That Fight

        “Holy cow, that was just awesome!”

        “And not in a good way.” -- Gizznitt, Jalisco

One of the difficulties with being a combat pilot is that after some time, all the engagements start to blend together: you go out on a roam, you kill ships, you are killed. If it weren’t for the combat records, you wouldn’t even remember who you fought that day. Or that you even undocked.

But once in a while, there comes The Fight. You may still forget who was with you, or who was against you, but you won’t forget the fight as such. And you know that mere words would never be enough to communicate the intensity of The Fight as you experienced it, yet you try...

For me, it happened in the most recent Agony PvP Basic roam: after a mostly empty evening, for which be blamed Crossing Zebra’s FFA, we finally came across a gang of Fatal Ascension pilots willing to take us on.

Or maybe we were among the few willing to take them on?

After the initial offer for a fight had arrived, we took a break, to give them time to arrange themselves, which caused some fleet members to ask if we were heading into an arranged fight.

Well, the answer was ‘No, not as such’. An arranged ‘Leroy’, maybe, but compared to actual arranged fights, we were lacking a chunk of crucial information. First, while we knew the system where’d we’d meet, we didn’t know the exact location - giving them the position advantage. Second, we were a frigate fleet, composed mainly of rookies, facing a fleet of Algoses, giving them the advantage in material. And finally, we were an Agony Basic Hydra fleet, whose MO was well known - but none of us had any idea what the Algoses intended to do.

And one of the secret lessons of the Agony PvP Basic class is to present PvP fights in all their aspects - not just the fights where you know that you’ll win before you fired even the first shot, but also the fights where you go into the fight essentially blind and with a good chance to lose.

We undocked. I was in a Jaguar assault frigate - a ship I had taken a fancy for several months ago, intending to use it as fast secondary on-grid tackle - and some other pilots were sporting heavier ships as well, but the majority of our fleet were rookies who had just passed the theory portion of the PvP Basic class. Yet they were here, soldiering on bravely in their frigates, putting their trust into the FC.

It was but a short trip to the destination system, and quickly the skirmishers confirmed the location of the enemy fleet near planet 5. Fleet warp was initiated, and the command to ‘free fire’ was given: to grab everything in sight and shoot whatever has the most damage.

Except that the enemy fleet wasn’t where it ought have been. Instead, the gaggle of Algos-class destroyers was holding a good 100 km or more away, drones out, huddling around a number of Vigils. Just a Raptor and a Rifter strayed close to us, and they became our first targets.

Points were called, our weapons fired their first rounds, and quickly the Rifter exploded - as did three of our ships. And it began to sink in what was happening...

        Gizznitt> Those drones are insane.

        Gizznitt> If you are being attacked by drones, warp off, right away. They’ll alpha you.

A bounce pilot was called for, a command to damp out the Vigils given, and our fleet warped 100 clicks away to re-assess the situation. In the seconds it took us to execute this move, four more of our frigates died.

But how to get back into the fight? There simply weren’t good warp-ins near the main body of the hostile fleet, even the wrecks were too far off, and our fast tackle had difficulty staying alive. Even worse, the hostile fleet was happy to move around, anchored on one of their Vigils, to make warp-ins even harder. Having no other option, the FC selected a seemingly promising wreck, but the fleet warp fizzled somewhat when most of the rookie pilots were a bit overwhelmed as to which wreck to warp to.

Not that it mattered - we were still out of range. Damps were thrown at a Vigil, and an overly adventurous Dramiel drew our ire, but quickly we had to bounce out again.

        Gizznitt> That is a very interesting fleet concept, I have never seen that before.

        Unknown> I like it

        Gizznitt> I do, too.

And I finally caught up with the tactical situation: these guys had taken lessons from the slow-cat and drone-assist fleets of the major null alliances, and cranked it down a notch. All the drones were assigned to assist one or two Vigils, who simply target-painted their intended target, and the drones took care of the rest.

Simple. Ingenious. And absolutely deadly.

Gizznitt Malikite managed to speed his way into the bulk of the hostile fleet, and with a quick bounce in we took down a Coercer, and shooed away a Dramiel in low structure, and bounced out again.

So far, we had only lost half of our fleet.

A Jaguar made the mistake of getting into a brawl with some of our own stragglers, and our fleet descended upon him to put him out of its misery.

But we had lost the damps on the Vigils, and my Jaguar suddenly shuddered under the impact of hybrid charges, fired from the rail guns of some Algoses, and I realized that I had lost track of our bounce pilots. A warning signal intruded my field of vision - one of the Vigils was target-painting me! With no way out, I searched for and locked up the pod of the former Jaguar pilot as last act of defiance, but I shouldn’t get the chance to fire: 11 seconds after the target painter had been directed at me, the hostile drones came into range. Four seconds later, my own Jaguar was only a piece of twisted metal, my pod speeding to safety.

        Gizznitt> Ooh, they counter-damped - that’s brilliant!

And just a second too late, the Vigils were damped out again. The enemy fleet was moving now to take the fight to our remaining forces under the cover of their drone swarm. A move they could easily afford as only eight of our ships were still active on the battlefield.

Correction - make that seven.

        Gizznitt> Ok, time to pull out, time to pull out.

We had been defeated, thoroughly. But it was a defeat in the best possible way - in a fight which in this form none of us had seen coming.

Truly a fight to remember.

That Could Have Gone Better

        “Thank for flying Agony Air.

         Please keep the guns in the overheat position.” -- Fleet member

I opened my eyes. And while inside my pod I couldn’t really see, because immediately my optical nerves were shouted out by the implants routing my ship’s sensor information into my brain, it did serve as a signal to the rest of the ship that I was awake again, that it was time to activate all the systems.

The warp drive rumbled into life, to propel me back to my safe spot where I had passed out this morning from exhaustion, the warp giving me time to check my bearings.

System information crawled through my virtual view - I was in Providence, by myself, deep in hostile territory. In a cruiser fit for kiting engagements with logistics support. But this being Providence, I should have a good chance getting back to Empire and into a better ship unscathed.

I laid in the course and started the trip back to so-called civilization - it was far enough that I’d have time to piece together what had happened last night. Because once I was in Empire, I’d be too busy dodging CONCORD - for some reason they had taken a disliking to me over the last days.

Funny that.

---------

        9 hours earlier

Agony had called, and I had answered, as did several other people of negotiable reputation. The latest bunch of Skirmisher trainees had passed the theory portion of their class, and it was time for them to prove their mettle in a live-fire scenario, to find and hold targets for our cruiser fleet to eliminate.

The invite had called for kiting cruisers, but when I rummaged through my hangars in Berta, I had found something I had completely forgotten about: a Curse hull, bought years ago, and still in its original packaging. And I knew that if I didn’t take her out now, it’d probably be another couple of years before I had another chance. Carefully peeling off the price sticker without looking, I broke the seal on the package and sent it down for assembly, while I went to find modules to fit it. Being an alumnus had its advantages.

0815 rolled around and the fleet undocked, just 15 minutes after planned departure time, much to the

chagrin of the bookies of the local betting pools. Up ahead sped the Interceptors, shining darts of light across the stars, followed by the more stately hulls of the cruisers - damage dealers, logistics, and E-War. And a gold shining Curse with a rather nervous Druur piloting it.

Our first destination was VOL-MI, a familiar route which would take us through a couple of usually quiet lo-sec systems, so I took advantage of the calm before the storm and continued my mental mantras while piloting from muscle memory.

*You’re not a brawler, nor a sniper.* I repeated to myself. *You’re here to neutralize hostile capacitors. Like a Vampire Chick, who latches onto her victims to suck them dry, while a small cloud of fluttering bats tears to shreds anybody coming too close. And if somebody tries to shoot, you’re going to sprinkle some glitter dust into their eyes.*

Another gate jump, and I sighed inwardly as my Curse slowly accelerated to warp. If I was a Vampire Chick, then apparently I was a somewhat portly one - even with a Nanofiber for the right lacy look (black of course) I wasn’t exactly nimble on my feet.

The Doril gate loomed big before us, the first Skirmisher reports came in through comms - hesitantly still, unsure - and I snapped back into reality. A surge of euphoria ran through me as the life support system injected me with another dose of stimulants. That was the other thing: not only was I flying an unfamiliar ship, I had also been awake for about 20 hours at that point, and I knew that without some chemical help I wouldn’t make it. There’d be a price to pay, of course, but that’d be long after the roam would have ended. I hoped.

        Naira Isimazu > "RMOC and Jalad at Tanagra, when the walls fell"

The command to jump to Doril came, and our real work began. At first, apart from an abandoned Sabre which was quickly liberated, targets were sparse. There were the odd pod or assault frigate, but it wasn’t until KLMT-W that we ran into organized opposition. The gang of logistics-supported tier-3s fought well, but had to clear the field after losing half of their strength. Yet that fight showed me the limitations of my Curse: I had a hard time getting into range of anything, the damage projection from my Heavy Assaults was poor, and I had to micro-manage my capacitor more than I had expected. Even a simple power-align left me dry in just a minute or two!

Our roam continued, but it turned into a blur as my sub-conscious started working on the problem of how to make my Curse more useful. Maybe I needed to think even more like EWar and seek to disable nearby Logistics, Laser- and Blasterboats whenever the Primary wasn’t in range. And next time I'd take a out a Curse, definitely no Heavy Assaults - they were near useless in our fights. Maybe a Sensor Booster instead - my lock times couldn’t keep up with the damage output from the rest of our gang. And of course … Recon V.

Our Skirmishers at that point had settled into their role, their recon reports coming with confidence, and they were roaming far and wide, providing us with the occasional unfortunate victim.

.-A-. didn’t like that.

It began with a small skirmish in the systems of WD-VTV and 9KOE-A, including a narrow escape through a bubbled gate, but the daily subspace beacon downtime forced a temporary cessation of hostilities. When the systems came back online, both fleets scrambled to re-organize and race into position. It was neck to neck, and the fight was on!

.-A-. had brought a gang of tier-3 battlecruisers, supported by logistics, and our FC went for the logistics first - just what I had been hoping for: a chance to test my earlier musings. I lumbered, I pre-locked, I neuted, I pulsed my MWD for that extra kick into the pants, my drones buzzed about like the angry Hammerheads they were … but it wasn’t enough. And I learned first hand how scary the combined alpha of multiple Oracles can be: my Curse exploded faster than I could beg our Logistics for help.

Our fleet was routed, but while we made best speed back to Berta to reship, our spirits were high, and comms reflected it. And I remembered my own Skirmisher class, how I had been timid going out at the beginning, afraid to speak up on comms, only to return with confidence. I hadn’t fleet-skirmished since then, but it had helped me navigate the depths of w-space, provide warp-ins in lo-sec, ... or to just take a chance and fly out with an unfamiliar ship without the FC handholding you in its use.

        Mr Slant > x - got inlaws around so I'm staying :D

I had no second Curse, but gleaming in my hangar was a Rail-Thorax, and people were ready to enjoy what Greygal called the “after party-party”, so we set out again. This time it was not the fair folk of Curse which we asked to dance, but the righteous citizens of Providence. G-5EN2 welcomed us, and soon we were deep in the territory of the Yulai Federation.

But I couldn’t keep up anymore. The stimulants, which had carried me through the most of the roam, were now showing their evil side. It is bad if you no longer trust your voice enough to speak up on comms for possible intel; it is worse if you start falling asleep while guarding a gate.

It was a first, and I felt embarrassed, but I had to bail - I was no longer contributing. It was also too late to leave Providence; I would had to risk roughing it where I was. A fitting end to what had been a good night, even if I hadn't been on the top of my game.

A last command to my ship, and as the engines fired up once more to propel me to my safe spot, I gave in to my exhaustion and closed my eyes.

I fell asleep before my ship even dropped out of warp.

The Wee Free Ships

        “So whuts the plan, Rob?”, asked one of them.     
        “OK lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?”
         -- Nac Mac Feegle planning session (Terry Pratchett)

So, why again was I waking up in Berta?

I was just about to mentally run down the possible explanations in a process of elimination, when a polite chime from my data pad interrupted. It was an appointment reminder.

    Agony Public Hangover Roam
    Berta IV-19 - Ammatar Consulate Bureau
    YC 115.1.1.21.00

    Note: Rookie ships

Technology to the rescue again! And I still had an hour left until departure. So, let's see...

- Up-to-date clone? Check.
- Empty head? ...touch...touch... Check.
- Hung over? Check. ...unfortunately.
- Rookie ships fitted? ... ehrm, I better get cracking at that.

Forcing my body into the vertical required some effort, but eventually it was accomplished. A splash of some cold water over my head, and I was able to leave the quarters towards the general direction of the hangar bays.

Slowly, the fleet came together. The 40-something participants ranged from grizzled PvP veterans with FC experience, who could no longer remember what ammunition the civilian weapons needed, to rookies whose pilot licenses were still oozing digital ink, and most in various stages of hungoverness. Due to this, and the ludicrously suicidal goal of the roam as such, the general atmosphere was much less serious than compared to your typical class roam. Jokes and banter lit up the comms, and while half of the fleet was still in station to put the final fittings on the ships, the other half was already out in space, practicing that essential tactical fleet maneuver known as the “Conga Line”.

But with only a few minutes delay, the gaggle of mostly rookie ships took off and headed towards Curse, anticipating a fiery death within the next couple of minutes. And death didn’t need to be asked twice: a Hound uncloaked at the RMOC gate in Hemin and welcomed us with a nicely launched shrapnel bomb, wiping out half the fleet. After a hasty reship and/or repair, our fleet returned to that gate, eager to lock weapons onto the hostile gang reported on the other side. A Huginn jumped through to us, and we piled onto it.

Imagine our excitement when the Huginn did not immediately jump back into the safe embrace of its friends, but stayed, even when its shield lost integrity and its armor flew off the ships in big chunks. Giggling in my pod, I noticed that my festival launcher had run out of fireworks, and I sent a command to the crew to reload it with the remaining snowballs from the magazine.

System crash!

Suddenly all my connections to the ship went dark, even comms. I could feel the vibration of the engines as they propelled the ship into emergency warp, but it would take several minutes for my fluidics and electronics to reboot. By the time I’d have control again, the battle would be over.

And I was right. When comms came back online, I could hear excited chatter that our gang had killed the Huginn. Oh, and they were mostly all back in Berta, reshipping.

My ship dropped out of warp right into the bubble the hostile gang had erected, and while I made an attempt to escape, my heart wasn’t in it. One fiery flash of overwhelming firepower, and I found myself falling out of a clone bay in Amarr station.

Amarr?!

Crap! I had forgotten to update my home station!

I grabbed a new rookie ship, undocked, and raced towards Berta station, with little hope that I’d be able to arrive there before the fleet would depart again. Indeed was a race I didn’t win - the fleet undocked and steered towards Providence when I was still a number of hops out from Berta. All I could do was listen in enviously on comms when they attacked and killed a Sev3rance Harbinger in 4B-NQN.

However, the ensuing cat-and-mouse game with the rest of the hostiles finally allowed me to catch up - just in time to join in on an attack on a Loki, which desperately tried to crash back to the back. Its shield vanished almost instantly, and its armor started dropping precariously... 75%... 60%... 50%... 40%... and gate fire!

The Loki had de-agressed just in time to beat a hasty retreat. The skirmishers on the other side got tackle on him, but we were caught on this side of the gate for another minute. After a bit confusion as to whether the Loki would come back to us or not, the arrival of a Logistics-supported gang decided matters for us: we jumped into YWS0-Z as well.

On the other side, we discovered that there was a second half to that Logistics-supported gang, welcoming us with open fire. We lost the field - but not without taking a hostile Rapier with us.

Tally so far: one hour flight time, less than 100M lost in material for about 500M dealt in damage. Not bad for a bunch of wee ships.

The fleet regrouped in Berta, with a good number of pilots up-shipping into frigates and destroyers, and the destination was once again Curse - with the idea of taking the back entrance into Providence via Catch.

We didn’t quite make it.

An Outbreak gang presented us with the irresistible target in form of a brick-tanked Navy Dominix, and of course we were just too happy to take the bait. The rest of their gang jumped in, while half of our gang had accidentally warped to a safe, and slaughter ensued. In short progression, our fleet (now back to its full strength) took down two Vagabonds. FC Greygal died, but House2twist seamlessly took over command.

A short breather was had when the Navy Dominix jumped to the other side, but soon hostile reinforcements arrived. The fight was on again, and I was reminded of an important fact of life which I really should have remembered:

Rookie ships don’t react well to smart bombs. Neither do pods.

Again, I was relegated to following the fight over comms only, while I readied a Hydra-style Tormentor frigate back in Berta. Our fleet wreaked havoc, taking down in rapid succession a Dramiel, a cruiser, two battle cruisers, and two battle ships (sadly the Navy Dominix was not among them).

A general re-shipping followed, Outbreak wisely opting to bring out capitals and faction battleships to counter the threat which our unruly frigate fleet posed. Grudgingly, we took our ammunition and went on to play in Catch.

But opposition was growing sparse now - maybe our fame was preceding us?

After a small tussle at the HED-GP/SV5-8N gate - and a truly horrendous rendition of a birthday carol on comms - we eventually found ourselves in KBP7-G. Facing a group of Sev3rance pilots thirsting for revenge for the beating they had received earlier.

And revenge they got: we managed to kill another two of their battle cruisers, but in the end they held the field, and deservedly so.

At that point we had been out in space for a good five hours, racked up 2.4B in kills over 0.2B in losses, and our attention levels were dropping. Hence, the decision to end the roam with this fight was an easy one.

As we made our more or less direct ways home, chatter continued on comms, meandering between subjects. I was decidedly losing concentration at that point, and let most of the conversation flow by, but two topics peaked my interest.

One was that even though our fleet was decidedly unserious and kitchen-sink in nature, it had been run quite professionally. The skirmishers had done an excellent job, as usual, target callers stood forward when the main FC was neutralized, and for the most part people had been adhering to battle comms whenever needed without need extra instructions.

The other was the observation that this roam had found more fights than several of the previous class and alumni roams. Maybe it was because on this day more pilots than usual had been out in space with no other goal than to have some fights, thus giving us a larger target selection. Or the reason could have been that because of the unserious nature of this roam, we had been more willing to push the envelope, taken on more risk, and had gotten just lucky that we didn’t completely welp the fleet in the process.

Food for thought.

Advanced Education

Deep in lawless space, a star gate fired; the flicker of the warp bubbles around the gate momentarily outshone by the flash of the gate.

Then, for a few seconds, nothing.

Suddenly, a Malediction appeared, close to the edge of one of the warp bubbles. The engines fired up, glowing with a painful blue tinge, the interceptor takes up speed towards a near celestial. A puff of vapor indicates the launch of a scan probe, then the interceptor cleared the edge of the bubble and warps off.

Fleet Comms crackled with a new message.

“Recon - Druur in 9M-. Gate bubbled, grid clear, Brutix on directional, four in Local, scanning for anomalies.”

While talking, I was already working on my next task: dropping a midway safe spot to double back to. As I dropped out of warp, the probe finished its scan of the system. Directional was still clear, and under my mental instructions, the interceptor aligned back towards my mid-safe, while I was checking the scan result.

Odd, just one Angel Yard in the system, even though this system had been upgraded to Military-7 level. Well, since I was here, I might as well check it out.

The Malediction nimbly responded to the new course and leapt into warp. I hit the directional scan again, completely forgetting to restrict it to my flight direction. Not that it mattered - it was still uneventful.

“Recon - 9M- update. Only one Angel anomaly in system, which is ... ” - my ship dropped out of warp - “... inactive. No other anomaly on scan.”

An indicator signaled that local comms had become active, but I ignored it - I didn’t speak the local dialect anyway.

[ Did you try moving your probe? ], inquired the FC and instructor.

Good point! And while I was sure that I had been scanning at maximum range, I hadn’t really verified it, hm?

The probe launcher burped and another probe sped away. A quick check - yes, it was set to 32 AU - and I triggered another scan while checking on the local map that the probe would indeed cover the whole system. The scan ended... again no further hits.

“I did that - the probe covered the whole system, and still nothing. And d-scan is clear.”, I reported back, and added with a bit of embarrassment: “I have no idea where the locals are.”

[ Hmm - ok, come back. ]

For a second I considered checking the belts, but by this time the locals surely had POSed up, if they had any sense. With a mental shrug, I turned my ship back towards the gate and entered warp. Back in QPTT-F, I met up again with our little fleet: 10 or so interceptors, flown by nervous students like myself, and a DPS wing flown by Agony Unleashed.

Our task: practice the art of skirmishing by finding and holding targets for the DPS wing to kill. And while the Instructor/FC did orchestrate our movements in general, scouting out the individual systems was fully up to us.

The roam had been uneventful so far - a few close misses, but mostly empty systems. Word from our little fleet probably had preceded us, but as the real goal of the class was the art of the hunt as such, we didn’t mind that much. Besides, just doing all the scouting tasks kept us more than busy - it was a far cry from our previous experiences as fleet peons, or as dwellers in the slower paced w-space.

Onwards we pressed, leaving Scalding Pass for the open spaces of Insmother. And there, finally, we got our first engagement - almost by accident, actually. One of us had warped to the Sun as part of his scouting procedure, when suddenly a Cynabal showed up on his grid. The cruiser was quickly tackled, and the fleet poured in to lay the killing blow. As the fight was going on, a Raven landed on grid as well. He, too, found his end at the hands of the DPS wing.

[ Maybe we should just wait here, and let the targets come to us! ]

But of course staying wasn’t an option. With renewed energy we moved on, scouting system after system, until about an hour later we came across a Drake and a Raven at a gate to 2-Q4YG. Disruptors were activated and found their targets, but these two pilots stayed calm and approached the gate to jump to safety. However, the FC had anticipated the move and sent a couple of interceptors ahead. Trapped on either side, both ships made valiant attempts at escape, but in the end both succumbed to our DPS wing.

But the tide was about to turn. The Raven pilot had just warped out his pod, when suddenly new ships joined our party: a small gang comprising of a Hurricane, a Sabre and a Huginn showed up. Absolutely deadly enemies for an Interceptor.

[ Burn out! Burn out! ] came the urgent command on comms, but the fleet was already scattering away from the gate, to re-assemble in a safe spot until the immediate danger was over.

But we knew that whoever was leading this gang wouldn’t stop hunting us, and the decision was made to head back home. Besides, we had been on the go for almost four hours at that point, and everybody was starting to lose concentration, which sooner or later would lead to a fatal mistake. The enemy gang continued to chase us for a while, but couldn’t really keep up with our speed; and once they took a wrong turn in 1V-, we no longer had to worry about them and reached MDD-79 without any further opposition. The class officially ended at this point, yet we kept the fleet going for those of us who needed to traverse the Hemin-Doril pipe towards Empire.

As I navigated my trusty Malediction through the gates, shaking inside my pod from exhaustion, I couldn’t help pondering how the last hours had changed us. When we started our roam, many of us had still been skittish to jump

[ RMOC gate in Hemin clear ]

into an unknown system, or even to speak up on fleet comms. But now, jumping

[ Be advised, Utopia gate in Doril is camped ]

through gates and providing informal recon

“Jorund gate in Doril: one Hurricane at a TAC”

was something we just did.

And knowing that I now had this experience at my disposal, should I ever need it - that was a good feeling.

A Grand Night Out

Caldak: What do we have to be careful of?
MoHawk Nephilium: An Agony Basic class :)

“Yo! D!”

I stopped in my tracks, hearing that familiar voice from behind. The other pilots pushed past me, eager to get into their pods.

“Heloisa? What are you doing here?”

“Same as you: Agony Advanced class, shiny explosions, more pew-pew goodness.” She cocked her head. “However, I am surprised to see you here - aren’t you supposed to be bravely crumbling the ‘roids in your w-system?”

I rolled my eyes. “There are only so many Sleepers and asteroids you can put down before you go stir crazy. Besides, I need the practice.”

“Indeed you do...”, she grinned, “...as yesterday’s fleet exercise showed. Well, see you out there!”

And off she was before I could think of a reply. Oh well, time to get podded up.

-----

About an hour later, the ambient noise of the Impro Factory station in Stacmon gathered an urgent note as the engines of 60-some cruisers sprang to life. Pilots ran through their last checklists, while the Intel channels in the region were probably buzzing with the news of our imminent departure. Not that we had much time to think about details like that - too anxious we were to put yesterday’s theoretical instructions to the test, while hopefully not messing up too much in the process.

[ Hey, D. What squad are you in? ], asked Heloisa over comms.

“Echo, why?”

[ They made me SC of Golf - don’t you want to do that? ], she asked, adding [ You have better skills. ]

I hesitated - while on paper my leadership skills were better, I had never commanded a squad before, whereas Heloisa has quite some experience in 0-sec gangs.

[ Oh, c’mon, do-it-do-it-do-it. You know you want to! ]

“Ok”, I relented. Free-Move was enabled, she demoted herself while I took her place, then I took a quick look at my little group: two Ewar/Artillery Arbitrators, two Ruptures, a Thorax, and my Maller. Not bad for a squad - if only it had a real SC in charge.

[[ Right, everyone undock. ]], ordered Caldak, our FC and instructor.

Good thing we had practiced this yesterday: all cruisers undocked almost simultaneously, accompanied by a few Agony Interdictors and skirmishers. A few seconds later, we fleet-warped to an undock point. Our scouts moved out, and after making sure that our little fleet was complete, we followed them.

Through Ostingele and Harroule our way led to Syndicate, and in MHC we already had our first hostile contact. In fact, the Falcon, Harbinger and Hurricane were defeated so quickly that it was over before I could even target the my own weapons. After a short break to replace a few lost ships, we pushed deeper into Syndicate - UM-Q, T-LI, V4-L... all names I had always marveled at in GalNet news, imagining how it must be to fly there. And now that I was here, I found myself fully occupied with following the commands and recon reports on comms, while trying to keep up with the fleet.

From the ongoing conversation I gathered that a hostile fleet was suspected to be somewhere ahead of us, possibly even connected to the Loki which showed up occasionally to taunt us. We held in V4, and Caldak started ordering squads to split off the main fleet. Looking at the map, he appeared to trap the enemy fleet in AAS...

[[ Golf Squad...]]

Golf Squad? Damn, that’s us!

[[... go to KTH, 1-N, QWF and hold at the gate to AAS.]]

Good thing I had already checked the map - we were to cut off another avenue to our suspected hostile fleet. ...uhm, did I need to acknowledge the order?

“Acknowledge. Golf to move to KTH, 1-N and close the backdoor to AAS.”, I replied over comms, followed by my very first order as SC: “Golf, align KTH gate.”

I gave my squad a few seconds to align, then I warped us all to the KTH gate. We jumped on contact, and moved on - trying to find a compromise between good speed while making sure that we didn’t get separated. Luckily it was only a few systems, and we arrived in one group and took up position.

And waited.

And waited.

Listening to comms I could deduce that the hostiles had eluded us - Delta and Echo were moving somewhere to the north, but apart from a small skirmish in T-LI had no luck. Finally, the order came to move up on our own to Poitot. Relieved, we left our position and got on our way. We were halfway to Poitot, when comms became very lively again: the group with our FC had run into a gate camp and were engaging.

I was unsure: should I divert and have my squad join the fray, or continue as ordered? It was only a few systems away, but in all likelihood the fight would be over before we got there - so I had my squad continue towards Poitot. We had just entered our destination, when word came through that a squad coming from the north had made contact just one system over in X-BV, and was in need of assistance. Our group in Poitot didn’t need a second invitation - we jumped into X-BV and made short work of an Astarte. As we returned to Poitot, two Nighthawks met an untimely end at the hands of the last groups arrived from the south, and we all docked up for a short break.

As the engines of my trusty Maller fell silent, I was able to relax for the first time since our departure from Stacmon. While my little group had seen only little combat so far, just following the fleet had been surprisingly demanding. At the same time, I have had an easier time following the fleet comms than in Basic class. Maybe because we had a slightly smaller group, or maybe I really had learned a thing or two in the meantime.


EVE System > Channel changed to F67E-Q Local Channel
Apathetic Brent > EVERYONE LOG OFF NAO!
Apathetic Brent > wrong channel soz

Twenty minutes later, our fleet was back in space. After a short circuit through the south, we moved to the north of Syndicate, but this time we had no luck: whereever we went, the systems were deserted - obviously the news of our class had spread. We were contemplating looking for alternative areas to visit, when a recon report caught our attention: a battlecruiser fleet of the Dead Terrorists (IKILU) was spotted coming from the Outer Ring in our direction.

Cautiously we moved to meet them, from PF-349 through FD-MLJ, X-M2LR and onward to 8V-SJJ. From the reports of our scout it became clear that IKILU had set up camp and was waiting for us jump into it. Obviously, that wouldn’t do: even though we had the numerical superiority, we were still only in cruisers - we had to get them to engage on our terms. Our only chance was to bait them into moving towards us.

Our fleet jumped into 3KNK-A and held there, except for one squad which was to move ahead towards the system leading to the IKILU camp (RL-KT0?). Their orders were to linger around the gate, pop a bubble and in general look juicy, but to not aggress - IKILU surely had a scout in that system and would relay their presence.

Minutes passed - then the bait squad reported a spike in local: IKILU had noticed them and was sending a group to investigate. The bait squad jumped back to C0T-77, holding at the gate to 3KNK-A, waiting to see if IKILU would follow them.

And follow they did! Our scout reported that the main body IKILU was abandoning their camp and was moving towards us - now the trick would be to keep them moving.

As IKILU entered C0T-77, our bait squad waited just long enough to be seen again, before jumping into 3KNK-A. The same time, our main fleet moved back into 8V-SJJ to set up station at the 3KNK-A gate. And again, our bait squad lingered at the 8V-SJJ gate in 3KNK-A - as IKILU arrived, the bait squad jumped through to 8V-SJJ, signaling the immediate begin of hostilities.

And then - nothing.

What was going on? So far IKILU had seemed to be willing to play ball, were they now backing away, afraid to jump into our camp? Did they need a few minutes to get organized? Or was this now a game of chicken, each side waiting for the other to lose nerve first? We bantered on comms, to easen the tension, but everybody kept an eye on the gate.

Gateflash!

IKILU had blinked - I switched my weapons hot.

A Harbinger appeared just 10 km away - I put my weapons on him, as did several others of our fleet, and for good measure a tracking disruptor. As our weapons made short process of the Harbinger’s shield and started biting into its armor, the rest of the IKILU fleet decloaks: I see a Manticore, an Arazu, a Prophecy, and hordes of Drakes and Harbingers.

The first Harbinger goes down, and I target a nearby Prophecy and another Harbinger - three Lasers on the Prophecy, and two Lasers plus the Track on the Harbinger. The Prophecy goes down - not very quickly, I shouldn’t have split my weapons - and I target a third Harbinger, while now aiming all five Lasers at the second Harbinger.

Klaxons shrill, signaling the loss of my shield. I am taking damage, but I can’t immediately see from where, so I turn on my small repper and warp to our designated escape point.

That is: I intend to warp out, but too late I realize that I maybe should have maneuvered clear of our own bubbles. Well, if I have to go down, I will go down fighting - six enemies are now tearing my Maller apart, but I keep my Lasers focused on Harbinger #2. My armor is gone, the enemy lasers and missiles are ripping my structure to shreds - and I find myself in my pod, floating in the middle of a pitched space battle. I set course for the border of the bubble, and for a few seconds actually make progress - but then a lance of fire approaches my pod, and I opened my eyes in Stacmon.

As I exited the stations’ clone bay, more and more vats began to activate - the battle must have turned against us. I hastened to get podded up and plugged into my spare cruiser (a Thorax), but by the time my systems went active, our fleet had lost 90% of its offensive force and all of its ECM, so the survivors were ordered to fall back and regroup in Stacmon. To my delight, Heloisa was under the survivors - I had seen her Arbitrator well away from the main battle, so our enemy probably had underestimated the danger an Ewar Arbitrator can pose even over longer distances and didn’t target her until the very end.

It would take some time for everybody to return, so I took the opportunity to look at the battle statistics. On the surface it looked like a rout: we had lost 42 ships out of 62 vs. IKILU’s 19 out of 43 - but that was only half the truth. All of our lost ships had been cruisers, cheap to buy, yet we had managed to take out almost half of a fleet comprised of more powerful (and more expensive) battlecruisers. Heck, we even managed to take down a command ship and a battleship in the fight!


Caldak> Nothing like killing pirates to make you feel good.

It took about half an hour to get the fleet re-established - as some pilots chose to end the roam at this point out of exhaustion, our fleet halved in size. Again we were headed into Syndicate, this time entering from the South through TXW and then working our way into the Cloud Ring.

This time around, targets were rare - most people were smart enough to stay well clear of us - and to Heloisa’s annoyance most of the targets we did find happened to be allies of hers. While this was not very satisfying for the adrenaline junkies amongst us, it provided a lot of opportunity to practice the art of the hunt: fleet movements, independent squad maneuvers, pincer movements, shotgun entries into systems - and all the time following the reports sent back by the skirmishers to try and anticipate the fleet’s next move. It became a running gag that the FC announced the wrap-up of the op within the next half hour, only to be sidetracked by yet another possible target just a few systems away. But all good things had to come to an end eventually, and we left the Cloud Ring for Alsavoinon and our 8-Jump journey back through Placid. Given that we were in lo-sec now, we could relax and fly our own best speed back home.

It was on the last leg, in warp to the Stacmon gate in Ostingele, when suddenly one of our skirmishers spoke up on comms:

[ This is Aether at the Agoze gate in Ostingele - I have a tackle on a flashy-red Navy Slicer. He’s trying to run, but I am keeping up. ]

Orders were given, but not really necessary - everybody knew what had to be done. As we dropped out of warp, we immediately turned our ships around and accelerated back the way we came. Those fleet members who were still behind us stepped up their pace, racing towards Ostingele. All the while Aether’s reports grew more urgent:

[ I still have a tackle on the Slicer, but I am in armor now - you better hurry up. ]

The warp bubble collapsed, releasing me some 70km away from both Aether and the Slicer. Around me, a handful other cruisers popped back into normal space. Afterburners and Microwarpdrives flared up, all of us burning as fast as we could towards the Slicer. Our Ewar ships got in range first, dropping their Damps and Tracks onto the Slicer, reducing its effective combat range to about nothing, saving Aether’s ship just in the nick of time. Behind us the gate fired, admitting a Republic Fleet Tempest into the system - a friend of the Slicer’s pilot, coming to help. But too late - our target locks resolved, and the Slicer exploded under an onslaught of missiles, turrets and drones. The Tempest, seeing that it was outnumbered, made the smart decision to reapproach the gate and leave before we could get back to him.

It was the perfect end for the roam - elated, chatting excitedly, we made our way back to Stacmon and docked up, only now noticing that we had spent nine hours on this roam, only now noticing how exhausted we actually were. Yet we were loath to leave just yet, too much adrenaline was still in our systems, and for most of us it was the first chance to look at the whole of the battle reports. Eventually, however, tiredness got the better of me, and I left for my quarters in the station, lest I’d fall asleep on my feet.

The way to the quarters led me past the ship hangars, and here I stopped, looking at the majestic ships which just a short time before hurdled us through the depth of space. Suddenly the prospect of returning to our Wormhole was much less appealing to me than it was just one day ago - it just didn’t compare against the excitement I had just experienced. Yet I knew that I had to go back, if only to make sure I could continue to afford excursions like today’s.

Maybe I could delay my return a bit - our Alliance was interested in renting a system in 0-sec space, and while we had done our research, none of us had actually found the time to take a first-hand look at the possible systems. With my Covops I should be able to get down there without too much trouble, and collect some bookmarks on the way.

Yep, that sounded like a plan - the Sleepers could wait a little longer.