Tonight I went out on a nano-HAC roam. I can’t fly a HAC and my usual Hurricane was too slow, so I just grabbed a newbie rifter for laughs. It actually became an exercise in what I think of as a fun op where one doesn’t kill something. We stirred up a hornets nest and then spent about 45 minutes trying to avoid getting stung, which thanks to a third fleet intercepting the second, happened without all that much loss. I wouldn’t want it every night, but I kind of like the fleet cat and mouse thing. It’s a nice alternative.

As we burned back and I made it to one system out of our current home, it suddenly dawned on me that it was the first time I’d ever gone on an op in a rifter and not come home in a pod or worse since I left the Hellcats. I spent most of my short pirate career in rifters and had fine luck with them, but out in nulsec, it’s a little different. You tackle, you die, you get another free frigate and head back out. And that’s if bombers don’t get you or something else. Plus these days, I tend to fly rifters in suicidally oriented fleets as a cheap thrill or if I’ve had something to drink and don’t trust 50m isk to impaired judgement.

It’s kind of funny, once upon a time getting killed in a rifter would upset me. Then you get over that. but tonight oddly I felt a little ashamed to have come back alive. It’s like I didn’t do my job or something.