Second Voyage of the Kestrel

Starwalker was heading to Eugales for the regular fleet roam - TESF (Target Everyone Somebody Fire). However, he had to return to base (Gultratren) to collect another ship after losing his first Kestrel to a gate camp in Aubenall. It was his own fault because he had been lazy and not checked:

1. The waypoints to look out for any hotspots when he had set the route through hi-sec to reduce the overall number of jumps
2. The map looking for evidence of a gate camp
3. His avoid system setting in auto-pilot for Oulley, due to it being regularly camped

He had another Kestrel fit as a brawler and was looking forward to seeing what it could do. Starwalker liked the Kestrel for it potential surprise value given the commonality of Merlins, Incursi and Rifters. He was expecting to stay out of the range of blaster ships and simply brawl the Rifters and similar. He set off on his second voyage with the Kestrel. 

The first opportunity for a fight came when a flashy red pilot, Aj Oguntunde, was loitering around 25km from a gate in his Incursus. Clearly, he was looking for a fight as anyone could engage him as an outlaw on a gate, without fear of taking gate fire for the aggression. Starwalker needed no second invitation and engaged.

He had the perfect approach and was able to overheat everything and establish an orbit at around 6km. The Incursus tried to close the distance and a little manual piloting was able to gain range again. The Incursus was repairing its armour but was losing ground as the rockets smashed in. The Kestrel's shield disappeared and it had dipped into armour but when the range was maintained the incoming damage dropped. It was tense, but then the Incursus went into structure and exploded into a satisfying ball of fire. Good fights were exchanged and Aj Oguntunde noted that he had under-estimated the Kestrel - good!

Starwalker was very pleased with himself and not a little over-confident when he saw a flashy Merlin on a gate a few jumps later. However, the Merlin was literally on the gate and when Starwalker landed they were only ~4km apart. With his over-confidence flowing freely Starwalker engaged and regretted it almost immediately as he lost 50% of his shields within the first few seconds. It had taken those few seconds to start moving, lock, scram, fire and over-heat but those precious seconds were the difference between life and death.

Starwalker tried to gain range but it was not fast enough and Jev North piloting the Merlin was able to close the distance again and that finished off the Kestrel as it tore apart. Starwalker was still trying to manage his modules and piloting rather than aligning and escaping and that delay cost him another pod. He woke in Gultratren, where he had started, and had to do the usual:

• Upgrade the clone to retain skill points
• Stop training to plug-in augmentations
• Plug-in the implants, primarily learning to speed up training
• Restart the training queue

He had one fitted ship left - a Merlin - he undocked to head to Eugales yet again...