the taxman chronicles vii -...

The Taxman Chronicles VII

Kingdom of Vlad

Vladimir NorkofF Agent

Income Redistribution Service

In an age of darkness...

At a time of crisis...

When chaos and carnage sweep across the four great Empires of EvE...

In this era of woe, few are willing to take a stand for justice.

Few will fight to right the fiscal wrongs that afflict mankind.

Few are willing to walk the thankless path of tax collection.

We are those few.

We are the IRS.

These are our logs...

And so begins the first installment of the critically acclaimed Taxman series. Other chapters being Taxman I: The Taxman Cometh, Taxman II: Amarr Safari, Taxman III: Attack of the Blob,

Taxman IV: Rogue Agent (sucked - don't read), Taxman V: Back in Black, and Taxman VI: Voided Ledger. As always thanks to all of our readers for the comments and feedback we have received. For those who do not enjoy the audit logs, please get cancer and die. By the way, this

will most likely be a bit different than previous logs.

All material herein property of Vladimir Norkoff, Agent of the IRS (Income Redistribution Service) Transferrence from EvE Online forum articles and formatting by Jorshan

No Proofreading or modification of original forum Audit Logs has been done. Does not include comments to forum Audit Log posts from original forum articles.

The Taxman Chronicles VII: Kingdom of Vlad 3

Audit Log - Prologue - Eight months. Eight months since our last formal audit. And so much crap in between. Joined the Militia following the Void Engineer audit. Defend the State, Crush Socialism, Caldari Pride, and all that. Big mistake. Must have been a bad batch of clones. Only way to explain the idiocy of my predecessors. Continually running themselves into the Latent Artificial Gravity (L.A.G.) effects of lowsec fleet warfare. Mindless. At least they did reasonably well. Still no benefit or financial justice to be had by killing Frogs. No income to tax, and they just keep breeding more in their welfare ghettos. Pointless. Three months ago found myself sitting in a militia bunker polishing a rank pin. Major. Major Norkoff. Great. That and 20 ISK will by a small EMP round. F-ing usless. Realization that nothing would ever become of this. Carnage without justice. Occupation without effect. Combat without the solitary glory. Meaningless. FFS we even have positive standings with Concord now. I was not meant to be a drone. We are not just another body filling a firing line. An IRS agent stands as one man against many. A solitary light of fiscal justice. Came to a conclusion right then. Cashiered out and left Nourv without looking back. Head back to that old den of scuum and villany. Mito constellation. Oimmo, Hag, Ots, Nalv. A virtual cesspool of criminals and tax evasion. Home sweet home. Freeform tax enforcement in effect. Process criminals as we find them. Ring in the tax season with a classic Hulk kill. And it takes off from there. Righteousness tears through Hag and Oimmo in the form of a BattleBadger. CHI, MACO, and FOEA become my special projects. Justice ensues. Move to Nalv and call up some old contacts, and some enemies-turned-friends. Mugen corp, Lord Tyman, some new acquaintances as well. Dust off the Arazu. Never been the same since that damn product recall, but still does a niche job well. Hunt down and fine unlicensed mission-runners. Non-compliants meet my new friends. Justice is served. Weeks pass and things are good. Taxes collected, steady income. Taking down BCs in a Vexor. Two BSs in a Hurricane. Constant stacked odds. Glorious. But something is still missing. Then chaos hits. Seyllin nuked (lol frogs). Thukker convoy wiped out (lol monkies). Wormholes open. New tech. New opportunities for entrepeneurs. A boundless horizon. And a need for someone to be there to tax them.

4 The Taxman Chronicles VII: Kingdom of Vlad

Audit Log 20090311.0632 - A new era, and a new ship to go with it. Have never really liked Amarr ships. To be honest they've always scared the living shiite out of me. And that was even back when the hoodieheads were whining about how underpowered they were. Only got worse after that. Fecking sickass lazors. Still, one thing that the fanatics have that nobody else does is a cloaking droneboat (honestly how fecking cool is that?!). Guess those nutjobs are good for something other than boring sermons. Better tank than the Vexor, it can actually rep. Neuts, target disruptors, warps cloaked. Perfection. How have I overlooked this for so long? Doesn't matter, it's mine now. Oh yes, it is mine. Grab the cov ops and head out to find one of these so-called wormholes. Three or four systems but finally find one. Narrow it down and hop on thru. No local comms. Is this Paradise? Think I'll like these wormholes. Run some scans. Looks like a band of criminals. Raven, Drake, Hype, Diemost, and a Buzzard. Time to grab the Pilgrim. Work out a plan on the way. Requires some refit and tweaking. Not as neutty as I'd like, but a Probe Launcher will definitely be necessary. Will never be able to take on that entire gang. But maybe if I split them up. Check the wormhole, still stable. Not for long. Hop in and check for the criminals. Still there. Hop out, hop back in. Back and forth. Get some interference delays, but that's why we have a cloak. Finally start breaking the damn thing. Just in time. Criminals heading back. Go into high orbit. Faildari ships jump thru leaving the Hype and Diemost. But still hasn't collapsed. Not good. Wormhole pulses. Different Drake comes thru. Frog ships jump all over it. Consider striking then, but meh. Drake is probably a criminal as well. And dies like one. Pod warps to planet. Apparently has a friend in system in a cov ops. Lucky for him. Sit patiently and watch the campers. Which will it be? Battleship? HAC? Pros and cons either way. Maybe neither and I get stranded? That would suck. Space ripples. Hype disappears. Wormhole collapses. Well HAC it is! Diemost sits there stupified looking at empty space. Didn't bother checking it you idiot? Starts bleating in local like a little lost sheep. Yeah, sure that Drake guy is gonna help you. Closing range. Time to put the Pilgrim to the test. Will actually be the first time we've ever used it. And it's not an ideal fit, just one neut. A small one. Gonna feel real stupid if this doesn't work. Uncloak, drones, lock, scram. It's just like the Arazu, except alot closer. Locked back and blasters start hitting. Hard. That part isn't like the Arazu at all. Tank is holding up though. He drops drones, if they're ECM this could be ugly. Warriors. Lol, idiot. His guns shut down by my third rep cycle. He starts begging for mercy. Heh, like the mercy he showed the Drake? Bloody gatecampers. I am justice. Hammerheads shred the rest of his hull. About to lock the pod, and then recall the drones. No this is far more fitting. Smile as the pod warps off. Grab the evidence. Start dropping probes. How are you getting home little camper man?


Audit Log 20090312.0843 - Took awhile, but finally found a way out. Camperboy apparently used the coward's route. Figures. Regardless, dropped me only 9 jumps away from Mito. Nice. Have heard horror stories of chumps dumped on the other side of the galaxy. Doesn't happen to me though. Too much good karma we've racked up. Speaking of which, time to build up some more. Drop off the evidence, quick nap, refit with another neut, head back out searching for more holes. Long search, but finally get one. Hop thru. No criminals. Meh. Run some scans, find some sites. Perimeter Checkpoint? Might as well check out these Sleepers everyone's talking about. Killed countless Guristas and Sanshas. How tough could these be? Warp in the Pilgrim. Frigs, Cruisers, some Sentries. Pfft. This is gonna be- Ouch! Ok, that was ALOT harder than expected. Nothing the Pilgrim can't handle though. Lose some drones. Hate losing drones. Almost as much as having to micromanage them. Finally kill off the last few Sleepers. Not bad, fairly tough. Loot is strange. Meh, take it anyway. Keep running scans and finally get something interesting. Drake. Suppossedly a tough nut to crack for a Pilgrim. Might as well put it to the test. Apparently killing off some Sleepers himself. Well I certainly can't condone that sort of casual murder and bloodshed. Scan out the site and warp. Given how hard the Sleepers hit, this will probably be quick. Land right on top and light him up. Drones, scram, neuts, sleepers targeting me. Wtf? Ouch. Not cool. Drake targeting back, firing. This might be quick indeed. Wait a sec. I can tank them both. Heh. Love afterburners against missiles. Course not doing much to him either. Kill off the last few Sleepers and it's just me and him. Neither breaking. Stalemate. Feh. So drake not a great target after all. Grab the sleeper loot and warp out. Waste not, want not. Jump back out the wormhole, drop loot, get food. Head back and jump thru. Phobos. Interesting. Afterburn and cloak. Hit scan. Blackbird, Cerb, Thorax. No wait, Thorax warping in. Followed shortly by Blackbird. "Mining and Mission Specialists". Definitely criminals. Indecision though. Attack or not? Could get ugly quick. Ponder. Look at my hemp bracelet. "W.W.G.D." Right. Attack it is. Blackbird in high orbit on the hole. Bit of work, but set up a slowboat intercept. Study the Phobos and Thorax. HIC has rails. Lol. Thorax has- Thorax jumped. Lucky him, he gets to live. Blackbird intercept finally converges. Uncloak and the usual. Can practically see the urine pouring from his ship. Drones rip thru minimal shields. BB locks and moment of truth. Jams miss! He's so toast. Phobos lays in with the rails. Yeah yeah, will get to you in a sec biatch. Hammers are thru hull in seconds. Go to grab the evidence when Cerb warps in on top of me. Oh bad! He wasn't suppossed to be with them. Major miscalculation. Slam warp. HIC'd. Shiite! Panic sets in. Cerb high therm resist. HICs low speed with bubble. Hit AB and beeline away. Armor dropping. Crap crap. Phobos keeping range. MWD? Shouldn't he cap out? Still pointed. Keep aligned to planet. Quarter armor. Dammmmittt! Gotta shut down the HIC. Turn around hit neuts. Hitting hull. Too late. Damn damn damn! Pilgrim disintegrates. Warp pod? Yes! No bubble. Kick the display screen. Dammit! Popped like a biatch trying to run away. What the hell was I thinking? Shoulda gone for one or the other. WWGD. Kill them until they stop. Dammit. Failure sucks. Overview flickers. Phobos warping in. Oh crap. Hit warp, but too late. Bubbled. Oh this just figures. Compound the misery and absolute failure. Grit teeth for the inevitable... And the comms crackle. "40 mil for the pod." Oh christ, could this get anymore demeaning? How many times I have I said the same damn thing? Mentally tally implants. Yeah, over 40. And god knows what a new clone would think of doing to us. Swallow what little pride we have left and pay.


Karma is a little fecking biatch.


Audit Log 20090313.1421 - The humiliation lingers. Losing a Pilgrim is nothing like an Arazu. Arazu seems clinical. Pilgrim is more visceral. Hurts. Only way to get over it is to punish some criminals. Back to Oimmo. BattleBadger and mining taxation. A decent run cut short by a lowgrade criminal in a BlasterMoa. Sigh... Definitely not a good few days. Becoming apparent that I may need to get employees again. Not sure what happened to Sin Fae. Think she ran off to start some music career. Filthy hippie. Regardless, need new employees. No... we need followers. Believers. And the only way that will happen is by claiming space. Build it, and they will come. Problem is, local nullsec is controlled by the shadowy syndicates and criminal overlords that mastermind the crime in the area. Still too soon to cut out that cancer. But this wormhole space could work. Oh yes, it could work. To the CovOps! Quick scans and luck turns back our way! Wormhole right here in system! A flurry of purchasing and loading cargo. POS shopping. Never done it before. Go with a svelte and nimble Small Tower. Should have a smaller sig radius to reduce damage,right? Tower shopping feels seedy though. Like something a criminal would do. Still the end justifies the means. Three haulers worth of crap. Tower? Check. Ship and Cargo Hangars? Check. Fuel? Check. Salesman recommended Strontium. Whatever. Meh, guess it couldn't hurt. Right, good to go. Hop into the first hauler, head to wormhole. Jump through blind. Scouts? Those are for people with something to fear. Sensors clear and find ourselves in a proper Caldari-like system. Locus J162700. Deep blue space, single star, decent sized orbits. I like it. Scanner clear. Head out to a far flung planet and choose a moon at random. This is where we will plant our flag. This will be a new beginning. This will be our home. 'Course first we need to figure out how to set this damn POS up. Apparently involves a bit of waiting. Sitting around in an unarmed Badger doesn't exactly feel great. Still it gets done. POS up. Fuel in. Shields up. Structures up. The system is mine! Finish moving in ships. Now must only wait for people to flock to my banner. Only a matter of time... Check the watch. Boredom. Okay this is taking to long. Hop into the Cov Ops, head back into Oimmo to pick up various sundries for the new home. Return an hour later, jump. And there's a Vexor. With sentry drones. And a warp bubble... I've been invaded! By Stella Polaris? Northern Cyrillic types. Figures. Well this ain't acceptable at all. Cloak, head to POS. Grab a Vexor of my own. Could go overkill, but want to make a statement. Besides, most criminals have no clue how to fly a Vexor. Betting this idiot is no exception. Warp back, miss the bubble. Yeah, nice placement there ace. Hit the microwarp. Lock and on him in an instant. MWD shuts down. Scram. Don't matter, got my own, and neither of us going anywhere til this is done. He unloads with Gardes and... rails? Yup, he's an idiot. Relax into the steady hum of ACs. Drones and EMP do their work. Even looks like he's repping. Pathetic. His hull shatters before I hit 3/4 armor. No contest. Leave the pod to carry news. The IRS won't succumb so easily! Spend the remainder of the day writing out the new IRS manifesto. The guidelines and policies that will shape our new state. A utopian meritocracy built on Caldari principles. Where every voice will be heard and every vote counted. Though nobody has arrived yet.


Audit Log 20090314.2244 - The second day of our glorious new IRS state. Wormhole to Oimmo collapsed. We are truly cut off and on our own now. Have mapped out the system and found another wormhole to Unknown space. Unlike my system it is full of criminals. But not about to let them drag down the neighborhood. Must be proactive about this. Throw out some probes and narrow down a gang of thugs. Ferox, Moa, Crapacal, Heron, some other frigs. Sitting in a safespot not moving. Heh, "safespot". I made a funny. Bookmark, jump back to home system, grab the Ishtar. No docking managers slowing down ship transitions is definitely a nice benefit of a POS. Jump, warp. Right where I left them. Criminals scatter, just like always. Hold on to the Ferox. They don't come back to save him. Falls behind, left behind eh? Scum. Missile Ferox apparently. Disintegrates as uninterestingly as one would expect. Grab the evidence, scan for the others. Fled thru a wormhole to hi-sec. Pfft. Head home myself. Still, no new citizens though. Just me in our system. But it is mine. Audit Log 20090315.1311 - Have contacted all my old employees. Well employee, singular, to be exact. Our old foreign officeboy, Corsa d'Azur. Reception is cold and ambivalent to say the least. Apparently already employed in w-space. Slaving away in some wormhole sweatshop for some Veto hooligans. Says he'd prefer that to the IRS anyday. Same old complaints out of his mouth - bad boss, unreliable, no pay. Whatever. Filthy traitorous Achura bastard! Didn't need you anyway. Instead have decided to approach the Sleepers and try to enlist them. Try as I might, they are not receptive. Well if they are not with me, then they are against me. There can be only one power in J162700. They are tough and wily foes for a single Myrmidon. But I leave nothing of them behind, not even their wrecks. Yet the solitude and silence are deafening. The Sleepers are not very good conversationalists. I have not seen another pilot in over 5 hours. It is maddening. I begin to wonder if the rest of the universe has disappeared. Will I ever see another face? Will I ever gain any followers? And then just as all hope disappears, two Drakes appear on scan. Back to the POS, grab the CovOps. Narrow them down. In a previously marked Sleeper site. Warp in at range, bookmark a wreck, back to grab the Ishtar. Warp in and land right on top of a Drake. Score! Scram, web, drones. Shields start shredding. Drakes must be stunned, haven't even started targeting. But Sleepers have. That sucks. Then the Drakes start targeting as well. Too late though, first one already hitting armor. Taking some armor damage myself. Not a big fan of these Phantasmata missiles. Other Drake bails out as his friend hits hull. Surprised he waited that long. Concentrated Sleeper fire beginning to stack up. Really not liking how they work. Doesn't help the Drake though. Scoop the evidence. T2, not bad. Warp back to POS and realize that the system is once again eerily quiet. And I am once again, so terribly alone.


Audit Log 20090316.0205 - New virgin wormhole. Right next to Amarr itself. Score! Shopping spree! Grab the hauler and run out to grab some essentials. Takes awhile, but get everything we need. Head back, for my usual blind WH jump. Quick inspection. Partially destabilized? Interesting. Was fine when I left it. Hop thru. Nothing on visual. Run scan, and my heart drops into the pit of our stomach. POS. Some son of a biatch put up a POS in my system! Forcefield, corp & ship hanagars, one gun, Orca, Hauler. It's a full scale invasion! Dammit! Still maybe setting up though. Grab the CovOps, scan, warpin at range. Interlopers are "Deep Ore Refining". DORF for short (yeah, that's catchy). Still, sounds shady. apparently offlining a Corp Hangar outside the shields? How the hell did they get it out there? Weird. But now is our chance. Bookmark, head back to grab the Ishtar. Still... may be hard to break a POS by myself. Should try negotiation as well. Quickly fashion a crown from a Wrecked Power Core. A cloak from Nanoribbons. Tube of electromechanical sheeting for a scepter. This will show them my power. That we are not to be trifled with. I announce myself enroute. Figure if there is no response, I'll just kill everything... They reply just as I drop out of warp. Damn. Social interaction. They are in awe of my ensemble. Or it could just be quizzical bemusement. Not Sure. In any case, negotiations pass smoothly. Turns out they are miners (surprisingly). Here for ore and gas harvesting. A plan quickly forms in our mind. I can use them to reduce the number of Grav sites, and thus limit the places where criminals and interlopers can hide. Brilliant! I decide that they shall be my vassals, a client state as it were. In due time, I will extract taxes and tribute from them. The beginnings of my empire are... beginning.


Audit Log 20090317.0918 - The new dawn of the IRS Empire was a bit cloudy. The two Drakes from the previous day returned. Well one of them did. Other pilot apparently didn't recover from the impromptue audit and was reduced to flying a frigate. Just shows that crime doesn't pay. Quick scans, get a warp point, grab the Ishtar. Drop out of warp just in time to see them flee towards a wormhole and the corrupt embrace of Concord. Bloody hell. Wish this thing cloaked. Speaking of which, should grab a Pilgrim while we're still connectd to Amarr. But duty comes first. And in this case, it's a Heron. Obviously a criminal, who else would fly one? Some quick scans, at P3. Heh, can do this in the CovOps. Always wanted to get into an epic CovOps duel. Two nimble and deadly combat ships fighting it out toe-to-toe. 'Course this is just a Heron, but it's a start. Uncloak, lock, and hit the disruptor. Got 'em! Trying to run out of range. No. He's warping out of range. Sigh. I hate stabs. Quick refit with a scrambler and back on the hunt. A wasted effort though. Get close numerous times, but the element of surprise is already wasted. Dejectedly hop into the Myrm and decide to take my wrath out on some Sleepers. It's slow work, but it get's done. Finally their battleship arrives. Take a pounding closing the range, armor almost all gone. But once I'm under it's guns I'm golden. ACs and drones start ripping away when I hear my ship decloak. Decloak? I'm not in a cloaker. Rapier! Falcon! IRON mafia-types! Oh shi... Wait a sec. Remember the Pilgrim vs Drake? Sleepers love eating Recons! LoL. Just align and wait for them to pop. And wait. Still waiting. Umm... Sleeper BS is still pounding on me. Hard. Wtf? Damn, shouldn't have moved away from it. Falcon has me perma-jammed. Drones are being idiots and decide to stop going after the Rapier. This sucks. Overload the armor tank. But still dropping into hull. Huh. So this is what it feels like to be on the receiving end of a Recon gank. Kinda blows. Cross fingers and pray Sleepers switch targets. They don't. Warp the pod out. On the plus side, no way they can recover the loot. But we do. Hate getting killed by thugs. Take a break, and then head out to buy that Pilgrim. Doubly inlcined after my recent experience. Get most everything we need. Forgot the rigs though. No worries, can get 'em later. Jump back. Wormhole critical now. Lucky I got through. Arazu on scan. Interesting. Hit the POS and there is a note taped to the shields. "Dear Mr Vlad, we've just read of your exploits and have come to the conclusion that you are a unstable sociopathic menace that will eventually turn on us like a rabid dog. We are leaving you. We offlined our tower and left the keys on the kitchen table. Signed, DORF." Dumbfounded. Well that was quick. Vassals for less than 24 hours... Grrr. Fine! Didn't need those stupid biatches anyway! Time to kill that Arazu then! CovOps, scan it out. At the DORF tower of all places. It's an IRON Arazu! Oh payback will be sweet! Seems to just be puttering about, attacking offlined guns with it's drones. Odd. Obviously has a MWD. Gotta assume it has a scram, so the Ishtar won't work. Well time to fit up that Pilgrim! Have to make some sacrifices without the rigs. But target is only an Arazu. It'll die quick with no cap. Finally head back and he's still there. Start creeping up slowly. Gotta wait for the opportune moment. He cozies up to a gun and starts dropping probes. This is it! While he's focusing on the solar system map! Uncloak, web, scram, neuts, drones! You are mine! He locks back and lays on a point or three. Heh, let's see how long that lasts? Then I hear the sound of uncloaking.


Audit Log 20090317.0918 - Continued - Look behind me. Oh you have got to be f-ing kidding me! A fecking Widow?! Do these f-tards go anywhere without cloaking ECM ***gotry?! Shiite! Not gonna be able to warp, so focus on the target. Die fighting! Widow locks. I'm painted, torps incoming. Oh great. Shields disappear. And so do my locks. Need to range out the torps. Arazu pulling away in same direction. Convenient (if I can ever lock again). Armor getting blasted apart, reps not holding it. Really wish I had gotten those rigs now. Arazu apparently got it's cap back, MWDing to long scram range. Hit hull when finally get out of torp range. Don't think it'll matter much. Surrounded in a cloud of drones. Half hull and sensors clear. A chance! Lock the Arazu, quarter hull, pull the Hammers, rep cycle, throw out some ECM. Quarter hull again. Aligned. Come on drones, do your magic! Hit warp. Hit warp. Hit warp. Pod warps. God, what a shiitey day.


Audit Log 20090318.1009 - Faced with the enormity of our losses, I do what every great leader does when dealing with crisis. I lock myself in the POS and brood. Not to be confused with sulking or pouting, as brooding is much more manly. Strangely, it doesn't seem to solve a damn thing though. Ships are still lost, and I'm still utterly and completely alone. Or are we? Are there more cloaking ECMboats out there? Maybe even watching me from outside the POS? Unsettled. Begin jumping at shadows. Mustn't be tied down in the POS. To the covOps and the safety of the cloak. Invisible silence. Wandering patrols, when scanners pick up a hit. Myrmidon. This is where things turn around! The boundaries of my territory will be respected! Drop probes, narrow down the hit. Bingo. Preliminary warp shows a Sleeper Checkpoint. Hmm. Cancel and come it at range. Sleepers gone, but Myrm is there. And it's covered with military insignias. Fed Defence Union, aka Frog Militia. Oh, hell no! Not in my house! Quick scan of the pilot show some weird foreign name. Apparently translates to "City Cornmush". Bloody foreigners. Mark a wreck and go grab the Ishtar. Barrel back in and land right on top of him. Scram, web, drones, the ACs and neuts start humming. Ripped deep into armor in seconds. Babbles something across comms. "Mercy!" Hit the translator again. Apparently means "Thankyou" in frogspeak. Guess he realizes he needed to be put out of his misery. Deserves nothing less for flying such degenerate Gallente tech. Satisfying explosion. Caldari pride! Cycle targeters, prep the scram. Normally let pods go during these impromptu audits. No longer! The invasions stop here! I'll build a wall of bodies to keep them out. We'll fight from a rampart of frozen corpses. No more interlopers! And City Cornmush is the first to learn that lesson. Euphoria lasts throughout the evening. Plus turns out it's Intergalactic Alcoholics' Day. Freeze dried corned beef & cabbage, recycled beer. Life is good. Every scan is an opportunity. Every site result a future enforcement ground. And the diligence pays off. Another trespasser! Drake. Hold the probes, work the scanner. Betray no clues to our presence. Have the system mapped. And the old lowsec skills are still there. Quickly narrowed down. At the sun of all places. Not moving, dropping probes. Brilliant. Transponder IDs him as JerleShannara (for some reason think of bad writing and plagiarism). Diplomat for something called the New Zion Judge Advocate. Sounds official. But fake. And impersonating a bureaucracy is a capital crime. Set a warp point, Ishtar again. Perfect landing. Hard to miss when they don't move. Start shredding the shields. Local comms crackle. He doesn't seem to be a very diplomatic. And the reward for his invective is to become another brick in the corpse wall.


Audit Log 20090319.2142 - Tax enforcement is a constant cycle of ups and downs. Sometimes both. Have finally gotten used to how these wormholes work. Apparently operate in 24-hour cycles. Old holes collapse, breed a new set. This time to Monkey space and another wormhole system. Adventure! Check the unknown space first. CovOps and some quick scans. Domi and Drake. Near Sleeper Data Receivers. They look shadey. Better kill 'em before they do something illegal. Grab the ever-useful Ishtar and head back in. Land near the Drake, Domi a good ways off, 2 Sleeper cruisers. Could be bad if the MWD gets shut down. Still nothing ventured, nothing gained. Light up the Drake. Good tank on it. To be expected in a Sleeper site. It's missiles don't do crap though. Cal Navy Kinetics. Not much good on an Ishtar. Sleepers a different story though. They switch targets to me (of course) and hit hard. Drake into peak recharge, I'm hitting half armor. Domi closing at about 35km, releasing Valks. This will be close. Keep orbit on the Drake, motion reduces damage. Drake's peak breaking when we bump a receiver. Sleeper missiles hit us motionless. Ow! 20% armor. Drake at fractional shields. Domi hitting disruptor range. Dammit! Discretion the better part of valour. Pull drones and bail out of system. Back to POS and rep up. Sigh. So close. Maybe second time is a charm? Jump the Ishtar back in. Amazingly, they're still there! Warp in and start locks. Drake warps. Good, wanna take the Domi this time. I try Ogres. He tries Valks. Fail. Wait for his hi-slots to hit... Nothing? Remote repper then. Ogres and ACs all over him. And his tank isn't budging. At all. Mine of course is. I so hate Sleepers. Fortunately no web or point. Pull, align, warp. Guess they weren't criminals after all. Oh well, misunderstandings happen. No death, no foul. Wish each other best of luck and part amicably. Public relations - it's what we do best. Check out Monkey space next. Turns out we have a Myrm mothballed a few jumps away in Oddeluff. From back in the Rabbit days. Pretty convenient considering that ISK is beginning to get a bit tight. Dropped below a billion for the first time in two years. And if we can't manage our finances, how can I hold others accountable? Truely a dilemna. Meh, worry about it later. New ship comes first. Fly the pod into lowsec. Empty systems, empty stations. Like a ghosttown. Hit the hangar lights, and there she is. Underneath lots and lots of dust. Fire up the systems. check the dronebay. 5 Gardes. Wow. This thing is ancient! Quick refit to modern systems, and we're on our way. Back into IRS space. Time to check the adjacent system again. Hop in and can't believe it. Vargur. Solo. Quick scan, pray he's stupid. Well obviously he is - solo in a Marauder. Just hope he doesn't scan for probes. Result, pull probes, warp to range. Some sort of Frontier site, don't care. Bookmark a wreck and back for the ubiquitous Ishtar. Cross fingers as drop out of warp. Still there. Land. Target. Pointed! YES! Let loose the Ogres. His shields shredding amazingly fast. Needless to say, Sleepers switch targets. Open comms for some more public relations. "300mil or you die biatch!!111". Sleepers lay in to me hard, already in half armor in seconds. But he's too scared to notice. Wallet flashes. Pull drones and warp. Check the amount, it's all there. OMFG this makes it all so worthwhile. Sudden doubts of billions in faction evidence. Bah, money in hand better and safer. Plus... Wormhole space just broke even! All profit from here! Head back home gleeful. Park. Rep. Scan. Shock. There's another POS! Amarr small. Fully setup. Oh christ! I'm not alone anymore. Invasion #2... And the day had been going so well.


Audit Log 20090320.1820 - Preliminary reconnaissance of the invaders indicates they are apparently scientists. Intaki Reasearch Group. Basically a Frog slave race. Part of an alliance too. Wonderful. And for scientists they sure do pack some heavy firepower. Torp batteries, beam lasers, double warp disruptors. No labs. Typical Gallente aggression. Will probably have to end up killing every last one of them. Thier habits are sinister and militant. Moving about in haulers. Launching Core probes. Sitting in their tower. Blatant aggressive moves! We choose to remain silent and hidden in the CovOps. Observe. And it pays off! Find their attack ships on scan. Astarte and Brutix. Launch probes, narrow them down, warp-in at range. They are in a Ladar site... harvesting gas. This is odd. Move in for a closer look. Lots of dust clouds which don't show up on overview. Crap. Will try and play it by visual. Fails utterly. Decloaked after moving five clicks. 95km off. I look at them. They look at me. Quickly align. They wave... I tentatively wave back. Hmmm. Warp out anyway. Very creepy. Keep stalking them throughout the day. They move from Ladar to Ladar. Hoovering up gas in BCs, occassionally in a Hype. Attempting to be careful, and yet innocently naieve at the same time. I find them curious. And strangely they seem to be doing exactly what I have wanted someone to do. Clear out the garbage sites. I will permit them to live for the moment. Most likely I'll kill them tomorrow.


Audit Log 20090321.1433 - Wake up from a quick nap in the CovOps. Hit the cloak and bleerily check the scan. Battlecruisers. Brutix and Harbie. Don't seem to be the scientists. And an Orca. NOOOOO!!! No! No! No! Must be a POS drop! And that's not fecking happening! No more POSs! Don't see any new towers on scan. Probably still scouting. Lucky break for me. Don't care how many ships I have to throw at them, but I will stop them. I swear on the Tax Code itself, NEVER another tower! Try to narrow down the Orca. It's seperate from the BCs. Surprisingly not at the sun. Or a planet. Or moon. Or even wormhole. Probes pick him up in empty space. Warp to set bookmark. It's an alliance ship. The Excession Group. Never heard of them. But they ain't a getting a foothold here. Orca moving but not aligned to any celestial. Outpace, and set a bookmark in front of him. And then run back to grab the toughest ship we got here. The Ishtar. Against a Brutix, Harbie, and the Orca's drones. I don't forsee this being very pleasant. Drop out of warp literally at zero. Wow. Nice bookmark on a moving target. No time to be impressed with myself though. Set the point, release the Ogres. Start checking the scanner. No banter. No negotiation. Only death. EMP and drone plasma steadily chewing thru shields. He's not releasing drones? Weird. Get it to half shields when the Brutix warps in. Crap. Now things gets ugly. Brutix targets, closes, web. Wince in anticipation of first blaster volley. Plink!... Rails? LOL! Kick the ACs into overload and pray the Harbie keeps taking it's time. Orca into armor. And then structure. Still no Harbie. Brutix still doing laughable damage. Still in structure. Guess it is a capital ship after all. Begin to wonder how the tower and ships will drop. In wreck? Deploy? Almost there. Orca detonates! Success! Point the Brutix. Close orbit and it can do nothing. Reppers fail under massive damage and neuts. Structure. And it's gone. Pod escapes, and then there is only silence. Fweh. That was a rush. Look about. No ships deployed from Orca. Check the wreck for a tower. Nope. check the killmail... Ok, so maybe it wasn't a POS drop after all. Heh. Oops. More scans and patrols in the CovOps. Researchers are lying low. Had some Minnie and Amarr wormholes open up. Might get some trespassers. Pick up a Ruppie trying to plex Sleepers solo. Sit and watch him. Warp in. Warp out. In. Out. Annoying. Mark a wreck and his safe. Grab the Vexor to put an end to it. Warp in just as he is warping out. Damn. Swing around, warp to his safe. He's quick to react. Already aligned and warping when I come in. Feh. Well element of surprise is lost. Head back to POS when comms crackle. A challenge? Never been partial to that sort of thing, but figure what the hell. Ruppie is only one of the best Tech 1 cruisers in existence. After the Vexor of course. And if he'll face his tax crimes, I'll be willing to enforce them. Warp to the wormhole. We light each other up immediately. He's got T2 Warriors, I'm using my full bandwidth. Take a chance and go close in. We'll duke it out with ACs. He hits hard, as expected. I hit harder. His armor crumples. And then shoots back up. Wow. Nice repping. My buffer holding. Hit him again, and again, and again. Damage stacking each time. He's down to 10% armor, and then just explodes. Never even saw the structure dent. DCU is your friend. Let the pod go. Can show some leniency for those who turn themselves in.


Audit Log 20090321.1433 - Continued - Food and then more enforcement. Busy night. Sleipnir and Drake on scan. Always wanted to audit a Sleip. Probe. They're together. Apparently just finished some illegal plexing. There's a fine for that you know. Guess I'll try to take them both in the Ishtar. Warp back to bookmark. And it's only the Drake. Well pooh. That was a let down. But waste not, want not. Lock and point. Calmly interrogate him over comms. "Where is the fecking Sleip? Where is it?!" He's into armor when the Sleip warps in at 20km. Cool! Finish off the Drake. We lock, Sleip closes. Now it's on! Or not. Falcon decloaks at 100km. Sigh. Sleip has web but no scram, just like I figured. Recall drones and warp out. Bloody ECM. Criminals are such cheating scum. System appears to clear out. But must remain vigilant. Cloak and wait. And soon the Core probes start appearing. And where there's Cores, there's criminals. Hit safe, run scanner. Buzzard. At P1 uncloaked. Yeah, cuz the first planet is such a better choice over the Sun. Brilliance. Warp in at 10km and he's still there. This is it! The moment I've been waiting so long for. A real CovOps duel! Close to 3km and uncloak. The Helios in all it's glory! Kick on the AB, launch the single Hobgoblin, lock and lay on the 2point scram. No MWD for you! Orbit and wait for the first barrage of rockets. It doesn't appear. Apparently he didn't fit a launcher. Three high slots and not one used for a weapon. Pathetic. Still, it's our first audit of a CovOps with a CovOps. And the Hobgoblin dines well on both ship and pod.


Audit Log 20090322.1153 - Another day, another audit. Wake up in the CovOps, immediately hit scan. Drakes! A whole bunch of them. Is there a proper term for that? Flight? Flock? Whatever. Contact the Researchers. Not affiliated. Interesting. Count comes in at 5 Drakes, Ruppie, and couple Frigs. Blowing the snot out of some Sleepers. Start observing. Wait for the inevitable mistake. The lone straggler. The incautious plexer. Or the excessive Sleeper spawn. Patience is the key. Narrow down a lone Drake playing sentry on a wormhole. Start creeping up to make a bookmark when the wormhole ripples. And ripples. And ripples. Oh, not good. Multiple battleships, Amarr and Caldari. Commandship. A few BCs. Quickly check to make sure cloak is still active. Another ripple. An Orca... Umm, maybe it's a mining op? They all warp. P7. No. To a moon. Shiite! Bounce off a planet for a long-range warp-in. All of them there. 6 BS, 8 BC, assorted others. And there goes the POS. Double shiite. Vaguely recall something about the tax code and solemn oaths. But don't really have time to worry about that. To busy stressing. Attacking would be suicide. Can't seem to will them out of existence. Which only leaves our last resort. Negotiation. Hail them across open comms. No response. Try again. Nothing. Maybe they're foreign? Try a wave. It hangs there lonely in the comm window. This really isn't good. Contact the lone Researcher in system. My panic is infectious and he gets equally worried. Run back to the invader's moon. POS up. Hangar, warehouse, beam lasers and scram batteries being anchored. This so sucks. Classic military strategy. Secure the beachead. Then press the assault and wipe out all potential threats. Can do that talky thing afterwards. Or at least that's how I'd do it. Run back to my tower to check defenses. Oh that's right. We don't fecking have any. Time to rectify that. I'll pimp this biatch out with Citadel Torps, GigantoBeam Lasers, Super Harderners. It'll be a goddamn deathstar! Jump into Monkey space and head to POSMart. Return with 3 small AC batteries, a web, and scram. There's a reason they are called Faildari. Seems small Caldari Towers actually have negative PG and can't fit a damn thing. Lots of CPU for Labs? Yeah that's fecking great. I'll throw test tubes at them. Bloody hell. Start anchoring. Researchers in a tizzy. Start stoking their fears of an imminent invasion. Throw out some more hails in local. And suddenly, a response! First Contact achieved. Grab the PowerCore Crown and scepter. Lets see what kinda of whackos we are dealing with today. Open a three-way convo. Screen flickers. Some Gallente chump with his uniform ripped halfway off. "I am... Capt J.T. Fiberton... We... mean you.. no harm. We... come in peace... We are... the Starfleet Federation..." Sigh. This couldn't possibly get any worse


Audit Log 20090322.1153 - Continued - Negotiations come to a marginally satisfying conclusion. Didn't get their unconditional surrender and forfeiture of assets. Did however, decree that all ships must bear the "#" Mark of Vlad in their ship names or be subject to my wrath. To drive the point home I scan out a random neutral Imicus and vaporize it with the Helios. And then scram the pod and hold it up for all in system to see. Before brutally instructing my Hobgobbie to tear the victim apart. If I can do this in a CovOps, imagine what I will do in a "real ship". Am delighted to see all ships on scanner bearing the Mark of Vlad. Still, I unwillingly have yet another POS in my system. With four POSs planted, I believe this may be the most settled piece of wormhole space in existence. It's a testament to the stability and security the IRS provides. But claim-jumping trespassers aren't really what I was aiming for. Not sure how to approach the problem, but I'm sure I'll think of something. Day passes, and I learn more of this Starfleet Federation. Dealing with Jibberton is no joy. His overly dramatic method of speaking, and inability to stay completely clothed is annoying to say least. Not to mention the constant background distractions of warpcore breaches, exploding consoles, and constant crisis that is apparently their normal routine. Fairly certain some basic preventative maintenance would solve alot of their issues. Unfortunately, I seem to have little choice but to deal solely with this Gallente kook. Their alliance operates under a Prime Directive to not speak with anyone. Ever. Mindlessly going about their business like glassy-eyed drones. I find the lack of inviduality disturbing. I may have to kill them. To that end, jump back into Monkey space and setup a Domi. May have to use this for POS defense, so use the old Huggybear fit that served so well during station fights. Electrons, heavy armor, trimarks. Can take some punishment and deal it too. Also grab stuff for the Tower. Slight adjustments. Can drop one AC battery to add 3 Cruise Launchers. Not the most impressive damage, but better range. Plus adding some Mobile Warp Bubbles will pull in the unwary and ensure some kills. Return and notice a Ferox on scan. Without the Mark of Vlad. Plenty of Starfleet around though. Well time to test their mettle and usefulness. Command them to attack. Jibberton simply looks at me blankly. "Why... would we want... to attack him?" I can't believe he actually said that. Do they really not understand the situation they are in? Can only shake my head. Watch and learn. You may end up seeing it more closely in the future. It's a solo Ferox, so a Vexor should be adequate. Scans show him at a wormhole. Slightly fishy. Leads to unknown space, and still haven't had a chance to check that system out. Whatever. Warp-in and engage. Take him to half shields and he jumps. Happily follow after. So nice that Concord doesn't run these things. He's already uncloaked and trying to align. But come on, it's a Ferox. Lay the point again, send in the drones. Quick scan. There's a POS, but no ships. Mmmm, wonder if this guy was my neighbor. Doesn't matter now. He's dead. Grab the evidence and jump back. Not impressed with this Starfleet. Not impressed at all.


Audit Log 20090323.0807 - Seeing as we have (or had) new neighbors, reckon may be a good idea to fully recon their system. Bound to be another wormhole in there. Only have connection to Fanaticland here. Just been Frog, Hoodiehead, and Monkey for an entire week. Would be nice to finally link to Caldari. To roll the seedy spacelanes of Mito. See the hopeless CNRs and bloated freighters. Hear the sobbing tears of criminal miners. Pfeh. Getting too sentimental. This is our home now. And need to focus on keeping it safe. Start scanning adjacent system. Turns out POS didn't belong to the Ferox. Instead got a small group called Circle of something? Geddon, couple BCs, Rapier, and Falcons (of course). Have an Inty stationed on their side of wormhole. Mmmm, as long as they stay on their side of the fence it's all good. Besides not like I can rely on Starfleet to help. Too busy cowering in their POS, boldly going nowhere. Useless. Finish scouting out the system. Not much of interest. Typical grav sites, few ladar. Finally get another wormhole. To Minnie space. Sigh. Really wanted Caldari. Return home to find Starfleet packing their crap. Apparently don't feel comfortable here. Not sure why, but not gonna argue the point. Notice that they let a Retriever and some frig slip into system. So utterly useless. Only one response when a ship does not bear the Mark. Handle the situation quickly and professionally with the Vexor and another public pod execution. Only makes Starfleet pack faster. Course things might get interesting when they actually try and leave. Amarr wormhole partially destablized. Sit just off in CovOps observing. Orca and half their fleet make it out before the hole collapses. Exactly what I hoped for! Except 5 BSs and a couple BCs are left. Not what I hoped for. Was aiming for only a couple battleships. Shiite. And amusingly it seems that their probers jumped out too. Ponder the situation. Even as incompetent as they are, just too many ships. Probably be best just to get them the hell out. Offer to guide them to the adjacent system and out to Minnie space. Gladly accept as if I were doing them a favor. Fools. This is for me, not you. See them on their way and am amused to hear some cries of anguish as they jump through. Apparently Monkeys don't like Amarr militants. LOL. Back home to see what new wormholes formed. When one collapses another takes it's place within the hour. Scan it out. Find three of them! All to Minnie space. Again. Of course. Sigh. Then get a call from one of the Researchers. Apparently has a Cyclone sitting just off their tower. Well loittering is a crime. Warp in cloaked and observe. Yeah it's just sitting there staring blankly at the tower. Don't think he was made long for this world. Guns not firing on it though. Interesting. Will have to make a note of that. Cyclone finally gets bored and heads back to a wormhole. Which means it's Vexor time. Warp in at zero. Just gapes at us placidly. Must feel safe being in jump range. Hit the MWD and give a solid bump. Still feel safe biatch? Web keeps him off the hole. Drones do the rest. Tries to run his pod back to the wormhole as well. Really? Like that's going to work. Scoop the evidence and corpse. Just another day defending justice.


Audit Log 20090324.1211 - Strangely slow day. Dramatic change from the chaos of the past few. Gives ample time to remap the system. More wormholes. All Amarr space. Of course. Use the opportunity to grab supplies. Finding that relying on independent haulers is probably not the best way to dispose of Sleeper artifacts. They lack any sense of market savvy. Have decided it's probably a good time to start learning Accounting. Somewhat ironic considering my career. But never really made much of a difference during audits. Criminals are always guilty. That's why they're criminals. Checking their books would simply be a waste of time. Return and use the Huggybear Domi to destablize wormholes to critical. Finally found a use for it. Not gonna have anymore fleets and POS drops. Course it does seem to turn away visitors. And no visitors means no new potential vassals. Quite the dilemna. Sit and ponder a bit in the tower. Finding the POS seductively comforting. Safe. Powerful. Shouldn't get used to it though. Only a seedy necessity. In the tax enforcement industry we consider towers to be a "gateway crime". Starts with just the tower, and then slowly escalates into full-blown crime and tax evasion. Nothing we can't resist though. Simply get out of the POS and go on patrols. So later found myself in the Myrm browsing thru some Trade skill manuals and absently shooting Sleepers. Gotta keep the riff-raff down after all. Not too mention it was a pretty damn dull day. Running occasional scans, when another Myrm suddenly warps into the site. Things immediately get more interesting! In a bad way. Always have a point fitted, but criminals generally run in packs. He comes in 100km off. Had already finished off the Sleepers, so no worries there. And no other contacts on scan. Align and wait. Nothing. Mirror image ships just staring at each other. Looks somewhat familiar but can't place him. Then he turns and leaves. Odd. Wait for a re-warp or an uncloak. Still nothing. Very strange. Head back and grab the CovOps. Researchers notice the Myrm and strike up a convo over public comms. Run some probes. Seems a nice enough guy. Somehow trapped in system and can't find a way out. Affable, pretty cool, good can-do attitude. Like him. Except his ship does not bear The Mark. Bookmark and return in the Vexor. Point, web, and demand why he is in MY system. Seems confused. Then shockingly starts firing on me! (Researchers later claimed it was a perfectly reasonable response for most people. I think they're idiots.) Immediately let loose with the ACs and drones. He launches drones as well, max damage setup too. Oh, this might be bad. Get into close orbit. Webbed myself so his rails still hitting. Crap. Our buffer getting chewed down. And he's dual-repping. Double crap. Still, we're full in, no backing down now. Overheat the ACs and neut. Starts making a difference. Down to quarter armor when his tank breaks. Start punching into his hull while his drones keep chewing away. Myrm detonates when I'm down to 12% armor. Geez, closest audit in awhile. Acknowledge his skill by pointing the pod. Skillful criminals are dangerous after all. Plus he needs a way home.


Audit Log 20090325.1734 - Wake up in the CovOps and hit scan. Can't believe it. Criminals already! Abbadon and a Golem. Narrow and looks like they're at a wormhole. Warp in, there they are. Sitting about 20km off. Not moving. Yeah that's smart. Still, a BS and a Marauder? And an Abaddon at that. I so hate Amarr ships. Will be rough. The kind of job that calls for... Huggybear! Grab the Domi and warp on the hole at zero. Decision time. Abaddon or Golem? Database showed the Abaddon pilot favors beam/pulse mix. No entries for the Golem. Probably cruise and a decent tank. Golem is the glory audit. Abaddon is high-damage, godly tank, but can abuse his tracking. Choices... Hold off on locking, but slam the MWD right at them. Heavily armored Domi ain't exactly the quickest ship out there. They just sit and stare like dumb placid herd animals. It's the kind of stuff you usually only see on nature shows. Lock at 10km. Point and web the Abaddon. T2 Ogres and start laying in with the Electrons. Take some laser hits before orbit settles. Hurts as much as I thought. Abaddon was definitely the right choice. Drones swarming all over, mine and theirs. But ours do a hell of alot more damage. Taking some hard hits myself, though. Energy waves on visuals. Smarties? Check drones. Nope, it's a Torp Golem. Not good. Overheat the guns and tank. Need to finish this Abaddon quick. Blasters hit hard and fast. Cap holding well with dual injectors. Abaddon dropping, it's repping but can't keep up. Own tank holding but burning up. Risk more heat. Just hang in there baby. Pulling 1/3 armor when Abaddon breaks into hull. Got you now biatches! Then flameout. Kinetic hardener gone! Oh shiite. Damage skyrockets! Bane torps. Ouch. Abaddon half hull. Own repper still active, clawing some armor back. Falling past quarter when Abaddon explodes. Finally. Turn towards Golem. Outside scram and web range. Grit teeth and hit MWD. This is gonna hurt... It does. Bad. 10% armor as Ogres and Blasters start taking chunks out of the Golem. Closing into scram range. He's aligning. Moment of truth. Golem warps. Finger still over the scram. Had the range, but let it go. Couldn't take it without the Hardener. Watch half a billion in fines or evidence fly away. Hate that. But at least we keep the Abaddon's. And our own.


Audit Log 20090326.2111 - So quiet. For so long. Haven't seen another soul in days hours. No visitors. Researchers seem to be hiding. Killed the last of the Sleepers days ago. No ancient sites. No gas clouds. There is nothing but me. And the Tower. And rocks. Lots of rocks. Have been spending time with the Tower. It's AI is gentle. It gives good advice. Updates on status, fuel, inventory. These are important things. They matter. But am still bored. So terribly bored. The Tower has made suggestions though. Was appalled at first. Disgusted. Could never do anything so criminal. But the Tower explained. It needs to be fed. There needs to be income. And there is a source of income here. The rocks. Return from hi-sec space with a shiny new Osprey and a set of skill books. Head to one of the Core gravimetric sites we found earlier. Never seen alot of this stuff. Or maybe I have and never paid attention before. Gneiss. Ochre. Hedbergite. Spodumain? That sounds profitable. Release the brand new mining drones. Start up the mining lasers. Crack open the new file on Astrogeology. Fascinating stuff. Occassionaly run scanner while raw spodumain trickles in. Very slowly. And it's damn heavy. Must be damn valuable. Heh, gonna make a killing here. Two hours later have finished the roid. 485 cubic meters of super dense isk. Wonder how much more I'd get if I were in a Retriever?

Audit Log 20090327.1804 - Work progresses. The Tower is happy. Started on the Gneiss and Ochre now. Have long forgotten our initial hesitation. Completely focused now. Can see why my former audit clients always did this. It's like free isk! Could build battleships with this and undercut everyone. It's just too easy. Relax in the pod. Chat on info channels (which strangely seem to reach here). Transfer ore to the jetcan from time to time. Hardly even effort. Stopped checking scanner long ago. No point. Nobody ever comes here anyway. It's just chat and watch the pretty mining lasers. Spend the entire day at it. Gneiss, Ochre, Hedbergite, Hemorphite. It's all pure isk. Finally finish and load up the haulers. New wormholes. Amarr space again. Of course. Who cares though. Time to trade this ore for pure money! Only a few days away from a Retriever too. Might as well pick one up while I'm here.


Audit Log 20090328.1728 - Piece of shiite! Fecking piece of shiite POS! Income my ass. Ran that crap through the refinery, checked prices. Days spent mining, for what? 10mil ISK? I've killed Guristas worth more than that. Feck this! Feck mining! And feck you Tower! Time to make some purchases. Jump back into system with the loaded hauler. Immediately hit scan. Probes? And a Vexor. Good, need to vent. Park the hauler. Ignore the Tower's happy greeting. Grab CovOps and search. Find him. Time for some Vexor on Vexor action. Warp-in, scram, web. Both launch drones. He's just using Hammers. Idiot. And he's using Tracking Disruptors. Different. Not much good against ACs though. Shields and armor are obliterated in seconds. No plate apparently. Shred the hull and go for the pod. Instawarp. Feh. Return the evidence. Back to CovOps. Tower suggests Osprey instead. Feck you! Biatch has no idea what's in store for it. A few hours of patrols and get a new scanner hit. Kronos? Oh my. Quick check on the Researchers. Nope, not them. Try to narrow with scanner. Open space. No sites mapped in that area. Probe time. Sisters Combats and cross the fingers. Takes three passes til a warpable result. Come in at 20km and pray there's no clouds. Just the Kronos. And it's not moving. Of course not. Part of the Multiverse Academy. A student, eh? The bright future of tomorrow. Young. Impressionable. This should been done seriously. After all, he's about to have an important formative moment here. Aww who am I kidding? This will be fecking hilarious. Noob reap - it's not just for pedos anymore! Gotta swap ships. Could use the Ishtar, but kinda sketchy on the Marauder's web. Better use the Domi. Come screaming in with the Huggybear. Grid clears. Kronos. And a Myrm. And Rohk. And Blackbird. Well. This will be interesting. Land at 5km on the Kronos. Others a bit off. Light him up and release the Ogres. Start up the Electrons. Ripping into him hard. Kronos firing back. Guess he's using blasters too. Joy. Others start opening up as well. Blackbird seems to be painting me. Odd choice. Damage isn't as bad as one would think. Can tank this. Kronos can't though. Steadily chewing through his armor. Then the jam hits. Crap. Stay in close, sensors clear after one cycle. Fail ECM jockey. Start pounding on the Kronos again. He's down to a third armor. Still feeling pretty good tank-wise myself. And then another jam. Sigh. Gonna be one of those fights. Suddenly notice my drones. Only 3? Bastards! Shooting my drones? This is like fighting Sleepers all over again. But ones that do really crappy damage. Redeploy and sensors clear after a minute. Kronos nearly repped back up. Oh come on! Guess that drone killing worked. Fortunately got plenty more. Start ripping in again. Just passing half armor myself. Overload the guns for extra goodness. Marauder deep in armor when jams hit for a third time. Lovely. Great timing. Getting some more warp-ins too. Vexor. Prophecy. Myrm disappeared a bit ago. Think this is him returning in a Mega. Gets better and better. Damage starting to stack up. Still no points on me though. Mega is fortunately rail and cruise. Lol. Woulda been better if he stayed in the Myrm. Wait it out and take the pounding when there's a sudden explosion. Blackbird down? Oh you naughty rebellious little drones! You were suppossed to be on the Kronos. Good job though! Quick lock and we are back at it. Kronos almost back to full again. I'm bleeding


into quarter. Overload and drones. He's dropping, but I'm dropping quicker. And I'm apparently out of cap boosters. Been at this for 7 minutes already? Wow. Quick tally. Marauder, 2 BS, BC, Cruiser. Okay, this might be a bit much after all. Start aligning, recall drones. Still aligning. Armor breaking. Come on, align you pig! Taking hull damage. Warp. In flames.

Audit Log 20090328.1728 - Continued - Reload cap boosters and drones. Slap on some nanopaste while repping armor. Not much we can do about the hull right now. Repairs done. And Kronos still on scan. Time for round 2. Ding! Ding! Hit the same spot. And they're still there. Work the support first this time. Prophecy closest. Hit the MWD and charge. They greet me with a facefull of rail slugs and lasers. Not nice. Cap out on arrival, but that's why there's cap boosters. Get the web and scram. Takes a cycle for the guns though. And Proph seems to have an AB. Crap. Hate when people use those. Get some good shots off as it pulls out of range. But not enough cap to chase it. No worries though. Vexor just landed on me. Congrats, you're the new target! Unload with the Electrons. Ogres taking their own sweet time getting back. Vexor lasting an embarassingly long time. Survives a full minute until drones finally get there. Geez. Grab the evidence and look for a new target. Currently at half armor. Mega and Rohk too far off. Kronos keeping distance. That leaves the Proph again. And it's fully repped. Pulse MWD and lumber after it. Tries fleeing. But that never works. Well mostly sometimes never. Falling into third armor when finally get a web on. Start pummelling but running into cap issues again. Not to mention armor problems. Proph deep in armor too, but really not worth dying for. Only a Proph after all. No points on me. Pull drones and warp. Audit Log 20090328.1728 - Addendum - Return to the Tower later that evening. It tries the happy greeting crap again. Cut it off in mid-sentence by flipping the power switch. Off-lining your ass muther******. Mining? Really? Never again. The seduction to crime ends here and now. Brought a few things back with me from that refining trip. Got us a real tower now. A better tower. Amarr. Triple the firepower with room to spare. And it doesn't give shiitey advice either.


Audit Log 20090329.1932 - The new tower is certainly a sight. Strong. Powerful. Upright. Like a giant golden phallus in typical Amarr fashion. Almost as bad as the Frogs. In any case it bristles with weapons now. Pulse lasers, missile launchers, webs, scrams. And still has plenty of grid and CPU for other essentials. Not bad for a tower bought on discount. I like it. Sure the tower AI is kinda weird. Keeps suggesting military expansion and the remorseless subjugation of our enemies, which I appreciate. But also drones on and on about heathens, religion, and requiring "blood for the Blood God". Almost as annoying as the corp systems when we are in the red, but nowhere near as cool. Still, we can overlook the small issues and focus on the big picture. We got kickass tower now! Head out for some scans in the CovOps. Pick up some new wormholes. Amarr (as always) and a w-space link. Time to explore the great unknown then. Hop thru, immediately bm and hit scan. No ships. But there is a tower. With a force field up. Great. Neighbors. Narrow down with the direction and warp at range for a visual. Turrets, scram, hangars. All the usuals. Apparently belongs to one of those weird bull-loving machismo ethnic groups. Go by the name of Hispanic Armed Forces. Whatever. Pop some probes to get a system overview. Looks picked over. Not surprising I guess. Pack up and head home. Start remapping home system. And that's when I notice something different. There's a tower missing on scanner. The Researchers' tower. Head over and confirm. Yep, all gone. Disappeared without a trace like some kind of defaulting renter. Figures. Leaves the system all to me again. Just me. Alone. Shiite. Pick thru some probe sites out of sheer boredom. Take the tower's advice and do a bit of "cleansing" on Sleepers. Probably a good idea to keep them down. Plus some idiots actually pay for this crap. Course once that's done, there's not a whole hell of alot to do. Nobody invading. No vassals. Nothing. Might as well go map the neighboring system. Grab the CovOps again. Hop thru and there's a Hurricane. Uh-oh. No bubbles up. Good. Quick scan. No other ships. Cloak and get some distance. Take a closer look. Cane not moving. Got arties fitted. Wtf? Painted flames on the front. Air-brushed Amarr mural on the back. Fuzzy dice and mariachi music blaring. It must be a HAF ship. Check some other planets and their tower. Seems clear. Well time to give the new neighbors a welcome gift. And that means it's Ishtar time! Hop out, swap, check ammo and drones. Good to go. Head back and jump.


Audit Log 20090329.1932- Continued - Sensors clear, Cane still there. And it's dropping probes. LOL. Clear cloak and get some distance. Still not moving. Flip around, slam MWD, and charge right at him. Hit like a sack of bricks and send him flying off the hole. Then set the point and web, drones and ACs. It's over for ya now chump! Chunks of shields start stripping away. But slivers start repping back up. OMG is he shield boosting? This will be so sad. The neuts are gonna make short work of that. Keep in close orbit. He's trying to plink away with arties and failing miserably. ACs don't have that problem. His shields still dropping slowly. Must be cap injecting or something. And now he's going after my Ogres. Hate it when they do that. Give him another bump and keep pounding away. And pounding. Still pounding. Wtf? How can an active tank run this long? And having to continually rescoop isn't helping. Down to third shields. He's gotta cap out soon. Hit scan. Pair of Ravens and an Ishtar. Lovely. Guess he called for help. Overheat the guns and go full-bore. Ravens warp-in. One at range and the other right on top. Cruise and torp eh? Craptastic. Keep focusing on the Cane. Now at quarter shields. Ravens locking. No, just the long range. Close range Raven warping out. Heh. Guess he wasn't torp after all. Cruises hitting. Cane still holding firm around quarter. Check the watch. Been like 5 minutes now. Freaking ridiculous! Why won't this thing die?! Second Raven gets his range and starts unloading too. Armor buffer beginning to crumple. Cane shows no sign of giving in, and is trying to lead me off the hole. Then the Ishtar warps in. Well, that's about that. Pull drones and MWD. Hit the hole and jump. Driven off like a gnat. Bloody hell. Head back to tower furious. Start pulling up records on Hurricanes. How the hell can it boost so well? Nothing comes up for active. Start delving through the loathsome and blasphemous data of the mission running clique. And then it becomes clear. The horror. A passive tank. Just as some would abuse the Myrmidon, they do the same to a Hurricane. Extenders and shield power relays. All tank, no tackle, no damage. A mockery of a decent ship. Unbelievable. And apparently unbreakable solo. God I hate passive tanks. Almost as much as I hate falling for a bait ship.


Audit Log 20090330.2100 - Another day, another patrol. For the cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. Barely missed a Buzzard in the morning. Idiot was doing the typical "probe at a planet uncloaked" thing. As if I can't pinpoint them in less than 20 with the directional. Moron. Came in under cloak, closed into scram range, but uncloaked too soon. He pulled the instacloak and ran. Shiite. Shoulda gone for the proximity decloak. Oh well. Still chased him out of system damn quick. Got a Minnie WH this time. Like that's a real change. Nothing much going on here, so decide to hop into k-space and do some mining taxation. Criminals in these parts are meek though. No organized defense. No harsh words or invective. Just docily rolling over and accepting their fine. Once a slave, always a slave I guess. Boring though, head back home. Jump and hit scan. Ferox. A personally named Ferox. Can always tell which criminals are the easiest marks by the ship names. And this one will be no exception. Grab the Cov Ops and run some combat probes. Result isn't as quick as I'd like, but really doubt he's paying attention. Finally track him down to a grav site. Part of some Miner's Union apparently. I hate unions. Nothing but criminals and gangsters. Not mining though. But he is moving. So apparently not a complete moron. Though not aligned to anything, so still 99% of one. Set a bm and time to swap. Vexor will be more than adequate. Grid clears and the bm is bit off this time. 35km. Quite a bit off. Glad we fit disruptor. Hit the MWD and go screaming in. Lock and point. Close the orbit and then release the drones. He's locking back slowly. Start ripping in. Semi decent tank. He's using missiles. Could he be any more fail? His shields down to half. Then he changes direction. And warps. Stabs. Feck. Guess he can be. Quick map check, looks like he headed to WH. Warp to zero and there he is. Hit MWD and charge at him. Who knows, might work. It does. Hit and send him careening off the hole. Slap on the web. ACs and drones go to work. Keep bumping to keep him off and break any warps. Shields shredding. We're at 6km. Have him into armor, 5500m. Hull, 5100m. Explosion! Close one. Quick lock on the pod. Let it approach the hole. Aww... Those fluid levels still adjusting? Here, let me help you home. Stabwhoer filth!


Audit Log 20090331.2231 - Fairly dull day. No visitors. New WHs are unimpressive. Amarr (big surprise) and a link to w-space. Cataclysmic system though. Annoying. As if the difficulty repping wasn't bad enough, it always causes the visuals to get choppy. Bounce around a bit in home system. Purge some Sleepers, suck some gas. Boring stuff. Pop back into the Cataclysm system to run some probes. Drake on scan. Heron as well. Some cores floating about. Interesting. Narrow with the directional. In the system central, but at a site or safe. No wrecks, so probably a safe. Pop out to a distant planet and setup a Combat probe pattern. Send 'em in. Takes two passes and we got him. Recall and warp at midrange. Drake is moving and aligned. Set and intercept, plenty of time for a backgroud check. Achura trollop by the name of "Bad Touch". Part of Atlas Alliance. Remember them from Mito. Criminals. And pretty damn fail iirc. Still the tart seems experienced. Been flying a bit longer than we have. And probably hasn't had our exceptional vacation plan either. Modest amount of combat experience, mostly in nullsec blobage by the looks of it. Hmmm. Set a bm with a good lead and make the decision. Ishtar. Vexor would be overly optimistic. Domi would be overkill. Make the jump back home and swap. Everything that could go wrong, does. Get pulled into the tower bubbles. Need to reload ammo and booster charges. Get hung up on the hangar trying to warp. FFS. Finally get to WH and jump. Scan, still there. Warp to bm. Land about 25km off. Crap. Reckon she's running the Heron on remote, so she'll be slow to react anyway. Overheat the mids, hit the MWD and close the distance. Lay on the scram and web and that seems to get her attention. Locks back, but already laying in with Ogres, ACs, and neuts. Take some missile hits, damage is low. Quick drone check. Yeah, she's gunning for them. Getting real damn sick of people shooting my fecking drones! Only got a wave and a half of Ogres, so cycling is gonna be rough. Drake shields breaking slowly. Really slowly. Only 2/3 and almost all the Ogres have damage on them. Scans still clear, so doesn't look like any backup is coming. Just me and her. Lose the first Ogre when she hits half shields. Biatch! Those cost money! Launch another and keep firing. Two more get popped by the time she's down to 1/3. Have to start cycling in Hammers. Neuts finally have her capped out, but lose some more heavies. Down to only two Ogres, both in the bay recharging. Relying on Hammers now, and those die even quicker. She's still in peak recharge and barely budging. Missiles switch to me now. Shields shred and starting chewing into my armor. Time to bite the bullet and go max damage. Overheat the guns, send out the remaining Ogres. If we don't break her now it ain't gonna happen. EMP and drone plasma rip in hard. Quarter shields. Missile switch, Ogre down, replace with a Hammer. Guns nearing critical, but keep overloading. 1/8 shields, and then she breaks! Into armor and freefall. Switch off the heat, guns barely still functional. Hull and then explosion. Go for the pod. Definitely sending this biatch to a clone bay. Locking, and jammed. Wtf? Light ECM drones? She must have launched at the last second. And they get off a jam with their last gasp. Feck! Pod warps. Evidence is mediocre at best. Cost us 7 OgreIIs and 4 HammerheadIIs. Tough battle, and an expensive


victory. But one cannot put a price tag on justice.


Audit Log 20090403.1645 - Days of nothingness. No criminals. More lackluster Hoodiehead and Minnie wormholes. Boredom. The tower continues ranting about it's Blood God and need for sacrifice. Almost as bothersome as the Faildari one and it's mining crap. But at least it's heart is in the right place. Have constructed a graveyard to try and placate it for awhile. Rows of criminal corpses which we've punished. Doesn't really work though. Tower still demands blood. Whatever. Still, not much going on. Poked around in the hangar a bit. Bunch of Sleeper crap. Wrecked subsytems, malfunctioning hull parts. Why do I even pick this stuff up? Nostalgia probably. Silly dreams from when we first started piloting. Dreams of being the galaxy's foremost scientist and archaeologist. A creator and researcher. 'Course back then I also thought flying an Interceptor crotch rocket would be my greatest goal. Funny the paths life leads us down instead. But since we got nothing else happening, might as well start studying it. Crack open some books. Buy an Experiment Lab. Start hunting Mag and Radar sites. Get some good runs. Three days later have a nice collection of Sleeper junk. Question is, what exactly do we do with it now? Start pondering when the mailbox flashes. Great, probably more pathetically unqualified applicants or thinly disguised spies. Open it up. Not quite. Not even close. It's Sin Fae.


Audit Log 20090404.2018 - Still the same old Sin. Upbeat and fearless. Still the same creepy fascination with Doomsday devices. Really fear for the galaxy if she ever gets in a Titan. Give her the coordinates and start moving her crap in. She's not too keen on the tower and it's Blood God crap. Whatever. She'll get used to it. Will be a bit of a change after being alone for so long. But will no doubt be worth it. Numbers are good. Course she's also bringing her Doctor "friend" along with her. Vaguely remember him from back in the CKTF days. Decent enough guy for a soulless ECM jockey. Tower takes an immediate dislike to him though. Sucks him into a bubble and lets rip with the Pulse Batteries. One Blackbird very very dead. Right. Standings. Should adjust those. Tower is happy though. Keeps cycling "Blood for the Blood God" on the monitors. Definitely doesn't make Sin very happy though. Potential crisis in the making. So we do what every good leader does. Avoid the situation. Hop in the CovOps and do patrols in the adjacent system. And luck is with us. Had checked it out before. Class 3 with a tower up. Suppossedly some sort of Caldari science and research firm. Obvious front for something shady. And this time the criminals are actually home. Hype and Vexor on scan. Check tower first, Hype there. Looks like Vexor is out in open space somewhere. Head out to distant planet and set the Combats. Two passes to get a hit. Cross reference with sites. Gravimetric. Unlicensed mining eh? Well we have ways of dealing with that! Head back, grab our own Vexor. Would like to use a frig, but gotta end it quick with that Hype around. And quick it is. Pops in 15 seconds. Grab the evidence and ninja vanish back home. The swift and merciless fist of justice, striking out of nowhere and disappearing just as quickly. They'll think twice about such criminal activities in the future.


Audit Log 20090407.2224 - Goddamn I love Caldari wormholes! Had been days of silence. Some barely missed audit opportunities. Lots of relic hunting. But the waiting finally paid off. Caldari space. Irjunen. Mission hub. Yet another wretched hive of scuum and villainy. Can barely contain myself. Not with so many criminals just a wormhole away. Grab the Merlin and jump. Mining taxation at it's best. Honestly there is no miner like the Caldari miner. Pugnacious, unrepentant, completely oblivious to tax law. Criminals to the core. Bounce the belts looking for victi- criminals. Find a Hulk. No can. But plenty of wrecks. Littering. That's a crime y'know. Head to the wreck by the criminal. Launches a cloud of T2 lights. Gonna be like that, huh? Grab evidence. Hulk locks and engages. Pointed and webbed. Battlehulk! Hit the MWD. No response, scram! Shiite. Throw some EMP and Sabertooths back. Try to claw out of range. Half shields and finally break free. Love that Medium Extender. MWD and soar out to 20km. Switch to drones and take one out. Start on the 2nd and he recalls. Follow them in. No biatch, you ain't getting away! Switch to Hulk and let loose. Drones back out, but I can take them. Hulk shields shredding quickly. Half. Third. Quarter. Warp-in! Crapacal. Same corp. Not good. Struggle to get range. Shields dropping. Third, quarter. Shields down. Break out of the Hulk's grip. But Crapacal has a scram on me now. Dammit! Align and spam for pod warp. So close. Grab another Merlin and jump back in. Vengeance! Criminals cowering in station though. Figures. That's why they're scum. Fine. We'll do sting operations then. Scatter some Gursitas wrecks about to see if there are any potential thieves. Catch a couple. Crapacal and a Thrasher. Get the very unwelcome help of some vigilantes on both. Hate kill poachers. Still justice gets served. Sin Fae finally shows up. Set her to work before she can start in about the Tower. Ninja taxation. Bounce about collecting from mission running Golems and Navy Ravens. No takers. And pretty much the entire system is aware of our presence. Could have something to do with all my banter in local. Not sure though. Regardless having no luck. Head back home to set up for a supply run. Scan on entry. Rohk and Hurricane! Oh my. Send Sin to switch to her Scorp. Run a quick set of probes and locate them in a Ladar. Get lucky on the warp-in, no gas cloud decloak. Bookmark and grab the Domi. I head for the targets, Sin hits the wormhole to slow any rescue attempts. Land and point the Rohk. Cane runs. Rohk shields obliterating when a convo request pops up. 100mil to let him go? Heh, I've audited entire alliances for that much. Think we could easily accept that for just one ship. Wallet flashes, amount correct. Release and tell him to gtfo. This is turning out to be a good day. Back to the tower to finally do that supply run. Got some fuel stashed in Oimmo. Sin Fae has the Doctor move some stuff in. Warps to tower and is promptly blasted apart, again. Guess personal standings don't work. Tower starts crooning about the Blood God. Sin starts fuming. Ummm... Look at the time! Gotta do that supply run! Grab the rigged Badger and head out. Geez. This whole CEO responsibility thing kinda sucks. But think we handled it nicely. In the Badger and ignoring the problem. Best solution tbh. Never really like flying this thing though. First, no gun on it. Second, rigs are about 100 times the


cost of the ship. Like flying around in a giant pinata. Still, has to be done. Load up and start heading back when Sin Fae checks in. Somebody dropped a bubble on the wormhole. Phoon and an Arbi. Do a quick check of our Badger. Less than 1K shields, top speed of 250m/s with afterburner. Odds of making it past a bubble? Not good. Have Sin Fae relay info and do some database checks. Apparently they're some sort of Interstellar Corp of Exploration. Interesting way to explore. Time for some quick planning.

Audit Log 20090407.2224 - Continued - Warp to wormhole and jump. Phoon and Arbi waiting. Medium bubble up. Hit the MWD on the newly purchased Condor (did you honestly think I'd be in the Badger?) Burn out of the bubble and warp to tower before they can even get half a lock. Sin waiting in her cloaky Raven. I swap to the Huggybear and charge back. Hit the bubble edge, MWD, and we all start locking. Blasters and point on the Phoon, Ogres on the Arbi. Got a cloud of drones on me, and Phoon is using large ACs. Nothing we can't handle. Hit the cap injectors and the repper. Arbi dropping like a rock. No tank if any. And then the computer starts saying "out of ammo". Wtf? Guns fine. Injectors empty. Check cargo. Oh shiite! Forgot cap boosters. Deep in the bubble, down to third cap thanks to MWD, got a scram and web on me. 7km off the hole. Then Sin comes in at range. Thank god! Cruises start unloading on the Phoon. Arbi down to half armor, into hull and then vanishes. Jumped thru. Damn! I'm down to last shreds of cap. Turn off the repper to keep the guns running. Refocus drones on the Phoon. He's trying to rep, but no way it can keep up with the damage of two IRS battleships. Hits quarter armor and he jumps thru too. Pfft. Sissy. Lucky one too. Wormhole is at critical. Course I got lucky too. Wouldn't have turned out well if Sin weren't there. But no time to count our blessings. First things first. Gotta drop the bubble so we can get the fuel in. Blast it apart. Swap to a shuttle and jump into Irjunen. And there's the Typhoon sitting on the hole. Dammit. Somehow don't think he's gonna let the Badger by unmolested. Banter back and forth a bit, mock their abject cowardice and hop back in. Quick swap to the Domi and back on the hole to wait. Only takes a few moments and the hole pulses. And there's the Phoon. Heh. Such a fragile and easily manipulated ego. Hit the MWD and go for the bump. Get off two Electron volleys and within 3000m before he jumps back out. Collapsing the hole behind him. Crap. Head back to tower a bit worried. Five days of fuel. A slightly upset employee. And a rabid blood-thirsty tower. Great. Check the Lab to see if anything turned up from our research. Huh. Some successes. Tengu BPC, Proteus BPC, Legion BPC. Wonder if those are worth anything...


Audit Log 20090408.2201 - Rich! We're fecking rich! Now I see why those filthy criminals spend so much time not studying weapons. Some amazing shiite. 4 BPC auctions bought out in less than 8 hours. And we're 4.5 billion richer. With a freaking "B" biatch! More money than I've ever seen before. And it's all mine! Heh, and they say wormholes aren't profitable solo. Idiots. Won't let the ISKies change me though. Will still stay the same professional IRs agent. Root of all evil? Bullshiite. Lies spread by poor people. Speaking of which, kinda bored. Should probably go kill one. Not much in the way of targets though. Figures. The bourgeoisie probably can't even afford probes. Hop to that adjacent WH system to check things out with the Helios. Just finish mapping the system when somebody else's probes pop up. Buzzard on scan. And not cloaking back up. Idiot peasant. Time for a CovOps duel. Don't even bother narrowing with the directional. Just warp to the sun at 20km. And there she is. So surprised. Apparently some Achura soldier tramp. Aptly named Achura Sohei. Sounds poor. That means you die. Do the manual decloak. Lock, point, drone. Tries running. Foolish fool! You cannot escape class justice! Should only take a few seconds. Shields strip away. And then stop. And then start going back up. Shield booster? On a buzzard? Idiot. Will just end up capping out. And still trying to run. Keep at range and sit back. Convo request pops up. Apparently wants to beg. Pathetic. Where is your CovOps warrior instinct? Standard IRS policy is to give the option of paying a fine. But screw the rules! We have money! And I want to watch something die. Sit back and wait for the cap to die. Audit Log 20090408.2235 - Still in pursuit. Feels like days. Cap not breaking. Shields fall and rise in a steady rythm. Almost hypnotic. Buzzard, Hobgoblin, Helios. A silent caravan of violence moving away from the sun. Must have crossed 2 entire grids by now. It's become a grueling test of endurance. Who will die of boredom first? Will she mis-time a boost cycle? Will I accidentally turn off the scram? The constant vigilance. Ponder the unceasing difficulty of not pressing a button as I wander off to make a sandwich. Audit Log 20090408.2358 - Finally. Victory is ours! Tried the logoffski maneuver. Like that ever works. Idiot. Just leads to a pod getting probed and dispatched as well. The righteous justice of the poor being punished for being poor. Or maybe she wasn't so poor. Sisters launcher, Grav rigs. Meh, well you're poor now biatch! And that's good enough for us.


Audit Log 20090409.2201 - Duty never ends. Wake up in the CovOps and immediately hit scan. Drake. Nice. Never tire of killing those. Narrow with the directional. Compare to bookmarks. Looks like it's sitting on a wormhole. Or not. Drake is there, but WH isn't. Must of collapsed. And now he's stranded. Heh, time for me to help you get home. Goes by the name Byteman, part of The Fated. LOL. Yeah you bite, and you're fated to die. Been flying as long as I have and still tooling around in a Drake? Born victim. Easy kill. Grab the Ishtar and warp in. Land and light him up. Time to die trespassing scum! Hit him with all the usuals. And he's doing the usual too. Shooting my freaking Ogres. Guess it's the FOTM. Problem is, only got one wave. Start swapping out with Hammers. And his tank isn't breaking. Sitting firm and don't even have him down to peak. Then he starts laying into me. Keep plugging away. Send out the Ogres again which he promptly ignores and keeps sending volley after volley into me. Really not liking the buffer tank right now. Down to third armor. He's at peak and not budging. How can this fecking be happening? It's only a Drake! At quarter armor and start looking at the Align button. No point on me. And then he opens local comms. 100 million. Wtf? Trying to ransom me? ME?! No wait. He'll give me a 100mil if I get him out. Look at my armor. Look at his shields. It might as well be a fecking ransom. It's a reverse pity ransom. Bloody hell. Swallow what's left of my dignity and agree. Swap to the CovOps and probe out an exit. Gallente lowsec. Black Rise. Last place I'd want to take a Drake, but whatever. Haggle over payment timing. Finally get it settled and send him on his way. Hopefully some FW blob gang will kill him. Had momentarily considered feeding him to the Tower. But this the IRS. There are limits to how low we will stoop. And accepting a reverse pity ransom is low enough as it is. Won't be making that mistake again. Every damn Drake gets the goddamn Domi from now on! Message comes in from Byteman. Apparently he made it home safely... I hate my life. Spend a few hours probing. Checkout neighbor wormhole. Settled of course, but nobody home. Play with the Tower a bit. Really should have fed the Drake to it. And then another Drake shows up on scan. Oh yes. Redemption! Narrow down, throw out some probes. Result. Looks like some chump in one of those pathetic 2-man corps. Awesome Mega Supercorp. Doubt it. Set bookmark and grab the Domi. Warp in and hit with everything we got. Shields vanish and explodes in seconds. Well. That was anticlimactic. Coulda killed that in a frigate. Feh. Jump around various systems for awhile. Utter boredom. Return to find 3 battleships on scan. Raven, Pest, Maelstrom. And cyrillic names too. There are few things more despicable in life than tax evasion. The cyrillic alphabet and anyone who uses it are one of those things. Narrow down. Planet 6. Go on a hunch and warp to the old DORF tower. And there they are. Shooting it. Bastards! I wanted to be the one to kill it! But it does save me the trouble. Sit cloaked 100km off and gather intel. Torp Raven. Mael and Pest are arties. Raven looks low on ammo, just switched from Bane to Mjiies. Both Pest and Raven in close orbit on tower. Mael stationary at range. Difficult decision. They are getting rid of a nuisance.


But their mere existence is also a nuisance. Ponder. Sit and watch. Wait to see what develops. Hatred wins over patience. There can be only one alphabet! And it shall not be cyrillic. Grab the Huggybear. Torp Raven is the biggest threat. But Mael is seperated. Plus they have their inbred ethnic idiocy on their side. They don't run. Ever. Can't rely on the usual fear factor to make them scatter. Mael it is then. Usually have good tanks, but might be gimped with the artie set-up. Hopefully. One Domi, three cyrillic battleships. We can do this. We're the IRS!

Audit Log 20090409.2201 - Continued - Land on the Mael. Perfect range. Launch drones, overheat the Electrons. Mael shields get pulverized. Half. Third. Quarter. He's so dead! And then he boosts. Crap. Pest and Raven at 45km and closing. Drones all over me. Some going after Ogres forcing rescoops. Getting painted. Torps hitting hard. Dammit! Thought Raven would be farther off. Mael shields bouncing around quarter. Own armor taking some heavy damage. Bleeding towards half and Raven doing most of it. Shoulda gone for it first. Raven and Pest nearing 30km. Tank ain't holding, and the Mael's definitely is. Time to gtfo. Align. They near 25km. Warp. Graaah! That sucked. Really wish Sin Fae were around with her Scorp. Shiite. Cyrillics go back to shooting the tower like nothing happened. But all much closer now. Mmmm. Trap. Not happening. Takes another half hour til they either get bored or wary of reinforcements. They pack it up and jump back to their dismal little system. Leaving the DORF tower still standing. Audit Log 20090411.2142 - Slow couple days after driving off the cyrillic filth. Spend it searching for Radars and Mags. Not much luck. But it finally changes with a Ruppie. Difficult to narrow though. Keeps moving. Seems to be jumping between a combat site and a planet. Not surprising. Don't think it would be possible to solo one of those sites in a cruiser. Well obviously an idiot, so can take him in the Merlin. Question is, where? Would be a bit more sporting to take him after he's repped. Plus Sleepers tend to like shooting me too much. Probably in cahoots with Concord and pay attention to sec status. Bastards. Can one never escape Concord's reach? Right. So planet it is. Warp in. 30km off. MWD and set the point. Go close orbit and fire away with Sabertooths and 200mm ACs. Because ACs are good on every ship! Course his heavier ACs can't track as well. But looks like he's got Rocket Launchers. Honestly who puts rockets on a Ruppie? Could be problematic. Our shields dropping, but maxxed resists and medium extender seem to be managing. Chew down his shields. He tries some light drones, but make quick work of those. Into armor. He's repping, but no way he can keep it up. Finally breaks. Into hull and gone. Quick pod lock. Love frig sensors. And there is no mercy for trespassing. Take a break after our epic victory. Grab some food and a nap. Return to find a Harpy on scan and probes out. Probing Harpy? That's a new one. Run some Combats. At a wormhole. Or not. Another lost


sheep whose WH collapsed. And sitting on the remnants is such a brilliant choice. CT Dummy. Appropriate name. Guess we'll just Merlin this one too. Swap and charge in. Go in close with the web and scram. Moment of truth. Blasters or rails? He's blasters. Crap. And I'm scrammed, so no MWD. Sabers and EMP rip into his shields. Own shields getting massacred. He breaks first. But I'm only seconds behind. And that's when blasters make the difference. Armor and hull vanish so quick can't even prep for pod warp. Scramble for a celestial and start spamming. Feel the sudden fear of imminent death. And warp. Gah! That sucked. Obviously getting way too ambitious here. Return in CovOps. Wreck looted and Harpy gone. Still on scan though. Near P7. Launch Combats again. Result in one pass. Retrieve and warp. And there he is, not moving. Probably too focused on trying to probe a way out. Not a quick learner this one. Time to impress the lesson. Not messing around. Vexor. Warp in with mods hot. Lock and he's toast. Hobgobbies out. And then he ejects. Wtf? Pull the drones and guns. Pod warps. Riiight. So what now ace? You have no wormhole, and I'm now in your probing ship. Try to scan out his pod. But it disappears... And is replaced by his corpse. Wow. Eject and self-pod. That's a statement. Not exactly sure what he's trying to say, but it is a statement.

Audit Log 20090412.2255 - Day starts slow. Remap system. Run some patrols in adjacents. Not much happening. Take a food break and come back to a surprise. Hulk, Hauler, Vexor on scan. Mining op in our system? I don't fecking think so! Do a quick directional, narrow down and check bookmarks. System mapping paid off, they're in the core Grav belt. Warp at range, bookmark the Hulk's can. Vexor seems to be mining too. Pathetic. What kind of sorry excuse for a man would waste their time drilling rocks? Hard to fathom what would drive a soul to such depths. Will be a mercy kill. Swap out for our own Vexor. Would like to do the Merlin, but would be too many drones. 'Sides we do this for duty, not glory. Land on the can and light them up. Hulk is primary of course. Can't suffer those to live. Then Vexor and hauler if they stick around. Hulk doesn't even know what hit him. Drones and ACs rip him apart in seconds. Already switching to criminal Vexor and burning towards it. Hauler bails but it's no great loss. Point and web, and it drops even quicker than the Hulk. Non-existant tank. Travesty. Point the pod. Impose the punishment. Great ships are not meant to be treated such. Even worse than shield tanking a Myrm. Hardly a satisfying pair of kills. But that's why it's called a "job". Not always fun. And if we don't do it, then who will?


Audit Log 20090415.2104 - Past few days were uneventful. Mostly spent investigating adjacent systems, liberating datacores and relics. Man does not live by bread alone after all. Return from hitting a pair of Radars. Jump home, hit scan. Ships! Myrm, Diemost, Blackbird. Mmmm. Gatecamp mix if I ever saw one. Especially considering we have a Caldari link today. First thing first though. Secure the Sleeper loot, then check them out. Head in with the CovOps and I called it right (of course). Definite camp, but not a very smart one. All on the hole, even the Blackbird. And that can mean only one thing... it's Domi time! Charge in with mods hot. No question who's primary. ECM ***gotry dies first. Ogres out. They lock first, but first cycles miss. Sonofabiatch won't get a second chance though. Ogres and blasters make that final. Try for the pod, but it warps. Myrm and Diemost still laying in. Means we'll be getting more company. Good. Means more punishment. Myrm first. Bastards are targeting drones though. New flavor of the month I guess, everybody's doing it. Pull in and then wormhole pulses. Thorax and Nemesis. Guess that's their backup. New primary! Switch to Hobgobbies and take the easy target. Torp refit hasn't gone into effect yet, but still don't want it around peppering cruises. Trying to pull range, but web and point keep it slow enough for drones to get on. Breaks range but it's still all over for it. Bombers don't align quick. Switch attention back to others. They're doing some damage. But tank holding out. Diemost is all over us. Thorax first though. Mop up the small stuff. A few blaster volleys and it jumps out. Sissy. Back to Ogres on the Diemost then. Or not. Drones getting targeted again. FFS. Fine. Hammers and blasters then. Nobody shoots Hammers. Diemost is all buffer, and not a very good one at that. Blasters can't track him worth a shiite, but the Hammers are doing just fine. Rip him down and force the jump. Really wish these holes worked like gates. Only leaves the Myrm. And with decent range blasters work just fine on it. It's tank getting pulverized. Try for a MWD bump but it jumps as well. Pfeh. Grab the evidence, and back to tower to grab more cap charges. Cuz I'm fairly damn certain they'll be back. Criminals simply never learn. Back on the hole in close orbit. Only takes a few moments and hole pulses. Here they come. Myrm, Diemost, Thorax, Ishkur. Wtf? Is this Gallente Filth Day or something? Rax and Ishkur pulling range but reckon I should probably stay close on the hole. Tax sense is tingling. Myrm has best range so give it the punishment. Ogres and overloaded blasters. Looks like dual reps, no plate. Probably works well against mediocre dps, but not against the righteous fury of the IRS. Drop it quick into hull and it jumps. Damn these holes and their no aggro! Well all it takes is one miscalculation on their part. 'Course same goes for me I guess. Whatever. Tank still holding fairly well. Diemost next. Then hole pulses again. Hyperion. Lovely. Pull into closer hole orbit. Overheat tank and focus on the HAC. Damage mounting. Diemost falling a bit faster though. Might be able to pull this. Hole pulses again. Myrm is back. And so is the Nemesis pilot. Except he's in an Astarte this time. Oh great. That's my cue. Pull drones, direct approach on the hole. Take a glacing bump, drones safe, and jump. Damn glad these don't work like gates. Hit station, repair the heat damage, get cap charges. Time for round three!


But looks like they've had enough. Feh. Not the complete victory we would have liked. But the invaders have been repulsed and our system is safe once again.

the taxman chronicles vii -...

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