"I once almost caught a fish thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis big."

Well, not a fish, a Battleship actually. And damn it was close. Would have been my first PVP Battleship kill...would have...could have...should have, but the Fates stepped in and denied me my prize.

I just recently issued my first war dec against a small corp I had a run-in or two with. More on that later hopefully.

They had moved their headquarters several jumps to the south, luckily I was able to track them down fairly easily. I spent a few days getting the lay of the land and droping a few useful bookmarks in this and neighboring systems. But, after a few days of not even seeing one of their members online I decided to see if I could stir up some extracurricular fun.

I check a few belts, nothing going on...then I see her. A nice, new Mega mining away at some Kernite. Now, something about a BS mining in high sec Empire that just turns my stomach. I'm in my T-Rax, but I figured "what the hell". My belly is full of loot, so I head to the nearest station, unload, and then warp back to my new friend.

I burn it toward one of her cans, make the switch and head over to the other can. Just as I get there 5 T2 medium drones pour out of the Mega, she locks and sends them after me. I return the favor and send my Hammerhead II's at her. I trust in my drone skills, so I leave them to the ship as I begin webbing and blasting her drones. One by one they go pop. I have her locked down, but as her shields and armor begin to drop, she starts to run.

I keep right behind her with my scram as she tries to get out of range, everything's going as planned, but then I notice that she's starting to get some distance on me. I should have easily kept pace, suddenly she's out of scram and webber range. I expect her to warp off at any second, but she doesn't so my drones keep chewing on her armor and then hull.

At this point she's way out of range of my ship and I finally realize that I'd run straight into her second jetcan and I was helplessly bouncing off. By the time I corrected the situation she had realized she was no longer scramed and warped off. Before she left the belt I saw she was almost totally in the red and only had a tiny bit of hull left. If she had stayed another few seconds she would have been toast. Of course, had I had the scram on her, she would have been forced to stay a few more seconds.

I say my curses and pull in my drones. I had poped 4 of her drones, so I finished off the 5th and then went to blow up her ore in case she or someone else came back. Just as I was scooping out her second jetcan a signal appeared on my overview.

She was back, but without the badly damaged Mega...she was in a Hyperion. Needless to say, with my shields still down at a minimum and with the only ammo I had left loaded into my turrets, I decided this fight would not end well. I pulled in the drones I had destroying the ore and made a quick exit.

I offered her a good fight in local and congrats on surpsing me with the Hyper. I got no response so I headed to a station to wait down the timer. After a few minutes I head back to the belt to find her standing guard over the ore as a friend hauled it away. We had a little banter back in forth in local then she warped off to a station.

I still didn't have any war targets online so I logged for the night. It was a while before I fell asleep though...I kept thinking about how close I was to that kill. I could almost taste the burning wreckage. I realize now that I should have thrown balls to the wall and tackled the Hyperion once my shield were back up, but live and learn.

I'm sure there will be a next time. Plus now I know what my ship and skills can do in a real fight.

-------------------------UPDATE--------------------------

So, I'm on last night in the same neighborhood where I almost got the Mega. Still no war targets on, but my "friend" is. I hop through a few systems and eventually pass her at a gate. She pipes up in local warning the 4 others present that I was a can flipper/ore thief and to be wary of me. Of course, no one is mining anyway, plus this area of space is known for it's "roque" elements so I don't think anyone cared about little ole' me.

I do my thing and eventually run across my "friend" in a belt in her Hyperion. She warps to another belt, I follow, she warps to another belt, I follow...then I realize she's rat hunting NPC frigates in her Hyperion! That's almost worse then mining in high sec Empire in her Mega.

I steal the loot from one or her wrecks and then set a tight orbit. We start to banter and I make up my mind that no matter how long it takes, someday I'm going to end up with a killmail with her name as victim.

Needless to say, despite my theft and my efforts to pressure her to engage my T-Rax, she doesn't. She said I was "just a speck and not worth her time", which translates into "I'm not sure if my Hyperion would be able to take your T-Rax and I'm affraid to try." So, after 20 mintues or so, I gave up for the night and logged...I have a feeling playing with my new "friend" is going to be fun.

Cleared for publication by: Ander

So, it's been one month since my first pirate kill and things have been kind of slow, but a huge learning experience.

I found a few high sec systems crawling with macro miners. I spent several days hauling away millions in their ore, but as is the case with most macro's, they wouldn't engage. They just kept mining or moved on. I did manage to collect 10 medium drones from them when something must have happened to the computer on their end and several character's went logoffski, leaving their poor drones all cold and alone in the belts. Of course it was my duty to give them a new home in my safe, warm hanger.

Anyway, things were slow but I was making a couple million ISK for about 10-15 minutes of hauling, not too bad. I got bored pretty quick though and decided to give it a rest as to not scare them away from the area. I started roaming a strip of about 10 systems in my T-Rax looking for targets, but nothing really presented itself. I did find some people jetcan mining, but no one thought their ore or honor was worth engaging over, so I'd haul some of their ore away, but mainly I'd just put it into my can and when it was obvious they weren't going to do anything about it, I'd just blow it up.

I did find a few guys who taught me some valuable lessons in the art of ore switching/stealing. In my travels I had a few guys steal "my" ore back after I warped out and I missed them back to a station. I couldn't believe how pissed I got after "my" ore was stolen. I learned that if I don't have a hauler in the system, I'm not going to take the ore with me, so I need to either blow it up in their faces or set a good trap for them. I'm still working on this, but the lessons I learned from those few guys, really helped me a lot. Plus I've marked them down in my address book as future targets. A few I'm even considering for my first war dec. I'll keep you posted on that.

All of this brings me to early this morning.

Cleared for publication by: Ander