“Alright Abby, you all set?” Tulkikis messaged in the private channel.
“Yep, it's all on you now, mate.” She replied.
“Okay, well, here goes nothing, then.”
'Hey, I just accepted a level 4 class mission, but all I have is a Battlecruiser, my tank should do just fine, but could some one help a bit with the damage side of things?' Appeared in the System messaging box.
Silence. Absolute silence. During the intense wait, Abby could feel the anxiety building, this plan would work, and it would work well, they just needed a person or two to respond.
Please, dammit! Just answer the man! Someone here has got to be enough of an idiot! C'mon c'mon c'mon c'mon! C'MON!!
Abby stirred in her pod, in her Heron frigate, waiting impatiently to hear from Tulk about someone contacting him to help.
“Anything, Tulk?”
“Hold on, got a private message going, it's looking promising.”
“You bastard, could have told me sooner, I'm over here freaking the fuck out!
“Yeah yeah yeah...”
“Yeah what?”
“...1 sec”
“What? What the hell is going on over there?”
After a minute of so without a response, Abby got even more restless. She wanted to do this, she was waiting for the chance to use her skills for something new. What Tulk, Ligand, and Abby and come up with was an elaborate way to essentially scam people. Ligand had had a conversation with some other capsuleers about something called ninja salvaging. The basis was that you probe down mission runners, hopefully doing level 4's, and then run in and salvage the wrecks and get out as fast as possible. However, with the tactic Abby and Tulk were using, they would get some one to “help” Tulkikis on a level 4 mission. After a while, Abby would try to find Tulk ASAP using her little probing frigate. Once Abby had found and gone to Tulk, running missions, she would use her ship, be it frigate, destroyer, or cruiser, to salvage the wrecks in the mission. If the helper was deemed enough of an idiot, Tulk might be able to get them to shoot at Abby-she chuckled at the thought-if she did ever get shot at, well then CONCORD would have a few words about NOT shooting random neutrals in space with a .5 security status or higher system.
Oh fuck it, I'll at least start getting ready. Abby thought to herself. And with a quick thought began launching a group of four combat probes. Tulk's in a BattleCruiser, I'll see if I can find him real quick before I need to get focused. Abby went through the process of setting her probes and scanning around.
After a minute or two she had found a few Battlecruiser signatures. She refined her searches and pinned down each one til she found a signature that was by the station Tulkikis was supposed to be by.
“Hey Tulk, it's been a while. Any good news?”
“Yeah, we got one. He's only a cruiser, so we're waiting for a Gunnery support skill to finish its first level real quick. Should be only another couple of minutes. Anything on your end to report?”
“Pretty sure I found you, you ARE outside of Penirgman IX Internal Order station, right? I'm getting a Harbinger reading near that station, and if that isn't you, then that's going to be a slight problem.”
“Should be me. I'm not seeing any others on my overview. It's actually kind of creepy how fast you're doing that nowadays.”
“Psh, it really isn't that hard. And I especially don't see why people need 5 or 6 probes, I use 4 and can usually get 100% signals in a minute or 2.”
“Exactly, creepy fast!”
“Hahaha, I suppose. So this guy is in a Cruiser class, what kind?”
“Omen, guy's name is...”
“I don't care for names, long as we get the salvage, and maybe a little loot :D,” Abby thought out the text for the neocom chat with Tulk.
“Yeah yeah yeah, well you don't have to deal with these little dumb-asses.”
“Neither do you, really. Just tell them go for anything destroyer or below, maybe a cruiser if they can handle it, and just make sure they don't start looting til the mission is over.” Abby recalled a situation a day or two ago where the “mark” had started looking in the middle of the mission. Started grabbing all the best-named stuff he could find. Tulk noticed that wrecks were starting to go empty, and mentioned it to the guy. No reply. So Tulk effortlessly dropped him from fleet. Without noticing that he had been de-fleeted, the idiot took loot from the closest wreck, which would not have been his, so he became flashy red to Tulk. They brought in Ligand as support, her first combat kill.
Abby kind of wished she could be in Tulk and Ligand's Corporation, but to continue the illusion of a ninja salvager, she couldn't. One of these days soon the three of them would have a small meeting and see if they couldn't come up with a way to get away with ninja salvaging-with a likelihood of getting shot at- while in the same corp. The only thing Abby could think of is to start going around, and take, while not in fleet, from one of the wrecks they know is the “mark's” in the hopes that it makes her flashy red to him/her. If it does and she gets shot at, then Tulk would turn his attention straight to the guy, de-fleeting and hopefully popping him. It's just unfortunate how many new capsuleers are coming out of the academy less stupid than they used to.
“Alright, we're on our way off,” Tulk let Abby know, “going just right of the sun...20k au. Will let you know distance from the sun when we land.”
“Cool, I'll have to wait for you to land to start the probing. Is there an acceleration gate?” Abby replied.
“Yeah, there is, not sure if you'll have to deal with it or not if you come here. No rats out there, plenty in here though. And we're actually only about 15K au from the sun now.”
“Okay, thanks, I'll start my side now.” Abby made a mental note, I'm looking for a cruiser and battlecruiser in close proximity to each other, not all that far off from the sun. She fired off the next salvo of probes and began the fun, quick task of finding her friend. Cruiser, Battlecruiser selected. System scan, okay. Localize it. Got the two signatures close to each other. Get the battlecruiser first...done, bookmarked, now onto the cruiser. La la la la...oh sweet, right on top of each other. Should be them...HOPE it's them. Abby finished the scanning process, started her warp to station to get her cruiser, returned her probes. She thought about how silly the fitting on her Caracal was. Two Salvagers and three Heavy Missile Launchers in the highs, a fairly nice local shield tank in the mids, and some supporting mods for the lows. As well as a cap rig and a couple shield rigs. But really, who puts more than one salvager on a cruiser? Destroyers, of course, they were made for salvaging, but cruisers? Heh. This should catch our guy off balance.
Abby undocked in the ship, named “Loki”, after the old world's Norse god, who caused much mischief. She quickly warped to the bookmark she had for the Battlecruiser, letting Tulk know with a quick “On my way in, I think.”
“Good, there is plenty for you to grab, we're about 2/3 to half way through. Be wary though, there might be another wave or two,” warned Tulkikis.
“That's cool, this should be able to tank enough for me to get out in time. Even if I am in structure or something.”
Abby landed on the acceleration gate Tulk had told her about. She activated it, and all the shield mods in her mids, just in case. Inside the mission area, dozens of little yellow wrecks appeared on her HUD and Overview. She cracked her knuckles and neck inside her Pod, let's do this. She began the slow, arduous task of flying from wreck to wreck, doing what she could to get some good salvage and checking to see what loot the wrecks had, if any. Suddenly she heard the ever-threatening noise of the auto-targeting system. Her mark had just locked onto her. So he isn't THAT stupid, eh? Or maybe he IS, but he got the Concord warning about not shooting others lest you get punished? She was about to ask Tulkikis if he knew anything when a salvo of lasers hit her shields. He fired? Did he really? She checked her HUD to be sure. The guy had indeed fired at her, she was guessing as a warning shot, and now he was facing the wrath of those almighty “Cops of the Stars,” Concord.
“Permission to troll in local?” She questioned her older Amarrian friend.
“Duh! I can't believe you haven't already! Seriously can't believe he did that. His Pod is sill here; is he still red to you?”
“Yeah, I think so? I'm going to pod him if I can.”
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