Moby Dick in space!

Soo, I was playing whale-hunter the other day, and caught me a big fat ORCA!
But funfact: Orcas are called "Killer Whales" but they are actually part of the Dolphin family. ;)

Background:
I had been out taking care of the gazillions of snowflakes that had found it necessary to land on my yard, thus creating meter-high snowpiles.. and what better way to wind down and relax then fly some spaceships!?!?

So I logged on and found only "Jaxxon Voers" and "Kyle Langdon" active in our system, and as both are corpmates I cant really shoot em.. much.
But a roam to the nearby busy "Old man star" felt too taxing, so I took out my old Harbinger and flew it to a ninjaspot near the highsec gate in the system.

Usually you have a scout on the other side of the gate, so you know when something is about to jump in, and what it is.. but I felt silly and just wanted to attack whatever came, be it a huge factionwarfare blob, or a lone hauler.

But nothing came through.
It was just us three Pythons in local doing nothing really.. chatting a bit and maybe browsing something silly with the in-game browser :)

But suddenly local went up by one, and i quickly hit the warp button.
Pulse went up, excitement on what was going to materialize..
Waited.. nothing.. "cant be a threat to me, as he dares not decloak, or he is waiting for friends" i thought.

Suddenly slightly below me the massive hull of an Orca materialized.
Many thoughts rushed through my head, "Is he alone, naah cant be.. can I take him? not likely as this ship cant tank gateguns for too long and they usually have a worthy tank.." etc etc..
But fuckit, I can always warp out if it wont work.. so I locked and warp-disrupted him.

ORCA ON GATE, POINT!
-I shouted in corp-chat, and though my friends got excited, they did not have any big ships in system.. (we´re in a vacation-system atm so not everyone has thier entire ship-selection here)
But being the warriors they are, they came to lend what help they could, Jaxxon in a Thorax and Kyle in a Rifter.
-The orca had some ECM-600 drones that actually broke my lock initially, but as it is slow to align and warp I managed to get the point back on before it got away.

The gateguns were hurting me badly, and with only one repper my Harbinger was going into structure now.. everything had been overheated and red warningsigns lit up the cockpit.
"I have to bail, trying to go get a bigger ship.. hold him if you can, but take no risks in vain"
-I said as I warped off to our station nearby..
And held him they did.
Kyle managed to bump him with the Rifter, so that he could not align to gate or other objects, while Jaxxon tanked the gateguns and kept a point in his hero-tanked Thorax.

Never has the "wait 20+ seconds in station before switching ships" felt sooo long.. But finally my Armageddon-class battleship lumbered out of the docking bay and warped to the gate as fast as it could.
I landed and locked it up again, relieved that it was still there, and Jaxxon warped off with his ship trailing fire. He told me later that he had not been able to hold out many seconds more.

Now with the superior tank of the Armageddon, and Kyles bumping keeping the Orca from getting back to the gate it was just a matter of shooting it to pieces.

And shoot it I did.

(The wreck of the Orca)

Sadly the loot-gods did not look kindly to killing endangered dolphin-whales so the rewards were bad, but the encounter was worth many millions to the three happy pirates.

Much cheering was had, and 15 seconds after we left the gate our esteemed leader mr "Spectre3353353" came online.. and so we got to tease him that had he been just a little faster he could have had the joy of killing an Orca.
-He blamed hot coco or something.. :)

I want to thank my Harbinger for taking such a beating and still flying, Jaxxon´s hero-Thorax and Kyles mad bumping-skills. *salute*

(What is left of my Harbinger)