Day 6.5: The game's afoot
“There's a design at work in all art - surely you know that? Events must play themselves out to aesthetic, moral and logical conclusion. It never varies - we aim at the point where everyone who is marked for death dies. Generally speaking, things have gone about as far as they can possibly go when things have got about as bad as they reasonably get”
- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
After my abysmal showing of the previous two attempts, you'd think I might have got things together. Sadly it was not the case. At the time I didn't know what exactly was happening. In retrospect I still haven't worked it all out.
I saw the probes on d-scan. I saw them disappear. I don't recall seeing anything warping in. Then, I guess, my finger must have brushed the activate button and I went through the wormhole. Cursing my clumsiness I was just wondering whether to wait a bit or go back when I realised I was not alone. There was a Magnate sat on the hole.
I immediately activated all my modules but my targetting attempt failed. I tried again, just barely noticing the message mid-screen. Something about about not being able to target due to a cloak. It didn't make any sense to me, as I could clearly see the Magnate. I hit approach and tried again. Then it started to lock. I immediately activated my disrupter, scram, web and guns. Then I launched my drones and sent them into the fray. It didn't take long (46 seconds from first lock). The Magnate didn't do anything to fight back - I'm not sure it even moved.
I heard, rather than saw, the pod go back out of the wormhole and this woke me up to what I needed to do next. Quickly I looted the wreck noting the 4M ISK tech 2 cloak, warp core stabilizer and the Hornet ECM drones. It had obviously all been as much of a surprise to my adversary as it had been to me. Heading back through the wormhole (still shaking) I called up a private conversation and messaged her to say gf. To my surprise she messaged a gf back, and said she was "new to this kind of thing". I offered to contract her back the loot, and she thanked me.
I made my way back to Jita, put up the contract and then looked for the killmark. It's a tiny thing. The sharp-eyed may already have noticed it on the image above. It's the miniscule white triangle at the top left of the fin. I also looked at the killmail. My victim was older than I had expected at five months, so I was glad that I only gave back the loot and hadn't dipped into my reimbursement funds. The contract cost me 10k. I really need to find a way of making some ISK!
It was only after I logged off (yes I really am that slow) that it hit me. My oponent had not been cloaked. I had. My targetting attempt had failed because I was still jump-cloaked. It succeeded the moment I hit hit aproach and decloaked. A quick check of the log files confirmed this. It does make me wonder when exactly she jumped through as she was uncloaked before I was. I'm not sure if I lagged out briefly and failed to see her, or just missed her in the excitement. I'm pretty certain she was going in as there was no site loot in the wreck. It has to go down as one of the most inept pieces of piracy in EVE history, but I had my first killmark, and I was still shaking. Just a tiny bit.
In the light of all this, and in true Elite style, I am happy to update my combat status to Mostly Harmless. [Although in Elite you'd actually need eight kills for that!]
Mark I Compact Capacitor Power Relay
J5 Enduring Warp Disruptor
J5b Enduring Warp Scrambler
X5 Enduring Stasis Webifier
Alumel-Wired Enduring Sensor Booster
1MN Y-S8 Compact Afterburner
Limited Light Ion Blaster I
Limited Light Ion Blaster I
Core Probe Launcher I
Small Targeting System Subcontroller I
Hobgoblin I x3
Scan Resolution Script x1
Core Scanner Probe I x8
Antimatter Charge S x596
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