Merlin Finds another Incursus

Starwalker was heading back to Eugales in his Merlin when he found another Incursus on scan. It seemed to be ratting in an asteroid belt and the Merlin warped in. The Incursus, piloted by Morin Blain, was around 60km away and warped away very quickly. However, Morin Blain then offered a duel by saying that he would stay put.

This was the first warning for Starwalker, as he almost never won duels where he was challenged out of the blue. Checking the Battleclinic record was the second warning as he was a top ranked Tusker pilot. The third warning was that his last Incursus loss was a dual repair blinged out fit - very, very tough.

However, Starwalker was curious as to whether he could win by controlling the range to around 4km rather than point blank as the Incursus was very likely to be a blaster fit. As always, losing was no reason to not accept the duel and he might learn something here, so Starwalker warped in.

The approach went well and Starwalker's Merlin was flying between 4km and 7km away and the pre-loaded Null was inflicting some damage, however, the Incursus must have had Null loaded too as it was also having no problem hitting the Merlin. The range control tactic was not having the desired effect and Starwalker knew that when his medium ancillary shield booster stopped that he would die very quickly.

Starwalker started to align out, not with any great expectations about saving his ship but to save his pod. His Merlin exploded and his pod warped away. In retrospect, Starwalker wondered whether he should consider whether they were "winnable" first rather than simply accept duels. However, on a little further reflection he also knew that he was likely to go on accepting duels irrespective of the opponent.