Beware Enemies of Providence!

Last night I logged in chomping at the bit and raring to go. My week had especially sucked and I didn't get much done at all, so I had to make up for it Sunday night.


As I got my alliance Teamspeak working I heard that the M3 triumvirate of command was leading a Fleet to go hunting a hostile frigate gang.

"What do you want me in?" I queried, ready to jump into a battleship, or Onyx. Or maybe my Falcon?

"We need a fast tackler," Max informed me, "do you have an inty?"

Me in an interceptor? Last time I was in a ship of that class I successfully tackled an afk Raven... at a gate... in low sec. You can't speed tank sentry guns my friends.

But my friends needed me so I jumped into Road Runner, a Raptor usually used as a shuttle instead of a combat ship, and switched out the Warp Disruptor for a Warp Scrambler. Undocking, I said a little prayer to the Eve Gods for a kill and warped to my fleet.

We spent the next 30-40 minutes chasing the hostile gang. We had my Raptor, and an Eagle, Onyx, Flycatcher, and were joined by a Rapier flown by an alliance mate. Our enemies had two Crows, a Malediction, Manitcore, and a Jaguar.

I was terrible. I mean, catching enemy frigates is not easy to begin with but I stunk, getting my commands crossed and approaching while forgetting to lock or locking without activating the MWD. I felt like I had a bad case of fat fingers, a combination of lack of practice in an Interceptor and PvP in general. I need to play more.

At one point I was trying to get ahead of the enemy gang and saw them at a gate I had just jumped through, hit warp to the next gate, and then saw they had engaged a blue. I tried to stop but was too slow and warped off to leave the friendly to their mercies. Sorry about that Clavius XIV.

After many minutes of futility we finally lost them up around the downtown systems of Providence and dejectedly we headed home, mapping some jump bridges along the way.

Then the intel channel spiked. Incoming Vagabond!

We rallied on a gate, the Onyx popped a bubble and I warped to the gate from the direction the vagabond was coming from, stopping on the edge of the bubble. If the hostile warped directly to us, he would land right on top of me.

The seconds ticked by. Where is he.... where is he....

Suddenly my overview changed and it appeared, slowing down to hit the bubble and bounce off me. This was it, my gift from the gods! Either I tackled this Vagabond or I go down as the worst interceptor pilot in history.

"POINT!" I called in voice comms, my scrambler and web hitting him simultaneously. I punched the orbit button... and watched in horror as I sailed out of range of my tackle gear. "NNNNOOOOOO!!!!!" I swore. I immediately realized my mistake; my MWD was so fast taking me to 9 km orbit that I flew past it before it could turn around and settle into the right range. The Vagabond was making a run through the bubble to the gate so he couldn't warp but he was picking up speed, the rest of the gang's webs not slowing it enough.

I hit the approach button, primed my weapons, and with spittle flying out of my mouth as I cursed the monitor, I watched the range count down. 12...11...10... GOT HIM! My heart pounded as I watched to see if he would still make the gate, but 5 kilometers from safety his ship exploded to my eternal relief. I quickly snagged the pod and made him a trophy on my wall.

 * * * * *

With that quick kill we hit our base and the rest of the fleet logged, tired from a long day of defending Providence. I still had half an hour so I jumped into the Buzzard and put my newly upgraded probing skills to work. I picked the weakest signature in the system and saw with satisfaction I could easily track it down, a Sansha Military Complex. About this time Rettic logged in and we chatted while trying to run the complex.

Unfortunately, I lacked a super tanking PvE ship and my Cerberus was not up to the task of the hordes of battleships that spawned. I need a Nighthawk or Nightmare for that one, and the former I need to buy and the latter is not coming to non-high security space.

I left the bookmark in Rettic's hands so that he could get some alliance mates to run it if he wanted, and I logged.

(Vulture setups coming tomorrow or Wednesday. Friday I lost a day due to work. Just FYI)