Tick tock, tick tock...

"Oh bother!", Guerre exclaimed.  Then quickly shuffled his feet and apologized to the Amarr mission agent.  Still, he was upset with himself about forgetting this agent was one that frequently sent folks out to do direct combat with the other factions.  Since this was the second in a row and declining right then would have led to a confrontation with "the boss".  The displeasure (and standings hit) from the agent would have been fine, but when "the boss" got wind of it, and somehow she always did, then there would be hell to pay - and hell hath no fury like a woman bunched up panties... hmmm, did she even wear... oh my God!  Guerre decided he didn't want to pursue that line of thought any further!

So, he delayed his decision (knowing that he'd decline it after the four hour window had passed) and went off to run courier missions.  At least those never led to direct declines in apposing faction standings!

Someone had told Guerre that you could run fifteen distribution missions and then switch to a security agent to run that all important sixteenth mission and guarantee yourself a security storyline for the maximum faction gain.  Sadly, he had found that while you can (and in fact you will get a storyline mission as long as the agents work for the same faction - they don't have to be in the same Corporation) do that, all the storyline missions are a random crapshoot and you are not guaranteed any particular storyline based on the normal mission agents you work with.  Bummer!  Oh well... the standing would come, eventually - as long as he didn't go bonkers (or get castrated by "the boss") in the mean time.

The bottom line is waiting around for the skill queue to finish that all important skill is a slow and tedious process and one just needs to find the right challenge...

Marching to the next big thing

The order has been given.

Skill plans have been re-factored, re-ordered, re-planned, and re-loaded.

We are going to w-space.

Assembly Array experience is being acquired.

WooHoo!

Time to brush up on those scanning skills, they are suddenly going to be very important to survival.

Be careful out there!
  - Yinmatook

Odyssey has landed! Oh my, the world has changed...

Test has fallen apart.  Not that my corp was ever involved in that little mess.  But, we shared an area of hi-sec with a corp that was a member of their alliance and that corp has now left this area of k-space and a couple of mercenary corps have moved in.

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have folks around.  However, it would be even better if they'd just run the anomalies, scan down the sites, and run missions; instead of filling up the manufacturing queues in the constellation.  I mean, seriously, it is nasty when I have to wait five days just have a queue available to run a ten hour manufacturing job.

So...

The corp and the alliance are all aflutter with discussion about should we move, should we rent from the Goons, should we find/purchase a wormhole and just leave k-space for a while???!

We'll see... time will tell...

Be careful out there!

  -- Yinmatook

Ship Bumping...

Mabrick has posted an interesting idea that would increase the danger to the ship doing the bumping.   If you haven't read it, please do.  I'll still be here when you get done.

What's the biggest problem with this thought?  Well, the accidents that will happen.  Can you imagine the carebear tears that will occur when the Orca warps to 0 and practically obliterates the Hulk it lands on top of?  Before CCP can implement this mechanic change, they'll have to improve the "warp to 0" handling so we don't accidentally destroy ourselves and our friends when we are trying to help them.

Ok, that is all...  Back to what you were doing (and I'll get back to my inventing, manufacturing and once in a while actual mining).

The standings grind...

Guerre silently raged at the audacity of the agent to ask him to go kill a Minmatar ambassador.  Was the agent completely blind.  Had he not declined every mission involving killing members of any of the four major factions this Amarrian scumbag had ever asked him if he wanted?  Still, periodically, this scumbag agent would offer him a string of combat missions against the Gallente and Minmatar factions.  Guerre had his practiced answer at the ready.  "I thank you for thinking of me.  Sadly, at this moment in time, I really have to decline your kind offer.  My CEO has demanded that I spend this solar day patrolling the asteroid belts for those blasted bot miners, again."  To which, the scumbag gave his usual smirk and "You know, the empire can be a formidable enemy too" warning.  Guerre, just smiled back and turned to go.

He'd go hang out in the asteroid belts for the next half a day and then come back to see if the agent had anything that was really worth doing.  He also made a mental note, that he really needed to find a better agent to work with in the future.  He really liked the combat and the ISK that it brought in, but couldn't Calara have assigned him to work with an agent that wasn't so blasted conceited to think that the only faction worth having a positive standing with was the Amarrians?

Still, he'd heard of a suspected bot miner out in the asteroid belts and he wanted to see just how far he could push the limits without having his ship blown up by Concord...

Takeover complete

Calara grinned from ear to ear as the final seconds of the vote ticked down.  She'd voted her shares and she was relieved to see that neither Andallar nor Shaleona had discovered the forced vote and reacted to save Whitey's position as CEO.

There.  It was final.  Calara was the new CEO.

Unexpectedly, there was new email, and it was from Whitey herself.  A congratulations message on becoming the CEO.  And, much more ominiously, a warning that it would not be as easy to control those two males as Whitey figured Calara was expecting.  Yes, Calara had her physical form, but these were capsuleers, they could always find a pleasing physical form to spend their time with or on.  Calara would have to learn the art of the compromise to get what she wanted out of them.  They were both head strong and often difficult to keep focused on the task to advance the goals of the corporation.

Calara was surprised by Whitey's final question.  "Do you want me to stay in the corp, or leave?"  The implied, your wish is my command was a complete surprise to the Caldarian way of thinking.  She had expected rebellion and a fight, not meek compliance.  Especially from a Minmatar!  Calara began to worry.  Maybe Whitey had a better deal with a rival corp.  If Whitey left, would that drag Yin off as well?  Oh no!  That would spoil her plans.  She needed Yin's expertise in playing the markets to make her plans work, or she'd be left a second rate supplier of low grade ammunition and modules.

Calara was left wondering whether leaving Whitey in the corp would be enough to keep Yin in line and motivated...

Hostile Takeover?

Calara was angry.  She had made plans and they were well under way.  Now, that stupid Minmatar woman had run off to Rens on some excuse of scouting out new markets.  Damn it!  Rens was a damn long way to haul goods to market from where they were being manufactured in Kador.

Calara suspected that Yinmatook and White Clooud had been arguing again.  She really wished that Yin would lay off the drugs and be respectful of his lover, even if White Clooud was a Brutor.  However, just how much could you really expect from those damned Gallente anyway.

Calara's Caldari training told her what she had to do and she did it without too much malice.  Though, she smiled at the rush of power as she forced the vote that would oust White Clooud as CEO.  Too bad for Yinmatook that he had refused the shares in the corp that Whitey had offered him.

Of course, there was no way of being sure whether Andallar and Shaleona would reappear in the nick of time to save Whitey's position as CEO.  Sadly, those two controlled sixty percent of the corporate shares, but they'd run off together and no one had heard from them in a few months.  If Calara's luck held, the vote would be closed before they got wind of it and raised a ruckus.

... to be continued ?