Crime & Punishment

If you actually know where the system of Adeel is without looking at a star map, you've been in New Eden far too long.

The backwater systems of New Eden can be fascinating places, wherein all manner of mischief is got up to by those who think themselves beyond the reach of the law. If badly fit, defenseless mining vessels are frowned upon in highsec, they certainly shouldn't be allowed to wander unprotected through the empty and dangerous expanse of lowsec. We've all seen that month old player poking about just beyond the borders of high security space in his brand new mining barge, perhaps thinking that some great wealth awaits in the belts of this supposedly "dangerous" space. Perhaps some of you have taken it upon yourselves to extend them a proper welcome in the form of searing bolts of antimatter. After all, it's better the lesson be learned in a 25M ISK barge than in something far more costly at a later date.

Now, Adeel is what you would call a lowsec island, at bottom of Gallente space near the Amarr border, isolated from the nearest lowsec pipeline by an intervening 0.7 security system. One of those places you might expect to be home to a small time pirate operation, the sort that will happily chase you around the system in their cloaky hunter for ages, or engage you with their shiny T3 and then log their logi alt just in time to trade an embarrassing defeat for a cowardly victory. I don't stay in such places for long.

However, when you pop through the stargate and see 5 in local, and D-scan immediately identifies a venture, a retriever, and a Rattlesnake in local space; well it is clear that SOMETHING's going on in this system. I knew it had to be a trap. What other possible explanation could there be? But I was mystified, as the faction battleship being on scan with the miners was an obvious red flag. Why not use a combat recon or a cloaky ganker? A Snake seemed...not the best choice for an ambush. A look at the various pilot's bios yielded a diverse collection of fairly harmless corp names. And setting a trap in such a low traffic, dead end system seemed silly; a bad time investment with other, more heavily traveled systems close by. And a retriever is a vastly inferior choice of bait ship compared to it's brother, the nigh unkillable procurer. My hesitation had eaten up enough time that my Deimos would be clearly visible on their scans, yet they remained unmoved on a 5 degree angle to the nearest asteroid belt.

I was still convinced it had to be some sort of trap, but it was a mystery I had to solve. So I activated my warp drive, and landed at the nearest rock circus about 20 klicks from the venture and retriever who appeared unperturbed and seemed to actually be...mining? I closed within point range and noticed that the retriever had 3, not 5 drones out. And mining drones at that, rather than the standard complement of light combat drones. Neither ship made any changes in alignment as my heavy attack cruiser closed within 10000 meters. And then things got downright strange.

The retriever pilot greeted me in local, with a non-chalant "Evening, officer." I'm not an officer and didn't quite know how to respond. It seemed like something bait would say. But the whole situation just felt too organically newish to be a trap, and I've never been afraid of losing expensive ships due to stupid decisions. So I started shooting. Acolyte IIs burned the venture to a crisp while my neutron blasters melted the scrammed and webbed retriever, and some unfriendly comments appeared in local. What also did happen, much to my surprise, was that the local count remained unchanged, and the retriever did not turn out to be packing such rude surprises as shield extenders or warp disruptors. Both ships exploded quickly and the pods remained in place entirely too long, but I let them go as I prefer not to traverse highsec with active kill rights and they were likely empty anyway. The retriever pilot expressed surprise in local at being fired upon by a positive security player with a Gallente Federation rank of "guardian lieutenant." I guess those FW titles are good for something after all. The local comments disparaging my character continued, but I had other matters to attend; namely, the Rattlesnake that was now on 1 AU D-scan...

Continued -->

Now, I've actually faced off against a Rattlesnake before. I was baiting mission runners in a Stratios and after a few hours of scanning with nothing to show but an MTU kill, I closed in despite the fact that he had a mobile depot deployed. I was desperate for a fight, threw caution to the wind, and found out what pair of 375% bonused heavy drones do to a webbed cruiser.
That ship is a monster, and I knew this one was packing a Gecko; I'd noticed that on my scans earlier. My present Deimos fit repairs, with heat, about 1600 damage every 9 seconds, but a battleship with a huge shield buffer that deploys a thousand DPS Gecko AND can mount a full rack of whatever missiles go on Caldari battleships (my knowledge of missile wizardry is limited) - if he was properly fit there was just no way I'd win that fight.. But he was flying a Snake in lowsec, he was coming to try and defend two clueless (and now shipless) miners, and his ship was named after his character. "**** it" I thought, and gambled that he was a mission runner who took a wrong turn. I warped back to the belt (my initial reaction at seeing that monster on scan was to run for the exit) and prepared to put my hastily concocted plan into action. The dead miners were still spouting nonsense in local, and I began to seriously regret not removing them from the system via the pod express. But now I had a glorious trophy to claim, or my own suicide to arrange.

I was banking that this guy was fit for slaying rats, and perhaps not fully skilled for his fancy coffin. If he had a full rack of missiles with proper training, I was probably doomed. My ship had an afterburner capable of over 900 M/s overheated, and I could use that to mitigate alot of damage, but I was left fervently hoping that the way of the stasis webifier was unknown to my foe. The Gecko had to go though. No matter what I did, even if his drone skills were low, that demon was gonna hurt. And I had a plan to deal with it, a brilliant plan based mostly on luck and more luck.

I landed 50k away from the Snake, hoping that he would lock me up and send his Gecko out to greet me. He obliged, and I treated the Gecko like an enemy ship, which it is. Basically a deployable gank cruiser. I webbed it, scrammed it, and opened up with drones and blasters. The first shot removed my Deimos' shield and chipped into my armor; I activated one of my heated repair mods and kept a steady eye on my capacitor, with boosters on stand-by. I quickly had the monster drone into armor and was running both reps to mitigate the brutal volleys. The Snake pilot had enough sense to recall his drone before it popped; my scram and web were unable to hold it in place. He deployed two integrated Ogres in place of the Gecko as I burned into a tight orbit and locked prop jammers and weapons on his battleship, leaving my Acolytes to chip away at his drones. Integrated drones are really not very good; scant improvement over Tech 1 drones and the thermal damage fairs poorly against the resist profile on a Deimos. They were still hitting hard because well, Rattlesnake, but nothing a cap boosted dual rep setup couldn't manage. He appeared to have missiles equipped but they were doing minimal damage, and no propulsion jamming mods were in evidence. The thing had a mighty shield tank, but I was thoroughly in control of the engagement now and the end, barring the appearance of any interlopers, was inevitable.

Then things got really confused, as the two miners I'd recently blasted returned to aid the do-gooder in the Rattlesnake, in a vexor and a velator. My light drones removed the velator in seconds; the Pend Insurance Company can send me a bill. The Vexor worried me as I wouldn't be able to tank the additional damage if he had any kind of real setup. He didn't. My blasters melted the Vexor inside thirty seconds. His True Sansha medium armor repairer and 100mm armor plates were judged and found wanting. My overview thus uncrowded once again, I returned my focus to the Rattlesnake, which was now minus 2 Ogres and calling me names in local. I offered to ransom him, hoping for a quick payout, fully intending to collect the Snake mail regardless. He claimed to be broke and that if I waited a few hours he could get money from his corp. That wasn't gonna fly, not with his two buddies climbing into new Velators and a nest of filthy alt abusing pirates two jumps over. I reactivated my heavy neutrons and vaporized his ship, leaving the pod to flee to the nearest station. He'd tried to give me a can full of worthless loot as ransom, along with his Gecko which he re-deployed for me to scoop off the wreck. I grabbed the Gecko and the True Sansha repper (from the cruiser), along with a 'Pandemonium' missile damage mod which was unfortunately the most expensive thing that dropped off the battleship. And then I headed for the exit. I tried to impress upon my victims some of the day's lessons, but they were still expressing, in a rude manner, their shock at being betrayed by an upstanding officer of the Federation. A guardian lieutenant with a positive security rating; how could I do such a thing?

One of them asked me to join his corp after calling me a shitbag; I politely declined. He informed me that the Snake pilot had powerful and dangerous corpmates and that I had better watch out as they'd be coming for me. I told him I'd be extra careful.
I realized that the Snake pilot was four MONTHS, rather than four years into the game. I'd misread his history, which explained my hesitance and his tragedy of a fit. I headed for home with a small pot of loot and a free Gecko, having successfully closed down an unregulated mining operation and its security guard, who was found guilty of an atrocious misuse of Guristas technology.

I will be sending the New Order a bill for services rendered. One billion ISK should suffice; I'm not unreasonable.

Killmails will be posted later.

+1 for actually using paragraphs in a wall of text.

Nicely told tale.

A most riveting tale, old chap. +1

Throw this on the pirate stories thread too. God knows that thing needs some activity, and it means future denizens and C&P will see the story.

Enjoyed this tale; good mix of narrative with education and info. Thanks; nearly made me late for work.

+1

tldr is "I killed some noobs and now I'm a hero"?
Well done, good show, clearly deserving of a medal of some kind.

Give me their corp name.
Good read.

Was this perhaps done on an ALT?

He doesnt use alts afaik, nor does he have his api linked.