Odds Finally Caught Up with Me

I was flying a freighter last night along the Amarr to Jita pipe and I had to travel through Niarja. This is a 0.5 system and frequently, much like Uedema, seeing a lot of ganking happen. 

I've never had issues before flying through here, well I do tend to be fly safe:

• never autopilot through system of Niarja
• use a scout to watch the in/out gates in Niarja
• never more than 1.5b / 2b in cargo (use multiple trips if I have more than this)
• check large kills for Niarja before arriving at system

I normally pass through quickly and without hassle but last night the odds finally went against me and I found myself in a tricky situation.

Don't Panic

You know what he'd be saying, the voice is in your head now...

I hadn't used autopilot at all on the trip so far, but I jumped into Niarja and started my warp to the next gate. It was then I noticed I was being yellow boxed by a Machariel who then proceeded to bump me downwards from my position. Instead of 12km of the gate I was now 25km.

I opened d-scan and checked what was within max range, a few catalysts were seen so I feared the worst. The Machariel hit me again and I bounced further off gate, nearly 70km from where I started.

A conversation request comes up from the Machariel pilot and I'm about to give him a peice of my (small) mind when I see three cataylsts land on gate...

The End?

But they jump through to the next system instead of engaging me!

At this point I've checked the pilot details out, he's a known "CODE lover" and proudly displays ships he's ganked and hyperdunked in his bio. I decide that speaking to him is not going to do anything and I'll certain to receive a ransom demand.

I do not negotiate with terrorists or gankers and I'm certainly not going to provide any 'tears'.

Options

I look again at d-scan and check Local. 

Local is down to 14 people, six of whom are on my overview. One is the Machariel pilot and 5 are in haulers or other non-ganking ships that are going about their business. I could be about to have 8 people in ganking ships land on me and blow me up.

My scouting alt is in no position to do anything, even if he had a web I would not be able to make it to warp speed before the Machariel bumped me again and because he's not in the same corp as the freighter pilot it would just be a wasted loss of a ship.

Solution, Kind Of.

I've been yellow boxed but I have not been attacked and there are no timers active on my screen. There are no ganking ships I can see inbound so I decide to take the option to logout. I close my client.

I keep a watch on my freighter via the scouting alt but nothing happens. The Machariel does not engage and, more importantly, there are no further ships arriving on grid to finish me off. One minute later my freighter performs an emergency warp and disappears.

I've now logged out and my ship is safe but watching the Machariel pilot I see he leaves system and then logs out himself. 

Conclusion

I sense a trap, the moment I login again the Machariel pilot will return to my position and this will start all over again, perhaps this time with ganking ships killing me. So I remain logged out and will do for the foreseeable future.

The good news is the cargo I was carrying is not critical to my activities. I was merely moving old stock and a small amount of reaction output to Jita for sale. The character flying the freighter has a full skill queue and, most importantly, nothing else to do for at least 24 days (when blueprints will be finished) but can easily be left longer without impacting my game.

A small shock but I was lucky and I've already decided that the day he does login I'll have an armour booster in system to provide some extra EHP as well as a webbing ship to get him "the hell out of dodge ASAP".