What percentage fearless?

Mission-runner baiting was the ideal occupation whilst recovering from my terrible Firetail losses.

I checked dotlan for shining beacons of bearishness and ended up in Korsiki. It didn't take long to find my first victim, a Caracal Navy Issue who gave me the Carebear Stare. He asked me what I was doing in his site. I told him it was nothing sinister and that I was merely after all of his loot and that he had better hand it over on fear of death!

He didn't respond but when he finally whittled the field down to the last rat (Terzam, or something along those lines) I zoomed over to the wreck and quickly emptied it.

My companion was unhappy about that but did not warp out. The stare continued. I confessed in local that I had filched his goodies and that I was willing to do battle for the drop. I gave him fair warning: "But you will die. Mua ha ha." He aggressed.

I went straight into orbit and began laying into him. I was working hard, overheating both guns and reps and accumulating the sort of heat you would expect. When I was halfway through his shields I remembered that I was in a drone boat and launched my Acolytes. (Well I can't get everything right, can I? You just wouldn't believe me.)

He had just entered armour when both my rappers burned out. Stupid. I had actually turned the heat off in time but the residual was enough to tip them over the edge. I toyed with the idea of warping out but decided that one of us would explode.

The fact that I was in a Gallente ship saved the day, the Caracal Navy exploding in a very satisfying manner when I was a third of the way through my hull.

Caracal Navy: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=48230607

After gfs were exchanged I complimented him on the creative version of a Mining Permit in his bio. It gave me a chuckle:

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Solid gold.

The next time I logged in The Citadel was far too quiet so I decided to transfer my attentions to my old stomping ground in Heimatar. I set the destination and was soon winging my way through Rancer (how sadly declined it is) and on the Lustrevik.

I began to stir the locals up. "I am Zappity the Mostly Fearless. I am here to inspect your wrecks for juicy loot and to destroy any who dare oppose me! No ship can stand against the mighty Ishkur!"

Silence.

I then asked the audience in general why highsec local was so quiet. (Again with the silence.) I asked them whether all missions took that long, why they were so boring, and couldn't they please find something better to do like fighting a fearsome opponent? (That was me, by the way.)

Whether he took pity on me, was goaded into action by my incessant noise or was oblivious to my ineffectual taunting, a Dominix finally aggressed. I spent some time killing his drones before transferring my attention to his ship. The room full of rats then turned their collective attention to me all at once. This made things very interesting for a while.

He requested mercy when he realised he was going to die. ("Begged" is too strong a word for the mildly keen requests.) As I said, he requested mercy but I politely declined and finished him off.

Dominix: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=48339317

I sent him some ISK because I like to encourage them to have a go. My suspicion that he was a little disgruntled was confirmed when he rage quit after enquiring as to 'why people have to be dicks'. Oh well. I saw him a couple of hours later in another battleship which sternly refused to aggress my ship.

I continued to torment the locals after dinner. They became feisty after a while. Role playing a pirate in highsec can be quite amusing and I have actually found it to be a useful way to encourage people to aggress.
Whether this is because they just want to kill me even more or just because I appear less of a threat when prattling away like a complete numpty I have yet to discern.

I had mercilessly pillaged the loot from a particular Maelstrom's mission several times before he finally called me out in local. He told me that I wasn't fearless at all, and that I would flee from a serious threat. Another local chimed in and asked what percentage of fearless I was. We had quite the philosophical discussion about it and eventually arrived at 81%, although I confessed that this figure was directly correlated to the amount of alcohol that had been imbibed shortly before any particular threat was taken into consideration.

Anyway, the discussion was cut short by the Maelstrom's guns. My adversary's scram was an indisputable indication that he was ready for me, something further strengthened by the medium, rather than large, guns that he was sporting. This didn't worry me much and I went into a tight orbit while frantically killing his drones.

What worried me most was the neut. I was soon relying on cap boosters with the result that my afterburner kept shutting down,  further increasing the damage I took. I toyed with the idea of trying to escape but decided to stick it out. To be honest, my armour wasn't in a good way and I would probably have died on the align out anyway. Regardless, his guns landed a lucky hit and I was soon just a pod next to a smoking wreck.

That was a great fight. I had killed an awful lot of drones and he must have been close to empty. But he was victorious and I honoured him in local. A good encouragement to the rest of them!

Ishkur: http://eve.battleclinic.com/killboard/killmail.php?eid=48344080