And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, one girl sitting on her own in a small cafe in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
--Douglas Adams
Having faced a few defeats of late in larger (read more expensive) vessels, I had finally settled on the sound advice that I should stick to my Punisher until I truly had the skills for something else. Deciding that packing a little extra firepower was never a bad idea however, I had fleeted up with a Corpmate in a Rifter to try our hand at a two-person-roam.
Now, I certainly wasn't very experienced at the time, having only been Pirating less than a month, but the Rifter pilot had only just joined us and had yet to see any kills. The responsibility then fell to me to lead this little excursion. We spent most of the time chatting on comms and me giving him some general advice I had learned, since only a month earlier I was in exactly his shoes both SP and player-skill wise. Seventeen jumps later without so much a shot fired between us, I wasn't showing him an awful lot.
Finally spotting another Rifter on D-scan we had decided this was going to be where this roam paid off. While I don't fly a Rifter myself, I am aware that with its Stasis Webifier in addition to the Scram, it tackles better than the Punisher and had thus already discussed that it was a good idea if my Corpmate tried to land the tackle solo to ensure we didn't frighten the other Rifter from the field. Once he called point though, I was on top of the other Rifter in an instant and our combined firepower quickly took him from half shields to sitting in a pod.
With my own Scrambler not necessary during the fight, I had held it in reserve waiting for the capsule to appear on my overview. Once it did, I cycled it and began locking the targets pod. This is possibly the slowest time will ever move for you as a Pirate, during the time waiting to lock a Capsule, but with my lock resolving we had him in our clutches. I quickly invited him to a comm channel where our ransom business is conducted, and awaited his arrival.
Once he was there, I offered him the chance to free his pod at the low low price of 10 million isk. Now, this number may seem quite random to you, but there was some method behind my madness. First of all, I had been having terrible luck when trying to ransom pods by myself. Most of my solo ransom attempts concluding with being told how hard to stick certain objects into certain other orifices. The second reason being, that The Blood Money Cartel has an entrance exam, both myself and my wingman had yet to complete. The 10misk from this ransom would complete the minimum ransom requirements for the both of us. Needless to say, I was relieved when our new friend (anyone giving me isk is my new friend) agreed.
We let him go, exchanging GFs in local, and virtual high-fives all the way back to the safespot to wait out our GCCs. This wasn't the first successful ransom I had been a part of, but it was the first successful ransom I had been in charge of conducting. It was these moments of adrenaline, of victory, of camaraderie, of flashing wallet balances, that made being a Pirate in New Eden truly worth it.
Regarrrds,
FNG
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