Moustache Mojo Level V

It started with a long and hard look in the mirror. Once again I was about to clutter my handsome looks with nasty pod goo and go look for trouble in my Rifter. I told the man in the mirror that this messy affair would have to better be worth it, or else I would have to just start walking in stations instead of flying in space. This time, I said to myself, I will kill something, and, I will survive.

I'm looking at the man in the mirror.

With my moustache ruined once again by the pod goo, I undocked and fired up the directional scanner. Thrasher on 360. Hmm. Mostly nasty pilots in local, but one fresh recruit. If he is the Thrasher pilot, then maybe Old Man's Rifter stands a chance. It was him.

Refreshed by an ice cold body in the cargohold, I headed towards newly scouted systems, still eager to kill — and survive. I found a Punisher lurking at a planet, and since he was having trouble with his ammo loading system, I took him down with ease. Lady Luck was smiling to me. I smiled back.

I gave the Punisher pilot a few tricks on how to hack the ammo system by manually overriding the weapon systems grouping computer, as I just had learned myself from my corp mates. We departed on good terms and the hunt for other flying objects continued.

I headed for a pocket. I have good experiences with pockets. You can find a lot of interesting stuff if you stick your hand into a pocket: Fresh recruits with a false feeling of safety. Naive miners thinking this is off limits for flashy red scumbags. Mission runners with no clue that they have left CONCORD protected space. And other lone hunters like myself. You very seldom find blobs of "elite" fighters.

In this very pocket I poked around for a bit and a Dramiel appeared. That usually means I am moving on. But, as I was in a low populated pocket, I could be very certain this Dramiel was piloted by a fresh pilot. He could very well be feeling safe and invincible in his übership of awesomeness. I narrowed him down to a belt, but when I landed I was alone among the asteroids. Strange. Was he at a safe close to the belt, but off the grid? I started scanning the nearest celestials while sitting still at the central warp-in point. I did not have to scan for long. He came to me.

I was wrong: He wasn't feeling safe. He was feeling cocky, that young, spoiled and rich brat. But youngsters tend to be a bit too eager and never have the stamina for keeping it up long enough. And sure enough, 30 seconds later his shiny Dramiel was a pile of junk just like any other exploded frigate. God damn! The Old Man was feeling sexy tonight!

Now, this would have been a great ending of an explosive night out with Old Man’s Rifter. But there was more to come: Lady Shaniqua! In local!

To be continued.