Random encounters

So I was hanging out in my local system, looking at the new gate designs, and cruising around the planets and belts trying to find someone. Rocket Ajax, another local to the area, seemed to be doing the same thing. Like me, he was glowing yellow as he warped his Rupture into orbit around the planet I was also orbiting. I started to move towards him at my normal 204 m/s, thinking about the situation instead of using my MWD to quickly engage.

He wasn't approaching me, and he wasn't warping out, so he was waiting for me to close and engage. There were quite a few in local, and so I decided to err on the side of caution and warped out.

However, during the warp travel, I was thinking... I'd be willing to engage him even if he had friends warp in, IF I could at least kill him in the time it took for them to kill me. I had ECM drones on my heavily armed Thorax cruiser, and I figured that I really need to test them out properly, and I was willing to lose my ship for the test.

So be it!

I warped back to the planet at 0km, and landed 3 km from him. I quickly targeted him and my already-primed weapons and tackling modules launched into action. I wondered how the new system changes would affect my tactics, but what the heck... I hadn't upgraded my blasters to railguns for the longer range, but I was willing to try out the setup anyway.

So my T2 medium blasters opened up on him, and his shields disintegrated quickly. At the same time as I'd launched my attack against him, I also launched my ECM drones and set them upon the Rupture. I cursed, as it looked like one of the drones was stuck in the drone bay, refusing to come out. Well, I guess 4 of them would be enough.

Rocket Ajax's Rupture returned fire, and in the time it took for the drones to jam his target lock, my own shields were down and he was striking chunks off my armour. When he lost his lock, I thought that I might actually win this one, as I was also chewing into his armour, and was able to continue doing so while he wasn't.

But suddenly a couple of his flashy red friends arrived. An Ishtar (Heavy Assault Ship) and a Rapier (Recon Ship) warped in at the same time at about 10km from the Rupture and I.

Now, if it were another couple of cruisers or even frigates, I would have stayed and fought, fully prepared to die but thinking I could at least take out the Rupture. But in this case, I knew that I would surely die too fast for me to effectively destroy the Rupture.

I don't believe in fighting a losing battle, and it's always better to flee and fight again later, than to foolishly die in a blinding explosion.

So I fled, leaving the drones behind. They had served me well, but there was no time to retrieve them.

To my absolute surprise, I managed to realign and warp out before either of the newcomers could get a target lock on me. My armour was at about 85%, while the Rupture's was around the same. As I reached warp speed, I let out a great sigh of relief at escaping this trap.

In local comms I said, "Nice." An expression of my relief.

Ulfskein Gangr, the Rapier pilot, was curious about my statement, so I explained what I meant. We exchanged pleasantries, and then moved on. A few minutes later however, I opened up a private comm with him. In my desire to write about the encounter, I couldn't remember the types of ships that had warped in to spring the trap. All the excitement, I guess. So I asked Ulfskein for his assistance in helping me remember.

He was a kind enough fellow, and decided to tell me his story.

It turned out he wasn't associated with Rocket Ajax or the other pilot at all. He had just warped in at the exact same time as the other pilot, quite by coincidence, and then watched as I warped out. Very shortly after I left, so did the other 2.

I guess everyone runs from a Force Recon, which is why I'm so excited about getting my own for Christmas.

Random encounters. Such interesting phenomenons. It would have been funny if the Ishtar pilot also was not aligned with Rocket Ajax, and Rocket was just by himself, hoping for a fight - when suddenly all these other ships arrived!

He might have thought I brought MY friends!

Who knows. All I know is I was happy to have survived an encounter I wouldn't have won if I'd stayed, and that in a one-on-one fight with a Rupture, I've got a good chance of winning.

Next time.