Whew! I just almost lost my Noctis. I literally undocked and began taking fire. I was just about to go into structure when the warp finally kicked in. In my panic I didn't get the ship type but I did get the pilots name, Yendaj.
Wow, not making this up. While I was typing those two brief sentences above I joined a fleet whose purpose is to defend the local Unistas. Looks like Yendaj has been busy and almost popped the fleet commander Apothne who was flying a frigate. So I hopped into my Rupture, bought some more barrage ammo and headed out to our corporations own star-base (POS) to rally with some other fleet-mates. Yendaj was now in his Rapier, an expensive recon ship worth 595,029,304 isk to be exact or more money isk than I have ever had. Shortly after arriving behind our stations protective shield we get the call to warp to the Egyfe gate to meet up with the rest of the fleet. Having only flown in five fleets before I am still a bit rusty at all this and it took me a few moments to get my ships navigation all worked out. I sat there seeing my fleet-mates warping out before me. I finally made it to the gate and could hear the fleet commander sizing up the situation. I am not really sure what went on but I will guess that we had a covert ops ships all cloaked up and scouting the Aldrat gate from Egyfe. Talking to the fleet commander Apothne now, who was in an interceptor (a classy expensive tackling ship [tacklers hold ships down so they can't flee]) locked him Yendaj right when he jumped through the gate from Aldrat into Engyfe and de-cloaked from the automatic jump cloak. Once locked Yendaj in his Rapier was not able to activate his own cloak. Then Apothne overloaded his point (so Yendaj the war target couldn't warp away) and the rest of the fleet was ordered to jump through from Aldrat and join the fray. In the moments the ensued Yendaj attempted to kill Apothne in his frigate letting lose his drones and shooting him possibly surmising that our fleet was camping the gate behind him and he couldn't flee through there. I am not real clear on the next part which has to do with agression timers so I won't try to explain but then our calvary arrived before Yandaj could kill Apothne and soon multiple points and webs (slow him down and keep Yendaj there) were set and our guns opened up. I actually ended up dealing the third highest amount of damage on the kill, which admittedly only was 2.2% of the total damage, but once again I am on the other side of the kill mail, the best side, the killers side. Best of all Yendaj who had previously caught me in a game of cat and mouse was subsequently caught.
So back to my story moments earlier before the kill and before I had left my space station on my way to pick up my new Noctis. I noticed that there was a war target in Aldrat, the aforementioned Yendaj, so I sat in my free noob ship loaded up with warp core stabilizers (to try and keep me from getting pointed) itching to get to Egyfe from my home base in Aldrat, just one jump away, to pick up my shiny new Noctis. As I sat there once again questioning the worth of my corporation for allowing these enemies to shut down our system I suddenly noticed local was clear, Yandaj had left the system. Here is my chance. I undock form the space station and make my way to the Egyfe gate. I jump through the gate and make it out on the other side and see a war target (WT) on my overview waiting for me in Egyfe. I quickly align and attempt to jump to the space station so that I can dock up before I am blown to pieces. The reason I picked this ship is because it is small and fast and can do just this quickly hopefully before the WT can get a lock on me. For instance I didn't even fit a weapon. I went into warp so quickly I didn't take a shot, which is a good thing because with my defenses one shot could of been all that was needed to kill me.
So I made it to the space station safely and quickly beheld my new Noctis for the first time. Here is where I made my big mistake. I quickly swapped my warp core stabilizers to the Noctis and looked at local and saw no WT's so I undocked. Ooops! I see bright red lasers and my shields dropping. My new industrial ship is laboriously turning trying to align to the Aldrat gate so that I can enter warp and my shields drop quickly and I am into armor. I begin to panic and get that feeling again. I am dying, and this death is the most humiliating. Why am I not warping. Ok how can I dock back into the station, why can't I dock! Forgetting of course to stop my previous align so that I can begin the docking process. My armor drops and I am almost into structure, my last flimsy line of defense. My gut sinks, my heart pounds, I feel small. Crap, the Uni is going to kill me as I am not supposed to be flying an industrial in war time. Then as I had given up hope the Noctis begins to lumber into warp. Warp equals temporary safety. My shields begin to slowly recharge as I warp to the Aldrat gate. Yendaj must surely know where I am headed, he saw me leaving the Pator Tech School space station and must know that's where I in my panic am flying to. I come out of warp expecting someone to be waiting for me. No war targets in my immediate vicinity. I try and get my slow beast of a Noctis to jump into Aldrat and slowly, slowly she does.
I am in Aldrat and I am still cloaked from the gate jump (one stays cloaked for one minute after a jump if you don't change the course of the ship) and look around. No war targets nearby and no war targets in local. My shields keep repairing. I start the process of jumping into Aldrat. Almost there, hope begins to glimmer. I lumber into warp and come out again heading towards the space station. Almost home, docking procedure commences, I am safe. 2 million isk in repairs because I am still scared and I make a mistake, as I could have later just made it to the safety of our POS and used my armor repairer, but the indignity of almost losing my Notics seconds after I began to fly it overwhelms rational thought and I want to repair my baby and forget about the whole episode.
Ok here is where I made my big mistake. When I was snug and safe at the space station in Egyfe before udocking in my new Noctis I thought I had looked at local and did not see a war target. Well it wasn't local I was looking at. I must of been on the intelligence panel or something else and though I was safe in local. That almost cost me what is by far my most expensive ship seconds into her maiden voyage. Lesson learned.
I suppose this story has come full circle. I won't get to use my Noctis tonight as WT are abuzz and it seems like we are at war with a corporation who are hunting us during my flying window. How in the hell am I going to make the isk now to pay for this ship, not to mention the Cheetah I was hoping to get soon?
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