I killed a man.

Ugh. Been awhile. Intensive skill training has left me fried for quite some time but in the pasts few weeks I've managed to sneak in some ship time. At some point I scored my first kill against an unsuspecting Merlin pilot in an asteroid belt. He didn't put up much of a fight, from what little I remember. I podded him shortly afterwards. I don't think it really occurred to me at the time that I'd killed a man. I mean, he was an immortal, but for all intents and purposes, I had killed him.

I also managed to lose three Drakes in a number of embarrassing incidents I prefer not to talk about, but to put it bluntly, I need to pay more attention to my security status relative to what systems I'm going into.

But these things are all irrelevant to what's been on my mind for the past 24 hours. While taking part in a minor TGA fleet operation in Mara yesterday, I spotted a Condor on scan. Despite relatively new to flying Merlins against other pilots, I figured this would be a one-sided fight.

The NEOCOM network tagged it under the pilots name and further inquiry showed him to be newly registered in CONCORDs databases. I closed my link to the TGA fleet and quickly initiated communications protocols for forming a new fleet network with the young pilot. Rapidly scanning my list of locations to warp to, I selected a nearby planet so I would arrive before he would, and initiated a forced fleet-wide warp to a point about 100km off the location. As soon as he appeared on my overview I began to lock and attempted to scramble his ship.

Aura let me know of my failure to acquire a lock as he warped off. Damn it. I check comms. He's asking me to hold on so he can grab a skillbook one system over. Wary of a trap, even from a new player, I follow him into Dantumi.

Before I go on, allow me to put this in perspective.

The guy entered a low-security system, obviously disregarding the CONCORD warning when he gated in. He then proceeded to accept a fleet uplink from a pilot who is both in negative sec status and a pirate corporation. Then  he remains in the fleet after I've attempted to engage him in combat.

I allow him to dock up and retrieve his skillbook, and then the moment he undocks, back to action. Force a warp to a safespot and scramble target. Burn into a tight orbit and start firing. His shields flare briefly before failing as my blasters rip apart his defenses. Eager to drop my security status to the infamous -10.00, I disband fleet communications and prepare for the imminent explosion.

Just as Aura's diagnostics show him peaking into structure I shut off all weapon modules. I'm not sure why. I offer to let him go for a paltry sum of 1 million ISK. It was easily exponentially more than the worth of his Condor, which probably cost less than my cheapest module, but new pilots tend to put a lot of sentimental value on their ships. I didn't expect him to pay, and after 30 seconds of no response, I started shooting again.

I wonder what was going through his mind. What was he thinking as this seemingly friendly fellow was shooting apart his ship? I dunno. Whatever it was, it was interrupted by a lone rocket arcing towards his hull. Light from the explosions rocking his ship reflected off the rocket's cold metal body, momentarily illuminating an airbrushed Guristas emblem. Maybe the rabbit-eared skull's toothy grin was serving as a mockery of the whole situation.

There was a flash and then his Condor was no more. For several seconds I made no effort to stop his pod from escaping, but it didn't seem to be moving. I locked it and offered again to let him go for 1 million ISK. He might still need to pick something up from a station, and his clone could be dozens of jumps away.

Apparently it didn't matter, and I let my blasters wipe all traces of his pod from existence. Feeling just a little bad about destroying the ship of such a young pilot, I tried to initiate comms with him to offer some future survival tips but he didn't want to talk.

I know this isn't the first time I'll question everything I do with the Guristas, but I can't help but wonder: Why did I blow up and kill the poor guy? It's not like I could've made any real ISK off of it. So why?