Back to the Basics

        Today was a very eventful day as far as explosions and glorious flaming death goes. As I once again returned to my cabin I marveled at the brand new sofa I had acquired from the smoldering wreck of a Dominix that fell victim to the combined firepower of myself and a few other adventurous souls. I promptly sat down ignoring the slight odor of sweat and shame that often accompanies a pilot when having to activate armor repairers. I grabbed a glass and some ice from the cooler and poured myself a tall stiff drink and began to reminisce on the days achievements and unfortunate shortcomings
       The day started out in its normal fashion with me talking to the flight engineers and hitting on the occasional call girl carrying cases of booze on to Nostradamous Riralle's Drake. So I decided to take the good ole bomber out for a spin to kick off the action. Little did I know that this would entail a roller coaster ride of action, adrenaline, and furious communication over opened comm stations. Shortly after my departure I got a frazzled message of a small gang roaming through the Onne system.
       I loaded up the torps and headed out to get a gang up and going. After a little brow beating and trashtalking we got our group together and set about making a plan of action. The enemy fleet was composed of 2 Thorax class cruisers, an Omen class cruiser, and finally the leader of the group was piloting around a Dominix class battleship. Way to much for any honest pirate to pass up. My group assigned me to a humble scout as I watched the Domi camping the gate obviously baiting any hungry pirate for an engagement under gate guns, not really favorable for my flimsy bomber. So I sat contently and waited for the firework show. Sure enough John Crichton flying his Rifter engaged one of the younger Omen pilots, and the Dominix promptly aligned for the ensuing fight. Before his departure another Omen entered the field and things started to get interesting.
      I quickly kicked my warp drive in action and engaged my cloak as I rocketed off toward the battle at top speed. John as usual was babbling over comms about shields dropping and in typical fashion we all laughed at his demise as we ensued to rain death upon our unsuspecting victims. However in a quite spectacular failure my warp drive disengaged a mere 7km from one of the enemy Thoraxes. I laughed knowing that this would be a one way trip for my corpse loaded bomber. So in a heroic act of selflessness (I say this to merely  keep my slowly diminishing ego alive) I decloaked and pounded volley after volley as fast as my launchers could muster into the Dominix whose armor repairers were failing under my fleets combined firepower. The Thorax however had not missed the fact that I decloaked a stones throw from the barrels of his main guns. A flight of light drones quickly encircled my ship and began tearing into my shields.
      The Dominix began crumbling after a series of explosions racked the ship. However there was no time to savor the kill as a sudden jolt and the sound of screeching and tearing of metal jarred my senses. The structure of my bomber began to fail and it wasn't long before a lucky hit set off my ammo rack completely disabling my ship. I was forced to eject as flames entered my cockpit and I sent my capsule packing off to the gate to reship. I sprinted as fast as my legs would carry men to the Rupture I had sitting in my hangar and undocked to rejoin the fight. As I entered the system however I was greeted by congratulations and laughter as everyone commended one another for a job well done while everyone ignored John's sobbing at the loss of his prized Rifter.
      I went back to the floating debris field in hopes that there would be something to salvage from the wrecks of the ships that had been lain low from the fighting. I was able to salvage most of the equipment from my bomber but unfortunately John in his anger had beat me to the field and taken all my corpses in a feeble attempt to boast that he was a better and more notorious pilot than me, but hey we all know the truth anyways right. As I salvaged about 20 mil worth of materials from the debris some scavengers jumped into the field in order to try and swindle some of my hard earned loot. Mistake number 1. Number 2 came when the Ishkur accompanied by a Retribution burned into scram range. Already majorly pissed off at the loss of my corpse collection, I ripped into the Ishkur even if my backup was a pilot as inept as John. Little did he know that I had constructed my Rupture for one soul purpose, to send any frigate pilots back to station in a clone vat. My 220mm vulcan cannons tore into the now rattled pilot. John's drones dinged off of him as I gloriously melted the Assault Frigate.
       Sooner than I expected the Ishkur wretched and I saw several collapses form on his hull from repeated impacts from my autocannons. An explosion momentarily blinded me and I cursed as the Retribution burned out of scram range. He quickly disengaged and warped out before the losses mounted for the day. I smiled as I finished looting the wrecks realizing the battle had already paid for the loss of my bomber several times over. I headed back to the station to drop off the loot and put it on the market. I promptly put in an order for a new bomber as soon as I docked, not being able to bear the thought that it wouldn't be there when I woke up. As I drifted off into some much deserved fleet I couldn't help but smile as I thought about how many carebear tears had been shed in the chaos.