What lies in the depths

Kor-Azor Region

Ami Solar System

Jatari Constellation
Ami Solar System (0.4)
14:49 EVE Time (Local System)

The gate flashed once in depths of space, bright and sudden. All was still for a few seconds before a mining barge decloaked, appearing almost wary in the strong light of the nearby star.


The pilot inside breathed a sigh of relief at the empty scene played through his camera drones, a blind jump into LowSec in an unarmed Mining Barge was a risky move, capsuleer or not, but he had timed it well. The locals were around halfway through their normal sleep cycle, and he estimated he had a few hours before system activity would rise and become dangerous again. But those few hours would make him rich if he could mine the rare ores that only could be found in LowSec systems.

With a short pulse of the engines, the Retriever Class Barge was aligned to an asteroid belt just outside of D-Scan range of the gates. The young pilot reasoned this was a smart move, less dedicated pirates would assume the system was empty from their scan results and move on, while the more dedicated pirates would have to move deeper in system to detect him, time he could leverage to reach the safety of a station before they even narrowed down his location. With a sudden acceleration, the barge dropped into warp, and disappeared from the space surrounding the gate. Nobody had seen him.

Or so he thought.

Scrub detected on D-Scan

A short time later, the barge pilot was ecstatic. He was positively surrounded by high-grade ores. He had only a few short hours, but they would be profitable hours and he looked forward to his work. Setting the scanners to ping for active ships every five seconds, he switched his attention to the mining lasers, experienced eyes easily picking out the low impurity rocks. The two major tasks done, he pulled the barge about a few degrees, the nose pointing slightly in the direction of his closest station, just incase the worst happened and he had to bolt quickly. Preventative measures established, he felt almost comfortable as he contemplated the slowly spinning rocks outside, outlined brilliantly by the local star. "LowSec is dangerous for sure, but nowhere near as much as some make it out to be" he thought. "Take sensible measures and you're guaranteed a certain level of security and saf-"

Imagine the "Jaws" tune here

Collision alarms blared throughout the bridge as the ship lurched sideways, throwing the young pilot to the deck as the automated anti-gravity systems aboard the ship attempted to prevent a catastrophic collision with something outside. Scrambling to his feet, the capsuleer swung his camera drones out in a spiral, trying to find what had almost crushed his brand new ship like a tin can, expecting a large asteroid to have rolled past a little too close for comfort.

Instead he saw something far more terrifying.

A golden Amarrian cruiser, highlighted with blood red streaks flowing down its flanks was burning past barely two kilometres away from his hull. As he watched, mouth agape, his ship's systems chimed a lock-on warning, and his sensors bleeped a positive identification on the ship outside, a Pilgrim Class Recon Cruiser. Time slowed down, his capsuleer enhanced brain allowing him to work quickly through his options.

"Fantastic" he thought furiously, "I don't even know what this thing does". Instinct, however, took over. Despite the disturbing ease with which the cruiser had snuck up on him, he still had a chance to escape. Quick as a lightning, he ordered an emergency warp from the ship's engines through his implants, barely noticing the worried chirps of his mining drones as they picked up the emergency warp broadcast and sped back home. Mining drones or not, he was leaving. They were hardly worth anything and he was already aligned out to safety. He waited hopefully for that sudden tug as his ship fell into warp, but nothing happened.

He suddenly realised, with a deep horrifying clarity that his ship's attempts at preventing collision to save him, had also doomed him. Pushed out of alignment, the Recon Cruiser outside had forced his ship into a checkmate. Panic seeped through his veins, for once in his life unsure of what to do, but it was already far too late. With a barely tangible "thwump", he felt the Pilgrim activate its warp scrambler, followed shortly after by two lancing beams of energy across his hull. Expecting his ship to be vaporised by lasers, he was surprised when he saw his shield readouts still at maximum capacity.

Scrambler in range annnnnd... surprise!

Feeling slightly more confident now, he realised he might have a chance to survive long enough for his corpmates to come to his rescue. Drones spewed forth from the Pilgrim's frontal drone bay, weapons glinting dangerously as they orbited his stricken ship. In response he activated his shield booster before turning to his comms array, planning to call for help from his allies while his shields fought against the marauding drones outside.

"The capacitor, is empty"


The pilot froze. Impossible. He knew from experience he could cycle that booster several times before he even came close to emptying his power reserves, and this was the first cycle. The drones outside were already spewing hybrid rounds, tearing through his floundering shields and punching straight past his limited armour plating. Smashing his fist against the control console, he barely caught the first few lines of the Pilgrim Class Specifications, which had appeared automatically on his screen a few seconds after it was identified by the ship's AI.

Specialised Energy Warfare ship. 
Should be considered extremely dangerous up close. 
Has the ability to warp while cloaked.

Despair descended on the young capsuleer. His defences had been torn to shreds like paper, and already he could feel his pride and joy decompressing from multiple hull breaches. He knew he wouldn't survive this, he only hoped the end would come quickly.

It did.

Yep, massive drama post about ganking a barge in LowSec. Sue me.

Also, happy 100th blog post!