sometimes you just get lucky

After losing a wolf, 2 rifters and a pod for no gain at all on Friday night, I decided to take my Thrasher out on Saturday and headed to Elarel, just so I'd be around to give some support for my PI alt Sunday morning (always nice to have an extra set of eyes around, though to be honest he's never had any trouble getting in and out of lowsec, if you are sensible and take precautions, low-sec is not that scary). I took a look in a couple of fw plexes on the way but got no action.

I hung around in Elarel for a few minutes, there were 7 others in local. At one point I did a random warp to the sun and landed 30Km from a Helios with probes out, he pulled in his probes and legged it before I reached him.

Then I saw a Megathron Navy Issue show up on D-scan, along with a Hurricane and a Loki. After a bit of narrowing down I realised that the MNI was on it's own and looked to be at 5% of a POCO, so off I warped expecting him to be gone by the time I got there.

Now a Megathron at the hands of a competent pilot should easily cope with a single lowly destroyer - a Megathron Navy Issue is more expensive, has extra low slot, more tank ability and can field more drones

"The Navy Megathron is a simple upgrade on the regular Megathron. It has an additional low slot, allowing for more tank or an extra damage module, more CPU and powergrid and more base tank. Probably most usefully, it also has an expanded drone bay, allowing it to carry a heavy drone flight and a medium or light drone flight." - EVE Uni Wiki

I suspected that I was doomed to failure - he'd either warp off, or his mates would swiftly turn up and explode me, but if you don't try you'll never know so I activated all my offensive mods and warped to the POCO.

I landed 20Km from him at the POCO, just him and his probes (?!), I activated my AB and hit my 'orbit @500' button fully expecting him to warp off any second. He pulled in probes and then just sat there  .

As soon as I got in range I landed web, scram, turned on my ACs, then my NOS, checking Dscan I see a Loki and a Cane. Fully expecting drones at any second to be swiftly followed by death by Loki & Cane I keep my guns hot, keeping smashing dscan and let Alliance chat know what's going on.

No drones and his shields are down to 25%, so I turn the heat off my guns at about 50% damage. Shields down, still no drones, Loki & Cane still on scan, nothing in local chat, plenty of encouragement from Alliance chat.

Still no drones, Loki & Can still on scan, MNI armour at 50% I risk a short pulse of heat to my guns, and he dips into structure. Much encouragement from Alliance chat, I'm starting to think I may have a chance, but the Loki & Cane are still lurking around somewhere.

Then as he drops below 40% structure the MNI pilot launches drones, a quick shows them as T1, so I ignore them and risk a little more heat to my guns which are now 80% damaged.

My shields are now taking damage from the drones, but I've a 400mm plate fitted, so not too worried yet.

MNI hull is at 16% when the Cane lands 20Km away I immediately heat my guns again as the drones finally start to nibble at my armour. Cane heads in our direction, but MNI goes BOOM! I quickly grab the loot, ignore the pod and warp off to much cheering from Alliance chat.

The unfortunate pilot is then podded by the Cane. I posted the KM in local to much amusement and after a quick stop to catch my breath in a safe, I dropped my loot in a station - turns out the loot gods hate me, but 35 mill and a dead MNI isn't to be sniffed at.

I did nothing spectacular nor out of the ordinary, I just got lucky.  The Megathron Navy Issue pilot was relatively new, I'm assuming he must have bought Plex, cashed them in for Isk and splurged on an expensive ship with expensive mods thinking that would make him safe in low sec.

Anyone who spends 5 mins reading about EVE should know better than that.