In the company of Ape-Shit Throwing Monkeys

Title - Read Raxip and Sard. Inside joke. I'm sure it grabbed your attention though. I swear, you can hear the command console of Sard's ships writhing in agony as he violently flips switches, and viciously smashes buttons as he engages his prey. And Raxip. LOL. Raxip, not only does he have the same tendancies as Sard for phyically assualting his ship's command consoles, but one can actually feel the saliva come through comms as Rax foams and froths at the mouth like a rabid primate, hungry for his next kill. I love it.

Monday evening I set myself to try to quinch the unquinable. I needed pew-pew. I needed my fix of Yarr. First thing is first though. I needed a new supply of Rifters and appropriate modules. I had lost my last one in an engagement Sunday night. I made contact with a dealer in Teon who had yet another contact in Gelf specializing in the supply of arms and other equipment I would need. Despite being "upstanding" businessmen, they had no qualms about dealing with the shadier side of New Eden. Gotta love New Eden - it's always about the iskies. I quickly placed my orders and set about picking them up personally. Thankfully, despite my new career, I can still enter .6 security space.

After moving my new ships and modules to their new home in low-sec, where they're sure to have a short life, I set about having my hanger crew fit them out. We ran through the motions, motions that were becoming all too familiar. Install, Calibrate, Test, Recalibrate, Test some more, Recalibrate, tell a dirt joke, Test. Done and now for the fun. I thanked my hanger crew for their efforts, tossed them a supply of isk to burn down at the station bar, and I bid them a pleasant evening. Hopefully, they wouldn't be needed until the following evening, if not even later then that.

I planned to solo for the evening, predictably around Molden Heath. The plan was to head out to Odde, Heild, Bosena and their connecting systems. My new Rifter came to life. Everything was green. Out the departure tunnel I went. Burning fast, eager to get out into the sea of space I've come to love so much. I swung my little Rifter around and orbited the station for a brief moment. I wondered whether that would be the last time this new Rifter would see the station. To hell with concern. I realigned towards the first jump gate for my roam, punched the warp drive, and roared towards the beginning of the evening hunt.

The first couple systems were dead. Absolutely dead. I'm not even sure if the belt Rats were out that night. Eerily quite. It didn't take long before I reached my first system of interest. Oddelulf. I swept my safe spots I had stored in the flight computer. Using my directional scanner I reached out to see if I could pick up anything in the new by celestial clusters. Nothing really of interest was reported. It appeared that most of the pilots in local comms were docked up. Like my hanger crew, most likely at the bar. I proceeded onto Bosena, another of my more favored systems to patrol.

After coming through the gate, I set for my first waypoint from which to scan for prey. I exited the warp tunnel and aligned my Rifter towards the next scan spot. I proceeded to work my scanner and within moments I had another Rifter reported at a belt not far away. I grinned, as the other Rifter's ship name came up. It was still named after it's pilot. A common mistake made by new capsuleers. Checking local comms, I found the pilot's information. Less then a month old. Now I was grinning from ear to ear. Gotta love easy Intel. I quickly initiated my warp drive for the target belt. Screaming through the warp tunnel towards my prey, I primed my tank modules and weapon systems.

I landed in the middle of the belt, and the other Rifter was only a few thousand meters off my nose. "Perfect Landing!", I yelled. Adrenaline pumping all through my body. I always get hyped before the fight. The targeting computer resolved the lock and my tackling gear, already primed, engaged immediately. This "wabbit" was going nowhere. He was mine. I span up my auto cannons. Barrage S started tearing through space. Quickly, his shields gave out under the onslaught, and the ammunition for my cannons pummeled his armor into nothingness.

His structure exposed, I began to close range, preparing for the pod to eject. Explosion! His pod came up on my HUD as expected. I attempted to get the targeting computer to apply a lock onto it. Within milliseconds of resolving the lock my targeting computers processes were halted by the pod's warp drive. I watched as the tiny, squishy pod warped away. I made for his wreck, curious to see what this new capsuleer might have stowed away in his cargo. Nothing really useable was revealed, and I left the belt. Anxious to avoid becoming a target to some other eager Capsuleer.

As I realigned towards my first scan spot to jump out of the belt. I looked out the cockpit in the general direction of the system's sun. As it's glare gave way, and my eyes refocused, there was Rax, sitting 100k outside the belt. He hailed me over corp comms. "Damn it! Beat me to him!", he said. I must admit, it did give me a slight chuckle. I jumped around the system some more as Rax did the same. No more targets to be found. I moved on.

I continued searching targets around my areas of interest for the evening, but I wasn't able to find anything else worth trying to attack. I decided to start making my home for the night. It was quickly getting to be time to dock up and bunk up for the night. As I made my way back towards Egbinger Sard came across corp comms. He stated he had a Rook on scan. I wasn't far out from Egbinger at this point and announced I was inbound. Rax was on his way too.

I jumped through into Egbinger. Sard had already engaged the Rook. Rax beat me into Egbinger and was also already assisting Sard. Just as I entered the system Sard announced the presence of a few other ships. I engaged my warp drive and sped towards the belt my associates were fighting in. The warp tunnel started to collapse as I began my deceleration into the asteroid belt. A number of ships came into my overview. All ships I had no business being around. "To hell with it", I said to myself. Sard called for me to primary the Rook. I engaged my DMC, and threw the throttle forward engaging my Rifter's afterburner. I set my orbiting range, and closed fast on the Rook.

My tackling gear activated, and I started firing at the Rook. Those other opposing ships quickly engaged us. I was quickly under the onslaught of our prey's allies. My poor little Rifter quickly began to shake violently as rounds and missiles began to slam into her. My shields gave way, almost like they were never there. Drones tore through my armor plating exposing my frigate's hull. "I'm out guys, Rifter is done-dy", I informed my corp mates. Rax had already had to de-aggress. My Rifter spat out my pod as it's structure gave way. I punched the warp drive for my pod, as I aligned towards the station. My butt cheeks puckered as I began to receive warnings that my pod was taking damage from enemy fire. Luckily, my pod quickly shot off and out off the battlefield towards home.

I docked my pod quickly, listening in on fleet comms. Sard warned Rax to stay away from the fight. The situation was just no good for us now. Rax stayed tight at a safespot, pacing around space like a caged lion. Sard was pinned, and his ship wouldn't see the station again. He eventually took a pod trip himself. We exchanged a quick "gf" in local comms with our adversaries. I announced to Sard and Rax I needed to turn-in for the night.

The next evening, having refit a new Rifter. I set again to hunt down more prey. I met up with Sard, Rax, & Aradaneth in Odde. Sard was working on using combat probes to scan down mission runners when an Arbitrator was reported on Directional. We quickly found him in a belt that orbits P8. The Arbitrator pilot tried to evade us by jumping from the neighboring planet to the other asteroid belt. Eventually though, his luck ran out as he jumped into a belt Sard himself was sitting in. Laying in wait. Sard pounced as the Arbi exited warp. Sard had it pinned in short order, and the rest of us warped into the belt. We made short work of the lonely Arbitrator. We set out looking for more prey.

More prey we found in the form of a missioning Drake. Sard had probed him out utilizing combat probes. We warped in and had the drake pinned. The Drake couldn't withstand our onslaught by any measurable degree. It's structure gave way, wreckage in place of where the Drake used to be. This should have been the end to a good, productive night. However, I'm a dumbass. We'll let this be known as a "Jack Sparrow" moment. You see, I wasn't really thinking about the fact we just jumped in on a mission runner. I had my overview set to ignore Rats and members of my fleet and alliance. For yarring, the rats I could give a shit less about. And I want to ignore my fleet members because I'm not interested in accidentally targeting one of them.

I was approaching the drake's wreck when I started taking heavy fire. "What the fuck is that!?", I exclaimed over comms. Then I realized, "Oh my god, I'm gonna loose my Rifter to a fucking Rat guys." A couple of the mission npcs had aggressed me, and they now had me warp scrambled. I couldn't warp out. I was stuck. Sard and Rax couldn't destroy them fast enough to prevent my frigate from buckling under me. My pod ejected. I had an embarrassing pod-cruise home, but at least I was able to provide a hearty laugh for my colleagues.

Yo-ho.