Poppin' in High-Sec

Viper57, 13 out, screaming inbound, weapons hot

Sunday afternoon. I was out and about doing some scouting work for a couple of my corpmates who were wanting to mine, but needed to pass through a couple low-sec systems to get there. I checked out the low-sec areas for possible gate camps, and also scouted out the belts they were interested in mining.

The two Low-Sec systems they would have to traverse where clean. No gate camps, and only a hand full of other capsuleers in the systems. I forwarded the intell to the corpy in charge of the small mining op, and they eventually headed out to start shredding rocks in Horaka.

Horaka is the new home of my Corp, [OS] Origin Systems. We just set up a new corp office in one of the Horaka space stations this last sunday. So, after finishing my scouting work for the miners, I headed back into the low-sec systems I had scouted earlier. I wanted to scout these systems more thoroughly - for future patrols. I also needed to lay out some Safe Spots within these low-sec systems for those future patrols.

I do a lot of solo roaming in my Rifters, as such, without the back-up of a small fleet, safe spots in space are invaluable. First and foremost, as a good place to scan the system belts with my ship scanner as I look for potential targets. Secondly, Safe Spots are escape points. I'm a newb at solo roaming. I'm a newb at pvp period. I am bound to get myself in over my head (as I've already documented in this blog). So I set about these objectives in a new Rifter I purchased and had fit specifically for our new home system.

The scouting op in these two systems was uneventful. I scanned a few potentials down as I traveled around the systems dropping safe spots, but everyone I scanned down appeared to also be out in their own Safe Spots. Not wanting to make myself easy prey, I didn't spend a great deal of time hunting them down.

As I was finishing up this work, 2lost came across Corp Comms. He was out mining in Josekorn, and someone had just flipped his can. I responded that I was on my way, but I had 13 or more jumps before I'd reach Josekorn. Xochitl, Ged, and Dek started making also started jumping towards Josekorn.

Xochitl arrived first, but in an industrial (lol), luckily he had a small frigate he could fit out fast once he docked. Once I made it into the system I warped to the closet planet of the belt 2lost was mining in. I started scanning the belt looking for the can-thief. Before I knew it, 2lost said the thief was back, and that he had just stole some more ore out of 2lost's can. "Awesome!" I thought - the thief's criminal timer just restarted, and now he had a fresh 15 minutes of criminal flag time. Ged, and Dek were still 7 jumps away at this point, but racing to Josekorn.

As soon as 2lost mentioned the most recent theft of ore, Xo says he's on his way. 2lost replies, the theif is in the belt. Before long Xo comes back over comms announcing he had the thief jammed. "Shit!" I thought, Xo had engaged before the rest of our corp-mates had made it to the system. The fight was on.

"OMW!" I exclaimed in fleet comms. I hit the warp button and my warp drives roared to life, and my Rifter threw itself into warp. Space blurred all around me. I checked my 200mm auto cannons to make sure they were fully-loaded. I checked my scanners and targeting systems to make sure they were primed. I checked my warp scrambler, and webber to make sure those modules were ready for the fight. Everything checked out.

Space started to come back into focus, and I saw the belt come into view. My Rifter screamed into the belt, and came out of warp just 2500 meters away from our target. "Perfect!" I locked the thief up with my targeting computers. Xo had already worked the thief's Probe into structure. I hit my scrambler, and webbifier. This capsuleer was going no where, and he was on the brink of going Pop-Pop. I engaged my 200mm Auto Cannons, and the barrels span to life hurtling hot lead into the structure of the targeted Frigate. My cannons fired 1 barrage of lead and the Probe exploded, lighting up the belt.

The fight was over, almost as soon as it had started. I love getting these kills in high security space. After reviewing the Killmail Concord sent me about the engagement, I was stunned. I couldn't believe it. This capsuleer knowingly stole out of 2lost's can and only had 2 mining lasers fitted and a couple Tech 1 drones at his disposal. He knowingly committed a criminal act despite barely being fit out to defend himself from the npc rats in the Josekorn belts. Honestly, it made this kill even better - not only did we smack a thief in the ass, but, he really was quite stupid now wasn't he....

It was a great way to end the weekend.