In Deklein

(Because I'll always go for the cheap pun.) Deklein is a region in the EVE universe, a nullsec region. It's now my new stomping ground.

I was invited to join Skyforger corp by Scipia Mortalis (we call him Skippy). So I bid farewell to my friends in Otakudyne, and set out to join my new corpmates in 0.0.

Deklein does not border any highsec regions. The main way in from empire space is from a highsec system known as Torrinos in Caldari space through a bottleneck system known as EC-P8R. One system further on is EWOK-K, by the way. I don't know how they name some of these systems and don't get sued...

EC-P8R is pretty much always camped. It's a big bottleneck. It goes from highsec to lowsec, allowing for an easy retreat. Sometimes it's camped by blues (those are my allies and friends). Sometimes it's camped by reds (our known enemies). And sometimes it's camped by neutrals. We call them neutrals, because there is no history, and we haven't marked status on them. However, if they are in EC, it's because they want to kill me. Trust me on this.

My first attempt to get to our nullsec territory ended this way. I was just getting my feet wet, and a senior corp member, Ginta, kindly offered to help scout for me with his stealth bomber. He led me to his first "safe" spot, a spot about 2-300 kilometers off the EC/Torrinos gate, while he went to scout ahead of me. I made the fatal mistake of going into what I would call "obedience" mode. Like a good doggie, I sat when told to sit, and stopped thinking or looking around me.

You know what happened, don't you? A command ship (a big, nasty tech 2 bully) scanned me down, jumped on me, and killed me and podded me in about 15 seconds, the speed with which he locked onto and shot my pod was amazing. By the way, it wasn't a red, it was a "neutral". My corp has a NBSI (Not Blue Shoot It) policy, pretty much for this reason. CVA and the Providence region is perhaps the only nullsec alliance/area of the game that doesn't have this policy, as it's a much harder job. Personally, I think the new rules mean there's something to be gained from neutral traffic, but the security issues have to be handled first, and doing it well may seem too much like a real job for most people to want to do.

In any case, I woke up 30 jumps away in Sinq Laison where my clone was, bought and outfitted a new Brutix and got back in the game. I came here to be podkilled, after all. But I would really like to get some of my own licks in.

*********

Last night we were invaded by a couple of different gangs. The security reports were sloshing in the sightings. One was a gang of about 12 ships, hailing from a traditional enemy of my alliance based in a nearby system. Earlier that day two of their people had managed to catch and pop Skippy's Raven, but lost both of their ships, one of which was a much more expensive T2 ship. But one of them declared that the real attack was going to be that night. Why you would say that is beyond me. But it was correct. Their gang caused quite a lot of trouble, catching Skippy's Raven (another one!) and several more alliance ships.

Along with that was another gang of about 6 ships from a different alliance. A defense force managed to catch them and pop them, but then the 12 ships from Tri hotdropped on them, and managed to bust them. The threat was finally met and dealt with by a Tau Ceti Alliance (our executor corp/alliance) force. I don't know what it's composition was, but I'm expecting it had a capital ship or two.

*****

All this took place over the space of a couple of hours. EVE in this manner is tension and drama, stalking and hiding. I don't have a ship that really very well suited to PVP out there yet, so I was staying clear and giving what intel I could. I had started out the evening ratting, but all the activity was making me nervous and I was checking for reds in the local system frequently.

A red entered the system. From intel, I could tell which side he had to have come from, so I headed for a gate on the opposite side, meaning to leave. After all, I haven't trained in Cloaking yet. (I fixed that today, by the way.) In retrospect, I think I had better options, he quite possibly could have beat me to that gate and put up a bubble, but it would have had to be a guess, as there were two other exits.

Anyway, I jumped to the next system and headed for a far gate. I sat there watching local chat, which shows everyone in system. Soon, his name and icon popped in. Time to jump to next system, and repeat. Wait. There he is. Definitely following me.

Jump, warp to gate, sit. Frantically look at the region map I have on my other computer to examine options. Above all else, avoid a cul-de-sac. I find a route that will make him guess between three different exits that I might have taken. I go there, and choose one, still being followed. I go through and jump to a far gate and sit there and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

He's a no-show. He may have broken off to go help his buddies in some other fight, or he may be sitting waiting for me at a choke point. He has a map that looks pretty much like mine after all, and he knows where that choke point is.

After setting up gate watch points for all the gates in the system I'm hiding in, I decide that's enough wait time, and try to head back toward our appointed ratting systems. In one system there is a pos with guns and a shield, it would make a nice refuge. Besides, now there is a defense force organized and popping ships. As I head back, I am horrified to find that I have jumped into a system with six reds. But sitting still is certain death, the most important thing is to do something. So I keep moving and somehow jump through the system without contact.

I make it to a relatively safe system and sit (at a safe spot) and watch local and the intel channels. There are a bunch of blue ships in here, non-combatants of an allied corp, I guess. A red comes in and leaves quickly. And once more. Meanwhile the big fleet battles are going and I'm wishing I could be there. My desire to participate in fleet battles are one of the reasons for coming here. As the worm turns against the blue fleet, I'm a bit less sad I can't be there, but still...

It looks like things are over, so I move to another less crowded system and start to rat. I find one bunch of battleships with a 1.8m bounty each. My DPS skills are pretty poor still, so I can barely break their shield tank. I finally pop one and I'm starting on the second when I notice a neutral in the system. So I break off, and start jumping around, to avoid being scanned down. The neutral leaves. I come back and start the battle again. The neutral comes back, and this time I'm not so alert, because he jumps to my belt, locks me and takes a shot before I warp away. I still don't know why I didn't get scrambled.

He follows me to my first warp point, since I stupidly jumped to a landmark. (Is it called a landmark in space? "spacemark" just doesn't seem right.) But warping gives me enough time to think, and I'm headed for a bookmarked spot that he has no way of getting to other than scanning me down. Which takes time. I keep moving between these spots until he goes away. That was pretty much the end of the excitement for the evening.

I jumped back to the same belt and started in on the 1.8m bounty rats again. This time a blue jumped into the belt and I jumped away. Mostly because I was so jumpy from the evening's activity. But I had noticed that the first BS that I popped had respawned. Oh but for some better DPS skills.

So, I didn't die, I made probably 5m ISK for the evening. I call that a win.