June 3rd 2008.
I had made my money mostly by mining, but had started running level 4 missions in battleships with Aitu and Hiljah. Level four missions are the hardest missions you can do in highsec. Highsec is the area of the galaxy where police come to (attempt to) save you if another player tries to kill you, and battleships are the biggest ships you can have in highsec. Zhubin had just learned to fly his battleship and tested his artillery cannons in one of these missions.
I was bored from making piles of cash, and dreams of shooting actual players danced in my head, so I started making short ventures into lowsec. I first learned about lowsec when my corporation's CEO invited me to run a mission there. She lost her battleship during that mission to players that knew her by name.
Now that I had 3 battleships, I decided I would try to kill someone. Aitu would act as bait, Zhubin and Hiljah would wait cloaked.
I jumped everyone into Vitrauze late one night. Aitu warped directly to an asteroid belt. Hiljah and Zhubin warped to within 100 kilometers of him. A 100km was close to their maximum range, but I wanted to be able to run if things went bad. They cloaked and I waited. I had been worried no one would take this fight. I knew from past experience that people did roam through these systems, and some of them could find me here, but would they want to fight me?
The local chat room would let me know if anyone new jumped into the system. If there were too many people, I planned to cloak everyone and wait them out.
I didn't wait long. A ship warps right next to Aitu. We target each other, tie each other down so neither of us can escape. Combat drones are out, guns are pounding. Both our shields are gone, our armor repairers are keeping us alive, but I don't think mine will hold. I decloak Hiljah and Zhubin. I try to target but nothing happens. The decloak delays targeting by 30 seconds, something I had forgotten. I'm panicking but there's nothing I can do. It's hard to tell but my armor seems to be slipping lower and lower after every repair cycle and his is fine.
An eternity later the 30 seconds is up, and I start the target lock. More waiting. The lock finally completes. The cannons roar and cruise missiles launch. The other ship's armor starts to fall. Aitu is in trouble though. His armor repairer hasn't been keeping up with the incoming damage, and chunks of his ship's hull are being destroyed. The race is over fast and a Deimos becomes a wreck.
It worked, I won, but now what? Loot, in missions you check the wreck for loot and then salvage. I take the modules that weren't destroyed from the wreck. The wreck is "advanced", I must salvage it, who knows what treasure it could hold. I did not bring a salvager, could I go and buy one quickly? I search the market. Do I have the skill for an "advanced" wreck? I search the internet.
My research is cut short. A ship has joined me. It is above and behind me, looming. A picture of terror. I have flown Dominix battleships before, this was different. This was a Navy Dominix with large blasters and heavy combat drones. Hiljah and Zhubin were still cloaked. Do I decloak and come to the rescue? Aitu's armor is vanishing, this will be over before the others are even able to target. I get ready to warp Aitu away from this, as I do my first Megathron explodes. Aitu warps away in his escape pod before anyone can stop him.
I watch my attacker from behind my cloak. Another ship joins him, a heavy interdiction cruiser. It is a ship designed to catch other ships. This ship begins to dart around the battlefield, faster than I had thought possible. If I had decloaked, this ship would've caught me. The ship is darting around because if it bumped into my cloaked ships I would be decloaked and caught. I watch how close they get and wait. They give up without getting close enough to scare me. I'm able to retreat back to highsec space.
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