Why you should always ensure you have enough missiles in your hanger...

4 Level Agents : Pirate Invasion

So, there I was, minding my own business in Ishukone Station, Hentogairia system, when my brand-spanking-new Level 4 Agent called me up. It was a call that would cost me much, and had I but known the consequences, I would have run screaming into the night. Still and all, at the time I was quite pleased.

"I need a little problem taken care of…" She was a persuasive and darkly-cute professional; all curls and tattoos and shadows where they were meant to be shadows. "We received a report just a couple hours ago from our secret agents that revealed plans by our enemies to make a sneak attack against us in this very system! We believe this plan will take effect in a matter of minutes, as our surveillance teams have spotted a number of their ships mobilizing inside..."

I'm flying a Caldari Raven-class battleship, with 6 named cruise-missile launchers, dedicated shield assists, and a few extra bits and pieces that would make any decently-aware warmonger green with envy; confidence in my shield-tank, I had plenty of.

"No problem. What sort of compensation are we talking about here?" Not that I'm greedy or anything, but you need to pay for the missiles, butter and beer somehow… ;-)

"About 1.5 million, and another 1.5 million if you get it done inside of six hours. I'll throw in 7000 loyalty points too, just because you look so good in that flight suit." She flashed her smile and batted her eyes… she was definitely NOT above using her feminine wiles to get her way. This girl was nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble… but did I listen to that little voice, screaming in the back of my mind? Nope.

"I'll do it. No problem… see you in a couple hours." I was cocky… I will admit it.

I undocked from the station, and warped out to the location that she had provided… there was nothing there but an old acceleration gate, gently humming with it's latent power. I did one last check… launchers loaded, energy sinks installed, enemy specific shield hardeners installed, check check check. Did I look in my cargo hold to see if I brought reloads? Nope. *sob*

The acceleration gate threw me about 5 astronomical-units downrange and when my Raven decelerated into normal space, I found myself right into the middle of a giant pirate fleet… thankfully it was split into 5 sections, so only one of them at a time would be aggro on me… I shaped my course to head me away from four of the fleet-sections, while I engaged the first section with cruise missiles.

Things were going well… I had taken out about 3 cruiser or battle-cruiser sized enemies when I went to reload, and found out that… there were not any reloads in my cargo bay.

Ok. No problem. I'm a dumbass. I just have to warp back out to my station, and pick up some reloads, and come back and finish the job. Nobody will ever know… and it's a cheap lesson to learn; always check your cargo-hold for ammo. And then double-check your cargo-hold for ammo…

Warping… Unable. To. Warp. You are being warp-scrambled… etc. etc.

By this point, I am down to about 10% left on my shields; I throw out my drones, in an attempt to have them kill off whichever one of the 6 pirates that are left… hoping that I take out the one with the warp-scrambler. And I can see that this is going to take so long, that I'm pretty much doomed.

I check my corporation com-channel… I ask if anyone is close enough to come and help. Nope. 15 jumps away just isn't going to cut it. I check the Alliance channel… again, sorry dude, we're all too far away. Finally, I do the Hail-Mary local-space begging routine.

"Er, anyone here in Hent have a battleship and want to come save my @ss?" Hey, I was horribly embarrassed by this point. And down to about 30% Structure, after all my armour had all been blown way.

The responses were the usual… I'm in a frigate, I'm in a miner, I'm in a hauler… no can do.

And nor could I blame them… lvl 4 missions are not for the faint of heart or newbies… and I had acted like a freakin' newb. I _deserved_ this fate… However, it was still going to suck, as my ship was worth about 200 million 'isk' when you added up the hull and all the gear on it. I did have insurance, but it was only going to pay out about 100 mil.

Ok, let's try this another way then. "I'll give anyone 25,000,000.00 isk to come and save my ass. You only have to kill 3 frigates, 2 cruisers, and a battlecruiser." Tap tap tap… nothing. Structure down to 20%. Great. One more, last ditch attempt…

"Fifty Million, and I'm going to die in about two minutes… if you want it you had better hurry."

And that's when my new best friend messaged me. He warped to my location (also in a Raven), took out the baddies in about two minutes, and escorted my limping, shattered and smoking battleship back to a station. I transferred over the fifty million isk, he threw in some armour, structure and internal structure repair modules, and we called it quits.

So, the lesson of this story?

Always make sure you have the ammo for whatever you are going to do in life.

And it never hurts to keep a spare fifty in your back-pocket, just in case. ;-)