Destroyer Destruction

Another one explodes into thousands of fragments, flames momentarily engulfing my pod before the vacuum sucks out the life-giving oxygen and blackness returns to my vision.  Well damn...  My "Ratalyst" had just kaboomed around me, and for a few moments I just sat there staring into space as the event sank in.  Damn you pirates!  Damn you all!  Of course, they have probably thought the same of me frequently as I swept away their frigates and cleaned up the loot and wreckage.

I had been helping a friend and corpmate, Sasha Ni'vibra, with some level 2 missions.  She was floating about in her battleship for this particular mission, while I played anti-frigate for the ones that got past her sniping.  All had been going well up to that point, with my Catalyst taking very little damage throughout the inter-system runs.  To keep myself near Sasha, and hopefully being a decent personal bodyguard, I was orbiting her at 500 meters, targeting anything that came in range and blowing them up systematically.

Now, keep in mind that I had been dual outfitted for ratting my level 1 missions.  I was running 6 small railguns with a combination of iron and iridium charges, as well as a tractor beam and salvager.  Nothing extraordinary was on my mids or lows, though I had dedicated spots for trying to make my capacitor hold out as well as keeping a little speed on me for keeping range.

During that fateful mission, I had gotten myself caught up in some debris that didn't seem to matter to me at first.  I bounced around it mainly keeping an eye on my overview and capacitor, armor repping as necessary.  The first two waves of pirates went down smoothly and quickly, but the third and fourth waves came on back to back and brought some cruisers with them.

This wasn't my first time against the cruisers, but it was the first time they all decided to go after me at the simultaneously.  There wasn't a whole lot I could do but shoot back and repair as much as my poor Small Armor Repair II Module would allow.  Sasha had thrown her armor repairing drones all over me before my shields melted away, but it still was not enough.

As I watched my armor dip to about 50% strength, I realized it was time to go.  I picked out the nearest station and asked Aura to get me the hell out of there.  After a few moments, I was still drifting between the debris, bouncing in different directions trying to find an exit...  I began to panick.  Armor was all but gone now and my hull started trembling under the force of the impacts.  I screamed at Aura mentally to hurry up and find a way out, but she reported losing control of the ship.  (OOC - Yes, I actually got a message box stating I had lost control of the ship... what the heck was that all about?)

Less than 3 seconds later, the fireworks began in earnest, though briefly.  Thankfully, they focused their attacks on Sasha and turned away from my pod.  I sat there, a blank expression on my face, watching the battle raging on around me as if it were a dream.  After a few more moments, I decided to head back and start outfitting another ship, since Sasha had things well under control.  I picked out a nearby system that would hopefully have most of the stuff I would need, and then bookmarked the battle site so I could come back for my surviving cargo hold.

Well, looky here!  I can fly a cruiser?  I didn't know that!  Ka-ching!  Or rather... clink-clink... as after I purchased myself a Vexor, 10 medium scout drones, some medium railguns (another already learned skill of which I had forgotten) and a couple of other things to balance out my first cruiser fitting, my wallet was looking desperately empty.  After a 5 million ISK donation by Sasha, I had spent 11 million on everything for my shiny new Vexor.

Her maiden voyage was the trek back out to the battle site where she spent an hour cleaning up the loot from the dozens of wrecks, including my own.  Although I had fitted her with a salvager, I was too tired to worry about cleaning out the wrecks entirely.  Amazingly, most of the mids and lows from the Destroyer had survived and will serve to save a few ISK for the moment while I attempt to recover.

Alliterative Allocation:  Catalyst Catastrophe Causes Cruiser Crusade (Sorry, I couldn't resist!)