A new day dawns and we have a much invigorated pod pilot today. I spent most of the day farting around in station and looking for fleeting up opportunities. One of the things that I have determined is that when I PVP I get a bit excited and tend to forget to do things. I'm thinking that operating in fleets for a bit will help me out in that regard. What I hope to gain from fleeting up is to have a bit of a safety net while I try to remember to do things. This safety net came in handy a couple of times, but I found that I was much less excitable in a fleet and performed quite well if I do say so myself.
Our fleet consisted of about a dozen ships at the start. Most of the ships were T2 frigates and Cruisers. Our first foray into looking for a fight was a short trip down to the low sec gate that we use. There was a small camp already on the low sec gate. We decided to bait them. The ship that was chosen was a Cerberus for some reason. The Cerberus Jumped in and warped to gate to get purposefully caught in a drag bubble. Our primary was a Typhoon that was part of the gate camp. Unfortunately the poor Cerberus couldn't withstand the withering assault of the Typhoon and popped. As our Cerberus pilot went into low sec to grab a new ship, we determined to camp the gate. Quite a few fast and stealthy ships narrowly escaped our grasp. After a while we had an Onyx warp in around 250km above us. Someone had a bookmark nearby him and warped up for the tackle. As we warped up and started doing damage local began spiking with multiple sources. A large fleet warped in on us, but luckily most of us got away and escaped the trap. We jumped into the low sec system and took a short break while people went AFK for various reasons.
After our break we discussed what to do now. There were still hostiles in the 0.0 gateway system and the round about route was 50 jumps. Some wanted to travel the 50 jump route and others wanted to bull through the gateway system to head home. We eventually came up with a compromise. We would bull our way through and then roam over to another area, taking a fairly roundabout way home. Our scout and FC were good about getting warp points and we bounced through the numerically superior system without incident and were on our way.
Several jumps in there was a call from our scout. "Claymore on gate!" Our HIC bubbled up and we saw the gate activate. Several seconds later a lovely Claymore appeared. Two interceptors and a daredevil ensured that the claymore wasn't going anywhere. As the pilot frantically tried to get back to the gate at a slow crawl his shields went down. Following the explosion the pilot's pod popped out and was also satisfyingly squished.
Things got interesting when a large HAC gang was found looking for us. We located an alternate route and I was volunteered to scout this out as our other scout made his way to the end of our detour. The first system was clear. The second had one neutral in system. As I sat cloaked at the gate I saw a Zealot hit the gate and activate it. "Zealot on gate, gate activation." I reported. My ruthless cohorts managed to snag the ship and pod and our evasion continued. The next gate had a sabre and a drake. After a bit of discussion, we decided to bull through. This system had quite a few ships in it that could have helped the drake and Sabre. It was deemed too risky to engage them. We sailed through the small camp without a scratch and we were out of the jaws of the trap that had been laid for us.
At that point our little roam was over. I warped back home and opened my cargo hold. There safely nestled with my ammunition were 7 warrior II drones that I had scooped up in my travels. Seems that people drop drones rather often. I can almost make a business of scooping up drones that people leave behind.
That's it for today. I'm feeling a bit more confident of my abilities, and I'm getting a bit more smooth at engaging targets. And I'm very much enjoying my Daredevil. It is a very vicious ship. What is there not to love about a small fast ship that melts faces while holding your enemy in place?
