Friday, June 09, 2006

Mining our own business

Last Tuesday night, my corp mates and I, had planned a mining operation and it was decided that we would be mining in a low security system to stock up on some precious minerals.

I dropped off my Vexor in Baratar, my current base of operations (got some quality security agents there), picked up an Amarrian shuttle and headed back to HQ, in Badivedfi, 17 systems away.
Once in there, I switched ships to my trusty Iteron Mark V, the Fat Mimi I, and set course for Nourbal where I would meet up with some of my corp mates. After getting there I started hauling back and forth between Nourbal and our deposit station somewhere near Nourbal, since that system has no stations.

Everything was running smoothly until we noticed a pilot who had jumped in Nourbal by himself. This guy was from the Federation of Freedom Fighters, with a low security rating. Now, be himself he would have been chop liver for our CAP, but these types of rats never travel alone. On my way out of Nourbal I noticed that on the other side of the gate, the only gate to exit Nourbal, there's was a few other of his corp mates from FoFF waiting there. Not good. Not good at all.

So we got ready in case things started to get ugly and on my way to drop the ore, I'm was getting constant feedback form my corp mates back in Nourbal, as to what the situation was. They we're not moving in yet, but by the time I had dropped the ore and started to head back to Nourbal, there was a total of 7 FoFF pilots gate camping in Kerbez. As I headed back to Nourbal everyone there was on edge and I awaited orders from our XO. Just before jumping into Keberz I stopped and waited there. It didn't take long for order to come through, we were pulling out!

I'm was given orders to "Get the ore, NOW!!" So I fired up the engine, jumped in Keberz, and headed straight to the Nourbal gate where all the FoFF fighters were waiting; except by then there was only 6 of them at the gate; one had jumped in. Thanks to some good bookmarking, I jumped into Nourbal as soon as I come out of warp at the gate. After going through our safe spots I headed towards the belt where we were mining our own business, before being rudely disturbed.

As I got there and started my approach to the containers, the pilot that had came into the system earlier, popped in the middle of the belt. Shit!! Our orders were to "Evacuate the system immediately and head back to HQ!" I picked up the ore and followed orders.

Escape from Nourbal

As we came across the gate in Keberz, we spotted all 7 of them still there, waiting to jump in Nourbal. I took the screenshot above as a souvenir. Man, I would have loved to see their faces when they saw us warping to the next gate as soon as we come out of Nourbal!!

The only casualty of this event was one of our corp mate , who had logged out while still in Nourbal. When he logged back in, the FoFF pilots were all in that belt and he was podded before he even knew what was going on.

Overall though, we did a great job, we got out safely and got the ore too! Now, we'll have to be a bit more on the look out, and will probably have to change our mining schedule so that we never mine in the same system, at the same time, on the same weekday.

But still what a night that was!

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