I rarely laughed that much, about coincidence, ignorance and incredible luck. This particular happening left me and my corp mates laughing in comms all the way back to my home Keepstar. I hope I can give you a bit of a smile too by sharing this story.
Again, it starts with a solo roam through null security space. Omist this time and in a Merlin. I was running away from a Sabre and others that got angry after my blasters made short process with an Ares. I also was close to killing a lonely Porpoise in an ore site, had not a Dominix showed up to save it at the last second. If the group of angry locals, consisting of a few Assault Frigates and a Sabre would catch me, I would be dead for sure.
So I sat on a safe spot, waiting for my chasers to leave my out-gate. Spamming DScan the whole time. Suddenly, I notice an Epithal on it. “Epithal…” I think. “You know that ship, that’s for PI! But he wouldn’t, would he?!”
I started to scan every Customs Offices in range. He was on none of them. “Well, I always warp at 0 to get my PI done.” And so I do. Warp to 0 to the closest customs office. While I still try to figure out where the Epithal might be, it suddenly drops out of warp and lands right next to me!
I recovered quickly from the surprise and landed the Scram and Web while my overheated Blasters started to work on his shields, shortly after he was bleeding armor. But as you could imagine, there has to be a twist to this story. At that moment I didn’t even think about the possibility that this was all bait. And no, it actually wasn’t. The Epithal, already with multiple gaping holes in its hull and structural integrity only at a few percent, managed to activate it’s warp drive and escaped my red glowing Blasters. The Scram could not hold it! It had at least two warp core stabilizers fitted. And my Webifier probably even helped it to warp quicker!
#!@*&%
A brief moment of anger and despair came over me, but when I saw where the pilot, in the desperate attempt to save his ship and cargo, had warped to, a grim smile took over. He did warp to a gate. Muahaha!
My Merlin accelerated and within a few seconds, I reached 5 AU/s. I guessed I would pretty much arrive at the same time the slower warping Epithal would. And of course, I had an aggression timer. There was no jumping out for me. With the hostile gang still around, this was a decision about all or nothing. We arrived nearly at the same time, both on 0 at the gate. The hauler dropped out of warp a few server ticks before me.
And here comes what both of us had not thought of at all:
Arch Angel Frigates.
The Angels NPCs shot the Epithal right in the face and got rid of the last pieces of structure that had held it together. The explosion shined its light my unbelieving face.
Well, no killmark for my Merlin. But also no victory for the curse of warp core stabilizers laid upon us by the CCP overlords. The mere combination of unlikeliness that led to this explosion made me and the people I was on comms with laugh for quite a bit.
What was the luckiest, most incredible, funny killmail you got?
I would love to hear your story in the comments!
P.S.: If you are interested in the Merlin fitting I used, check out the Fittings-page here.
P.P.S.: 🎇 Happy New Year! 🎇
the greybill 