Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
17 February YC 127
After the drama and emotional turmoil of Damsel in Distress mission I wanted a simple fight where the only baseliners’ lives on the line were those of the pirates. Patrolling Okela constellation fitted the bill perfectly. I undocked from Caldari Navy Assembly Plant in Tsuguwa in my Buzzard and scanned the system. There were a couple of pirate bases called Guristas Forlorn Hideaway which I had not seen before.
“Hey, Aura,” I said, “What do we know about those Forlorn Hideaways?”
After a brief research in GalNet Aura replied, “One thing that we know for sure is that those places are not ‘forlorn’. Don’t expect it to be a kind of a relic site which you can plunder at your leisure. All Guristas Hideaways are guarded and the Forlorn variety is particularly bitey. Expect multiple waves of reinforcements containing up to five cruisers each.”
“Ouch. It sounds like Kaukokärki kind of deployment.”
“Yes,” confirmed Aura, “with five cruisers on the grid you will be well-advised to stay out of their range.”
I returned to the station and changed the ship to a sniper-fit Cormorant. When I was back in space I noticed that one of the Hideaways was already taken care of. I warped to the remaining one only to find another enterprising capsuleer there. The guy flew an Astero whose main weapon was a flight of Hornet II drones. When I arrived at the scene the little beasts were taking apart a Pithum Abolisher cruiser while the frigate’s shield was tanking the damage from the pirate ship. While I was watching, the pilot dispatched all the hostiles on the grid triggering a wave of reinforcements. Five cruisers warped in and rushed toward the Astero. I wondered if the frigate needed assistance but it looked like the capsuleer knew what he was doing. Then I noticed a look of adoration on Aura’s face as she gazed at the Astero’s sleek shape, and hurriedly warped back to the station. Asteros were Aura’s idée fixe since I graduated from the Academy. The last thing I needed then was an argument about relative advantages of Asteros over Buzzards.
I moved my pod back to the Buzzard and continued exploring the constellation. Ekura and Jouvulen didn’t have any interesting cosmic signatures but the latter hosted a Guristas Forsaken Hideaway.
“Let me guess,” said I, “it’s not really forsaken.”
“Nope,” confirmed Aura, “but the good news is that it’s not as well-guarded as Forlorn.”
“How not well?”
“Just frigates and destroyers in measured doses, four of each at a time.”
I scratched my head, “Merimetso then?”
Aura nodded. I flew to Tsuguwa to board Merimetso and quickly jumped back to Jouvulen. When I arrived at the Hideaway location I was glad to see that I was the only capsuleer at the scene. Before engaging the guards I took some time to observe the base. Don’t know why they called it a hideaway – there were no habitation modules or hangars which could hide a ship. The only structure I could see was a Listening Post.
“It may not be a fully-fledged base, but in this never-ending war every bit counts,” noted I and attacked the pirate ships.
With a microwarpdrive and a Tech II Kinetic Shield Hardener I was not much concerned about staying out of harm’s way, so I simply went into a 45-km orbit around the Listening Post, and shot at any pirate ship which came within my firing range. Soon, the sordid careers of two Pithi Plunderers and three Pithior Terrorists came to a deserving end. That was not the end of my battle though, as two Dire Pithi Plunderer frigates and two destroyers warped in.
“Those ‘Dire’ things,” I said, “are they equipped with any nasty modules such as target jammers?”
“Not that I know of,” replied Aura.
“Anyway, it won’t hurt to get rid of those frigates first,” I mumbled and targeted the closest one.
As Aura predicted, the Dire Pithis did not have any unpleasant offensive capabilities but, boy, were they hard to kill! While my average salvo damage against pirate destroyers was above 100, the Dire frigates got only 45. While I was struggling to overcome a single frigate, I received unexpected assistance – another Cormorant piloted by a capsuleer named Say Li warped to the grid and, without much ado, started taking apart other pirate ships.
“Woo-hoo!” I cheered exuberantly, “Go get’em!”
“Um,” Aura said cautiously, “I think I know what this guy is after, so you better watch him.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked nonplussed.
“Eve Uni academics say that the last reinforcement wave can sometimes be led by a Dread Guristas Despoiler frigate. Those are typically equipped with superior modules which attract high prices on the market.”
“You mean something like Pithum C-Type Modules?”
“Something like that,” smiled Aura meaningfully.
“Hmm… Thank you for the warning. It won’t be nice if he grabs the booty, given I have invested more time and effort into destroying the pirate fleet. On the other hand, if it comes to that, it will be ‘first come, first served’ situation. At least he doesn’t simply sit on the sidelines and wait for the Dread Guristas frigate to appear.”
When I have finally overpowered Dire Pithi’s defences there was only one other pirate ship remaining. I joined Say Li in his assault on the Guristas ship and together we made a short work of it. Then came a tense moment when we held our breath for the last wave of reinforcements. After a few heartbeats, the overview lit up with a garland of red triangles… none of which carried ‘Dread’ designation.
Aura shrugged her shoulders, “Not this time.”
I exhaled the deoxygenated pod goo and took a deep breath before targeting the first of the newcomers. With two capsuleer Cormorants on the grid, the Guristas scum had no chance of survival. We cleared the area in no time, after which Say Li unhurriedly looted the wrecks of the ships he destroyed and departed into the void without saying a word.
“Um… Thank you,” I mumbled, as I was looting the wrecks of my own doing.
“He can’t hear you,” sniggered Aura.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said snootily, “A polite person stays polite whether he is observed or not.”
“You wouldn’t get objections from Schrödinger and his cat on that count,” Aura remarked drily.
“Definitely not from the cat,” I agreed, “For him it was a life-and-death question.”
We laughed, and I warped Merimetso to Ekura gate.