Just Like Talking to an Angel

“Boss, you've gotta wake up!”

I was receiving strange signals from outer space. But all I could see was a beautiful nebulae. And from it emerged a thousand mining barges. And they were singing with deep voices. “Come with us! You can shoot us all day long! Ravage and pillage our fittings!”

“Boss! Wake up!”

Oh, that beautiful deep humming of mining lasers soon to be shut up and shot down by burning projectiles.

“Boss! Get up now!”

Some ugly bright star appeared from nothing. So bright! Like staring directly into a pair of dual focused lasers.

“Fuck! Get that light out of my eyes!”

“Here, boss, have some synthetic coffee.”

“Where is my bottle!”

I think I said that. That was the intended message. Although it didn't really sound like that.

“I poured it out in the pod goo drain.”

My head was making that structural integrity warning sound. It was ringing in my ears.

“Say what?”

I wanted to kill this person talking to me.

“That was some pristine bubbles from Luminaire, you fuckhead!”

I screamed out the words as I lashed out in the general direction of the light and the ugly voice. I think I lashed out. It sounded more like… No, I was not lashing out against anyone, I was throwing up in the direction of… Well, there are no directions in space. I was in space.

“No, boss, you emptied the last bottle of Luminaire bubbles two weeks ago. You have been drinking the samples of the new product line Saftsuze’s Aftershave with Pro-B Nanite Sexystubs Formula… whitch is basically fifty-fifty alcohol and rocket fuel…”

I got some ugly flashbacks of being utterly sick, undocking in my pod to self destruct just to get a new fresh clone to soak.

“Who are you?”

“It’s me, boss! Blique Cins! Your mechanic!”

I threw up on him.

“By the Amarrian gods, Sins—”

I burped.

“It’s good to see you. Or, at least hear you.”

I squinted. Something was on it’s way up again. I swallowed. And something dawned on me.

“But… didn’t we die?”

“Yes, sir, you did, but I was rearranging inside the container when ship exploded. I hid inside the packed hull repper and managed to slip out just before the guys who looted your ship sent it to the reprocessing plant. I almost ended up as some biological titanium alloy...”

He started laughing.

Fuck me. This guy was laughing. I remembered him puking all over my cargohold before our first expedition. This guy was quality.

“Well, the ship is ready, boss. You wanna undock and selfdestruct again to get you freshened up a bit?”

“What ship? You just told me we exploded!”

“Yes, we did, but I took the liberty to make your second Astero ready for some exploration. I believe she is called Angelita. Remember? You bought her along with Anastasia. I’ve made some custom modifications to her. I think you will like the spa area.”

I think I will.


TLDR OOC: I’ve been away for a while. I am back again.

The Stranded Whale

The most common species to mass strand are pilot whales. Potillot Mumnier, researcher at University of Caille, says until more research is done on the behaviour of pilot whales before and after stranding, these events are likely to remain a mystery. "It is an enigma. This is the word that best describes it," says Mumnier.

Clipping from Journal of Temperate Planet Sealife Research, University of Caille

As I undock from Hulmate station, I have already concluded that the not yet graduated pilot must be somewhere in space, based on the guest registration list in the station. My hunch is, based on this pilot's short history as a capsuleer, that she is in a Venture class mining frigate, trying to grab some jaspet with the false sense of safety this warp core stabilized ship gives inexperienced pilots. Most youngsters don't have enough knowledge about tanking or spaceship physics to actually make good use of their stabilizers, so I often enjoy them as a sort of light snack for my hungry demons. I was expecting such a snack as I undocked.

Huh? No Venture? A Moros? What is a Moros? Is that one of those new specialized haulers? What the hell! It's a dreadnaught? Where is it! Where is it? In a belt? Warp drives active. No. On a gate? Yes! On a hisec gate? Yes! What The Fuck Is Happening Here?

A dread can't jump into hisec. I know that. Hell, can it even use gates? I desperately ask in all my open channels.

I close in, align towards the closest belt, fire a swarm of rockets and warp off as the gate guns start targeting me. I send a blessing to those who managed to hack CONCORD's central memory system so that gates now forget your most recent transgressions. I land among the asteroids, turn my Kestrel around and initiate warp at once. I am shaking. I ready my emergency call in all the pirate channels as I am in warp back to the gate: “Moros tackled on Deninard gate in Hulmate! Need more damage!”. Locked. Scrammed. YES! Scramble your spaceships, fellow pirates! Come to Hulmate!

And vultures start pouring into system. They all want a piece of this stranded whale. At a hisec beach, caught in a lowsec surf. Not able to swim or dive. Slowly dying from the scavengers thousand bites.

And we all wonder why. Why? It is an enigma.

Then we all leave in peace. Our demons have feasted on the carcass of a stranded whale. They will be satisfied for days now.

Footnotes:

1) A look at the official report of the incident reveals that I could have soloed it. I COULD HAVE SOLOED A DREAD IN A T1 FRIG! If none had interrupted and my associates had brought ammo, that is... What a battle report it would've been! But of course it wouldn't have been possible. I did the right thing, calling for help. I did, didn’t I?

2) A possible theory to why this whale stranded could be the following: A young pilot amass huge amounts of ISK. Either through selling PLEX or from a friend. But she does not acquire the same amount of information on ship classes and abilities. She has many many ISKies, and sees a Moros for sale in Hulmate. This is the most expensive ship she can buy and she rush out from the comfort of hisec to get it. But she wants to get it back to hisec as soon as possible and warp to the gate she came from. That is when she realizes it will not jump through. And that is when I undock. With her head buried in the very complex user manual that is hidden in the Moros glove compartment she suddenly realizes there is a tiny little Kestrel buzzing around her outside. Strange, she thinks, why would such a small and cheap ship attack an expensive giant like me? Then she gets a lesson never to be forgotten. But will she learn from it?

The Moustache is Back

Well, I've had a long break due to some worn out hardware in my camera drones. Now they have been replaced with shiny new ones and New Eden is as magnificent as ever!

What is more beautiful than a dead miner?

And I’ve already served several happy customers, so the demand for pirate scumbags like yours truly seems as high as ever.

One honorable mention goes to this Enyo pilot who was rather flabbergasted by the impossible fight he met when he chose to lock horns with my Kestrel:

Thank you for the honourable combat
From: Boloskarl Hekard
Sent: 2013.11.28 16:33
To: Saftsuze 

Sir/Ma'am, 

Per our recent engagement, I cannot help but express my impressions of the encounter that we shared. I have no choice but to tip my hat in admiration at your flying prowess. I was certain that if I could get in range I would destroy you, but you proved otherwise with your range control and rockets.  

I commend you and congratulate you on the latest victory (albeit, at my expense).
Until our next encounter, 

V/R,
Boloskarl Hekard

And my reply:

Re: Thank you for the honourable combat
From: Saftsuze
Sent: 2013.11.28 18:03
To: Boloskarl Hekard 

Dear sir, 

Thank you very much for your honorable response to our encounter. I am deeply sorry for the lack of a good fight greeting in the local communications channel. I have just recently returned to the space lanes after a forced break due to some old hardware in my camera drones. Thus, being rusty, my hands were shaking too much from the threat of the watching Taranis (sick dude!) and the whole situation, that I did not manage to type in the correct commands before your capsule exploded. I was about to write such an evemail as this myself, but got interrupted be communication from my home planet. So, I was very pleased to find this in my inbox as I returned to my quarters. I will now regard you as an honorable space combatant whenever I should happen to see you around. 

If I may be so bold to point out an area of improvement for your Enyo, I would suggest bringing a long range ammunition such as Null S for situations like this. 

As we say in Black Rebel Rifter Club when our Rifters crash and burn: "At least I had Barrage in my hold". 

o7 Saftsuze

Yes, there was actually a Taranis pilot watching us from 137 km. That warped off and left system. Sick!

Well. I am back. And I will be back with more log entries.

Bad Facial Hair Day

"Hell, yeah! That Dramiel douche bag is going down! Sweet sexy super-slicer, I love you!"

Yeah. I was excited. I had managed to catch a Dramiel inside a deadspace complex fighting the Amarr militia. Or most likely, just running from them in a wide orbit. That seems to be the winning strategy among the different militias.

But now, this Dramiel was going down fast.

The micro-warp drive made a terrifying sound. I had not been following it's indicators for a while as I was too busy managing the intricate navigation needed to keep my target within optimal range of my lasers. Now there was no more indicators. A sure sign that the micro-warp drive had burnt out. I sighed as I watched the Dramiel slip out of disruption range and then warp away to safety with shields and armor totally stripped off.

The super-sexy slicer really isn't much worth when it can't get the speed up. I aligned towards the nearest station with repairshop services and initiated warp.

The loss of a Dramiel-kill had clouded my mind.

"Mr. Saftsuze, due to your recent acts of aggression towards a certain pilot of a Dramiel-class frigate, we can not allow you to dock in our station. You know the rules."

"Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

I knew the rules. I knew the rules very well. And I closed my eyes, sent a heartfelt "sorry" to my newly fitted Imperial Navy Slicer, and accepted the next incoming message. I just hoped the security officer on watch was of the dry and bureaucratic kind. I was not in the mood for Mr. Fun Facts.

"And as you also probably know, Mr. Saftsuze, since your security status reading shows a history of a rather excessive use of force against neutral targets, you have also been tagged with a "shoot on sight" order for the next 15 minutes. Or was this news to you? Please ready your capsule for space travel, we have now ordered our sentry guns to relieve you of that ship you have wrapped around you."

He didn’t cut off the sound at once. He probably wanted me to hear the laughter from his entire staff melt in with the sound of my exploding Slicer.

But worst of all, the Dramiel pilot got credit for his meager effort in the official report of the incident.

Yeah. It was one of those days. An Amarr station shot me down for shooting at one of their enemies.

The Three Little Piggies

I studied my face in the mirror. I still had some pod goo in my moustache. I rubbed it in and smiled. What a beautiful feeling this was: Getting out from the pod instead of that terrible clone vat. But the sweetest feeling: Thinking about the three confused capsuleers now waking up in their new clones wondering what the fuck just happened.

It had been a merciless slaughter. An act of pure evil. The three fresh capsuleers, not even graduated from their training institutions, had been peacefully mining in two frigates and a destroyer. Then suddenly their overview had showed a pilot, yours truly, painted blood red by their default HUD settings, landing right next to them.

“Hello, hello, little piggies, will you let me join the party?”

Their horror. I could still remember it from my first visits to the lawless belts of low security space. He has opened fire! What kind of ship is he in? A Firetail-something? Who is this? Why is he all red? Fuck! We are taking heavy damage! All to the battle stations! Fire at will!

“Then I'll huff, and I'll puff, and I'll blow your spaceships up!”

The confusion was total. The inexperienced capsuleers must have been struggling with making the correct neural connections with their ships. None of them managed to do anything right. The tranquility of the isolated asteroid belt was now being ripped apart by burning projectiles and a screaming afterburner. Who is this capsuleer? Why does he do this to us?

I opened my eyes. Happy with what I saw in the mirror. A cold blooded merciless coward. Preying on the weak. The stupid. And the poor. Not the honourable pirate looking for fair fights and duels. I fled those stronger than me. I ran when the odds looked bad. I was a scavenger looking for easy prey and leftover targets.

What just happened? We are in our capsules! What the hell! He is still shooting at us!

I was their baptizer. Their saviour. Their revelation of immortality. I was death. I delivered this mind blowing experience to them all: The ice cold insta-freeze when the body meets empty space. The silence. The confusion. The blackness. And the existential fear. The horror of living through your own death. Waking up with the memories of a frozen corpse.

You may build your spaceships of rolled tungsten bricks. Then I will not come for you. Because I am not the big bad wolf. I am the lonely hyena.

I licked the last drop of pod goo from my moustache and opened up The Devil's Tattoo communications channel from my Neocom.

I'm the hyena with good looks and bad company.

That fresh out-of-the-pod feeling.

This log entry has earlier been published at the collaborative space log known as The Fighter at the Gates of Hell.

Anno Dominix

A while back, I received a message from my associate that I had sent on a scouting mission to a low populated low sec pocket.

“Dominix piloted by a fresh student registered at the EVE University. He seems to be running a mission against the local Serpentis population. Permission to launch probes?"

"Of course you launch probes! I didn't tell you to spend all that time on those astrometric skills for probing down grav sites!"

My associate now had a lot better skills for probing than me. And also better equipment. The Dominix was pinpointed in deep space within two scan cycles - approximately 15 seconds. There was a very good chance this inexperienced battleship pilot had not noticed the probes. I was two jumps out in a Firetail. I would probably need backup. I should be able to keep my ship alive, but breaking his tank might be a challenge.

My cloaked associate sent me into warp from the stargate. I preheated my scrambler and afterburner and readied my overview for fighting drones. I landed 90 km off my target and started burning. 70 km. 50 km. 30. 20. 17 km. Activate targeting system. 14. Target locked and scrammed. I turn down the heat, settle for a tight orbit, activate tracking disruption and start working on the drones with my webifier and guns.

"Dominix tackled. I need help with the tank." The drones didn't hurt me, but tank was not breaking under my meager damage output.

However, there was no response in our corporate communication channels. Everybody was probably busy rebelling against something.

"Anyone?"

My fellow Hothead and later R1FTA-pilot, Tomba, had just plugged in his clone to the channel. "What? Where?"

A few minutes later he was warping in on us in a Thrasher-class destroyer. I was already negotiating terms for a possible ransom, but the battleship pilot was stalling and asking for more time to get the requested 150 million ISK transferred from his brother. Standard procedure would be to kill him as fast as possible because he could be stalling for the sole reason to get his backup rallied. But I accepted the delay for two reasons: First, if he came up with 150 millions in ransom, that would be a new record for me. Second, a newly recruited rebel was also on his way in an Incursus-class frigate, and if my customer failed to show me the money, what better way to welcome a new member than giving his blasters some action?

Sadly for the university student, he could not show me the ISK in time when I offered him the final deadline of 30 seconds. But while we waited, our fresh recruit had arrived the scene and he had brought camera drones with a recording script loaded in his control unit! You can watch the pretty explosion here [Disclaimer: Music might be considered offensive and NSFW].

The fresh rebel prospect sure didn’t apply a lot of damage, but it is the first time I have had such a catch recorded. And the fittings show that my 150 million demand was a quite reasonable one.

All Your Battlecruisers Are Belong To Us

One of my favourite targets when flying frigates, is the battlecruiser class hulls. There are all kinds of tactical challenges to consider when engaging such a beast. And the piloting requires the utmost attention as you will often find yourself attacked by energy neutralizers, hordes of drones or the consistent damage from an extremely well tanked missile boat.

Here are five logged encounters with different battlecruisers:

Hurry up, Hurricane
On a rather boring routine patrol to a dead end system I came across something unusual for this particular system: A Hurricane class vessel was clearing the belts of their local residents. My Firetail managed to eradicate his drones after some very good drone management by the battlecruiser. But when turning my turrets against the hull itself, I met a repair system capable keeping up with my autocannons. So it was a stalemate. Thankfully I had fellow rebels nearby to help finish the job. But what happens? When my helping hands arrive, the battlecruiser’s commanding capsuleer ejects and abandons his crew! After some minor autocannon negotiations with the local belt inhabitants, I park my Firetail in space and eject my own capsule. The crew of the battlecruiser was very happy to pledge allegiance to yours truly, as they had totally lost faith in their former command. Understandable. The Hurricane is now reconfigured for more dirty work and it will be flown as a stolen ship. I guess the crew one day will realize their bad luck, because this hull is destined for death and destruction.

Even You, Brutix?
It seems that capsuleers in dead end systems like to cruise around in battlecruisers looking for battle with local belt inhabitants. This was another case of such behavior. This one, however, thought he was safe as he had chosen an anomaly rather than a belt. The capsuleer quickly contacted me through the local communications channel when I landed my scrambler on his big spaceship: “How did you find me so qickly?!” I explained that this is usual procedures in my line of work while I worked my way through his armor. He also made me an offer I definitely could refuse, before he proceeded to eject from his ship to save his capsule. So far, my quite good battlecruiser skills have been used mostly to board and dock battlecruisers that have been left for me in space.

A Sugar Cane
Oh, this was a sweet one. The pilot looked decent enough, but I was feeling sexy and wanted to test my firetail under medium neutralizers. I sure did get one hell of a test. The complexities of managing capacitor, scrambler, webifier, repair system and and killing drones that get launched and withdrawn all the time - well, that is a very intense experience! But once the drones were gone, the tracking disruptor did an excellent job of keeping my Firetail safe from the medium sized guns. However, it was a decent chance that it would get away if my capacitor was bleeding too much under his neutralizers. It was a game of capacitor management. My nosferatu and I, we won it. Then a few minutes later I tried again on another Hurricane-pilot and lost.

Hurricane Downgraded to Light Breeze
There is something about battlecruisers. They seem to be the most tempting ship for freshly graduated capsuleers. Battle. Cruisers. They sure sound scary. But, when flying a big ship, you need certain skills to do so effectively. And that is an important factor to evaluate when choosing battlecruisers for targets. This pilot stood out as an obvious target – and sure enough, it hardly fought back. Oh, it tried, but couldn’t land a solid hit. So I took it down with ease. In my Rifter. That is a lesson I have given many green pilots. An expensive lesson, but it should be good value for their ISK lost.

To Drake Even
The Drake. It is a beast for a single frigate. You seldom find your capacitor neutralized, but there are two major problems: It will do damage to you. And it has a tank that needs some serious damage – and time – to break. So there is no doubt you’re gonna need an active tank to hold out for a while and decent damage dealing capabilities. The tracking disruptor installed on Firetail-class frigate did not become very useful in this fight (allthough engineers and scientists are apparently working on making it useful against missiles as well). The nosferatu and the armour repairer, however, did their job: Buy time. And after the drones was taken care of, the Drakes shields very slowly withered away. My pulsed repairer managed to keep up with the damage from the heavy missiles. And the nosferatu kept feeding my capacitor with just enough energy for my scrambler the pulsed repair system. Once the Drake’s structure began to crumble, the commanding capsuleer agreed on paying me 66 millions in ISK to avoid a rather embarresing loss. I decided that was a good enough offer and let the burning beast warp away.

Two kills. Two free ships. One ransom. This is why I love battlecruisers.

Overheat Scram, Receive Bacon

The Rifter makes a hard break at the safe spot. The directional scanner have just given an intriguing analysis of the central cluster of belts. A Retriever class mining barge! Outside the range of CONCORDS cold hands. I have a hunch this one is not carelessly parked within a force field either, since the vessel is named after a rather recently graduated capsuleer - easily identified in the local communications channel. I do what i do and narrow him down to a single belt. In warp my brain starts wandering and I think of all the events since I returned from unconsciousness.

It started off with an episode quite like the one I was in right now. A Hulk made its appearance on my directional scanner and my greedy pirate soul started counting ISK. Sadly, the Rifter I was in was was fit for surprise and lacked the lethal damage output. Not the best thing to tackle a rather well tanked industrial with drone support. But I smelled a possible ransom and warped in on him. That netted me 70 000 000 ISK. Not as much I’d liked, but it was Christmas time and time to show Santasuze I can be nice too! And I did have some trouble breaking his tank, actually, so 70 000 000 ISK and no kill was a lot better than just no kill.

I’m still in warp. Should I ransom the Retriever? No. But lets ransom his pod!

Speaking of pods. I have cursed myself for not remembering to ransom scrammed capsules. There are a lot more expensive implants flying around than I thought. But, ransoming a pod isn’t always easy. A few days ago I had this “conversation” with a gentleman:

Saftsuze > How much would you offer for keeping your pod?
Ithan Evingod > Your rifter and any other ship I ever see you in again.
Saftsuze > I am not sure I understand, Mr. Evindog?
Saftsuze > You don't want to pay me some ISK for staying alive?
Saftsuze > Will I have to collect your frozen corpse instead?
Saftsuze > Conversation takes place when both parties actually says something....
Saftsuze > I guess your cold shoulder hints that you want to offer your frozen corpse for my collection.
Saftsuze > I thank you for your donation to the freezer, Mr. Evindog.

I’m landing in the belt. Retriever is happily mining. I am charging.

Even this easy target gets my blood pumping and gives me a slight taste of that delicious adrenaline rushing through my clone. But not as much as when you are fighting several enemies. A while back, on my way towards Eifer and the hunting grounds of Executive Pirate Extraordinaire, Mr. Kane Rizzell, I found three little Rifters playing outside a station. I figured that this could be a fun little tease. To my surprise they where all just 150 km or so away from the station, probably making insta-undock-bookmarks or something like that. That meant i could easily drag them out from the sentry guns protective area. And so I did, and they all lined up like lambs to the slaughter. Of course I did one of my usual stupid mistakes and podded one of them just inside of the station guns range. Just when I was looking this sexy I go ahead and explode myself. Silly me. But I shrugged it off, picked up another Rifter and went on and shot down the aforementioned Mr. Kane Rizzel. Feeling sexy again! He was kind enough to mention this very close Rifter fight in his excellent log of pirating. I could have sworn I was warping out my pod, instead it turned out to be my Rifter - or more correct: 10 percent of my Rifter.

Speaking of feeling sexy. I've had a very exciting mail arrive in my inbox! I am getting used to the compliments on my very handsome moustache - I mean, that is to be expected - but they are mostly from men. Funny, that in such a homophobic universe, where “gay” and “faggot” seems to be the most prominent term of abuse, I do get a lot of compliments from other men on my looks. But, I digress: A few weeks back I got an eve-mail sent to me and my CEO, Mr. Bull, that took me by surprise: It was fan mail! From girls in bikinis! Well, it might very well be male capsuleers dressed in bikinis, considering the observation above. But, I don’t really care for sexual orientation or cross dressing preferances: As long as I have actually inspired someone out there to live the only true life of freedom, then I am one happy outlaw solo pilot. So, please go visit those bikini girls and encourage their lifestyle - regardless of your prejudice about cross dressing - hey, they might even be real girls! I have recently been notified about the existence of TWO female Rebels that is not to be considered cross dressing male capsuleers. TWO real girl rebels!

Now, focus! I'm shooting down a mining barge! I guess I got a bit distracted by all this retrospective analysis, because the pod gets away! Damn, I was gonna ransom that pod! While picking up the loot I notice a jettisoned cargo container. A quick peek reveals ore for about 4 million ISK on the current regional market. This guy will come back. He does. Sadly, not in a hauler, but I got the pod and it was released for a very reasonable ransom.

I haul my loot to my safe spot and kick back to wait out the criminal countdown. I'm checking the Rebels communications channel for news, when I hear a strange noise. I think the directional scanner actually made a gasping sound as it revealed the latest result of a 360 degree full range scan: A battlecruiser of the Hurricane class, named after the pilot I had just released from my warp scrambler! A miner hellbent on revenge! My Rifter is already in warp and I preheat my scram, I want to make sure I catch this ‘cane. And so I do. But there is one thing I don’t do: Turn off the overheating of my scrambler. Doing lots of stupid stuff myself, I can easily confirm that the following strategy works: Always bet on stupid! So I play it cool with the no longer scrambled Hurricane:

MetallStill Beddelver > I want to save my hurricane.
Saftsuze > That is gonna be slightly more expensive.
Saftsuze > How much do you have to offer?
MetallStill Beddelver > 11 kk?
Saftsuze > 11 mill?
MetallStill Beddelver > Yes.
Saftsuze > OK, same procedure as last time.

If you don’t have a scram, just remember you can always scam!

They said: “You can’t fly solo”

Lately, my roaming grounds have been deserted - or blobbed. And I have managed to do, is getting podded and loose a whole lot of Rifters - with no good fights to justify the losses at all. It’s when these kind of periods comes along you start believing the propaganda that says New Eden has no place for the lone hunter. You become impatient and move restlessly with no rhythm or confidence.

Last night I managed to break out of that cycle, as I decided to not skip the dead end low sec pocket I was about to just skip - because I had not seen anything in there the last ten visits or so. So I dropped in, and I got a warm fuzzy welcome in local! Miners chatting merrily about drones!

A bit later, after having dropped off the loot for collection by my fence, I went back to the same system. Miner 1, from my last adventure, was still in system, but now in a Brutix. I was about to call it a day, but I thought that a nice little scare would be a good ending for the day. Nothing boosts morale like scaring a battlecruiser off grid with your flashy red frigate. I found him killing my allies, the Serpentis, at an anomaly. I warped in at 100 km, after all, my plan was just to say BOO!! and make him have to get some new underwear. But he was not scared.

Now, if you read my last log entry, you will see the following statement by this very Brutix pilot:

Miner 1 > I always keep my Hammerhead II just to keep the rats at bay

So you can guess my excitement when I saw a flight of five Hammerhed Is fighting the Serpentis! Time to live up to being the founder of Overheated Hotheads! With the afterburner overheated, and the scram pre-activated and pre-heated I made quick progress towards the target. When I got him locked down, my HUD showed that my allies had shredded his shield, and that he was armor-tanking the Serpentis. His tank was about to be broken.

I guess he quickly understood this was about more than his underwear, and I can imagine him screaming in some corporate communications channel: Forget about new underwear!! Come save my ass!

His help arrived: A corp mate in a Tristan. I was already in the mental state of The Brutix WILL Go Down Even If I Am Gonna Die. YEAH, BABY!

As stated earlier: Scaring big ships makes me feel really confident.

The Brutix exploded, but the newly arrived Tristan quickly made some gaping holes in my armor plates. My guns where already heavily damaged by the overheating, and my only hope was my energy sucking nosferatu and my armor repairer. Structure was becoming, well, a bit unstructured, but the repairer kept giving me that very small buffer again and again.

My guns were already around 80 percent damaged, but they would have to take some more heat as my structure now was critical and the Tristan still had quite a lot of its hull integrity left. My guns glowed in the darkness, spewed out projectiles and the Tristan soon turned into a ball of fire.

I arrived at my safe with 39 percent left of my hull. My guns had 89 percent damage and my nosferatu 94 percent heat damage. My Rifter was SMOKING HOT AND SEXY! LICK MY MOUSTACHE, BABY!

So, you say you can’t fly solo? If you wanna experience this kind of excitement: Join Overheated Hotheads and you will. Dip into The Overheated Hot Tub for a taste of the exciting life as a Hothead!