Maller Mauling and a Lucky Escape

I was on my usual roaming route from Maut to Hevrice when I spotted a Maller on dscan towards a medium FW (don't know why I keep defining it as FW plexes anymore) plex. Mmm, I thought, if he went through all the trouble of bringing a Cruiser to a plex, maybe he went through the trouble of fitting it too, instead of just fitting a low stack of stabs. Remembering what I hated about Mallers, their lack of utility highs, I figured that my Tristan was up for the challenge.

This wasn't my usual Tristan fit, this one was given to me by Meatbix when we were out roaming a week ago, and it was fitted with an armor repairer and a nosferatu. This made me even more confident that I could do this, the few shots that he might get through could be repaired quite easily, not leaving me exposed as a buffer would most certainly do.

I warped in, I landed close and immediately got point. Now to start pounding this beast's armor. My initial orbit of 4km didn't allow for my hybrids to fight at it's full potential, doing about the same damage as my drones did. I adjusted my orbit a little tighter, allowing the Maller to get a few hits on me, which was easily repaired. My main concern now was the Atron that also came into the plex, hovering 20km away. I braced myself for his rails to pound into my Tristan, but that didn't happen, instead, he joined in taking down the Maller. I was thankful for the help, but I knew my Tristan would fall to the kiter soon after the fight.

It felt like an hour passed before I broke down the Maller's tank, but I finally started hitting his structure. This is when I noticed that one of my drones were gone, was the Atron pilot now picking them off from a distance? The Maller's structure didn't last long and it exploded, the pilot making a quick escape in his pod. Before I could even think about leaving myself, the Atron had me disrupted and started pecking at my armor.

I recalled my remaining four drones, deciding to try a slingshot, and grabbed the loot from the Maller wreck. If I wasn't going to get the fruit of my hard work, he might as well lose some of it when he destroys me, I thought. I didn't even attempt a slingshot as he came in for a tighter orbit, still beyond my reach. My reppers were handling the damage quite well but my capacitor wouldn't last forever. I decided to go out fighting, I launched my drones and sent them towards the Atron. The Atron now switched his guns to the drones and opened the 16km orbit he had around me. I flung my ship around and aligned towards the sun, overheating my afterburners. Another drone went down, leaving only three to harass the Atron. Then I noticed my distance to the Atron grow further and further, he was manual piloting to deal with the drones and must have lost sight of me. I was now furiously pounding the warp button as I our distance reached 24km. My warp drives engaged and I let out a sigh of relief. It was only then that I noticed the tremors in my hands, a nice helping of the shakes, that drug we all crave for, was had. I landed at the sun and started my warp drive again, the Atron landing on top of me a few seconds after I landed. I couldn't get out of my warp fast enough, as I would have loved to take him on up close and personal, though with my drones now lost, it might have been for the best.

I repaired my burning battle-worn Tristan and hopped into hisec for replacement drones. This was an encounter that was saved by a repper, maybe it is time for me to stop going for the buffer and start active tanking more often.