Two slippies, a drake, a rattler and friends and the welcoming committee when I got home...

This went boom....

I wandered into the usual Bastards hang-out; the 'Independence' bar and saw Fitz, Marco and a new chap called Jin. Fitz looked and sounded horrible: he had a serious case of man-flu and embarrassingly, excused himself from the bar, coughing and sneezing as he went.

Our fleet of three (two sleipnirs and a drake) undocked and went out hunting. The drake went on ahead, Marco and I in our sleipnirs sat on the gate and waited, our shield boosters primed to resist. as our scout and bait. However, it didn't take long before the star-gate we floated around pulsed once: signalling incoming traffic.

"Deploy drones." I said to Marco. The small winged mechanical killers slid out from their moorings and took up an orbit around us. Whoever had come in held their cloak. This boded well for Marco and I. Ordering battle stations as there was going to be some imminent violence, I waited patiently. I activated my shield hardeners and made sure that the capacitor booster was packed full with charges. The mystery ship still hadn't dropped its gate cloak but it was only a matter of time.

"There it is." Marco.

"Rattlesnake, rattlesnake!" I said with much excitement.

The distinctive Scorpion-class battle ship hull was there, hanging in space 25 km from me. Marco was closer and threw a point on it. I hit the mwd and raced over. The rattlesnake attempted to move back to the gate. We bumped it. We opened fire on it. His two friends in cruisers fired at us. Drones buzzed everywhere. The gate guns fired back on us. Our drake came back in to help. It was mad, fast and it was great.

The rattler went down and we got to work on the two cruisers: we somehow missed his fourth friend in a tempest and I think we also missed an Orca!

There's only so much a fleet of three can do on a low-sec gate. We quickly got off the gate and found a safe spot where we could collect the dropped loot and parcel it out amongst the Captains and crew.  Unfortunately, I had to leave the fleet and ran right into a small gate camp in our home system and rapidly blew up.

Not a good end to the evening.

DEAD Sleipnir. Dead Typhoon. Dead Blackbird.

"Sleipnir class command ship on scan Flash. I have it pin-pointed at a belt. It's firing on some Angel cruisers. What's the plan?" Said one of my contacts, hovering above the mark in his cloaked covert operations ship. I have an extension field of such individuals, all hunting and spying for me.

I checked the munition load-out of my hurricane and it was the 'standard' Black-Flag set up. Packed with EMP, Republic Fleet EMP, Barrage, Hail and Phased Plasma: I had enough ordnance to take on most things but a Sleipnir?

To hell with it.

I hit the thrusters and the hurricane slid out of the hidden deep space pocket I was hiding in. The ship slowly winked into life as more power was being fed to the other systems. Slowly, the crew made ready. Extra thrusters came online and support systems sputtered to life. Internal comms chatter increased as the various section chiefs reported back that all was green and that we would ready. Scanning the local pirate channel, I saw that a bunch of pirates from The Bastards; a corporation that I had tremendous respect for. I toggled the channel button and quickly updated the pirates on the target. They were two systems out and we already making their way in. I was to make the tackle and hold on for them.

Fair enough I thought, as ready as we could be.

"Scout. Update on the sleipnir."

"The sleipnir has finished off the angels and is checking the wrecks; I think he will move to the next belt. Hold please." I aligned to the next belt and loaded up with EMP-based ammunition. I flashed up the ship information on the sleipnir:

"Boundless Creation's ships are based on the Brutor tribe's philosophy of warfare: simply fit as much firepower onto your ship as possible. Defense systems and electronics arrays therefore tend to take a back seat to sheer annihilative potential." A maximum of seven turrets, probably 425 mm auto canon IIs identical to what was being carried by my hurricane.

OKAY. A straight slug-fest and I needed my ECM drones needed to get an early bite. I wasn't going to last long going toe-to-toe with that monster.

"Flash. Bastards on the way. You have a point?"

"Negative. Spinning up my drives and en route. Target is in belt II-I."

"Roger that. Good luck. We'll be there in a little under two minutes."

My scout spoke up.

"He's moved to the next belt and he's landed dead centre. Go Flash and good hunting!"

"Roger that. All hands: red alert. Prepare for hostilities." My hurricane re-adjusted it's alignment and with a sigh, it slipped into warp space and sped towards the unsuspecting sleipnir. I had to get send a burst into it's warp core to stop it from warping out. Then maintain this burst and hope he didn't have warp core stabilisers.

Navigation counted down the exit the time.

"Exiting warp space in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....exit!"

There was a bumping sound as the debris field of the asteroid belt was forced around the shield of the ship. The sleipnir was in forward and slightly port side of my hurricane, it was pulsing it's sub-light engines and was making a steady 175 m/s. The sleipnir pilot locked me almost as my own lock had resolved and I was warp scrambling his engine.

The sleipnir sent out it's drones (ogre IIs) and was already peppering me with EMP. I replied in kind.

"Bastards: I have engaged sleipnir and disrupted his warp core. Engaging."

"We're own our way Flash, some slight issues with the gate activation fee. We're alright and be there in 30 seconds.

The firepower of the sleipnir was horrifying and I was already down to 50% shield, my shield buffers overheating trying to keep up with the destruction wrought by this fearsome command ship. I had barely scratched him but was making progress; I just needed to hold on. My ECM drones were failing to get a jam in.

There were several flashes as more ships arrived into the same belt. It was The Bastards and the contest was over. The sleipnir turned and hit it's micro warp drive and attempted to get away but it was quickly webbed then jammed then taken apart.

The loot drop was almost all T2. Very nice.

We missed the pod but I managed to auction off the salvage rights to the first highest bidder, eager to remove valuable parts from the wreck to make the juiciest ship rigs. Salvagers appear so quickly, it makes me wonder whether they have a feed into CONCORD?

I ended up the night by adding a typhoon and blackbird kill.

Once again, the salvagers out in force once more.

Watch out for concord!!

Right - a busy day and not that much time to record but a Black-Flag gang was set up and went roaming all the way down to Amamake. We had a few scouts racing ahead (I was one) but the meat of the fleet were three specially configured hurricanes. Deadly ships, solo but when configured in the Black Flag special way, they would become deadly things.

So the gang roamed and Nightmare is proving to be the joker though no one can doubt his skill and intent...he justs makes it a habit to tell everyone about it. Viper is a good FC and once we were in Amamake - Blade and I went in to seek out worthy opponents and no-one was biting, yet. Snake Boy had also arrived so we proceeded to drop some scan probes and see what we could see. The three other hurricane pilots stayed put in the neighbouring system, chomping at the bit.

Amamake was busy. Probes were dropped by the other pilots to find suitable targets. From observations we estimated at least three different gangs were around in Amamake. All hunting no doubt. All hunting for each other. However, we waited in an obvious belt and may be our nonchalant presence shouted out 'BAIT' to everyone else. Nothing happened.

Blade and I split up - he was in a Myrmidon and I was in my jaguar. Tempting targets no doubt. It was Blade who tickled their interest.
"I think I have something Flash." He said calmly over our voice comms.
"ID?"
"Vagabond and something else."
Viper jumped into the conversation, "We have to get webs on that sucker."
"I have a web but we probably need more. " I replied, now aligning to Blade's position. I quickly hit the scanner on my ship and I also noticed another blip: a jaguar-class assault frigate and a vengance. They were close to me and probably vectoring in. At this moment we still had no intelligence on what cloaked ships were hiding in the system, this being Amamake, chances are there were at least three or four of these sneaky ships. I warped to Blade, hoping that the two enemy assault frigates would follow me and ending up with Blade's Myrmidon and his vagabond adversary. Once the party began, we would call in the heavy guns in the form of Nightmare, Viper and Jubes.
"They're close. Very close." Said Blade, excitement now creeping into his voice. I confirmed it with my own scan during my warp. "Shit. Contact! Contact! Contact!" Yelled Blade.
I burst out of warp and landed 10KM from the elongated shape of his myrmidon, a vagabond was streaking past us - its microwarpdrive pulsing. He was throwing AC shells at Blade, I hit the scrambler and webber and snagged him.
"I have one point on vagabond." I turned and tapped into our fleet comm's channel a single 'x'. An unambiquous signal for the hammers to come down, hard and heavy. On the otherside of the system, a star-gate flashed and three, arrow-shaped Hurricane-class battlecruisers materialised. It was Nightmare, Viper and Jubes and they all aligned then activated their warp drives and jumped to my exact position.

Bring the pain. I thought with some glee.

Unfortunately, in the instant the 'x' was sent, a jaguar and a vengance assault frigate came into view and locked me. I had a point (just) on the speedy vagabond but turned my guns onto the vengance as my ship shook under their combined fire.

My GUI struggled to update me as missile fire, auto-canon shell bombardment and lasers filled my vision. My shields were stripped down and I had to quickly activate my armour repairer. I replied in kind, choosing the vengance as my target - Blade had meanwhile, also locked the Jaguar and was hitting it hard. I was now webbed and couldn't move but I was getting on top of the vengance. The three hurricanes appeared and Nightmare, seeing that I was in danger of dying got a shield transfter to me - saving my ship from destruction. I re-loaded and pummeled the vengance when it turned and warped away. No one had a point on it, mine was still on the vagabond now orbiting at a 20km distance from Blade. The Jaguar, who was hitting me - exploded as Blade's weapon systems smashed it apart.

The vagabond was too fast and with three new Hurricanes, it turned and ran. No sooner had it gone, a sleipnir appeared. A feared command ship based on the cyclone hull. It would make a fine kill for us. However it was over 55km away and probably thought it would be safe. How wrong it was, of the five ships (six including Snake in his Cheetah) - the hurricanes were the fastest. Jubes, turned on his microwarpdrive and slammed his ship into space, eating up the distance in chunks. Nightmare and Viper did the same. I could only toggle my afterburner and struggle at 800m/s - poor Blade couldn't ever do that.

The sleipnir pilot must have looked on shocked as the hurricanes got within scramble then web distance within ten seconds, too quick for him to align and get the hell out of there. The hurricanes tore the sleipnir to fiery pieces within seconds. I didn't even get close to get a point to him as I was 35Km when the command ship blew up. The pod got away but what a kill.

Concord confirmed:

2007.12.13 14:38

Victim: MattFighT
Alliance: Long Distance Serial Killlers
Corp: Boennerup Banden
Destroyed: Sleipnir
System: Amamake
Security: 0.4

Involved parties:

Name: ImYourNightmare
Security: -8.6
Alliance: NONE
Corp: black-flag
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: Hurricane

Name: Viper Sam (laid the final blow)
Security: -9.9
Alliance: NONE
Corp: black-flag
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II

Name: Jubes
Security: -9.8
Alliance: NONE
Corp: black-flag
Ship: Hurricane
Weapon: 425mm AutoCannon II

Destroyed items:
Dropped items:, Qty: 6
425mm AutoCannon II, Qty: 7
Barrage M, Qty: 224
X-Large C5-L Emergency Shield Overload I
10MN MicroWarpdrive II
Warp Disruptor II
Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster I
Invulnerability Field II
Gyrostabilizer II, Qty: 2
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Overdrive Injector System II
Cap Booster 800, Qty: 7 (Cargo)
Barrage M, Qty: 1580 (Cargo)
Anti-Kinetic Screen Reinforcer I
Polycarbon Engine Housing I

The Sleipnir was fast but the 'canes were faster.

We celebrated the kill with much cheering and prepared for more combat but nothing then happened. Snake and I scouted around and there was definite movement in ships and pilots, as most people now had decent intel on our ships and locations. So we decided to move out and roam some more while heading back home. Snake and I raced ahead.

Then disaster struck.

Viper warped the fleet, now joined by Nozarro to a high-sec gate and the pirates found themselves in the warm embraces of concord! There were cries of horror and disbelief. I could only listen helplessly as Concord webbed and scrambled Jubes, Viper and Noz and pumelled their 'canes into wrecks. NIghtmare, to his credit, managed to save his cane and get back into low-sec. He then proceeded to chid his other fellow pilots on how to avoid concord. Endlessly. I had to chuckle.

A successful night, where the ships were tested ended with the almost total destruction of the fleet! At least I managed to get home in one piece but Viper, to his credit promised a full replacement for all ships and items lost.

What a night.