A Month of Madness

"So, let's do it, turn pirate" Lazy had said, casually enough. I thought about it for a day or two, then readily agreed. A plan was formed. All of our worldly goods were in a 0.0 constellation, about 16 jumps from empire space. We were at war at the time, so running a hauler down the pipe, through P3E wasn't going to be an option. So we found another way out, which was much much quieter and safer for us. We managed to scout the whole back door route out that evening. All the bookmarks all the way down and all the way back. If the main pipe was hot, we could go the other way. Then we were ready. Asking in the alliance channel, we arranged a 3 BS escort to escort us down the pipe and into empire. It was going to be the last time we'd be able to really speak to these people, Lazy Gun and I thinking we might as well make use of the option whilst it was still there. 25 minutes later, the deed was done. Shamelessly, we thanked the escorts and having docked the haulers we left the corp, the alliance and were on our own. The next day dawned and what a beautiful day it was. There were no rules made by others, no codes of conduct made by others. Just the rules that had been scribbled down hastily a few days prior. It was time to begin working for ourselves. A new corporation was set up. The Pride of the Black Joke was born. Member count, 2. Little did we know we had a lot to learn. The Pride of the Black Joke: "Caracel and a Prophecy in belt 6" "What's a prophecy?" "Dunno, think it's a cruiser or somesuch, let's go" So off we went to belt 6. Upon arrival, the Prohecy was glowing red, so we attacked it, believing it to be the biggest threat. It was scrambled and drones, hybrid ammuntion and missiles were eating into it, its capacitor being drained as well. With about 10% armour left, the conversation was started. 10 million was the asking price, and a request to cease fire. They agreed. I was still taking damage, and was only holding them there with a scrambler. In our excitement we'd forgotten about the other ship. It had started to fire at myself very early on, and I'd assumed that it would have disappeared whilst we attacked its attacker. It would appear not. The pilot of the Prophecy was about to wire the cash over, when I decided that the my ship couldn't take any more, aordered Lazy to disengage and go safe. It was too dangerous to hang around. I followed post haste. It was a hard lesson to learn. But, on the bright side, our plans had worked, to a certain extent. We were still alive, we'd almost ransomed a ship, and the damage dealing potential was, (by our admittedly low standards), quite high. The day ended with nothing in the end apart from experience of when to turn on modules, and when to turn them off as needs be. As the days past the killings started. The first was a Moa in a belt. He wouldn't pay a ransom for either the ship or the pod, so it had to be done. No sense making threats if you don't follow them through. I caught on a scanner, 3 mining barges and a cruiser class ship a few days later. I was by myself, and I'd not really had a go at so many ships at once before. I didn't really want to fight the Cruiser so decided to run in, and scramble the closest barge and target lock the cruiser but not scramble it. That way, if they all warped away, I'd have a barge all to myself. If not, i'd blow up the cruiser. It worked. I was very pleased. Alas, the barge didn't pay so it was popped. I returned to safe to wait off the aggression timer. Something was wrong as all of a sudden, the system, save me, was empty. About 5 minutes had passed by this point. Then it got busier. I recognised 4 out of the 6 people that were in there as the mining party. So I started scanning. They'd come back. In Battleships. And were sat on the gates. It wasn't looking great. I sat quietly in the safe spot, waiting for the scan probes and thikning things through. Contacting Lazy Gun and finding he was a mere 5 jumps away improved my mood slightly. I explained the situation, and the not very idle threats being made in local. We formed a plan. He'd set himself up as a warp in point on an exit gate in the system next to mine. There were 3 gates there, so if I was followed through, it'd be 50% chance that I'd be followed through into the next system. Things was beginning to look a little brighter. A quick warp into a distant gate, to draw the Battleships, then a long hop, landing 15km from my exit gate. Only 2 Battleships here. I reminded myself not to fire and hope that I could get out intact. Realising that this was going as well as could have hoped I ran. Full burners. I was in range to jump in the longest seconds of piloting ever, it seemed. I jumped through. Warp to Lazy, jump, and run. And run and jump. By this point,, I was getting to be more confident about attacking other ships. I'd learnt that most people don't like to be attacked and do silly things, giving us a slight edge. Also, finding and destroying a ratting Ferox had lifted my spirits up incredibly. Aside from one small incident with a misreading of the map, resulting in CONCORD intervention, and the loss of a ship, I was feeling good about this. The dry spells were made tolerable by the destrucion of a Jaguar (I broke from my sense of fair play, as I wanted to destroy it, for the toys inside, and felt a bit bad when I saw the hopeful 'ransom?' message in local, but he'd attacked me as I was charging into a mining barge), a couple of Thoraxes and some other ships. I was making an effort to remain polite at all times, and be as proffessional as I could. Losing another ship to a Vexxor wasn't so bad, I was able to warp the pod away, and hide for a while. He claimed he'd been hunting us for a while. I believed him. After discussion amongst ourselves, we took apart the battle, and worked out where we think we went wrong. The mistake was attempting to destroy the enemy's drones, when we should have just focussed fire on the ship itself. We made a noted, congratulated the pilot on what was a really rather enjoyable experience and resolved to learn. Having spent a while in and around the same area, the decision was made that it was time to move on, and try somewhere new. We were seeing more and more activity of other, less salbrious, corporations, and the thought of swimming with the big fish was a bit too much. We contacted our hauling friend. This was going to cost a lot, but having enough kit to last in a new location made it worth it. He agreed to do it, and it was all set. Off we went. Using instant bookmarks to navigate through the systems towards our final destiantion lessend the risk condsiderably. We'd both try to jump through the gates at the same time, in case of anyone being on the other side. it should give them a fright, at least, we thought. We had 6 jumps left to go in our route, and we'd not seen anyone for the alst few systems. We were getting confident. Too confident. "1 and a 2 and a 3, jump" and we jumped into the next system. All runs of good luck come to an end. This end was to be rather spectacular. The end of the first month On arrival in the new system, I looked up to see flashing red in my overview. I thought this was odd, as niether of us had decloaked. Then it dawned and it all started to go wrong. Lazy Gun had also seen what I'd seen and tried to get us away. However, his Ares aligns for warp faster than my Thorax. And the interceptor had just iniatiated gang warp. So my cap was down, the 'ceptor had just left and I was being target locked. This was going to be fun. I was feeling a little ruffled at this point, but not overly so. Then I saw the flashing name and I was fairly sure I'd heard it before. I saw Verone, who had locked me, so I began firing, but within seconds, my cap had gone completely and I was thinking bad thoughts. He'd brought friends. I'd been scrambled down by Magic Trev in a Rifter very quickly, and all I could do, in a rather pathetic display of resistance was to put the drones onto the Assault frigate and watch as the did nothing at all. In all honestly, I'd not even noticed the Battleship, such was my focus on trying to go down fighting as best I could, hoping to buy my corpmate some time. "This is a bit summary" I thought to myself. Maybe 15 seconds later, I was in a pod, which was also locked seemingly instantly, and then I woke up a long, long way from where I'd been previously. And that was the first month. What we've learnt so far is a lot. maybe more than in the previous months that we've been playing. The use of INSTA's, couriers, scanners, communication, ransoms and base prices have been a lot to take in. And although we're not getting it right all the time, some of the time we like to think we are.