What I am about to tell you happened yesterday. Some of it I was there for and some of it I wasn't. All I know is what I was told, what I experienced and what we talked about in chat. Anything I get wrong will surely be corrected for me in the comments.
I logged on determined to get a kill with my shiny new Asteros Frigate. I had tweaked the fit once again and undocked with grim determination. Close call after close call slipped thru my fingers. The mere sight of me in my wittle un-tested white ship enough to cause most people to flee, cloak or otherwise vacate local. Having made a rather long loop I decided to head back to Hev and switch out for something else. That's when I saw the Catalyst and Navitas on scan.
This is one of those moments. That combination of ships, in the right hands, can be rather challenging. Those two ships in the wrong hands, could be an opportunity. Most likely this would fall somewhere in the middle. So I didn't hesitate as I turned into them. I landed perfectly, my approach was cloaked so I think I took them by surprise. The Catalyst was closer, so I went for him first. I locked them both up, I might need my web or my extra scram for one of them.
My Asteros rocked. The fight was close, my armor dipped dangerously low and my hands hovered over the recall button for my drones, but she held together as the Catalyst exploded. The Navitas warped off to safety before I could get my points on him.
During this MIxu had been telling us about his adventures earlier ganking a couple of miners. It all started when he and Gwen ganked a Low-Sec Retriever with expensive mining upgrades that dropped. Which is good. What isn't as good is taking those Mining Upgrades into Hi-Sec when you are still under GCC. Then Joffy and Akirra had a race to see who could pick up his wreck faster, a race I hear Joffy won. Then they all decided, why not have a hi-sec gank now? So Akirra scouts down a Mackinaw and as they warp in Joffy locks Akirra and ends up exploding her ship, then still manages to get top damage on the Mackinaw! Lolz. I don't think Akirra is going to let him forget that any time soon.
I forgot to mention that Mixu had managed to actually kill someone with his Sentry Tristan earlier. He and Gwen jumped a gang of five Stealth Bombers and he managed to grab one of them.
It wasn't all gravy. I had jumped into a Comet for a quick impromptu roam up to Black Rise and once again many close calls and near misses later I found myself sitting on a Gate with two Rooks, of all things. Mixu was scouting the other side and reported a large gang. I meant to warp off the gate, but instead jumped thru. Derp. Yeah I lost the ship and the pod.
So I was stuck spinning in station for awhile, while Akirra was nice enough to fetch me some new head candy. Well, only after she started an International Incident by exploding a Blue that is!
You see, we don't have blues. But do to a mix-up one of our former members, who is planning on returning shortly, was set light blue. As a proper Pirate, this didn't sit well with Akirra and in the confusion that was happening at the time, she managed to explode Natasha's Condor for her. We managed to get the entire thing worked out to everyone's satisfaction, of course. But it was yet another weird incident.
I decided to go try and have some more luck with the Asteros, for some reason flying the wittle white ship around in space is a lot of fun! I hooked up with two SF pilots I hadn't had the chance to fly with before, and we finally managed to lock up a Tusker Comet in Muet. Julius is a good pilot who often came into Hev looking for Frig fights, I was sorry to see he decided to join the dark side, but more power to him. (This is just an observational statement and no slight is intended on our friends in the other station.) On the way back to Hev I found an Incursus and solo'd him in the Asteros.
Then I noticed a Brutix on scan at the other station. By this time even more Stay Frostians had appeared in local, and we decided to ad hoc a small gang together to see if we could get a fight going. ( You can read another account of this fight on Astral's excellent blog HERE.)
Astral went in to get aggro and while the Brutix docked up in half-armor, Julius' Vexor wasn't as lucky. We all played games for a short while after that, but eventually things wound down and no one else got kilt.
I forgot to mention that Stan became our Hero of the Day when he solo'd our best Anonymous commenter earlier. This would have been better had he not subsequently lost two ships to him later on. Oh well.
I'll also mention that Ezra received his Stay Frosty t-shirt in the mail yesterday, the only one to come out of the Zazzle/CCP Ban Hammer incident. He also managed to get one of those awesome Low Sec Roamer's Map posters.
So I undocked the wittle white Asteros for one last jaunt before logging off for the day. I jumped into Jov and instantly spotted the Megathron on scan. We quickly assembled a gang in the other system and Akirra was nice enough to burn back to provide probes. We finally got him locked down inside his Mission and I warped in, to first one gate, then another and then yet another. By the time my wittle ship arrived he had run off to station. I was too slow. :(
By then local started to get busy again and it looked like we might have missed our chance. But if there is one thing I've learned about Mission runners over the years it is that their play-time is just as borked as ours is. He stayed logged on, so I stayed patient. This time I warped cloaked to the in-gate and sat. I had Akirra sit off the station cloaked, so she could see when he undocked and give me time to de-cloak before he landed.
Sure enough, once local calmed down again, he did just that. Once he was in warp, I de-cloaked and waited for him to land.
Sometimes you can be so focused on your plans that you forget other people have plans too. As soon as I got both scrams on the Mega and started to put the web on his drones, a Pilgrim de-cloaks and also starts shooting me, and neuting me, and generally adding his own drones to the fight. So it is my wittle white Asteros holding down a Mega and getting nueted to Hell by a Pilgrim. Everyone else is jumping and warping to help, but my wittle ship is taking some heat.
But I held him long enough for other points to arrive and managed to get out safely with about 25% armor left. In all the confusion I'm not sure what happened to the Pilgrim tbh, he sorta of disappeared at some point. But the Mega was surely caught. I went to re-ship into something bigger,I decided on a Tempest. But the Mega died before I got there.
For me the day was finally over, but for Stay Frosty and our pilots the day never truly ends. I wake up every morning and look at the killboard wondering at the stories each kill and each death represent. It would be impossible to know them all, to re-tell each victory and each defeat. But I know that every single line represents its own unique story. A challenge faced, an enemy defeated, a personal accomplishment, or a valuable lesson learned. It is one of the truly great things that come from being fortunate enough to have such a great group of pilots around you.
And a truly unique and amazing day, like the one yesterday, can only serve to remind me of why I do it.
Now, let's see what today brings.