spin of the scanner and I found two of the three. With a quick kill in mind, I asked Khaled to hold on the gate and leapt into the belt.

Both the rifter and the rupture were not in the same corp but evidence of their work was all over the belt: sparkling wrecks. I quickly narrowed them down to a single belt, set battle stations and raced into the belt, with all my weapons primed. As I arrived, I caught the tell tale warp signatures of the departing ships. They went in two directions.

Cursing, I chased after the rupture and raced after it towards Planet III.

"Khaled: this is Flash. Hold on gate, going after rupture."

"Roger that Flash. Good hunting." I was determined to solo it. The rifter could sense my eagerness and like a blood hound, it strained at the leash. I landed around planet III and found nothing.

Disappointing but to be expected. I hit the scanner again and found, that both the rifter and rupture were nowhere to be seen. Setting up a lazy orbit around planet III; I continued my scan and stopped. A zealot had appeared within scan range. The third ship and not one that I was initially hunting. His location steadied around Planet IV.

"Khaled. This is Flash. I may have a zealot. Stand by."

"Roger, Khaled standing by."

Planet IV was a short hop and the warp jump took less than five seconds, dropping into orbit - my overview updated with a the solid white square of a HAC-Class ship. It was the zealot, moving at around 900 m/s and away from me. I hit my afterburners and gave chase. The zealot pilot (Anni Bonney) obviously saw me and turned her ship around, 180 degrees and made her intentions clear to me: she locked me. As I did her.

"Khaled. Prepare for imminent violence. Zealot is approaching me. Should have a lock and point in seven seconds."

"Roger that Flash. Waiting for your signal."

The steady pinging of my targetting computer changed tone as I got a lock on the zealot as did she. My shields boiled off almost instantly as her lasers washed over me.

"Flash has point. Warp to Flash Khaled." I got into an eye-crushing close orbit around the zealot, desperate to keep myself alive long enough for Khaled to come through. It looked like she was using heavy pulse lasers and my tactical computer detected it was most likely scorch laser crystals. If I could just keep this orbit; I should be okay.

A laser purple beam cut deep into my port fuselage, jarring me out of my tactical day dreaming. Red alert lights flashed across me, looks like I had suffered some major damage to the port stabilisers. I compensated and adjusted the power input.

Well, there was alway bad luck too, another hit like that and my ship would be cut in two.

Khaled's hurricane finally roared in, the wedge shaped minmater battle cruiser always had an impressive entrance.

Between the two of us, we finally made the kill. The zealot pilot had a very impressive armour tank and when it looked like she was stabilising at 10% armour, I decided on a ransom. Before I could finish the demand, the armour was blasted away and her hull critically damage. She went up in a flash and we missed the pod.

We celebrated with an ewok-dance as the loot drop was decent and the fleet was joined by Euan8, Raelyf (a new applicant) and z0de. The latter in his incursus and racing from ten jumps away. The expanded fleet spread out into the neighbouring systems; we all had hits on the scanner but the ships slipped away.

I was luckier - while I missed a thrasher (twice) in a belt; I did manage to attract the attention of a sentinel frigate. A deadly Electronic Attack Ship and piloted by Darth Semios. He doggedly pursued me from planet to planet and belt to belt. Each time, I managed to slip away. I knew what the outcome of this fight would be: my death.

Raelyf was the first to get close enough to assist, having raced past Khaled at Ardar. Euan8 and z0de were a bit further behind.

Me and Darth danced around the ice belt; the large chunks of ice and rock bumped and shattered around us, littering the space between us with debris. I landed as he was re-aligning to get out. He stopped as we both locked. His drones popped out and his nosferatu winked to life. I was going to knock him down as quickly as I could, my guns required no capacitor to fire but his nos would drain me enough that my afterburner, web, scrambler and armour repairer would all go down. I could counter with my own smaller nos. It would be a bit tight but this was not a 1 v 1. It was me being bait.

As soon as I had point, I ordered Raelyf in and he started to warp to me. I was down to no cap and well into armour. My repairer shutting down with a squawk of protest at the lack of power. Darth's warrior II drones screeched around me and ripped the rifter to pieces around me. I managed to kill one before my pod was out in space.

I warped out, leaving Raelfy to kill the sentinel. Khaled sneaked in as well and between the two, the sentinel was doomed. By this time, I passed the FC to Euan and z0de as I couldn't do much in a reaper with a GCC. As the same fleet tracked down towards Amamake; they engaged and destroyed a thorax and phobos; both from the Pegasus Foundation Corporation.

I managed to sneak in with the reaper to point the pod.



Don't mess with a combat reaper!

At this time, I docked up as sleep was calling but the small gang managed to snag yet another thorax, a rifter and an arazu before they too, called it a night. For the loss of one rifter, the gang made six kills and got some good loot.

Well done chaps!