When one kill is not enough

They say it's important how you start your New Year, because that's how it will be. Maybe there's some truth to it.

After ganking 2.7bil Golem it was time to move on.  The guy warped back to his pos, swapped for a Tengu and probably cloaked up at his safe near the tower. I was in no rush to leave the system. I needed to let the excitement go down. After scoring such premium kill, I need for things to calm down to be at my best again. That's what I love about this game. Blowing space pixels can really give you a rush, no matter how long you play. I feel alive.

After watching TV for awhile it was time to think what should I do. The usual is to scan around and try to find the new home. My guy was still online, but nowhere to be seen. It's natural, anyone ganked would not be doing anything for the day. But why was he still logged? My senses were tingling. There is a high-sec connection two jumps out. Just to have my mind at peace I load my trader to run a locator.

What is this? Locator goes through and returns location. It is not Jita and it doesn't seem to be on the way to wormhole, but it is high-sec. What is he buying? Could it be a new Golem? I frantically start looking for him. Using my high-sec alts to find this guy. Going back and forth between hubs and high-sec connection, but he is nowhere to be found. There are quite few connections. I have been watching c3 connection that leads to high-sec, but apparently my beloved Golem pilot returns via another wormhole. In a brand new Golem.

Now I don't normally do second chances, but could it be that he actually thinks I rolled to his wormhole instead of stalking? It probably could, with all that coincidence of a 3rd party rolling in at the time of a gank. He is also Russian that, I guess, does not speak English so probably not a reader of this blog either. There are two things that have high probability of happening if I stay in the same system for second try. I can get baited (learned this the hard way) or locals will have me watch listed and won't do anything until I am on. This time I will do an exception and will stick for another day and see what happens.

The next day my target logs in at the usual time. I think I'm getting familiar with his play pattern quite well. He swaps Astero to Golem and starts accelerating.

He doesn't waste any time. I see him align to a random Operation Frostline beacon and warp off. What's up with this guy? He did not check active connections or anything. And why is a Marauder needed to clear npc from Operation Frostline that only holds frigates? He swaps later to Tengu anyways. Can't be more efficient.

I follow in warp and land ahead of him. I hold cloak 10km off the beacon to make sure he doesn't suddenly warp to 100. Once distance is within scram range and it's clear he warped at 0, I decloak and tackle Golem before he even comes to a complete stop.

Then the usual happens where my personal Navy Domi fleet comes and does the dirty work.

This one is notably cheaper than the previous one. A one billion cheaper. He downgraded the deadspace shield booster and the ballistic control systems.  Regardless, it's still a Marauder and it's still 1.7 bil worth. The funny part is, I don't think he managed to shoot more than a handful of missiles with his new ship. My prey thought this was funny too:

Translation: "Is this a joke? :)"