I am out and about, flying around, doing my thing. It’s been quiet, so I figure, how about some low-sec npc ratting. I head to a new favorite place of mine, Otou. It’s a nice system, some nice npc rats, but it’s also a dangerous place. I’ve run into some fun pirates in that system and they do mean business. They are a good lot, very professional pirates. I have had a tangle or two with them, always managed to escape their grasp in the past. So, as you would guess, I would have made their hit list.
As fate would have it, I did tangle with them again. I was ratting around and in jumps a fellow in a stabber. He locks me down and we begin to fight. His support shows up and I am not able to get away as he’s got a 24km warp scram on me and I stopped fitting warp core stabs a long time ago. I am brought down to structure and I figure, well, there goes my Deimos. Might as well surrender. I shout in local that I surrender and to my pleasant surprise a convo begins. Wow, these are not gank pirates? I am intrigued. I stop firing and drop my weapons lock. Very professional, straight and to the point. They state their ransom sum. I go ahead and pay them and they let me go.
I’ve not seen that in a while as most pirates I have been running into are on the gank first, collect loot path.
What happens next surprises me even more and again, it’s a pleasant surprise. Their CEO convos me and is very polite. We chat about a few things and he comes out and asks if I would be interested in joining his corp. Again, I am intrigued. I’ve been in two corps already and things have always petered out. TRAPS and YA-RR do spend most of their time in empire and I think I am finally ready for the low-sec life. I’ve done some npc ratting in low-sec but I’ve spent most of my time doing empire wars.
I tell him that I am still working a contract, as I was at the time, but I would be interested in learning more. He invites me to safely spend time with them in their home system and do some PvP. Shortly after, I am with them on a gate camp, having some fun with my Domi. A few kills later, I realize, I’ve been missing a lot of fun and these guys seem to be a good bunch. After some removing myself as ceo of my 1 man corp, I take the plunge and join up. Yup, I’ve gone down the dark path of being an Outlaw, I joined the Neo Spartans.
It’s been a few days and already it’s been a blast. We’ve had a bunch of kills, including something I had always wanted to do, but had not had the chance. While we were working a gate, the word comes in that a freighter is incoming. So, we head off to engage. I click the wrong gate and warp off in the wrong direction. Yup, even vets make noob mistakes. So, I arrive late to the fight, just in time to put some damage in and they watch the ransom. He’s given a choice, pay the 700 mil or eject and save his pod. He says that he’s empty and he won’t pay. A quick cargo hold scan confirms that’s he’s empty. 700 mil or eject and save your pod.
What does he do? He refuses to pay and self destructs. How lame. He could have kept his pod and simply lost his ship but no, he had to be stubborn about it. Oh well. We are ordered to destroy the ship before the self destruct timer goes off. Fortunately, we are successful.
Yup, that’s a freighter wreck, my first that I helped to create. It’s been over two years playing and I feel like I have started to play EVE for the first time. More people should make the move to low-sec and zero-zero. There is a whole section of game play that people are missing spending all their time in Empire.
So, here’s to my new corp mates, let’s have some fun!!!
