Thursday, October 6, 2011

Captain Broomstick, the reprise: Mining Hi-jinks

     So, way, way back, like . .  20 minutes ago, I posted about the initial "serious" run-in with Herr Broomstick.  He injected a "gf" in local, and I think he and Nancy had a little private conversation for a while and, no real surprise, Cpt Boomstick isn't the root of all eeeeeevil, like his victims would claim.  He's just a dude out there in space, putting his "thang" down.  OR, so we thought . . .


     Fast forward a week or so, (not NOW, but back THEN) and I log my toon on to see that I have an eve mail waiting for me.  I just LOVE Eve mail.  It allows me to experiment and see how many unread emails I can collect before I have some kind of memory-sucking buffer over-run that crashes the Eve client.  This being a rare day-of-days, however, I actually checked, and lo and behold, Concord has sent me a message.  Apparently, we have been war dec'd, and I'll be jiggered if it ain't Cpt Broomstick and his merry 3 man band that'r doin' it!  Well, boy howdy, if that don't beat all!  I guess, despite what happened in the nether regions of a mission room, he figured the corp was a bunch of spongy carebears, or, possibly, he was lookin' for revenge.  Either way, it was ON!

     Lots of corpies were hanging around Shuria, or within a jump or two, so there were usually always guys missioning, ratting or mining.  Even during the war dec, safety in numbers, people doing their thang.  So, the scene opens with a bunch of blue in system.  A bestower, a crucifier flying CAP, and one of the care-beariest of our carebears in a retriever, stapled to an asteroid doing a little herpa-derping, busting some rocks, in a war dec, and NO, it wasn't a trap, and NO the barge wasn't a sacrificial goat (doesn't remind me of Jurassic Park . . . much). Nudge nudge, wink wink ;).

     Cpt Broomstick shows up in local.  No doubt sees all our blue in system, but is likely well aware that this is where the corp hangs out anyways.  He's nobody's fool though.  He locates the "miners", and while there is indeed some mining afoot, he is also aware of the size of local.  He warps in at long range in his taranis, does a big, wide orbit.  Looking . . . looking . . . warps out.  Cue the crickets.  It's all good, no one runs, still mining.  Broomstick comes back, a little closer, flys a couple circuits.  Looking . . . looking . . . no one jumps, no one moves, he warps out.  Cue the crickets again.  Broomstick comes back this time, and lands right on top of the sheep.  He's got his teeth bared and no doubt intends to do his best at ripping up some dopey carebears quick-fast before any reinforcement arrives.  He rolls in on the retriever and pops it in short order.  Meanwhile the bestower and crucifier point and web him.  Not too far away from the action, a corpy's rapier uncloaks out of the black, and starts to lock up the interceptor.  Broomstick turns his attention to the crucifier in an attempt to remove his web and one of his points, turns the frigate into so much shiny space debris, and then he starts hammering the bestower, who is now in the process of try to get the hell out of Dodge while Nancy makes this high, shrieking wail.  Precisely the same high, shrieking wail he made when I showed him the picture of a stealth bomber with a Hello Kitty paint job.  In the mean time, the rapier is unloading on the taranis with his 425s, and the fate of the inty is decided in short order, and a good fate it was not!  Chaos of celebration ensues in Vent and the bestower heads back to repair while Broomsticks pod heads for less violent regions of space.

     Out comes the bestower again, to scoop up some of the loot and salvage.  Corpies are still in system.  The bestower pilot, Nancy, is starting to gather up the spoils.  But wait!  The still local Cpt Broomstick shows up, back at the belt, in a loki to sort some stuff out, right and proper!  Unfortunately, the 5 other corpies that were still in system, were sitting at the belt, cloaked, the whole time, through the entire initial engagement, and NOW, the REAL trap was sprung.

     A geddon, domi, rapier, falcon and zealot all decide to uncloak and contribute to the festivities.  While the bestower pilot once again decides to get the hell out of Dodge, the loki is immediately locked down, webbed, scrammed, neuted, jammed, buffed, polished and anything else the boats could do to it that was not violating any pornographic or federal regulations.  With Broomstick being a 3 man corp, our corp had a pretty good idea that there would be little or no help coming for Mr Broomstick and his loki.  The ships pounded away on the loki, and pounded, and pounded, but it was a tough nut to crack and was taking a while.  The bestower pilot headed back to station to reship, get new underwear and then come back to help with the dps.  By the time he got back to the fight, the loki had finally expired with no corp losses.

     A clever trap was set, and with great patience and grinding and gnashing of teeth, the stalwart corpies waited with baited breath for the appointed time, and with great luck, the big fish was baited twice, and caught twice.  Cpt Boomstick was a great adversary, but after the loss of a T1, T2 and a 1 billion+ T3 ship, the wind was pretty much taken out of the sails of his war dec.  He was seen logging on with his toons, but he wasn't out and about much.  No mood for hi-jinks or skylarkery, says he.  It was a great win for a mostly indy corp that was slowly starting to find its teeth. . . . aaaaand, I missed it :(

The Point?  Even a seasoned kriminale can have his wings clipped by a decently planned and executed trap.

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