Piss and Vinegar

I logged in Saturday evening full of piss and vinegar, looking to get into a fleet and help kill something. Fortunately for me the corp had a small fleet on the go on the other side of Providence, so I debated my ship options and figured a Onyx Heavy Interdictor would be a good fit to compliment the Taranis, Flycatcher, and pair of Hurricanes. Once I was settled in my pod I checked the jump bridge map and picked a route and was on my way.

Ten minutes later I hooked up with the fleet and we began the hunt for something to shoot. It was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday night, we only a few small groups roaming around here or there, typically cloaked up waiting for an unsuspecting target. Eventually we tried to catch an Ushra'Khan pilot at one gate but he was in a stealth bomber and quickly evaded us, taunting us in local as he escaped.

"You don't catch UK pilots in stealth bombers. And if you do, they were noobs." Ah, the no true scotsman defense.

We carried on with life and heard of another red pilot a few jumps out. We set up in a likely system that he might jump into, and a few Slyph pilots nearby joined our fleet as we waited. It was hard to be patient as the hostile checked out each system looking for easy kills... my finger itched on the F1 key for the Warp Disruption Field bubble... and we waited...

Gate activation! Red in local! BUBBLE UP!

A Rapier appeared breifly in the overview and then cloaked, our interceptors and Flycatcher sped towards its last location dropping another bubble as they flew. No signal... no signal... THERE! He was decloaked and fleet homed in on him like a Trapdoor spider on an unsuspecting beetle.

With that hostile gone, we got word of our taunting Stealth Bomber friend haunting a dead end system two jumps away so we decided to try the patient game again on his outbound gate. We set up in the same formation, my HIC in the middle for the main bubble and everyone else ready to pounce. There was a neutral in a noob corp in local and we wondered if it was our prey's scouting alt.

While we waited for a chance to make our foe eat his words, another red jumped into system at another gate but we threw up our bubble anyways and had the fast ships burn out to the edge where a target warping to us would land in the hopes that we might get lucky.

There was nothing for a minute and then, sure enough, a Hound Stealth Bomber lands right on the spot and we jump on him with slavering jaws and howls of ferocity. (Ok, the fleet was not quite that beastial, just me.)

We waited for a while longer on the gate to see if our other target would jump into our waiting hands, but he appeared to be gone for a smoke and we moved on. Our Sylph buddies went back home and the M3 corp fleet did another tour of Providence before our numbers dwindled as pilots went to bed.

Once again the Onyx serves me well.