When all else Fails, Scream like a Girl

I logged on last night to a relatively quiet alliance. So, I decided it would be an excellent time to sneak around looking for a new Garmur recipe. After all, if alliance mates were fleeted up and pewing I couldn’t very well tell them I couldn’t join them because I was too busy ratting. That would go over REAL well.

So I threw some extra ammo into my thrasher and off I went. Now, I suppose some more hard core, experienced PVEers are laughing at me right now. Ratting in a thrasher? Seriously? So, I guess I’m a bit rusty at this whole ratting thing, but it seemed like the rats in lowsec are fairly easy to kill. And, I was pvp fit in case anyone decided to…you know….come at me. 

I started one jump from Huola, in the last belt, killing all rats. I knew from previous ratting in null-sec that if you’re looking to get something specific to spawn, you clear everything –but if you’re looking to make ISK off bounties, you chain the good ones. And, well, bounties in low-sec aren’t really worth it.

Belt after belt. Not so much as a clone rat! Until, I got to the third belt and there beheld not the Mordu frigate, or a Clone rat, but a large, Mordu battleship—the one that would drop the valuable Battleship BPCs.

I was so excited I could hardly sit still, and in my noobiness I launched straight at him in my thrasher. DEATH TO THE NPC. GIVE ME YOUR SHINY CARGO.

Yeah, bad idea. He instantly pointed and webbed me, and I very quickly realized that my thrasher was not even going to dent him. I started to microwarpdrive away, as he ate at my armor. I was well past 30K away before his point finally dropped. (Stupid rat obviously had boosts in system! :p  )

So, what to do, what to do? Bigger ship.

I ran back to Huola, and jumped into a Hurricane. There were hostiles around, so it was kind of risky to do…but oh well. Risking a battlecruiser for a kill that would drop over 2 billion in loot? Probably worth it.

I warped straight to the belt, somewhat scared that someone else was going to get the rat before I could come back. He was still there, and there was no one on scan or nearby. The system seemed dead, and the locals probably were docked up or oblivious.

I launched my drones, and barreled right at him. And….well. If NPCs could give you a dirty look, and shrug you off, this one probably would have. Even with heat, my guns and drones were hardly doing anything to his shields, and the volleys that were hitting him good were instantly absorbed by his active reps.

I knew that at this rate, my Hurricane would soon be dead. And that was a loss I didn’t really want to explain to my corpmates. So, once again I started burning away.

What to do? What to do?

Over 2 billion ISK to collect? But I was obviously going to have difficulties killing it by myself.

So, I resorted to the common strategy of females and started screaming like a girl. 

Some girls scream when they see spiders. Some scream when they find a mouse in their trash can. I scream when I find shiny things in belts and need help killing them.

“HELP!!” I typed in one of our LNA intel channels.

“I found one of those new Battleship thingies and I can’t kill it by myself, can anyone please help me???”

It’s funny how ISK can make people who were ‘AFK’ suddenly be not AFK. Within 5-10 minutes, more than half a dozen people were on coms, in fleet, and organizing what we needed to go kill the thing. Looking back, I have to giggle a little at our talk of battleships and logistics –all to go kill the big ‘ol evil rat.

Even one of our Shadow Cartel friends hopped on coms to come help us.

“You’re not going to drop a cyno on our head the minute we’re alone and vulnerable in that belt are you?” I asked him suspiciously.

He laughed. “No, Susan. I wouldn’t do that…at least,  not while I’m sitting in your fleet.”

I told them where the rat was, and several of the guys romped off to go start shooting it. I followed behind slowly in my Megathron. This time, the bugger was GOING TO DIE.

Now, I wish that this were the end of the story and I could tell you how we were victorious over our evil enemy the Mordu. I would I could shared how the multi billion ISK BPC dropped and was promptly sold and used to pay for the plexes to enter LNA into the alliance tournament pool.

But, unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

“Uh, other people are showing up?”

Several friendlies arrived on field while my alliance mates were shooting the rat. And, I cursed my decision to bring a battleship –which was slow to join the party. I landed just as the NPC died.

“Uh, who got the BPC?”

“Not me…”

“Not I.”

“I didn’t get it…”

No one in our fleet had gotten it. Apparently the friendlies had chosen to fly straight up to the rat and steal the loot the second our larger ships DPSed it into scrap metal.

Now, one thing Late Night is NOT known for is always being friendly to friendlies. In militia there are ‘sort of friendlies’ and there are allies. Probably the only reason these guys were not pointed and shot the minute they landed on field is because they were of the second variety –close allies, and not random militia we didn’t know well.

However, the move they pulled didn’t really sit well with fellow alliances mates. Shots were fired after the theft, and at least one “friendly” lost his ship as they were attempting to quickly scurry away with their prize. 

And local lit up like a Christmas tree. A couple of the friendlies started taunting us, talking about how they were rich now, and how we got the kill but they got the spoils. One claimed they would have shared with us, but then we had to “get mad.”

For some reason, one of them dropped down in coms later and asked us to share with them. Which, didn’t make a whole lot of sense since we definitely didn’t have it, and their chatter in local made it very obvious that they did. However, it’s possible that whoever amongst them took it, decided not to share even with his own guys, or admit to having it at all.

ISK does funny things to people, and it’s amazing how quickly a few billion can inspire people to turn on their friends.

As for me, I put away a very valuable lesson. Not about politics, or theft, or being quicker to loot, or that you should never trust blues no matter how long they’ve been blue and how good of friends you think you are with them.

I learned that next time I’m bored and my alliance mates are all pretending to be AFK, all I need to do is find something shiny:

While our brief diversion into PVE ended in failure, our newly formed fleet stuck together and roamed around killing things the next few hours. 

Op. Success.

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