“Didn’t want that Tengu anyway”
“Focus on the positive, focus on the positive!” Pilgrim muttered to himself.
“Ok, I have over 3 Billion ISK in materials here that need to be sold or contracted – that’s a good thing!.”
“Doing it myself means fairly quick sales and good prices – that’s a bonus.”
“I can upgrade some of my implants while I am here”
“I can completely refit a new Tengu just the way I like it.”
Pilgrim’s anger and frustration re-boiled to the surface at that last thought.
“I don’t want a NEW Tengu. I liked my old one. We bonded. We fit together. It was an extension of me. I don’t want to bond with a new ship. Maybe I should just fly something that doesn’t hurt so much when you lose it.”
Back and forth Pilgrim went. He knew he sounded childish. Fortunately, there was no one around to hear him whine. “Because they are all dead!”
Pilgrim sighed. He was better than this. Time to face the facts and push the emotions aside. Yes, he lost his Tengu during a pirate raid gone bad. Yes, it had been a LONG time since that had happened. But these things do happen. Being an immortal capsuleer means that you outlive a lot of ships and a lot of crews. It is unfortunate, but it is a fact of life. The ship and its equipment, and even its crew are all easily replaced. “Perhaps too easily.” It was expensive, but Pilgrim knew he could afford to lose that Tengu several times over. It was more of a mental blow than a financial one. Yes, he would have to re-bond with a new ship, but that only took about 4 days. Not that long really. And no, he wasn’t seriously considering flying anything else. Not long-term anyway.
Pilgrim stretched out in his quarters and replayed the events in his mind. He remembered the excitement of hitting each pirate site. He had blown through each of them so quickly. He landed at the final site and burst through the acceleration gate. There were only a handful of ships on grid and none of them were threatening. He destroyed about half of them and then saw the structure that was his objective. As the first of his missiles hit the structure, more ships appeared.
Pilgrim paused in his remembrance. There. That was his mistake. He should have cleared the most dangerous of those ships immediately. Instead, he continuing destroying the structure and several more waves of ships landed on grid. True, his intel hadn’t mentioned anything about neuting ships. Or webbing ships. Or warp scrambling ships. But he should have been gathering that intel himself – not relying on others to provide it. He destroyed a couple of the neuting ships, but not enough of them and not quickly enough, and soon he was in a pod beside the wreck of his ship.
Next time he would be more careful. Next time he would not be overconfident.
Pilgrim walked out to the maintenance bay where his new Tengu was being assembled. His own mistakes aside, he was quite happy with the performance of his last ship and this one was being configured to those same specifications with only minor upgrades. The only thing this ship still needed was a confident captain and a new name. And Pilgrim had the perfect one in mind.
Pilgrim in Exile 