Smoke and Mirrors

As my evening came to a close I thought it best to reflect on the days accomplishments. Although today was a slow day, all of my stealthy lurking in my home system of Adirain finally paid off. Just as I was dozing off at the console of my wonderful stealth bomber 'Reaper', the stargate to the Arnon system fired. I nearly gave myself a concussion I jumped so far out of my pilot's seat. I quickly double-checked to make sure my forehead hadn't hit the decloak button on my console and thanked the CCP gods (praise them) that my momentary lapse in concentration hadn't ruined a whole night's stake out.
               Shortly following the gate fire a retriever popped up on grid on my overview. The grin that had formulated on my face could hardly have emulated any more malice and spite if Satan himself had tried to shove it in there. Realizing my ship was out of immediate danger I set my overview to track which direction the unsuspecting carebear would warp off to.  In a rather predictable manner he warped off to the 4 cluster, or as I have coined it, "The Carebear Crematorium" without a moments hesitation. I quickly followed suit and warped to the first belt in the cluster at 30km so as to avoid decloaking on those pesky space rocks. Unfortunately my provincial tactics did not suit me in this particular situation. As soon I landed I bumped right off of a large chunk of veldspar which not only decloaked me but also proved a large barrier between my itchy trigger finger and my helpless quarry. After several seconds of words and phrases that I can't justify reiterating and furious manual piloting, I finally overloaded my mids and burned to overheated disruptor range.
            I quickly locked up my target and disabled his warp drive leaving him at my rapidly dwindling mercy. My fingers deftly flicked over the console to the familiar joystick I'd held so many times before and without much thought I flipped open the fire switch and couldn't hide the smirks of anticipation as I began dropping torpedo after torpedo into the hull of the helpless mining vessel. After two or so volleys slamming into the ship I could only imagine the dreadful feeling of the Russian pilot having to activate his shield boosters. Ultimately it was a wasted effort as plating was stripped off his ship and the familiar orange and blue flame of an internal explosion erupted from the aft section of the now derelict wreck. His pod was promptly ejected into space and right into the waiting clutches of my torpedoes.
              One might ask, does being killed in a spectacular ball of fire and waking up in a clone vat incur any type of pain? The answer would be, only slightly, only slightly. I swooped over to the wreck and found nothing of value, I then scooped up the corpse bringing my total count in my cargo hold to 29. Thus my night was concluded and I decided to head back to my quarters and relax on my pilfered couch and sip on my stolen brandy. I promptly taunted my victim and sent him and EVE mail. Please alert the captain for any issues and have a pleaseant flight! Thank you for choosing Spectre's Pod Express!