It was one of those WTF moments.

So, I decide to run a couple missions last night, I get a nice easy milkrun (literally had to cart some dairy products around for someone) then I pulled Blockade (guristas) Level 2 mission. The offered rewards were nice, so I offered a corpmate to join in. He likes to blow stuff up, then come back and salvage. He’s fitted out in a nice ship easily capable of running L3 missions. He armor tanks but, won’t hold that against him.

I’m off happily popping pirates left and right, the final wave comes in, I notice that my buddy hasn’t been shooting as much as is normal. Probably had to deal with an incident elsewhere in the ship. My hobgoblin drones got popped during the second wave of ships, so it’s just me and my missiles against the last few ships coming in. They weren’t much, a couple destroyers and a cruiser. I have a habit of taking out the smaller ships first so that my shields can maintain longer against the larger ships. I can usually pop frigates in 1-2 volleys afterall. Each one down is one less I have to worry about shooting me. Takes me 4-5 volleys for the destroyers. I know.. i need to study more about missile operations, since that is my primary weapon. So I popped the last destroyer and was turning my sights on the cruiser when I see an explosion in space behind me. One I didn’t cause.. I check my scanners an see that my friend is floating in space in his egg. The cruiser had decided to work him over while he was doing something else. I started pounding on the cruiser which eventually folded like a sock. I go back to my friend’s egg and wait for him to wake up and smell the burnt circuitry. I snared the modules out of his ship, since I have had people come by and steal the salvage and loot from my missions before. He finally wakes back up and completely freaks out for a couple minutes. Then goes and gets his salvage ship and cleans up the place.  I still don’t see how he got popped.. unless he just didn’t have his hardeners running or something wierd like that.

well, live and learn.. the important lesson there is don’t go away from the console during a battle.