Distress Message

Message intercepted off relay beacon in Amarrian space.
From: Kayleigh Jamieson-Read // Location: Unknown
To: Nakatre Jamieson-Read // Location: [undeciferable]
Message heavily distorted.

[...] under attack. Being watched by Tempest and [...] on all sides. They podded Tor after taking ransom so things aren't [...] all alone in here, now. I need to save something. Going dark until I am [...] killed. Love you.

First Solo

Within the confines of her pod Kayleigh stretched. She liked the quiet days, true, but this endless staring at asteroids bored her to tears. With a sigh, she ran another directional scan around her. Nothing and more nothing.

Over in corporate frequencies there was some idle chatter going on which she didn’t much feel like taking part in. She had been unable to contact Nakatre for a little distraction, either. Kayleigh Jamieson-Read was stuck staring at a Retriever chipping away at rocks through her camera drones. Her strip miners finished a cycle and she watched the indicator for her cargo hold confirm the intake. Almost idly she ran another scan.

It took her a moment to realise something had actually changed. Core probes and a Magnate somewhere out there. Adrenaline immediately kicked in. She aligned the Dantan Express toward the tower and while it accelerated she shut down the strip miners and scooped whatever she could from the jet can, while she warned her corp mates that there was an intruder in their space. Sadly, no one was close enough to help.

The slow barge entered warp without incident. Grey eyes trained on directional scan and refreshing it often, Kayleigh was surprised the Magnate remained uncloaked. What was this guy doing? She kept wondering as she went out of scan range and her home tower materialised ahead of her.

Whatever he was doing, he was unlikely to home in on precisely the asteroid belt where she had been parked, not with core probes, so on impulse she changed ships into a hauler and turned back. It would be just a quick run. She’d be damned if she was going to be bored all that time and then see all her hard work robbed from under her nose.

As quick as she could, she maneuvered to scoop up her can and then realigned back home. Much to her surprise her scanner was still showing the five probes and uncloaked Magnate. Either he was trying to mess with her or – the most likely prospect – he didn’t know what he was doing.

Within minutes, she was boarding the Stalker after securing her cargo of ore. Scowling at her directional scanner, she warped to a safe and cloaked. “Where are you?” she thought to herself in a sing-song voice. It didn’t take her long to pinpoint him around the star. It still puzzled that he would be uncloaked all this time. Biting her lip, she aimed the Hound at the star and warped at range.

The Stalker came out of warp a good 500km away from the Magnate. That was bad. Without breaking cloak she would take forever to catch up to him. She tried anyway, true to the racer in her, and chased after this Von Brimstoner person. When a spatial phenomenon occluded him from sight, she was dismayed. Had he cloaked? Had he warped out? No, her scanner still put him squarely ahead of her somewhere in space. So she kept going and sure enough a few minutes later he reappeared, closer but still impossibly far away.

When next he disappeared from visual, she tried something different. Hoping the glitch was working both ways, she uncloaked and gave her engine a burst. Her lips curled into a smile; much better, now. Once the cycle was almost done she cloaked again. And that’s when the Magnate disappeared from her scanner. She cursed herself for her impatience. She had no doubt spooked her prey.

She warped out, tried several scanning spots but he was gone, either cloaked in hiding or gone back to empire space. After a while, things seemed quiet so she went back to her Retriever and the rock she’d been working on. Assuming all would go back to normal, she lowered her guard and the usual boredom settled back into her.

Not ten minutes after getting settled, she was jarred awake by the arrival of a ship. Another spike of adrenaline coursed through her as she scrambled to align and warp out even before she took a good look at it. A Sigil?! In this place?! As the Dantan Express gained speed she confirmed it; it was Von Brimstoner again.

This time she went straight for the Hound when she reached the ship hangars. She warped at range, cloaked, expecting to find the ship gone… but no! There he was, still in his Sigil and mining with his tiny little mining lasers aimed at the biggest rocks of Spodumain around the place.

The jin-mei hesitated, torn between defending her territory and reluctance to attack a basically unarmed vessel. In the end, she reminded herself that this was their home, their territory, their livelihood. They had paid dearly for the right to it in ships, crew, manpower and hours of patrolling. This man was able to be there in his little ship because she herself had cleared out the local Sleepers before. She started approaching, wary of any rocks that might break her cloak.

“It’s not like he doesn’t know people live here,” she thought to herself. “He saw me. I was in a mining barge. The tower appears on directional scan from the exit mouth. What exactly does he think I warped out for? This is a dangerous place. Not the high-sec he seems to think he’s still flying in.”

Building up her resolve, she did her approach. A simple act of aggression for most people, but something she’d hardly ever done before, much less all on her own. And this guy had no idea what was about to hit him.

At 30km she uncloaked and immediately launched a bomb. Grey eyes glued to the bomb’s trajectory, she maneuvered at the same time to place herself at a favourable orbit. She needn’t have troubled. Her single bomb instantly turned the Sigil into so much twisted metal. She cloaked herself again, eyes on the pod. “Go on, get away from here,” she spoke within her mind, as if he could hear her. And then when he did warp out, she realised he should count himself lucky. If any other of her corp mates had been doing the hunting Von Brimstoner would likely have found his trip home an instantaneous one.

She watched the capsule signature disappear from her directional scanner. “Be smart. Don’t come back.”

War Ends

Looking back at the past week, Kayleigh had to smile. She had never been in a position where a war had been so profitable for the defending corporation.

No one had even quite figured out why this corporation, Schindler’s Ignore List, had declared a war on SPHERE. The best they had been able to guess was that they might have been spotted at the ice field in Vaurent, all on barges, mindlessly mining ice, and someone might have wanted to have some fun at the expense of clueless miners.

What had happened instead was that all SPHERE pilots had moved over to the facilities on J170132 and throughout the entire week had proceeded to mine, harvest and fight like a well-practiced team, and the corporation would be making a very nice amount of money once she could get all this stuff on the market.

There had been a few exciting moments when, in a bout of cosmic humour, the exit wormhole had connected J170132 first to the very home system of their war targets, then two days later to a system just next-door to them, but even then no action had happened. Even their friends in empire would barely get glimpses of their aggressors in local channels.

Well now the war was drawing to a close, Kayleigh found herself secretly sorry for that, as a number of her corp mates prepared to go back to their usual lives and occupations in empire star systems. She was sure it was about to get a little lonely out here.

War on Ice?

Kayleigh sighed for what might well have been the hundredth time. Bored, bored bored. Corporate banter could only go so far, after all. Sittting still, staring at the very same huge chunk of ice tended to make people go quiet, most likely out of the same utter boredom she was feeling right now.

She couldn’t for the life of her fathom what made people harvest this for a living. Desperation, likely. She glanced at her own assistant, Laureline, sitting nearby in the Masalle, a Retriever which had started its career belonging to Kay. She as working hard to get a Mackinaw and mine even more ice. Kayleigh might not understand the appeal, but she was sure willing to buy her ice for Sphere’s wormhole control tower.

Another sigh. And then suddenly she noticed the blinking icon informing her a new message had arrived. The jin-mei took her eyes off the static scene outside and opened it. CONCORD? A war dec? She arched her eyebrows, incredulous as she read again to make sure she wasn’t dreaming.

A moment later, she broke silence on corporate comms. “Has anyone else noticed someone declared war on us? Does anyone even know who they are?”

It Takes But a Moment

Kayleigh woke with a strangled yelp, soaked in sweat. As she gulped for air she took stock of her surroundings: dark room, small, a bed that was not her own, the covers tossed aside as if in a struggle. She was confused for a moment and then remembered. It wasn’t real, it had been a nightmare. At least this time, it had. Late night yesterday she had been podded for real.

She buried her head in her hands and tried to get her heart beat under control once more, but the horrible memories kept playing behind her closed eyelids, so she flicked a light on just to find something else to focus on.

It was still hard to believe how fast everything had happened.

She had been fleeted up with Yal, Loken and Morbick, the four of them working on dislodging Sleepers from a nest. Four SPHERE pilots, with four pairs of eyes on directional scan. It was supposed to have been reasonably safe. But the fight must have distracted them at the key moment. It all happened when the last Sleeper blew up and Kayleigh was still approaching the first wreck to scoop up some loot.

There were six of them.

The first alarms rang when the Phobos materialised so close to them. The jin-mei was the first to shout a warning and instantly aligned toward an escape route while the Second Breath resolved a lock on the heavy interdictor. Before that happened, a warp interdiction bubble had taken effect, imprisoning both Yal and Morbick. And that was when the other five revealed themselves. Yal shouted at them to warp out and return with stealth bombers.

Loken had been lucky enough to find himself outside the warp interdiction, so he had quickly warped to safety. Kayleigh for a moment thought she was going to lose another painfully expensive Loki, as she was within the bubble. But then she heard Aura’s beautiful voice: warp drive active. A glimmer of hope lit up in her heart. The Interdiction Nullifier subsystem on her ship had just saved her. She had still been lucky, however; among the attackers she had spotted an interceptor, no doubt on tackling duty. If he had targeted her specifically she would have been just as trapped.

As it was, fleet chatter was alive with orders and intel. Back at the tower, Loken was having trouble getting on board a heavier-hitting ship. Kayleigh swapped as fast as she could to the Ignebaener Wrath. Heart hammering at her chest, she followed Yal’s instructions and warped at range, fervently hoping the calculations would be correct and she would land outside that dreaded warp bubble.

But something went wrong.

Coming out of warp, Kayleigh found herself just a thousand metres or so from the Phobos, right in the middle of that bubble… and she with a microwarp drive on board. She tried to realign while locking the primary target, but in a matter of seconds the interceptor was on her. A Hound doesn’t have much in the way of a tank. They made short work of her, as she started to feel sick to her stomach. Not the capsule, please, for the love of everything you hold dear.

Her silent pleas were naturally ignored. Although she spammed the commands, struggled within the pod, physically tried to make it move, she was trapped. The attackers lost no time. First Morbick, then her, then Yal.

She awoke kicking and squirming for her life back in the Federation for the second time in her life, except now Nakatre wouldn’t be coming over to comfort or reassure her. She cried herself to sleep that night.

The Lesson

She bit her lip, ignoring the faint taste of pod fluid that it brought. Her hands were still shaking, but she’d be hard pressed to say if the cause was shame, anger, guilt, or all three at once. She could only be grateful that no one could see her flaming cheeks inside the pod.

She was still floating in space, now protected by the Dauntless tower shields. Unsure what to do, she simply hovered in space, trying to keep her voice as calm as she could whenever she had to speak to any of her corp mates in channel. She should probably dock up, leave her pod for the night, have a cup of tea and a lie down. Yet she couldn’t make herself leave the pod, walk the cramped quarters in just her flesh and bones, weighed by shame as she was. She couldn’t make herself run the risk of having to look the remaining XianKun sister in the eye.

The night the two sisters had shown up along with Loken and all four of them had gone out to clear Sleepers out of space, Kayleigh Jamieson-Read had made a mistake so grave, so basic and so costly that she could only wonder at the fact she hadn’t been fired yet. How could she have been so incompetent precisely then?

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!”

In a moment of distraction, she had lost the New Dawn, the very Loki she’d been so proud of. And she could blame no one but herself for losing a ship she’d worked so hard for and had paid so much for. She’d lowered her guard in a dangerous system while out at a place called “The Line” and had been jumped by six hostile capsuleers. Tor and Loken had warped back to help her but she’d been too far gone, and instead they’d ended up losing their ships and also their pods. All because of her.

Kayleigh herself had somehow managed to save her capsule. The ejection had felt different, somehow. For a start, she had a massive headache. One of the sockets which connected her to her pod felt… tingly, and not in a good way. The jin-mei didn’t quite know what to make of it. She could only sit and worry, and hope there was nothing wrong with her because out here there were no real medical facilities she could visit right now.

Outside, Yal was orbiting in a lazy circle. Kayleigh shivered and suddenly felt the need to have more of a skin around her. She willed her capsule to approach the hangar and boarded the Starcutter.

The Myrmidon-class battlecruiser was an old ship, as such things were counted among capsuleers. She hadn’t been flown in a long time, before Kayleigh had brought it back out of the Alenia hangars for Dauntless, but she felt comfortable tonight. Like an old friend. She wouldn’t be much help right now, fitted as she was with all gas harvesters and no weapons, yet being surrounded by the elegant Gallentean design gradually made Kayleigh relax a little more.

Chewing at her lip, she started planning for the next day. There was no way she was going to be able to afford another Loki so soon, but she could certainly work hard, make money go into SPHERE so they could replace their losses. Tomorrow she would start by probing a new exit, bringing in something she could shoot with, and then finding a market for all the odds and ends they already had gathered. It would be a start.

Yal still flew lazy circles around her.

Nox at War

Coming back from a planetside conference, Kayleigh had returned to her office to find a message from Gareth. Nox Draconum was at war and the jin-mei was missed among the ranks of pilots in the alliance she’d helped bring to life.

On the one hand, the message had made her smile. Gareth had always had a way of making her feel welcome and wanted in Nox. On the other hand it had made her feel guilty. Nox needed her and she couldn’t help; not without risking CONCORD intervention, at any rate, which was something she didn’t exactly cherish.

And what was more, by getting involved she might attract attention to her own small corp and could risk getting a war declared on them. As she had given it more thought, she had realised her association with current Nox Draconum pilots was far too evident and easy to discover. It really would be best if she let her CEO know about this situation.

It was while she’d been writing to her CEO that she had found out about Tatsu no Tsurugi’s tower in Ignebaener being in reinforced status. The call had come up for pilots to help repair structures as soon as the tower would come out of reinforced. Torn in her loyalties Kayleigh had finally opted not to show. She had responsibilities in SPHERE and she couldn’t just jeopardise those who had taken her in after the whole mess at Dragonstar.

And so it was that she now found herself cloaked at a distance from the tower. A gang of Rough Necks pilots in battleships were pounding away at the helpless tower and some scavengers were laughing away in local chatter, getting ready to pounce for the scraps.

Unless…

Nox pilots didn’t dare jump in there, outnumbered and outgunned as they were, but a neutral pilot like, say, one Kayleigh Jamieson-Read, could perhaps salvage something before the vultures got to it. After all, this was Nox property.

Not half an hour later, she had an Iteron Mk4 and was slow-boating it toward structures already unanchored. Heart pounding in her chest, unsure of how the Rough Necks or CONCORD would react, she approached a gun. Despite being bumped by a hostile, she managed to pull it in. No aggression, no police. She smiled, grey eyes hard as steel, and turned her sluggish ship toward the next structure.

More ships came and bumped her. At least three of the hostiles had her locked in their sights, perhaps trying to scare her into aggressing first so they could retaliate, or laugh whenever the local police blew her to pieces, but she knew better than that. Even if she wanted, she couldn’t do anything. She’d been in such a hurry that all she had had time to get fitted were some cargo hold expanders.

The going was slow and rough, being bumped constantly by the lighter hostiles. She filled her cargo with unanchored guns and warped off to the station. As fast as she could, she unloaded and warped back, this time directly to coordinates for laboratories.

She wasn’t so lucky, this time. The Rough Necks haulers were on the job and whenever she could get close to a structure after the bumpy ride, some hauler would already be pulling it into its hold. Much to her frustration, she was unable to save anything of real value. But she went back to the guns and got a few more, racing some neutral opportunists to them. Who’d have thought: the vice-champion of the ISRC league racing for leftovers in her hauler?

In the end, two and a half cargo holds worth of tower weaponry was all she could save. A poor showing, but better than a complete loss. As she met up with Critters in station to hand over Tatsu’s guns, she wondered if her little stunt would have annoyed the Rough Necks enough to retaliate in some way on SPHERE. She hoped not. Not for a few guns, at any rate.

Nox Tournament - Round Four

I lost my fight with Timsinsal. It was a close one, Punisher vs Rifter, both really hugging each other's hulls. He was dealing more damage, but I was sucking his cap to feed my armour repairer and this was causing him trouble.

Eventually, though, he did break through my tank and that was that. A very good fight, but I finish my PvP stint in fourth place in our little tournament.

In other games, RedKiwi defeated General Ization and is now officially the winner. The General and Timsinsal now go on to play a match for 2nd and 3rd places. I'm curious to see who gets it.

Nox Tournament - Round Three

Brackets for round 3 are as follows

General Ization
vs.
RedKiwi

Gareth
vs.
Kayleigh

Results to be updated as fights take place.

Nox Tournament - Round Two

The brackets for the second round are as follows (being updated as and when fights get played out):

General Ization (1-0) [Rifter]
vs.
Jadark (1-0) [speed/missile Condor]
(Fight was tied when Jadark couldn't break GI's tank; later Jadark withdrew from the tournament after a disagreement about the rules.)

RedKiwi (2-0)
vs
Timsinsal (1-1)

Breddy
vs.
Gareth
(Match forfeit as Breddy was a no-show.)

Kayleigh (1-1) [speedy Rifter]
vs.
Werewolf (0-2) [missile Inquisitor]

Tried and True

Round two of the Nox Draconum tournament. I figure if the unexpected didn't work in round one, I have nothing to lose in my elimination match in trying my strongest point: speed.

I knew which ship I wanted all along. I'd raced in the T1 days often enough with the Rifter - a ship which I always thought was a good balance between speed and sturdiness. And of course I've heard many wonderful things about how the Rifter performs in combat. I called up some friends, looked up several fittings and picked one which came highly recommended.

I won't deny I got really nervous before the fight. I'd spent all day trying to visualise how the fight might go, what I'd need to do. I practiced in my head, but that's always such a fickle simulator, isn't it? Nothing to do but to go out there and do it for real. So that's how it was when I warped to the designated spot in Leremblompes to fight Werewolf.

I found he'd brought an Inquisitor to the fight. I didn't like that. Don't those have a lot of missile hardpoints? My Amarr frigate expertise is rather lacking. I do know I absolutely hate missiles and rockets with a passion. Damned things always seem to make the most damage on me, and I was in such a little frigate.

Butterflies in my tummy, Gareth gives the sign and off I go, screaming at the top of my MicroWarp Drive engine toward Werewolf. I want to hug his hull, not let him get away from me, suck his energy for my repairer because I'll need it.

But his missiles hit hard, making me cringe, my heart dropping all the way to my feet as I see I'm not doing as much damage. But I'm maybe doing mine more often. And he's not going anywhere, he's not denying my speed.

Out of shields -- almost time to turn on repairer -- distance is good -- his shields still about one quarter? Not good -- shoot, little Rifter, orbit fast! -- half armour? kick in repper -- goodness me, that sucks cap -- pulse it, just like the MWD...

And then the fight turned. My armour held, his started melting. Could it be..?

Yes it could. My Rifter performed beautifully. His Inquisitor is no more. I think I owe a certain friend some exotic spiced wine.

I'm still in the tournament, and I have no idea what to fly next.

Nox Tournament - Round One

The brackets for the first round were as follows:

breddy (0-1) [missile Kestrel]
vs.
General Ization (1-0) [autocannon Rifter]

Gareth (0-1) [blaster Tristan]
vs.
Jadark (1-0) [speed Kestrel]

Kayleigh (0-1) [ECM Maulus]
vs.
RedKiwi (1-0) [rocket Kestrel]

Timsinsal (1-0) [blaster Punisher]
vs.
Werewolf (0-1) [auto-cannon dual-rep Punisher]

Next round the losers of previous matches get a final chance to stay in the tournament. Brackets are as follows:

Breddy
vs.
Gareth

Kayleigh
vs.
Werewolf

((Edited to include the delayed Breddy vs General results ))

Nobody Expects...

I finally found my way out of EndLand today - a civilised way out, that is - and managed to get in contact with RedKiwi so we could have our match in the Nox Tournament.

I hadn't expected to find myself in a capsuleer tournament, but once in there, I felt compelled to give it my best. And in this case it involved trying not to be too predictable. Everyone in Nox Draconum knows I'm fast; everyone knows my strong point is in drones, when it comes to damage. They'd be expecting it. So what could I do to catch them off-guard?

Electronic Warfare.

I'd never done it. So much so, that I had to forego any normal pilot activities and just sit down the whole day trying to learn how to use it. I put orders out for fitting a Maulus, possibly the one Gallentean frigate I'd never flown.

And when the time arrived, there I was with butterflies in my stomach and a shiny new ship wearing modules I'd never before used or tested. Nobody expects the E-war Kayleigh.

However, I ended up having to face a rocket-Kestrel. I'm told that's pretty much the worst case scenario for me. I wouldn't have known, initiated as I am into such arts. I still gave it a go, with all I had, of course.

My two drones did bite Red hard, but I couldn't break his lock on me and it went downhill from there. I didn't have the speed to catch up to him to suck much-needed cap or even to manage to hit him with my blasters. I had to micro-manage drones while also trying to manage unfamiliar e-war equipment... I lost.

When the ship disintegrated around me I believe he was down to 25% shields, give or take a bit. Small consolation that my alliance mates tell me this was probably one of the longest matches - I still lost and don't even feel it was very close a match. I'll file it away as a learning experience.

Next round I face elimination if I lose to Werewolf. We shall see...

Nox Tournament

I'd very much like to know who was the smart ass who signed me up for the little tournament we're having within the alliance. Maybe someone thought I needed to let some steam off in a shooting match? I don't know.

What I do know is that when I turned on Alliance comms today I was greeted with news that I was supposed to be setting up a sparring match with RedKiwi no later than tonight. I checked and there was my name in the brackets, along with seven other pilots. And I'm the only one who's still in Dragonstar, too. I suppose I can't bail out; the brackets would go all wonky and there would be no one defending Dragonstar colours.

Ha. Me, of all people, holding up the DS colours. Right...

So... I need to set up a tech one frigate on tech one specs and fight RedKiwi. Goodness, that's going to make for a very short and very painful match, I'm sure.

Fight Night - 2

Last night, after a couple of weeks of finding myself too busy or too far away, I took part in another of those fight nights Gerrard has been organising. They have so far been a success. Even the new recruits have been curious and enthusiastic about it. It's frankly good to see those many Dragonstar pilots in one place again and it bodes well for the corp. I think we're finally growing once more.

But as for the event itself, well at least I did a little better. I took part in four or five matches, won one convincingly enough, and gave quite a bit of a fight in another one (until my cap ran out, Batuka got a little too close and once that web got me two volleys stripped me of all my armour.)

I'm still bad. Very bad. But at least I think I'm making some progress, which is encouraging. It was annoying to not be able to touch Jikomanzoku and his Breacher from hell; I usually pride myself in being fast, but he was certainly faster than me in my Incursus, last night. A good thing he was once part of Dragonstar Racing as it saves face a little for me, but still.. I'll catch you yet, Jiko!

Alliance Tournament - Finals

Ah well, Electus Matari got eliminated by Star Fraction on their very first elimination round, which was such a shame. It left me with no one to root for from then on.

However, EM put up a hell of a fight. Good to see some racers out there - hi Teo and KillJoy! - and even refusing to die *grin* That was the first time I heard the term 'Hero Tanking' and to me it'll always be associated with EM. Way to go, guys.

As for the rest, I was left without favourites so congratulations to Pandemic Legion for pulling some surprises out of the box when they really were needed. I'll still be there to watch whatever happens in the next Alliance tournament.

Fight Night - Result

I have just one word to describe how Fight Night went for me: embarrassing.

Out of six fights, or so, I managed to prevail in just a single one, and even so it was a very close contest.

More to be had next week, I suppose, if I can find it in me to go through the humiliation again. At least morale seemed to be up. Everyone likes to shoot a CEO from time to time.