The little ship that could

This was a great story from Nerbert so I had to include it.

A few days ago, I’d jumped my prober and bomber through an end of life hole to watch it close behind me. I’d mentally prepared for that possibility and figured I’d just wander the universe until some other wormhole spit me out close to home. With the nearby trade hub effectively shut down by the war, this was the perfect time for a little adventure.

Eventually, I settled into a cozy little hole with several active POSs and plenty of signatures. The system had an exit to high sec, low sec and a dead end class 4 which was completely untouched. With no targets in either of the two J-systems, I popped into low sec to have a look around. There were roughly 20 people in local with several potential targets on D-scan. I scanned down a covetor sitting at a “safe” and poked some holes in his security.

After spending a few minutes scouting out the low sec system, I returned to the wormhole to find a list of fresh wrecks, a nighthawk, a cruiser and a cormorant on scan. Landing on their grid, I found that they had completed the site and the looter had just started his work. To my surprise, the combat ships warped off to the next site and left their defenseless looter alone in a site to gather the fruits of their labor. Why site runners continue to do this, I’ll never know. I conducted a quick instructional session and had the wreck looted just as the Nighthawk showed up on grid. They returned to the wormhole a while later with a looter drake and an entourage of looter protection vessels. They attempted to lure me out of hiding with taunting messages, but I told them I was satisfied knowing that I had significantly reduced their intake of isk/hour. In no hurry to get back to hi sec, I logged off in the system.

I logged on the next afternoon intending to get a quick refresh on the system signatures to save time for my evening session. I noticed a Badger II on scan and located him at one of the towers. He had offlined most of the guns and was starting to un-anchor… oooh, snap. Not wanting to drop any probes for fear of spooking the badger pilot, I did a check of my previous known wormholes to find them all end of life or closed. Over the next hour and a half I was in and out, keeping track of his progress as he moved his stuff from the large tower to a medium tower in the same system. At some point, an alt jumped into a wreath to help him haul and I had also watched him move a Drake and an Orca.

At several points during the offlining/unanchoring process I had the opportunity to pop him, but I had a deeper motivation. The Machine and I had a recent encounter, detailed elsewhere in this blog, where we had accidentally blown a wreck containing a tower. This time I was going to do everything in my power to ensure a nice payout. Unfortunately, when it came to stealing a POS, I was in system with a Manticore and a Cheetah with a combined cargo space of about 400 cubic meters. Additionally, my only hole to hi sec had been end of life for at least 2 hours and could close any second. This presented a problem, but I was unwilling to give up the vantage points from which I was watching his operation to go retrieve a hauler from the end of life hole. I decided the best course of action was to keep both ships in system and see how it unfolded.
The countdown to game time had finally reached zero and the tower was unanchored. He was about 30 seconds late for his pickup which would have provided me an opportunity to scoop the POS if I had gone the hauler route, alas I had not. As he landed, I dropped the bomb and waited for his pod to show up. Expecting him to be in some state of shock or confusion at his rapid demise, I assumed I’d get the lock, but this pilot was apparently ready. He escaped, which reduced my chances of successful payout significantly. He ran back to his new POS and returned in a Drake. In local [chat log on another computer], I bluffed the presence of a fleet waiting anxiously for his Orca to undock… hehe. I also mentioned that his alt should not show up in the wreath. He didn’t listen, and I killed his second hauler, while he waited impatiently for his drake to lock me up. I conjured up an image of him bouncing off the walls in his parent’s basement, while his Drake – now sitting between two heaping piles of twisted metal that used to comprise half of his wormhole fleet - locked me in slow motion. He did manage to get one salvo into my shields, but I was aligned to a planet and outside point range. At this point he was fighting some inner demons, and unwilling to speak in local. He warped back to his POS and climbed aboard the Orca. I assumed my chances of recovering the POS were about to reach nil. I had done the math, and assuming he showed up without any drones or resistance mods, I didn’t have enough firepower onboard to kill the Orca. But… he continued to sit in his POS stewing over the recent events. After a few minutes, he logged… Wait, WHAT? HE LOGGED!!!

My risk/reward calculus had now changed. I made a bee-line with both characters to the EOL hi sec hole and docked in the first station with a hoarder for sale. I fit it with a couple expanded cargohold II’s, donated so graciously by the wreath pilot, and screamed back through the hole. If you’ve never sat and waited for a hauler to align inside a wormhole, you’ve never lived. To my surprise, I didn’t attract any would be assailants and got my new POS out of the hole safely.
Wow… did I just do that solo with a bomber and a prober? Sure, I needed the hauler to get the loot out, but that was a matter of logistics after the battle had been won. Anyone who says a stealth bomber is a poor solo ship just isn’t using them correctly, or applying the right amount of creativity. I for one absolutely love flying my little ship that could.

I love that the guy returns in a Drake, Carebears in general think the drake is the answer to anything.