On Holiday in Vale of the Silent p1

31st of Dec..

Got bored of Hi-sec empire space, and had some spare cash lying around. I don't typically like changing out my ship fits, I prefer just buying another ship and doing a second fit.

That being said, I had one drake fitted out with a HAM PVP setup in my hanger, and didn't want to break it. So, I bought another drake, and fitted it up with Heavy missiles and a PVE tank fit (with a cloak). Now I am a PVP'er at heart, but I've found that Caldari ships fail at solo PVP vs other race equivelant classes ... (exception being the MOA). So I decided I was going to brave null space and do some anomaly ratting there.

0930 Eve time, I set off with my scout, and moved towards P3en-E, my end destination being somewhere in Geminate, near 7-K5. I chose this route primarily because I had spent an exhaustive amount of time doing bookmarks for safes and gate scanning points all the way from P3en to BWF. This mitigated the risks I took for traveling in system, with the only weak point being that as I jumped from system to system, I couldn't see what lay on the other side. Hence, the scout.

Okay.. so back to P3en.. my scout jumps in, finds 2 warp bubbles up but no one manning them. Several Majesta Empire in local. He signals for Ael Kronos to jump, and proceeds to the planet nearest the IPAY gate. Ael jumps in, and immediately warps to a scan spot near the IPAY g8. The onboard computer identifies several warp bubbles, but no one manning them. The Scout jumps through, and warps to Eidi. As he warps, Ael jumps in system, and immediately warps into his scan bm for Eidi aswell. At this point, several local ME's jump into the system. Alarms have been raised.

The scout hits the gate, and jumps through.. 1 in local in EIDI and none on the g8. He warps to a planet to get a safe, and during that time Ael warps to the Eidi gate, and jumps through also. Unlucky for Ael, a dramiel lands on the gate just at that instant. Flight or Fight? Ael had to make the decision quickly, for he knew the locals in the last system were being alerted to his presence. Fight it is... he immediately uncloaked from the gate, and aligned to his next destination, knowing the dramiel was going to point him. And so it did. His only hope was to do enough damage to it so it would disengage prior to any other locals arriving. He engaged the dramiel with his heavy missiles, knowing full well they wouldn't do very much damage.

For a few tense seconds, it seemed things might actually go his way. The dramiel started taking damage to his shields, and Ael's shields were barely scratched of course. Then local started filling. Next to arrive was a hurricane, and that became Ael's primary. Then a couple more smaller ships arrived, then Ael watched, horrified, as a Tengu warped in. Choosing tactical retreat over certain death, Ael pulled in his drones, de-agressed the hurri, and hit his afterburner for the IPAY gate. Shields down to 80%.. 70%... 60%... COME ON GATE, let me jump! "You have been denied access to the stargate for your recent acts of aggression."

50% shields... Ael notices the Tengu has de-agressed himself, and moved into jumprange. 40% shields.... SUCCESS! The gate accepts his jump request..