Chasing Shadows

Sisters of EVE epic arc - The Blood-Stained Stars
Chapter 7 - Closing In
Previous mission: Sealing the Deal
Next mission: The Missing Piece

Type	Encounter
Objective	Retrieve Kritsan Parthus
Faction	mercenaries
Best damage to deal	EM Th
Damage to resist	EM Th
EWAR	Neuts
Rewards	250,000 ISK + ~190,000 ISK (bonus)

Mission briefing

Our agent hasn’t been able to determine where Dagan is. But in decoding her sensory data, we managed to pick up a clue. An Amarr pilot named Kritsan Parthus recently delivered a cargo of drone parts to Dagan. These parts were black market, and may have been scavenged from some of your recent battles. We contacted Parthus. He’s an independent operator, but wouldn’t see the light. We’ve managed to locate him by tracing his communications signals. Unfortunately, it will be necessary for you to bring him in for a meeting under duress. Our archive data suggests that Parthus will travel with a small contingent of support ships. Identify his command vessel, destroy it, and retrieve him from his pod. Bring him to me, personally.

This is the second difficult mission of the epic arc. It is similar in difficulty to Mission 28: Burning Down the Hive.

Kritsan Parthus is flying an Independent Harbinger (Battlecruiser), escorted by five Mercenary Rookie frigates. Parthus' ship will neut (drain your capacitor) if you get too close.

How do I survive?

As before, fit your ship properly, and use the correct tactics.

If you want stay at long distance away from Parthus and use drones or missiles to take him out, then fit a Minmatar frigate with Projectiles and Rockets.
Alternatively, you could use a Epic Arc Dagan Killer fitting or a fast frigate like a Rifter with one or two 'Overdrive Injector System I' to quickly close in the distance with an afterburner.

Tactics

Destroy the escorts first. Lead them away from Parthus by manually piloting your ship. Double left click to fly the ship in a specific direction. Once you destroy the five escorts another three Mercenary Fighters will spawn. No more Fighters will spawn after they are eliminated.

After dealing with the escorts it is time to deal with Parthus. Depending on your ship, either stay at maximum range or fire your afterburners to close in quickly. When you are in 500m orbit around Parthus turn off your afterburner and start shooting. If you are at long range send your drones or fire your missiles.

(2020-10-06 Update: It is possible to pop the Battlecruiser and ignore the others, but you'll need a ship with a lot of shields and armour to absorb the incoming fire. Doing this will not spawn the additional three mercenary fighters, and as soon as you kill the Battlecruiser, the item you need is automatically deposited to your cargo hold. There is no need to loot the wreck. Kritsan Parthus's Energy neut is 100 GJ every ten seconds.)

Aftermath

After you blow up Parthus' ship, you'll hear from another new agent - Amarr, this time: "That’s an Amarr citizen you’ve kidnapped, pilot. But if I understand your motives correctly, we can overlook that. Once you’ve extracted Dagan’s location, we’ll help you bring the hammer of God down on that bastard." No one likes Dagan, it seems! Loot and return Parthus to Sister Alitura.

On turn in, Sister Alitura says: "I’ll handle questioning Parthus. Rest assured, he will be treated humanely, and compensated well."

Wave 1

		WD	EWAR	L
	5 x Frigate Mercenary Rookie
	1 x Battlecruiser Kritsan Parthus

Wave 2

		WD	EWAR	L
	3 x Frigate Mercenary Fighter