I understood that the warzone was going to be hectic. I wasn’t wrong in the slightest throwing myself in the deep end so to speak right off the bat. Only six jumps out of Mehatoor I landed in Auga. My directional scanner picked up a Ushra’Khan alliance pilot flying a Republic Fleet Firetail . I immediately tired to pinpoint his location. He seemed to be bouncing all around the system until I finally landed on grid with him just off of the Republic Fleet Assembly Plant at Moon 2. I landed 100km from his ship which he turned and started to close distance to my location. While he was still at range, I took note of his speed and zoomed in on my monitors to look to see if I could tell what weapon systems he was using. Autocannons.
I knew that I was going to have to try and control the range in this fight, understanding that autocannons did most of their damage in close quarters. I engaged my thrusters heading in a off angle from his trajectory so my ship was up to speed when we became in distance to lock. He increased his speed dramatically, almost doubling what he was flying previously, and closed the distance just enough to be able to activate his scram on my ship and then turn on his web module. My speed dropped immediately with my propulsion module turned off and I knew I was in trouble. I loaded Conflagration crystals into my lasers and overheated trying to out out as much damage as possible to his ship. Moments later, my Slicer fell apart around me quickly and my capsule was injected into space. I was able to warp off in my capsule effectively unharmed, other than my pride.
Heading back to Mehatoor, I kept reviewing the order of events in my head. How did he close the distance so fast? I knew that my Slicer was more than capable of reaching over 5k per second if I overheated my engines and understood that I would have to activate them straight away if we faced each other again. In fact I meant to, I had already set the course back to Auga before landing in Mehatoor. Arriving in Auga again, the same Firetail immediately popped up on scan again. Narrowing my sensors I found his location, he was at the gate leading into a small outpost in system. I picked up another ship on scan as well, an Punisher class frigate piloted by an Amarrian Militia pilot. I landed on the gate a moment after the Firetail activated the gate leading to the dead space pocket. I followed him in.
As I landed in the pocket, the Punisher pilot was warping out with the Firetail close on his tail. I activated my microwarpdrive to max settings and locked his ship. The Minmatar pilot turned his ship to engage me looking to close distance again. He never got close. My Slicer weaved and dodged his attempts while my lasers cut through his haul ejecting his capsule into space. Lessons were learned this day in space. I learned that my ship was capable of blinding speed and accuracy if flown correctly while he learned to think twice about engaging with this pilot.
He didn’t return to Auga that day.