So there I was, cruising through the cosmos in my Drake, a little bit of Caldari steel jazz blowing on my pod speakers, quaffing Quafe Ultra with a shot of Gurista Dark Rum and feeling not a care in the world. I’d swept Greater Mars for hostiles and, finding none, hopped in the Drake to blow up some Sleepers at a cosmic anomaly, one of two in the system. Mellow fun, no stress, just mindless carebear kaboomski time, communing with my heavy missles. Fly, my pretties, fly!

That was the plan. However, this IS w-space. One keeps one’s eyes on the sensors.

Thus it was only mostly unexpected when a casual sweep with my directional scanner showed me three sleeper wrecks and a Ferox.

I expected to see him when I lumbered out of warp, but he wasn’t at my destination. So, I figured he must be at the other anomaly.

I wanted to be sure, though, because you don’t get a lot of second chances when you’re tackling with a Drake. So, back I went to the Greater Mars headquarters POS, where I hopped in my Buzzard for a quick scout.

First I popped four probes at 32 AU range, overlapping where I thought he’d be. Sure enough, I got a hit. So I went all the way down to 1AU and moved the probe indicators to cover the suspected location. One fast scan, 100% hit, instantly mashed the probe return button. Bookmarked the Ferox and hopped back in the Drake. Launched that bad boy at my bookmark like a dumptruck full of bricks down a steep icy hill.

Dropped out of warp about eleven klicks from the Ferox. Locked him up. I’d activated my warp disruptor and missile launchers before I came out of warp, but for some reason they deactivated instead of firing when lock was complete, I’m not sure why. So he got about five free seconds while I waited for my modules to activate, before I noticed I wasn’t shooting. Then I said a dirty word and hit the buttons again.

The extra GTFO time I gave him apparently wasn’t enough.

He was engaged with a Sleeper battleship and two cruisers, and was down at maybe 20% shields when I got my lock. He didn’t last long, even though all three Sleepers started shooting at me as soon as my first volley hit the Ferox:

2009.04.22 04:13:00

Victim: Cristal Dawn
Corp: BongBrothers Inc.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Ferox
System: J235321
Security: 0.0
Damage Taken: 37385

Involved parties:

Name: Awakened Escort / Unknown
Damage Done: 22271

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 1.3
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Alliance: Tear Extraction And Reclamation Service
Faction: NONE
Ship: Drake
Weapon: Scourge Heavy Missile
Damage Done: 15114

Destroyed items:

Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 46 (Cargo)
Plutonium Charge M, Qty: 251 (Cargo)
Acolyte I (Drone Bay)
Sleeper Data Library, Qty: 4 (Cargo)
Iridium Charge M, Qty: 351 (Cargo)
Widowmaker Heavy Missile, Qty: 25
Large Shield Extender I
Heavy Missile Launcher I, Qty: 3
Uranium Charge M, Qty: 24 (Cargo)
Scourge Heavy Missile, Qty: 26
Neural Network Analyzer, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge M, Qty: 143 (Cargo)
Medium Neutron Saturation Injector I
250mm ‘Scout’ I Accelerator Cannon
V-M15 Braced Multispectral Shield Matrix
Havoc Heavy Missile, Qty: 70 (Cargo)
Iron Charge M, Qty: 392 (Cargo)
Guristas Iron Charge M, Qty: 120 (Cargo)
Uranium Charge M, Qty: 64

Dropped items:

Power Diagnostic System I
800mm Reinforced Crystalline Carbonide Plates I
Gravimetric Backup Array I
Prototype Cloaking Device I
Large Shield Extender I
Shield Recharger I
Widowmaker Heavy Missile, Qty: 291 (Cargo)
Neural Network Analyzer, Qty: 2 (Cargo)
Antimatter Charge M, Qty: 30
Tungsten Charge M, Qty: 534 (Cargo)
200mm Railgun I
Thorium Charge M, Qty: 442 (Cargo)
Ballistic Control System I
Havoc Heavy Missile, Qty: 55
‘Malkuth’ Heavy Missile Launcher I
Thunderbolt Heavy Missile, Qty: 120 (Cargo)
Warrior I, Qty: 2 (Drone Bay)
Lead Charge M, Qty: 367 (Cargo)

The Sleepers were hitting me hard, so I didn’t even try to catch his pod. He was cool about it, making an “easy come, easy go” sort of remark in local before (presumably) hitting the wormhole back towards home.

As you can see, it was a cheaply fit Ferox, so not too much of a loss for him. I enjoyed salvaging his wrecks, after I finished off the anomaly for him.

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