I Came Here To Be Podkilled: Belated Double Jeopardy Edition

In the week before Christmas, I lost two ships and got podkilled both times. That was after 229 days of not ever being killed. And just now, February 14, I'm getting around to writing about it. What can I say, ouch! I've been "too busy" - as in, double ouch.

The first death was in YA0-XJ, a Goonswarm Sov system right next to the TNT-sov constellation I live in. Before we had stations up in our area, I melted all my loot drops and kept my ore there, since it is a refining station. And sometimes I put up mineral buy orders, too.

But then we got a station in XCF-8N. I decided to move all my stuff that was in the YA0 station over there. It's a manufacturing station, not a refining one, but that sort of worked too. Especially since I can rat in XCF.

Thus I had my Iteron V out, jumping the systems from XCF to YA0 and watching the intel channel. There was a report of a red gang in the next system over from YA0, but I thought I would have time to at least get into the station before they showed up in YA0. I was wrong.

The chat log in the intel channel looked something like this.

[Somebody at 06:24:15] Red gang now in YAO
[Me at 06:24:30] Engaged at FMB gate in TXME, Halp Halp!

There are two noteworthy aspects to this:

First, the first report in intel of the gang's presence in YA0 came about 15 seconds before my call for assistance. Allowing for the time it took me to fumblingly type it, as well as do what I could to escape, that first message probably appeared in intel at pretty much exactly the same time I was first engaged. Not much help there. I did know that the gang was nearby, but they system they were in has many neighbors, they might have stayed there or gone any of a number of other places. Lucky me.

The other thing to notice is that I was so befuddled I didn't report my location correctly, I was at the TXME gate in YA0, but I said, er, something else. Well, really, I typed it. What I said on Teamspeak was, roughly,

"Oh shit, I'm gonna die!"

"Wait, maybe not" [My ECM burst worked for a moment, and broke the lock that the first ship had on me]

"Yeah, I'm gonna die" [As the other 5 ships in the gang show up and lock me and blow me up very neatly. At the TXME gate in YAO.]

And die I did.

I built another Iteron V and named it "Expansive Regret", but you can call it "Expensive Regret" if you must. It's lows full of Cargo Expander II's.

My other loss was in EC-P8R. This is our gateway to hisec/Jita. I was carrying a load of stuff for sale in Jita, and expecting to return with things like datacores and some T2 components. I was, of course, in the Edward Fitzgerald, my Viator, equipped with Covert Ops cloaking device. (It's kind of a ghost ship, you see).

Our alliance/coalition has a jumpbridge one system over from EC, in EWOK-K. So I jumped through and assessed the situation. Intel said there was a couple of reds camping the EC/EWOK gate. Hmm, need to be careful, thinks I, but no reason to abort, just for a couple of ships. I'm flying a cloaky hauler, after all, and I've slipped through more than one gate camp with it. Not only can it cloak, but it gets into warp smartly.

But some caution is advisable. There is a third system G-M418, that adjoins both EC and EWOK. After sitting at a safe in EWOK for a while, I figured I'd do an end around and come through G-M.

The first thing I notice when I come through the gate is another ship on my overview, but my overview isn't set up correctly, and I'm not sure if it's a red, since it's showing secstatus. Not to worry, my gate cloak will last a bit and I confirm with local, it's a red, and he's flying a ship called a Sabre.

If you know EVE, you know that spells trouble. Sabres are a class of ship called a heavy interdictor. They can generate warp bubbles all on their own. Just as I selected the EC gate to hisec, hit warp and hit cloak, he dropped a bubble. He didn't manage to target me, I was good on that score, but I hadn't got away, the bubble had me trapped. He must have seen where I was, because he headed for me and when he got within 2000m, my cloak went away. After that, I was easy pickings, and heavy lag on my explosion meant I was back in the station before my pod was painted on the screen.

I don't think I'll have trouble remembering the class of a Sabre any time soon. Or ever.

I managed to get through to Jita later that night in my pod and buy and fit a new Viator, which I flew back safely the next day. But the two losses put a dent in my wallet that only now has been filled back in.