Rifter Drifter

Sunday saw the highly anticipated Tuskers “E-war Op”. The plan was pretty simple, as all the best plans are. Everyone was to turn up in a ship with bonuses for electronic warfare and fit the appropriate e-war to their ship. I opted for a Bellicose named Michaelangelo seeing as it was a target painter.

[Bellicose, Michaelangelo]
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Nanofiber Internal Structure II
Overdrive Injector System II

Valkyrie II x1
Valkyrie II x1
Valkyrie II x1
Warrior II x1
Warrior II x1

After a bit of messing around in a safespot in Hevrice the fleet was ready to move out. We had my Bellicose, an Arbitrator, an Arazu, two Blackbirds, a Celestis, and a pair of Keres, as well as a couple of other ships along for the ride. Every race was represented and the plethora of bonused sensor dampners would hopefully allow us to counter any e-war brought against us.

The early parts of the roam were completely barren. We moved through Aeschee and the surrounding systems, into Old Man Star, and eventually on to Tama without incident. In Sujarento we spent a while dodging the fleets moving through the system before entering Tama and looping back towards Old Man Star.

In Nisuwa we found an Ishkur and Caster bravely tackled it in his Arazu before he’d moved out to a safe range. I say bravely. It was nearly suicidal. Thankfully the gang landed in time the Ishkur was quickly reduced to nothing more than an impotent training drone and then shortly after into a pile of wreckage.

By now Ronan was en route to join us in a second Bellicose. In Abune we picked up a battlecruiser gang on scan while Caster was scouting a Blood Money Cartel gang in Heydieles. The battlecruisers jumped out and shortly afterwards we saw probes up on scan. Interesting. The gang had been spread out so we regrouped and watched the scanner carefully. If an interesting gang warped towards us we would engage. Otherwise we would flee. Pretty quickly two interceptors from the Caldari milita appeared on scan and I decided to bug out. I warped the fleet to the Heydieles gate and gave the order to jump. On the other side we were greeted by a pair of interceptors, a Drake, and a Rupture. As I cold warped the fleet to a safespot the ‘ceptors got a lock on me and shut me down. While the rest of the gang warped to safety I was torn apart. Not only that but the buggers got my pod too. Bye bye to a bunch of +4 implants.

Reeling from the podding I woke up in Amamake and handed control of the fleet over to Leo. There wasn’t much I could do from here. With frustration coursing through my veins I undocked one of my crap Rifters and patrolled the area to see what I could find. Nothing but a largish fleet in Amamake and the surrounding areas were all empty. Now I was even more frustrated. I jumped into Auga and saw a large fleet in a Minmatar compound. Desperate to avenge the loss of my clones I warped in at range to see if I could pick off one of the interceptors. Some less than cool piloting saw me scrambled by a Claw and then despatched by the whole fleet. At least my pod got out this time.

Even more frustrated I grabbed another Rifter and decided to go hunt for Goons in Delve. The journey involved several high security jumps and I safely passed through Tash-Murkon Prime, Sarum Prime, and Amarr. I was nearly back in low security space. My ship was in warp to the next gate and all seemed well. All of a sudden my control systems froze. My pod interface lagged. I was hammering the jump command but nothing was happening. This wasn’t good. The police were onto me now and I was taking damage. More desperate pounding of the jump command but no joy. My ship was destroyed and I was forced to retrace my steps back to Amamake.

At this point my frustration had peaked and I decided the only option was to power down, jump clone back home, and hit my bunk for the night with some holoreels for company. Maybe tomorrow I’d feel more productive.