Rough Night

Last night I was out roaming in Providence with the corp. Well, more accurate, there was 5 of us from the corp out roaming but our "FC" insisted he was not FC-ing and it was not a fleet. We were all solo roaming together in a fleet for warp ins if need be.

I should have went home and done something else because I suck at solo, not enough practice. But I remained on the field in my trusty Taranis.

Eventually while scouting the old LFA pocket we heard reports of an Initiative gang nearby in nano-cruisers. We were told to avoid it because our interceptors and stealth bombers were outclassed by those tech II ships. I, of course, jumped into a system while leaving the pocket and found myself right in the middle of them. Broadsword bubble up and in my effort to escape I failed to start my micro warp drive. FAIL. The Huginn and Rapier made sure I didn't go anywhere and I was quickly dead and podded.

Ouch. I opted to rejoin the roam in my stealth bomber this time.

We did some more roaming, riled up a hornet's nest of a response and an alliance mate in an Eos command ship stayed too long on the field and died to a large defence fleet that we had nowhere near enough firepower to engage, but as the defence fleet was breaking up a Rifter was holding on the gate. I lined up for a bombing run and was one second from launching when it warped off. Shit.

We continued on but it was getting late and I was frustrated so I headed back towards Misaba. I heard that Initative gang was still around but on a different gate than the one I was going to jump through. Just as I hit the jump button, I saw an Initiative Wolf assault ship decloak. "Oh crap," I thought, "that's their scout."

Sure enough the next system loaded with the Broadsword bubble already up. The side of the gate I was on had no celestials to warp too upon leaving the bubble so it was going to be hard to make a run for it, especially me with and an afterburner fitted. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Figuring I was dead, I picked a perpendicular angle to the line from me to the gate to move in, double clicked in space and hit the cloak. I zoomed out and watched with horrid fascination as the cruiser hulls zoomed towards me, the kilometers ticking off at an alarming rate.

In the seconds that followed no less than three ships came within 5000 meters of me and one, the Vagabond, flew within 3000 meters. Then... they gave up, jumped out, and I warped off with my heart pounding in my chest.