My first Hunt

Hello everyone

This is my first story and about my first act of piracy, so please be forgiving (both the readers and the editors). After about 4 months of being the good guy running missions (for both good and the bad side), I was getting a little bored. I was thinking of joining a Pirate corp (Eve Pirate had a huge part in this decision by the way) but all good PvP corps require Team speak or some other Voice communication and unfortunately my connection can't support that. Mining corps are just too boring and most of the time force those boring mining sessions on its members. But hey I can't complain, can I? I mean Hello, "Mining Corp".

Anyway with all those options exhausted, there was only one way to go. Solo pirating. I was kind of undecided on the ship to use. I had a Thorax and an Incursus. Decisions, Decisions. I was more confident in the Thorax but I could manufacture my own Incursus. In the end the fear of the unknown made me choose the safer route. I opted for the Incursus. I fitted it with three Anode Light Ion Blasters, Small Capacitor Booster, Scrambler, After Burner, Power Diagnostic and a Small Armor Repairer. I insured it Platinum Level and undocked unsure of where to go. I was in Delltole in Gallente Federation Space. Checked the map and decided to go to a 0.4 system just two jumps away. I was too afraid of hunting in 0.2 and 0.1. Who knows what or who I might find there? I go to low sec systems regularly but either on quick passages, courier missions or quick ratting. But never to hunt. This was the first time. Hence the fear.

Any way, once inside, I checked local. Just one more fellow in system two months younger than me. I jumped to a nice center Planet and scanned. There was a Caracel Cruiser on the scanner. Again I became undecided. Should I go back and bring my Thorax or engage? In the end, fear of the unknown, namely PvP prevailed and I again opted for playing it safe. Now I am not that good with the use of Directional Scanner so couldn't exactly pinpoint him. Therefore, I decided to check the belts one by one from the top. On my third belt I found him. I set my orbit at 500m and engaged my After Burner. As I was approaching him, I could hear my own heart beat with all the anxiety and excitement. I locked him up at scrambler range. For some reason I waited for a whole second before opening fire. Still don't know why? May be I was waiting for his reaction or was having second thoughts about engaging that awesome ship with my little insect. I will never know now. The message popped up warning me about drop in sec status since I had attacked deliberately. I continued firing my Anti-matter Standard rounds while orbiting and scrambling him.

And then in horror I saw his missiles launching and striking my little ship with deafening boom. On his third volley my shields were gone. His shields were of course holding. They had not even dropped by 25 %. By his fourth volley, they were near 50% but then his shield booster engaged. I suspect it was active since the start of the engagement but turned off later due to which his shields came down to 50%. By then, I was into my armor. Immediately I activated my Armor repair and capacitor booster. By his seventh volley I think, I was holding at more or less 75% armor thanks to AB, capacitor booster, armor repairer and the fact that he had no web fitted. When his armor reached 50%, unfortunately my capacitor booster started reloading and during that instance my capacitor got depleted. It was barely holding on after all only due to capacitor booster with AB, Armor Repairer, scrambler and three Blasters constantly working.

As soon as my capacitor depleted, everything turned off. I was kind of sure that in those 10 seconds of reload, I will be KABOOM. But to my surprise, the Caracel, aligned and warped out. And I was left sitting all alone in the belt with feelings of fear, anxiety and a little anger at lost opportunity. Soon all the emotions were replaced by anger at lost opportunity and the fact that I could have ransomed him if I had decided to take a little risk earlier on and came in my Thorax instead of Incursus.

May be it was to remove that anger or to appear superior or to genuinely help the guy who almost got ransomed in a cruiser by a Tech I frigate or may be a combination of all of the above that I gave him some tips in local. He was a nice enough fellow. He was thinking I had a Tech II Frigate. He was very astonished when I told him that it was actually a Tech I. He asked me why his missiles were not doing enough damage and I told him (according to my limited knowledge) that it was due to speed and he should fit a web in future for just these kind of situations. I know I know, I will probably get scolded by all you older Pirates for giving valuable tips to the prey. After all you don't get friendly with your meal :) But hey, I thought, it was no big secret and a better player kind of raises the rush and excitement of PvP. So, I hope you will forgive me for this minor.....transgression.

Thank you for reading

Cleared for publication by: Ander