The Gentleman's Reticule

Behold!  A couple of disembodied narratives I couldn’t find a place for in a recent piece about Eve Online.  Cringe at these unworthy morsels:

My mining lasers punctured the silence of the empty asteroid field with their periodic clanging resonance, boring away at lumps of azure scordite.  Not the most exciting past-time, slowly filling my cargo hold with minerals to process and sell on, but I’m in a sector of space alone, no other pilots, or ‘capsuleers’ as they’re called, are nearby and I am nervous.  No capsuleers means no one’s around to help if anything hostile happens to warp in.  I’m a rookie, my ship is weak and I haven’t really got the cash to replace it.  Theoretically, I’m in a system protected by security forces but that wouldn’t stop pirates or a quick hit-and-run by a particularly cruel player.  I keep an eye on the ship’s scanners and align it to the nearest station in preparation for a quick getaway.  The mining lasers continued to burn.

My career agent lead me a merry dance, sending me to track Wolf through several locations, destroying his cohorts, only to have him escape at the last minute each time.  Now, I had the coordinates of his home station.  I was going to take the fight to his doorstep, blow up his doorstep and with it the station and Wolf himself.  I’d fitted my ship with two 75mm Gatling guns and the small shield and armour boosters provided by the University - lightweight, but it would have to do.  Warping to within 10km of the target, I approached at speed, hoping to blow the place to pieces before any major reinforcements could arrive.  Too late.  Ships swarmed about me, their turrets shearing my shields.  I ignored them, concentrating my fire on the station; not much longer now.  Warnings blared from my ship’s computer as the shields failed and my armour began to take the brunt of their assault.  Don’t run yet, just a little longer.  I saw flames blossom from Wolf’s station.  Then its structures failed and it burst.  Immediately engaging the warp, I left the chaos and returned to the University, armour ragged and shields slowly regenerating.  “Well, Wolf - what big teeth you HAD” I quipped to myself, then quickly regretted it.