Greetings gentle reader, I hope I find you well this evening. Things have been rather slow for me lately due to some mandatory vacation imposed by my supervisors, but I’m back now and have already started the month out with quite the bang.

For the past several weeks I’ve been attempting to expand the TEARS jurisdiction into Amarr space and sadly I’ve only met with sporadic success. It generally takes the discovery of a violation in order to exert our presence as TEARS officers, and so far these Amarrians are just so damned conscientious about their mining habits that there have been few and far between offenses to issue citations for!

One recent development that I’ll briefly comment on is the current war happening between TEARS and some Corp with an annoying Latin name that I can’t be bothered to remember. Not that I’ve had a whole lot of opportunities to recognize them as they’ve been mainly cowering in their home station since before the war went live. Luckily the ninja is a patient creature, so I still believe that their time will come.

Speaking of patience, that tidily brings me to the meat of today’s entry. Often in the course of cleaning up debris in deadspace pockets the more aggressive members of the bearus carealotus species will try to prevent us from bringing their littering to a halt. Today was one of those days for me while out on my patrols.

Looking through my probe report for the presence of likely offenders, I came across another Apocalypse Navy Issue (please see my earlier report, The Bigger They Are for details on the previous engagement) and immediately moved to investigate. After only the third wreck had been properly disposed of, including the contents of it’s cargo bay, I found myself under attack from a swarm of Hobgoblin II drones. Barely escaping with my hide intact, I returned to the station and sent my trusty Vigil in for repairs while he Hurricane was being prepped for undock. Upon returning to the deadspace area in question I noticed that the offending pilot had so typically fled the scene.

I moved to a more secure location from which I could monitor not only the deadspace pocket, but the only station in system as well. I settled in to wait. 35 to 40 minutes later our adventurous bear undocked from the station in nothing but his life support capsule and proceeded to leave system. Of course I realized that he was going to bring in some additional firepower, and I was curious to see what would happen. Shortly I see him return to system and sure enough I detect a Heavy Assault Cruiser entering the deadspace pocket.

This wasn’t the ship that had damaged my beloved Vigil though, so I remained patient. Sure enough mere minutes later the HAC departs for the station and I notice the ANI undock. Setting a wider scan pattern I detect the offender on the fringes so I know he’s in warp to the pocket, so I engage my warp drive and arrive mere seconds after him, before he’s even had the chance to align to the acceleration gate. He’s mine…. wait…. what’s this CONCORD warning for? I’m still within my rights, I have 8 minutes left on my window for justice administration….

Thoroughly puzzled I try all manner of things to reassign the proper status to the offender with no success, and finally the timer runs out and the ANI remains at large. This one can only be attributed to jurisdictional conflict.

But wait, this report is titled The One That Almost Got Away! Well sadly enough the ANI really did get away, but the subject of my next investigation would not be so fortunate. Returning to the probe report, I decide to look in on a Raven Navy Issue registered to one “HuntBegin”. Little did he know that the hunter would soon become the hunted.

By now the repairs had been completed to my Vigil, so I take her out easy to make certain of the welds and then engage the warp drive and hammer it to the Ravens deadspace pocket. The first pocket is crammed full of debris, primarily medium and small sized wrecks that don’t pose too much of a space lane hazard. The sheer quantity here was stunning though so I was obligated to clean up those that were in my path to the next acceleration gate.

On entering the next pocket I see the Navy Raven busily launching missiles for all she’s worth and I continue my cleanup efforts. Again after only slight progress has been made, I find myself targeted and under attack. This time no real damage is sustained, so I instruct the dockworkers to simply take her to my hangar and prep the Hurricane again. On my way back to the scene I notice that the Raven pilot, Mr. HuntBegin is no longer in the system. Upon arriving I notice that he seemed to have completed his objective and simply left all the debris floating in space that he no longer cared about. I wait to see if perhaps his agent will send him back to this area for his next mission, but after 12 minutes or so it doesn’t appear likely. I applied for an extension on my arrest window and after it was approved I exchanged my Hurricane for my Cheetah and guessed at which neighboring system he might be in. I guessed correctly.

I immediately dropped a single probe set for enough scan strength to give me an overview of the ships present in the entire system, but didn’t find a match to the Ravens known signature. Knowing I had some time to work with, I sent out several more probes and immediately detected a battleship signature off in the middle of nowhere. Narrowing my scan, imagine my good fortune when it turns out to be a Raven Navy Issue. I’m already fairly certain that this is my perpetrator, as there aren’t numerous RNI’s in Amarr space to begin with.

I warp into the first pocket at a distance with my Covert Ops cloak active and a quick directional scan past the acceleration gate reveals that it is indeed my man. With a grin on my face and a spring in my step I warp back to the stargate, and through into the original system. I once again dock up and board my Hurricane, and quickly file for another timer extension which is granted. I warp back to the gate and into the neighboring system before immediately warping into this new deadspace pocket. Cleanup can wait this time, I’ve got justice to serve.

My luck holds and he’s still there according to my scan. I warp into the second pocket only to find another acceleration gate a few kilometers away. I engage my afterburner, but don’t overheat yet, trusting to luck that he doesn’t see me coming. Warping into the third pocket, I see him. He’s 25km off my starboard bow and looking the other direction. I hit the afterburners again and only target once I’m just outside disruptor range. Almost immediately following the lock, I get a notification that the disruptor is in range and engage it. He doesn’t start to target me until I’m only 10km away, and by then its too late. I tear through the remaining 50% of his shields, through his almost non-existent armor, and 3 quick volley’s destroy his structure and make for some lovely fireworks.

I can’t help but feel vindicated for the escape of the Navy Apnoc earlier. The Raven kill came together so well that I’m not even bothered by the loss of the A-Type Shield Booster, and he died far too quickly for me to offer him a ransom that I wouldn’t have honored anyway.

Until next time gentle reader, fly safe o7