Nerdalus

You may know him. When he was in Darkside Inc, he was one of their more active members causing us grief, which we did our best to avoid or annoy. We mostly succeeded. It seems that when the war was over and Darkside lost so much, Nerdalus left them and joined another corp.

I encountered him last week, and we fought. His Cyclone against my Celestis. It was almost close for a while, with my sensor dampeners blocking his attempts to get a lock on me, and my drones chewing into his shields and then his armour. But eventually, he won.

His EW drones twice managed to get me to drop my lock, and the second time it happened, he was able to get in close with his 3 x Medium NOS, and my cap disappeared faster than I could say, "What the....." His 425mm Medium Carbines did the rest.

I managed to get my pod away though, and from a safe spot I bowed to him for a good fight. He seemed like a decent combatant, and we agreed to meet again, with him in a cruiser the next time.

I was surprised that a pirate would offer more even odds in a future engagement, but based on his response to a couple of other recent engagements between him and some of my corp members, I feel that there's more to Nerdalus than the smacktalking facade he was guilty of in the past.

Respect.

I learnt some good lessons from the combat, however. For a start, when engaged by drones that don't seem to be doing any damage to me, start worrying. I didn't actually realise their significance until it was too late. Next time I encounter such an event, I'll try to take out the enemy drones with my weapons, while leaving my own drones to take out the enemy ship. That was my mistake in the battle with Nerdalus.

We live and learn.