Merlin and Rifter Dance of Death 2

Starwalker was still basking in the satisfaction of having just killed an Incursus and was collecting the loot when the same Cynabal pilot, WRAITH DEMON challenged Starwalker to a frigate duel. Naturally, he accepted.

Starwalker waited at the sun and wondered whether it was a good idea to fight again immediately given that he had the loot from the last kill in his cargo hold. However, in reality that hardly mattered as losing the ship was more important than the loot and losing the ship was not that important.

WRAITH DEMON arrived in a Rifter and Starwalker started to burn towards him, however, around 30km away the Rifter warped away. Confused, Starwalker asked him why he had gone and the reply was that he had been hit by station guns from his GCC and wanted to repair. So Starwalker waited but wondered if this was part of a trick.

Soon, the Rifter was back again and Starwalker engaged in the usual sequence to lock, web, scramble and fire. He had set keep at distance to around 1km or point blank range. It seemed the Rifter was also fit for a brawl and the dance of death began.

As the two frigates whirled around each other it was not looking good for the Merlin as its shields started to evaporate. The Rifter shields hardly seemed to be moving at all and Starwalker briefly wondered whether it might be getting repairs from elsewhere. However, he was committed and this was now do or die.

The Merlin shields started blaring the low shield warning and Starwalker thought it was looking bad but then the Rifter shields started to crumble and suddenly the Rifter was losing its shield fast. The Merlin's armour was being ripped away and it received its first dent to its structure but now the Rifter was also in armour. Suddenly it was over and for a moment Starwalker didn't know whether he had exploded or WRAITH DEMON.

The Rifter was gone. Starwalker was elated, he was in 50% structure but he had won, he saw the pod and went for it but again was too slow and it got away. However, Starwalker was ecstatic with the second kill and collected another lot of loot from the wreckage. He returned to base very happy and looking forward to his next flight but he knew that he woud be docked for a couple of weeks for some planetside holiday.