Superstition FTW

Ok... so I was just commenting (ok... boasting.. bragging.. beating my own chest etc etc) about my efficiency in wormholes. It's a pretty empty boast regardless due to the fact that most wormhole players aren't equipped with either the ship fittings or the intellect to protect themselves from well-thought out attacks, but it still feels good to consistently be on the winning side of things.

In any case.. I said then that I was almost certainly jinxing myself, and that absolutely turned out to be true.

I was innocently cloaked inside a wormhole in a populous system while I passed the time chatting with my fellow pilots over comms when a report of some mission runners in low sec came in from my corpmate Tarkis.

Apparently there was a retribution, 2 drakes, and a maelstrom running missions in low sec. It was about 6 jumps away (all low-sec) and I wasn't convinced it was worth the effort to go when they'd probably just scatter and we'd miss the kills anyway.

I started asking Tarkis for a few more details and was greeted by silence.

"Tark.... everything ok????"

It seems he had been busy and the retribution had died an untimely death.

Tarkis also reported that he had barely gotten away from one of the drakes who had the audacity to fit a scram running missions. Given that he was outnumbered 4 v 1 in a not-so-speedy ship, his escape was noteworthy.

When Tarkis reported that they'd gone back in to finish the mission, it made up my mind for me. These guys were ok with a fight and I wanted in on that.

I used the proteus to scout for the maelstrom and started on my way.

I parked the maelstrom on the gate one jump out of their system and let Tarkis know I was ready. He got me a warp in to the acceleration gate entrance to their mission for the proteus and I warped in at what should've been 20km.

Instead, I appeared right on the gate and got decloaked.

Interestingly enough, one of the drakes was also on the gate. I started trying to lock him down but he had already started to align and barrelled through the acceleration gate before my sensors finished the job.

I quickly followed and found the second room empty. However, we landed on the 2nd acceleration gate so I didn't have much time. I immediately locked and scrammed him before he could get into warp. His shields were only slowly going down so I decided I needed to bring the maelstrom in.

Both Tarkis' pilgrim and the maelstrom landed at about the same time and with their help, the first drake died a relatively quick death.

The second drake warped in as the first was entering armor and we split our points to make sure he wasn't going anywhere either. He was at about 50% shields when the maelstrom also appeared in this room. This was like an early christmas that just kept on giving!

The second drake died quickly but the maelstrom was taking awhile. Even with the neuts of the pilgrim and the friendly maelstrom on him he just wasn't going down quickly.

Finally he ran out of cap injectors or the DPS just became too much for him to tank and he also exploded into a bunch of tiny pieces.

During this fight local had been steadily heating up. We had started at 7 and were now nearing 20. I suspect the call had gone out about the T3 in combat. A Typhoon and an Astarte warped into the mission room as we were trying to get to the loot and the call went out to retreat.

All of us got safely into warp even though Tarkis got followed and eventually tackled by a hurricane at a planet.

However, Tarkis (hereafter known as Houdini) put the slip on him once again and got away before help landed to secure their hold on his slippery ship.

All was well and good except for these pesky global criminal timers.

I cloaked the proteus and moved the Maelstrom one system closer to home to dock up and wait it out.

Once the timers were clear, I move the proteus ahead of the maelstrom as a scout and headed back to watch the entrance to my WormHole.

Local ballooned as I undocked the Maelstrom but I figured I could stay ahead of it if I went straight to the next gate.

Extremely poor decision.

I landed on the gate at the same time as about a 12 man fleet of mostly BCs with a few logisitics in support.

I tried to realign and head back to the station, but a few of them pointed me. Unfortunately for me, they were disciplined and only 3 - 4 of them agressed on the near side. The rest (of course) followed when I jumped through.

I decided I'd try and go back through the gate and hopefully have their forces split a little bit where I could deal with just the 3-4 on the other side instead of the much larger force that had followed. After waiting out the session timer I flipped the switch on the MWD and headed back towards the gate.

Unfortunately the maelstrom is a lumbering beast and they had LOTS of webs and 2-point scrams to prevent just such a tactic.

Even so... it was going to be close...

4000m

3500m

3000m

I might make this...

2892m

and..... BUMP...

damn... going the wrong way now.. might as well agress and die fighting...

Unfortunately... I was already mostly past the breaking point of my tank and didn't take any of them down.

As such, my Maelstrom was my first real loss (not counting hi-sec gank or tourney losses) in over a month.

GFs with the Beyond Virginity guys were exchanged in local and I expressed my wish that they enjoy the nice shield booster (why doesn't the faction pop when I'm the one doing the dying?).

These guys obviously know their stuff much better than many of the fleets I come across in 0.0 and they certainly deserve the props.

Of course all of this came right after I'd pounded my chest about how well things were going.

It seems that Pride does in fact goeth before a fall....