Today I killed a man for his shoes. Well, I got his wallet, too. And his 150mm autocannons, and a missile launcher, and... anyway, you get the idea. Funny thing, he didn't say a word - I think he froze, a fatal mistake. No plea for mercy, not even sure he tried to warp away, since the jammer was the first warning of my presence.
But I get ahead of myself.
Recently my first EvE character got boring - fat industrialist, good building skills, nice alliance, picket fence and all that crap. I needed something more...tantalizing. For a long time I've read the eve-pirate dispatches with guilty pleasure, secretly cheering on the pirates.
Today I joined them. Insuring a Slasher for this first lustful foray into the forbidden, it came off the lined kitted for mayhem and jamming. Two jumps to a dead-end 0.4; only some very aged pilots, all docked. Step away from my scanning console, and when I return, a new pilot in system, only a few weeks old. Quickly I undocked and began to scan for him.
Alone, in his Rifter, battling an NPC rat. The first rush of adrenaline hit me as I entered warp, and I rode the wave into the belt. Wasting no time, I threw the ship into afterburner and pre-fired the jammer, waiting until I got within jamming range to lock him. It was a risk, but it paid off; he never saw me until it was too late.
Flipping on the guns, I killed the afterburner and began an orbit around him, his Rifter vs. my Slasher; a somewhat uneven match - on the surface. Quickly his shields began to erode, then - blip, his shields jumped. A shield-tanking Rifter? Hmm. The slasher's shields were peeling away quickly, and the jammer was eating a lot of capacitor.
To build up the capacitor, I turned off the jammers, hoping the Rifter pilot was so engaged that he wouldn't try to warp away. The capacitor climbed, and I kicked on the armor repper at about 40% armor; the armor climbed steadily as the Slasher's guns blew through the Rifter's shields and began chewing into its armor. It was working - the target stayed with me, his Rifter's armor shredding under the onslaught.
My capacitor was nearly drained, but the Rifter's armor was almost gone, and as soon as he went into structure, I knew it would be over. I turned off the armor repper, and the Slasher's armor began dropping; had to keep him engaged, just...a...bit...more.
I re-engaged the jammer as he hit structure, and let my guns do their work. The adrenaline rush when the Rifter imploded was intense. I re-triggered the jammer and waited for the pod to appear on the overview. Click - locked and jammed.
A few moments and it was over. A pirate. Collecting the wreckage from the ship, I waited out the timer and headed back to home base, a changed man.
2007.04.13 22:42
Victim: XXXXXXXXX
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Republic Military School
Destroyed: Capsule
System: XXXXXXXXXXX
Security: 0.3
Involved parties:
Name: Drachen Sturm (laid the final blow)
Security: -1.3
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Republic Military School
Ship: Slasher
Weapon: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Cleared for publication by: Ander