The Return of r1fta!

Memories of Heild haunt my dreams. Going on a roam once in awhile with several rebels, or shooting them as I happened to do infrequently, or even just sitting in Pinky Pie's Bar sharing stories of combat. All good times. And now, I jump cloned back to Heild for some fights with Inappropriate Content, Naughty Cargo and Tavisturus. Good times indeed!



Im waking up in my old home of Heild. The clone vat sauce drains slowly, damned unmaintenced low security stations. The door opens too early and helps drain some liquids out across the floor. Falling to the ground as the air tube is ripped from my throat, I reach for the railing on the wall nearby, dragging myself to stand. No medical personel bother to help me up; apparently they still remember that time I cracked a few skulls. Should'nt have given me a bad clone, causing me to retrain a few combat skills; they deserved it.

Sliding on some pants and walking to my old quarters, I noticed my r1fta banner was still hanging. Good to know home is still home. Once in my quarters, I have a seat while pulling up my list of assets here. No fitting modules for ships. One Anathema, one Phantasm fitted. I holler to Aura to bring me up to date with local chatter and comms. "Local Communications Initialized. Current Capsuleers listed on the main screen", she says. Good ol' Aura. Rarely does that AI give me any issues.

Bringing my comms channel to life, I send out a crackled message asking someone to contract me a ship. Soon, I get a notice for a contract from one, Naughty Cargo. I love it when pirates use fake names. I remember when she joined r1fta; I even took her out for her first kill I think. Anyhow, she's repaid the favor and sent me a ship, free of cost. And wouldnt you know it, she sent me a god damned rust bucket of a Rifter hull. This would be interesting, as she didnt bother to fit it up for me either.

"Aura, find the following fitting and have it fit to the ship I recieved today also." I tell her.

[Rifter]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Adaptive Nano Plating II
Experimental 1MN Afterburner I
Warp Scrambler II
Fleeting Propulsion Inhibitor I
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
200mm AutoCannon II, Republic Fleet Fusion S
Small Diminishing Power System Drain I
Small Projectile Collision Accelerator I
Small Projectile Burst Aerator I

"No modules found in Heild. Sard Mart in Bosena has them available" the damned AI tells me. "SardMart?! What the hell is this shit?", I yell. Aura calmly replies, "Sard Caid has expanded RANSM to now offer modules at or below Jita prices." Interesting, so the Maxwell family left a large void that obviously needed filled.  "Apparently we're heading to Bosena, prep my ship and we head out at 22:00!"

Once prepped, I undock and head over to the Bosena Gate. Unfortuneately, Concord gave me some shit about my credentials not matching theirs. Apparently, they hadnt been updated on my removal from the Black Rebel Rifter Club and were confused why I was in an unfitted Rifter hull. Apparently its taboo for a -7.7 pilot to fly a naked ship. Eventually, they allowed me to pass since they knew they couldnt do a damned thing about me being here in Low Sec.

Bosena was quite the little hub now. When I landed at the station for SardMart, some unknown (to me) pirates were camping the undock. I easily docked up and fit my ship. However, I had never setup a quick shortcut to get out of situations for this station. Luckily for me, my old contacts in r1fta had and a quick ping to them and I had some support landing. Undocking, I quickly set my ship to warp out and I made it back to Heild in one peice. Inappropriate Content had been my assistant this time, another pilot I had taken out for his first kill.

Being back in Heild was nice, I missed the redness of the sun; the one in my new home being blue. I enjoyed the lax rate of things occuring here compared to the always busy (and boring) work of living in Geminate. And apparently, r1fta currently has some kind of competition going on, and so I was more than happy to offer up myself for a fight. Naughty Cargo was the first to fight me, and damn has she gotten good.

I warped into a safe and had her follow me. Upon landing, we locked and began to close the distance. Guns and repper both OH'd, (I remember the weakness of the Rifter hull), she pinged me at 17km out. Using Barrage ammo, I assumed, I OH'd the AB to close range faster, I only had Fusion equipped, so my range options were limited; getting close was my only option here. Keeping range somewhere between 500 and 1400 meters, I ate through her shields. My shields were gone and she was hitting my armor, but hitting me hard. I dropped down to about 50%, unheated my repper and turned off the AB to save some cap. Both of these were mistakes, because the next few vollies took me to 60% structure, but she was still in armor!! I reheated the repper and ordered my AB back online. Doing so helped negate some of her incoming damage, and gave me the slight boost I required. I was bouncing between having armor and being in structure, just as NC exploded!

GF's were exchanged and a chat followed about why she was using split ammo/gun types. Finding out she had a plate as well explained why it took me longer to take her down and why she was able to hit me so hard; I just didnt have the armor HP to handle her hits without the repper going full heat. One cycle after she exploded, my repper burnt out. Thats how close she was to beating me. And beat her I did, to the dismay of Inappropriate Content who felt the need to avenge her death!

Docking up to repair and resupply, we met at another safe spot. This time, I had grabbed some Fusion ammo, with a bit of Barrage just in case. Beginning our spiral towards each other, guns and repper heated, I decided to open my range a bit this time. My fight with NC had reminded me the tracking on 200's are as good as 150's, so you needed to open range a bit to hit better. And hit better I did! IC was going down at about the same speed as NC was, he must be plate fit I assumed. I was going down way faster this time though, probally due to IC using all same guns and ammo. I had to open range on him!

Overheating the AB, I got out of his range and repped my armor up. More than once I came close to running out of capacitor, but my micromanaging skills of modules is above that of a newb, so I was able to handle it. Staying in scram range to prevent him from warping off, I turned the heat down on my guns and gave them a rest from shooting; I wasnt going to be hitting him at 7 or 8km out, dont waste the ammo. I was still registering misses from his guns though, so he felt the need to keep shooting me. Once I repped to about 70%, I dove back into him with OH'd guns and stole the fight when his ship exploded also!! To which he says, "Rematch?" And I gladly accept.

This fight though, it was too close. Had he chased me while I ran away to rep, he could have gotten me I think. Maybe he just wasnt fast enough due to the plate on his hull. Either way, repairing and resupplying, I decided to use again. Something Ive avoided doing since I joined DIII, drugs have been absent from my life. But damn are they oh so sweet! Exile, how Ive missed you. When you're pissed off already from getting your armor ripped apart peicemeal-like, Exile just enhances that rage further and helps you deal with it, repping the armor more efficiently and quickly. Downside is that you use more capacitor doing so, and thats a bad thing to do in a Rifter. But fuck it! Im pissed and not going to lose my ship!

And so we meet up in the safe, IC and I. Spiraling close again, I assumed he'd use his 150's again. They have a very slight range disadvantage compared to the 200s I was using, so I opened range further this fight, forcing the fight deeper into his falloff. Doing so mitigated some of the incoming damage, enough this time where I didnt have to open range. The additional reps provided from the Exile also helped, however I ran out of capacitor more than once. This forced me to pulse the repper AB and sometimes the web so the scram stayed online. However, IC was going down and I was bouncing back and forth in armor and structure.

Then....the incoming damage stopped! "Yes," I yelled to myself, "he's reloading!!!" I took this chance to close the distance and turned off my AB to help lower transversal. I started pounding on him. Still, 10 seconds went by it seemed and he's not shooting me. I ask him if we were only going to hull this fight, since he had hit me into structure around when he stopped shooting. He replies, "no we are destroying the others ship. However, I burnt my guns out!" Oh thats terrible! I feel bad taking a win like this, but take it I did. After combat chat, I tried to make him feel better by letting him know Ive burnt the guns out many times before as well as my reppers. With that we both docked and repaired.

After awhile, Tavis decided to get some payback for the rookies in r1fta. Accepting a 1v1 challenge, we met up at a safe spot, me in a rifter and him in his slasher. I had never fought a slasher before and I tell you what; I got melted. Tracking Disruptors do terrible things to turrets and I was unable to hit his ship at all. Tavis made quick work of my hull and gf's were exchanged. Very little to report in this fight because very little happened. He got me at 7km range, I was too slow to get out of range of scram, and I was TD'd. Expertly executed fight by Tavis.

Revenge, accomplished.