A Short Roam with BLAST

Last night I hopped on EVE for a bit, to a waiting JC timer of 12 hrs. Which meant I would be in Delve for the evening. So I debated whether or not to try and hunt PL or rat. I hate ratting, so I was thinking hard on the latter when a friend from BLAST, Etag, convod me asking for intel on PL movements in the KFIE-/Delve Core area. I gave him what I had and he asked if I would like to come along on a roam. I responded in the affirmative, and as they were coming through 5-C on the way to Delve Core I hopped onto their comms and tagged along.

We headed straight to KFIE- and played games with PL on the station. I may not have love for PL but I do have respect for them. We had the potential for a Rapier kill on station... but the only one who could have caught him and kept him locked down was scouting elsewhere... and our Arazu (also MVN) had fighters on him and had to warp out. Our FC wasn't happy with my Arazu pilot, Coldures, but it was the right thing to do. No use risking an Arazu loss for a Rapier kill (if you are in the proper, non selfish FC mindset). So we played around on station for a bit (warning bells were going off), and one of my two corpmates in gang got popped. His fault really... he was in a bomber and got decloaked by the station. Readers remember, different stations have different docking ranges. Those that are massive undocks mean that you may PHYSICALLY look like you are far away from the station while in reality you are close/on it. As soon as that range ticker gets to 2000m you are decloaked.

I had mentioned my thoughts/opinions on our current course of direction of travel before entering KFIE-. Namely that messing around in the hornet's nest had messed up a few gangs recently. The response was somewhere along the lines of "I'm FCING this gang".

Ook.

We left KFIE- and went down to 319- (also NPC delve). Tried to bait a Drake on station... who let us know in local he was aware of the 7 guys next door. Fail.

Back to A-E we went (2j away from KFIE-) where a Tempest had been reported. My suggestion to pursue was met with approval (afterall we had been roaming for 20 minutes with 1 loss no kills). Aside from that hint, I kept my thoughts and opinions to myself and played along with the gang. I did volunteer to scout, Easley style. Whats Easley style, you ask? When you take a juicy target (not a damn tackling ship which is a dead giveaway) and pick a fight with someone who can kill you. With the gang holding next door in 1DH I warped to the station and 6Q gate, playing tag with the Tempest. He aggressed at a snipe spot 70km off the gate, but warped off when Coldures in his Arazu entered local. We played a bit on the station and I warped back to the 6Q gate. Sure enough he showed up on scan... and there he was. He landed 70km off the gate and bam, nailed me with a volley of 1400 arty. Big hit took my Harbinger to 90% armor. I started an orbit on the gate and the next volley barely nicked me but still did decent damage.

"Cold, you in point range?" I had instructed Cold to follow me to the gate, and burn up towards his last snipe spot. I figured the Tempest would be using the same warp ins. He was. "Yeah, I am in point range" Cold replied. I watched another volley of 1400s miss me and was waiting for Cold to decloak and point the Tempest when the BLAST FC yelled into comms "JUMP JUMP JUMP WARP TO PERSEUS GO GO!"

Sonofabitch. He called me Perseus.

and...

Cold had yet to decloak and point the Tempest. Later discussion revealed that he was 18km off at the time of local spike, but was closing to 10km for a scram + disruptor (3pts) in case the Tempest was stabbed or planned to burn off with MWD. The case for stabs was valid, as the Tempest was being very ballsy.

As soon as local spiked Cold cursed loudly on comms and decloaked. He dropped his point on the Tempest and... sure enough the Tempest warped off. My only words on comms were "you blew it, you jumped the gun". Coldures simply said thanks for the fleet, dropped comms and fleet and headed home. Those who know Cold understand how angry he gets. In this instance, I couldn't blame him. No point was called, no instructions by scout (me) were given. FC blustered a bit and simply stated "I thought you said you had him pointed".

Meh.

I was sad at losing a bomber for no kills and wasting 30 min of my life. I was mad at waving my ass in the breeze while an Arty Tempest wails at me, praying for no wrecking shots while our tackler moved into position. For nothing. I repped in 5-C for free but rolling around in half armor is less than ideal.

Their FC wasn't too apologetic. Etag convoed me afterwards and dropped me a "thanks for coming, sorry bout the Tempest". I responded "Sall good no worries. Just as long as he learns from his mistakes". I don't really know if that is going to happen but one can hope. I worry, as I saw no reservation (acceptance) of mistakes, which means its less than likely that changes will occur. But hey, not my deal nor my worry.

That is all.