Epic Fail

I was going to mention how I lost not one, but two Blackbirds in the same melee. I was going to mention how the first was the fleet commander's fault, and how the second was my own for continuing to follow him. I was going to mention how I wanted to look for a corp, since the pick-up militia fleets were really starting to get old.

I was going to mention how I hate to hear pirates whine about piracy being too hard. It was going to sum it up with something cliché like, "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime." I was going to mention that low sec is a transition to null sec, but that pirates just don't ever seem to move on and I was going to muse as to why that was.

But then I had a failure of epic proportions.

I was busy last night having to do work for others. It was work I could do remotely, so I decided to do it while in my capsule. I had a large batch of advanced large hybrid weapons to take to market, and I considered looking for cheap Jaguars and possibly a Kitsune and a Hound.

I loaded up Lorxun. Lor is a Mastodon. Lor is an artistic rendition of cumbersome, if you consider Thukker brutalism to be art. When rigged and fit, she could hold nine giant secure containers and three larges. She had served very well in Aridia, Outer Ring, and through out the empires.

The ship and rigs alone cost me just over 120,000,000 kredits. Since I had sold off my disused Tempest, she was by far the most expensive ship I had.

The killboards estimate her total value, with cargo, between 188M and 230M.

Mastodon on the killboard: Fail.

I left Elgoi and stopped in Rens, Hek, and finally Oursuleart. I sold 40M in goods outright, and posted another 118M in sell orders.

Having a few things left over, and deciding to wait on picking up any new ships, I set a corse for Elgoi. I looked at my list of assets and decided there was a system just five jumps away with old junk that I could clean out in this trip and probably use in the future to bargain with an agent.

I thought the system was Gallente, and I added the way point, moving it up the autopilot list ahead of Elgoi. I undocked, warped to my first gate, and engaged the autopilot.

I went back to work, letting the autopilot drive Lor through Gallente and Matari high security space.

"Autopilot approaching stargate," Aura would announce in the background. I'd reach up and toggle the afterburner if I was paying enough attention.

"Autopilot jumping." There was the sound of the gate activating, the bubble forming, and the ship being pushed out of space.

"Autopilot warping to stargate." There was the sound of engines roaring, the ship shaking as it fought Einstein and cross the light-barrier. Relatively.

"Autopilot approaching stargate." I wasn't as focused on my work at this point since I was waiting for a command I'd issued to their systems to finish and give me a result. I looked up, knowing that Aura announces her intentions just before they are reality. If I attempt to toggle on the afterburners too soon, they won't come on, and I'll have no audible indication that they didn't engage.

I see the console finally indicate that it is out of warp and the sub-light engines begin to glow. I toggle the afterburners with a quick keystroke.

The icon begins to pulse green on my display. I notice an aggression timer.

Who did I agress?

I notice a flashy red box.

I was being attacked! And in high security space!

I scrambled for the controls. My shields were barely scratched, and I was moving at speed to the gate. I didn't panic in the confidence that CONCORD would be here soon.

I brought the display's focus on the aggressor. It was the Caldari Navy. "No, no, no, no, no!"

That extra waypoint was actually in Caldari space, not Gallente. There would be no CONCORD intervention. The Mastodon was too big and slow. She could never close 13 Km before being torn apart. There was nothing ahead of me. I selected another gate and gave the order to warp-to-zero. I watched as Lor began to turn. The bow pitched up and yawed to port. Lor pulled hard, but the movement, even when not under the tension of a dramatic moment, played out in slow motion. It was as if watching a large mythical beast rise up on point and try to pirouette in the thick gel of a neutrally buoyant clone vat.

The gate guns came on line, and it was too late. The shields were stripped away quickly. There is no armor. The hull is just there to keep the cargo together. Next came the explosion.

Mastodon lost to Caldari Navy: Epic Fail.