I tip my hat to you, sir.

Today's tally of kills was a Heron, a Tayra, a Legion and a Tormentor. These are all dutifully recorded in the online annals of EVE Online's killboards and can be viewed by anyone who wishes to see that I did, in fact, club together with spacefriends to destroy the pixels and database entries of imaginary spaceships of anonymous, unknown other gamers.

There are, however, many other events which happen in EVE which are not recorded in a killboard. This is one of them.

It started with a poke into a C3 off a C2 off Lossa. I saw 3 Dominix and a Noctis on scan, and called the loose coalition I work with (informally called the Nereus Appreciation / Destruction Society or NADS), into the C2 to lurk on the O477 into the C3.

I went in and d-scanned, confirming the Domi's were running relic or data sites. I launched probes and, amidst the million distractions of dualboxing a herd of cats into the target hole and answering the questions with "No, I have no idea who they are." and so on, tried to pin them down to a distance and bearing so I could ninja probe.

For some reason, and I seriously have no fucking idea, I coulddn't get them below 30 degrees. At 15 or lower, they just disappeared. This made me frustrated, and the Domi's finished their third relic/data and warped out. The Noctis came in and I had to pull the trigger on the combats, getting him on the 2nd scan.

So I warp in just as he finished the last wreck, and called in the cloaky Tengu with the 3 point scram, because we figure this is a stabbed Noctis. So we decloak, and begin shooting, with 5 points of scram on the guy.

The plan is to hold him there long enough to let his buddies in the Dominixes reship to something to take a cloaky Loki and a Tengu, at which point we drop the Legion, Fleetcane, Railgu and maybe the flying wing of 2 Prots and 2 Guards if they get here in time. 

He asks for a ransom - generally respected by BUGRY - and I open bidding at 500M. He says they didn't get that much, which is clearly BS. But to get some cash before the technicalities result in his death, I drop to 200M. He agrees. Huehuehue.

From our point of view, we like that the negotiations have started, and the passage of time is encouraging. Negotiation means he's stalling, and stalling means a possible fight, and also gives the Flying Wing time to get the next 5 jumps in to the target chain. Huehuehue.

Time passes, so I highlight the fact my wallet isn't flashing. Within 10s it does flash. We of course don't let him go, though I keep my part of the bargain and unlock him. Pity he's only paid me 200M, not the guy in the Tengu. Huehuehue.

At this point both my clients crash. D:

While I'm CTRL-ALT-DEL to get to Task manager to murder my frozen clients, restart the launcher and log both clients back in, I'm thinking "jesus fuck, I bet they'll be dropping Domis and Prots on us by now like we hoped and I'll log back in to a bubble and I'll be raped to death by sspace dildos or something"

No. But the Noctis did escape.

You see, he had merely been stalling for time, paying small ransoms, to online his 3 stabs. He'd strung us along as much as possible to online his second and third stab so he could break the tackle.

Well played, sir. Well played. I tip my hat to you. My hat which is 100M ISK richer, I do declare, but it is still a hat-tip.