Hold The Line!

Hold The Line!

Tonight started of in a normal manner. I did my tour of the systems in Verge Vendor. The vast majority of the systems were empty, I tried to engage a mining Osprey in Hulmate, but he was aligned and bolted as soon as I landed on the belt he was mining in. Disappointed, I returned to Hevrice and docked up with the intention of taking a quick rest before heading to Old Man Star to find a fight. However that was not to be. A gang was forming up to head to placid. Not one to turn down a fleet op, I ran to my Rifter and prepped it for launch while posting an X in corp chat. I undocked from the station and rendezvoused with the rest of the fleet at a safe spot. With the gang assembled, we saddled up and headed to Placid.

The roam up in placid was relatively uneventful. Our scout picked up a drake at a belt in Dastryns. The decision was made to engage. The scout made the tackle and we warped in and popped the drake in short order. As we waited our GCC’s down, the pilot split loot up and we prepared to leave system. The remainder of the roam went uneventfully.

As we prepared to head back to Hevrice we caught a flashy Paladin at our gate, Convinced that our gang could take on the Amarr marauder (He was taking sentry fire, and his armor was dropping, albeit very slowly!) a locked and pointed him, at the same time moving 5,000 meters from the gate. The FC decided to run rather than to fight and the remainder of the fleet jumped through. By this time, the Paladin had returned my lock and began firing on me with his powerful tachyon lasers. Luckily his guns tracked too slowly to keep up with my Rifter and I was able to evade the attacks.

Convinced that I could survive long enough to burn back to the gate, I ran, activating my afterburner, hoping to reach the gate before he could pop my fragile ship. At the same time, the Paladin released a flight of 5 Ogre II’s and webbed my frigate as I closed the distance to the gate. I was 3,000 meters off and closing fast.

I could make it!

The Ogres locked me and, in one volley, took my shields to 50%. Now at 2,500 meters, I selected the gate and started hammering the jump button as hard as I could. However the gate denied my jump due to acts of aggression.

Dammit!

Now I was panicking, everything I learned fell apart, I should have reactivated my Afterburner and orbited the gate, instead I just sat motionless in my frigate hammering the jump button. The ogres fired again, and, in another volley, stripped the remaining 50% of my shields and began to make steady inroads on my armor. Finally, my aggression counter was up, and I was able to jump through with 75% armor integrity.

I met up with the fleet and, collectively, we began to make the return journey to Hevrice. Again, we met no resistance heading back to our home systems until we reached Melmaniel. One of our scouts reported an Arbitrator sitting at a belt (or at least I think it was a belt). A game of cat and mouse ensued until finally, our scout caught the arbitrator at a planet. A point was called and the fleet jumped through to Melmaniel and warped to the planet. Under the combined power of our gang’s weapons, the Arbitrator’s shields quickly dropped and we began working on his armor. Rounds of barrage and bolts of plasma from our ships and a collection of drones pounded against his Arbitrator, melting and twisting pieces of golden Amarrian armor plating off. His armor has dropped to 25% in a matter of seconds and it looked like we were going to acquire the second kill of our roam when two Thorax class cruisers warped in. The order was given to scatter, and our collection of frigates and cruisers warped off to various safe spots and celestials, however not before the offending arbitrator was destroyed.

As I initiated warp, I could see ships flying out in all directions, fleeing the scene before the powerful Gallente cruisers could lock and point our precious frigates. Unfortunately Caster was pointed by one of the thoraxes and his Taranis class interceptor was quickly destroyed.

We quickly safed up our ships and took a quick couple of minutes to repair our shields and armor and to lick our wounds. Leo Solunar and another pilot (whose name evades me at the moment) took this opportunity to fit tracking disruptors on to their ships. With tracking disruptors, it would be possible to reengage to two Thoraxes and survive long enough against their guns to pop their drones and then destroy the two ships without sustaining major casualties.

With the two tracking disruptor modules fitted ships in our fleet, the order was given to warp back to the planet and to primary the closest thorax the warp in point. As the shields of the first thorax dropped to ¼ integrity, Chatgirls, the Arbitrator pilot we killed before, reentered the fray in a second Arbitrator. Keeping the two tracking disruptors on the Thoraxes, Chatgirls was called primary and her ship was destroyed with little resistance. Attention shifted to the Thoraxes, The closest thorax to the fleet was called primary, and fell to the combined power of our guns. The second thorax pilot hung 20km off the warp-in point and burned towards us as his buddy began taking structural damage. As the closest pilot to his ship, the second thorax locked me and released a flight of Hammerhead II’s upon my ship. Luckily, the drones failed to hit me, and, as his buddy’s ship fell, attention shifted to the thorax that was attacking me. With the pilots’ guns disrupted twice over, and his drones unable to hit my fast moving frigate, his ship dropped in a matter of seconds, without hitting any of our frigates once.

Our gang had held the field, twice, with no casualties, against a gang that should have torn us to shreds. As we collected loot, a Merlin class frigate warped to the planet at range. Foreseeing another attack, the decision to move all of the loot to a safe place was made. However, before this plan could be implemented, an AF/ Interceptor gang warped in and engaged our frigate fleet. For some reason I was called primary by the hostile fleet and was attacked by no fewer then 3 Taranises, a Claw and a Jaguar. Needless to say, my ship exploded in less than 15 seconds, and I whipped my pod out of the fray as quickly as possible.

As I journeyed to Hevrice, reports came through. Our fleet had not only beaten back the hostile gang, but had also killed all three of the offending Gallente Interceptors. An attempt was made to escalate the fight further, with reports of a HAC gang making its way to Melmaniel. The decision was made to collect as much loot as possible and run back to Hevrice before we suffered any severe losses.

To sum the engagement, we held the same point in space twice over, against two gangs that should have torn our humble gang apart. In the end, we only suffered two losses versus seven kills. I would take an engagement like this over 0.0 fleet warfare any day!