Summer is a quiet time in New Eden. Rather than sit in the doldrums doing nothing I decided that Eve is what you make it. To that end I introduced “Wensley’s Wasted Wednesdays”. Its a pretty simple concept. Every Wednesday night I will do my best to organise a gang and go find some trouble. I can’t make every Wednesday and have already had to postpone the first couple to the following day but its been a success. Lots of people are logging on and we’re going out and having fun. The only rule is that any lossmails that don’t feature spirit aren’t reimbursed.

This week’s operation was a definite success. A good sized gang formed up and we headed out looking for trouble. The first destination was Adirain, a system that used to provide us with good hunting while Blood Money Bootcamp lived there but has become pretty barren since the Roughnecks claimed it as their own. Still, we’ve been able to pick off a couple of targets there and Thursday was no exception as the gang landed on an unfortunate Rifter. A quick scout into the surrounding systems didn’t reveal any targets so I moved the gang on to our next destination, Old Man Star.

Before the cold war between the empires broke into open hostilities Old Man Star was a pirate heaven. Its high security border systems provided plenty of targets and competing pirate gangs would slug it out in territorial disputes. These days the system is pretty well controlled by the Caldari militia but there are still plenty of opportunities for pirates like ourselves. Caster reported an Ishtar ratting in a belt but it was too far away from his Arazu for him to make a tackle without dropping his cloak. I warped to the belt in my Stabber and began burning for the Ishtar. As I began to close on the assault cruiser he dropped sentry drones and opened fire on me. My agile cruiser caught him right on top of his drones and they were unable to cause me much damage. “Point!” The gang warped in. Seeing the rest of the fleet land the Ishtar pilot scooped his drones and began to burn away from us. Heck that thing was fast. My Stabber and VaJo’s Vagabond were just about able to keep up and apply damage but we both encountered capacitor problems. How was he running away so effectively? It was only some tenacious tackling by Tarik in his Ares that allowed us to keep him pinned down. Every time the Warrior II drones gave him serious cause for concern either VaJo or I were able to take over tackling duties while he bugged out. Despite desperate efforts we were unable to get the gang a decent warp in to apply a warp scrambler and shut down his microwarp drive. Eventually, though, our persistence paid off and a final volley from VaJo’s Vagabond ended the chase.

With the loot safely in VaJo’s cargo bay we patrolled Old Man Star waiting for our criminal timers to tick down. Targets appeared on our scanner but either left system before we could pin them down or were able to evade our pursuit. Eventually a Catalyst was found in a belt and with a typically bloodthirsty whoop the fleet pounced. With a fresh timer we began to prowl the belts again. Eventually I pinned down a Kestrel I’d been stalking and warped to the belt my scanner showed him in. Jackpot. Not only the Kestrel but also an Ishkur. I pointed the Ishkur and called in the fleet while I took care not to allow either ship to scramble me. The Kestrel got away but the Ishkur wasn’t so lucky. Before the dust had settled a pair of Vexors warped to the belt. Reinforcements or opportunists? We didn’t care. The nearest Vexor was pointed and destroyed while the other fled for its life. As Commoner pointed out, why roam when the targets can come to you?

Related posts:

1. Last Week: Part Three
2. Last Week: Part Four
3. The Vagabond (Part 2)
4. Last Week: Part One
5. The Vagabond (Part 1)