So once again we’re cruising in holeworm with my lovely Marla. A bump or two here, a shot or two there, drinking some vodka and lime off of Marla’s sweet launcher, the usual.
The radar beepity bops, oh look, an Astero class vessel in a data extraction site. Same class ship, but a newer make than what I’m flying in, by the looks of it (I’m flying in Marla btw, and she’s flying around me). It’ll be a fair & fun fight, right?
“You won’t even catch him,” Marla says.
Now, I usually trust Marla’s input (and her output, but that’s another story). Well, she’s clearly miscalculating this time. I choose to ignore her, and dive in, screaming. My exact words in that particular scream are redacted.
Uncloak. Bump. Target. Scram. Nice.
Dronies out, dronies bite. Nice.
No one else decloaking. Nice.
Then the astero warps away. Not nice.
“How’s that possible?” I moan in despair.
“Stabs,” Marla chuckles, “I told you.”
Now that’s plain bs. You see, I had 2 scrams thus 4 points fitted, for exactly these kind of situations with runnies. I was pretty sure I had the guy pointed nice and square.
Then it hit me. It was fanfestival time in Icelandia. They probably decided to give +10 warp core to every thing that kind of flies, cause you know, fly safe.
“Icelandia did it?”
“Nope,” says Marla, still enjoying my confusion.
“Okay, I give up… Tell me how he got away?”
“He had 4 stabs.”
Who in their right mind fits 4 stabs on an Astero? I was stunned, but I also felt a bit insulted. This was a serious ideological philosophical existential romantic challenge.
“Quick, back to k-space,” I said, and started ringing every fixer I know in the region.
After a few calls, and after departing with some good isk of mine, I had my hands on a Caldari Navy scram (yeah, the ones with 3 points). Then I slapped that scram on Marla. I had my hands on Marla in the process, and that felt good.
Back into the hole (not Marla’s, the worm’s), and there’s the Astero with 4 stabs merrily hacking another site. Well, now I have 5 points, butterfly. Surprise.
I was leisurely collecting the loot, feeling accomplished as I had proven a point (or five), when Marla sighed.
“What now?”
“The Icelandians… They just announced +10 stabs. Let’s see how you pull this next time.”
I took a shot of vodka and shrugged.