Ombeve

“Docking request accepted“, intoned Aura, my ship’s onboard AI. The Vagabond I was piloting was tractored into my hangar in V2-VC2. As I shut down systems, I started to pick up alliance comms chatter, and I left the radio systems online. It seemed that a Sylph gang had been spotted down in ‘southern’ Catch, far far away from their home area. That was curious. What was more curious was that they were in a mixed BC and Strategic Cruiser gang, mainly Tengus and a Proteus. What was the most curious thing was that they were apparently engaging a local Centus pirate stronghold.

It was like a red rag to a bull, and a fleet was hurriedly arranged. I didn’t have many ships in V2 other than a couple of Tempests and the Vagabond (I had been moving ships from F4R, but I find it incredibly boring). The FC knew that I was reasonably good at scanning and wanted to know if I had any ships with probes on. I replied in the negative. However, an alliance mate, Conlin, told me he had a Pilgrim Recon ready to go and I could use that. I quickly had my pod removed from the Vagabond and transported to Con’s Pilgrim. The main fleet had already left, but I’d catch them up.

Powering up the Pilgrim, I quickly re-familiarised myself with the Amarrian technology and took in the fitting. As expected, had a couple of neuts, armour tank, tracking disruptors and plenty of drones. Good to go. I undocked and quickly flew to QETZ-W, where the majority of the fleet was holding. The FC ordered me into WFC-MY, and I jumped. Sure enough, there they were. I quickly decloaked, MWD engaged (so I wouldn’t be stopped recloaking by the probes I was ejecting), ejected four probes and recloaked. Malchick was in a prober Rapier in system already, but although he found a plex, it was empty. I wasn’t sure what had happened with this as I had yet to arrive.

While I commenced scanning, I figured there was no way they’d be caught. I knew a few of the pilots from previous encounters, and they seemed to be no idiots. They’d see U’K in the local channel and be on their guard, scanning periodically for the Combat Scanner probes which unfortunately show up on scan.

However, as I narrowed down the scan time and time again, 5 seconds seeming like an eternity, it seemed they weren’t going anywhere. With a chirrup, the scanner announced a 100% hit and I engaged warp to them at 20km as I had no idea what I warping into. Alerting the FC, I told him I was WDA. He gave some commands to the others while I gave my full concentration to dropping out of warp.

My overview fills up with ‘stuff’. So much stuff. I quickly filter out the junk and breath a sigh of relief as my cloak holds due to not being too close to anything. Sure enough, three Tengus, a Proteus and a Drake are giving the local Centus a fight. The sheer amount of missiles in space is staggering, the Centus have about fifteen battleships pouring out a stream of cruise missiles. They seem to be concentrating on a Tengu piloted by Lamanesco, so he would be the primary.

I announce I’m there, and I tell the others to jump in and warp to me. I decloak and try to lock up Lamanesco, but as usual get the “[ 2009.12.24 17:36:41 ] (notify) You cannot perform that action at this time as your systems are still recalibrating after the use of a cloaking device.” for about 10 seconds. It’s an agonisingly long wait, but clearly they aren’t paying attention or they’d have seen the probes. As such, none are aligned and I get a disruption cycle on Lamanesco’s Tengu and align out. I am well aware that they have a lot of firepower at their disposal and I am in a relatively frail Recon. I have to stay within disruption range as the other haven’t arrived yet. I spit out some ECM drones and put them on Dr3twa, but meanwhile Lamanesco lights me up, and:

[ 2009.12.24 17:37:07 ] (combat) Caldari Navy Thunderbolt Heavy Missile belonging
 to Lamanesco hits you, doing 1221.4 damage.

Ouch, my shields buckle to 50%, but as I am armour tanked and they are using EM missiles, I am not sweating….yet.

[ 2009.12.24 17:37:08 ] (combat) Centus Dread Lord misses you completely.

Oh, you have to be kidding. Some of the Centus are firing at me now?! Ungrateful gits. It’s a long 30 seconds before the fleet arrives, and now another Tengu is also hitting me with heavy missiles. Fleet arrives and more disruption is applied to the Tengu. I can now get out, my AI is blaring a warning as my shields collapse completely. My cap is mysteriously empty after I initiate warp, perhaps I’m being neuted, but my armour is now being seriously eaten into as I am for some reason not going into warp. Finally the nav computers kick my ship into warp and away from the melee… at 25% armour. I realise I only have a small armour repairer on board, but I can pretty much keep it running permanently.

I hear that Lamanesco’s Tengu is down already. I dump some cap boosters into my straining capacitor, cloak and warp back at 50km, my shield recharging slowly. Disruption is spread as Dr3twa is the next target. Let is be said we are taking quite a beating at this point. Our gang isn’t massive and nor is is particularly heavy on DPS, but with the concentrated fire of the enemy and the damned Centus spreading their fire around, we are having to warp out and back again. Due to experience and not panicking, we are able to ensure we are keeping the enemy pinned and unable to warp where possible.

As I sit at distance, I see Dr3twa is taking a colossal amount of fire from the Centus now. I can’t offer much more to the fight, as the Proteus has disappeared and there is nothing left to tracking disrupt. I decloak and MWD toward Dr3twa who is about 70km from me and well away from my drone range, but in this time, he explodes in a blue flash. We lose Tagami in a Merlin at this point, who got primaried and vapourised. He quickly heads back to V2 to reship into a Rook.

Smikes69 in the Drake is the next target, but we fail to get a point on him as everyone is really spread out by now, and the Drake, Tengu and Proteus warp off and come back, trying to get their loot from the wrecks. We soon see why. The fight peters out now, they are unwilling to risk more (understandably). I ninja loot the wrecks under heavy fire from the Centus who seem to be in a ball of rage the whole time and fill my hold with some lovely loot:

Quite a haul, at the time I had no idea how much the faction stuff was worth.

Back to business. Smikes69 in the Drake is still in system, so I pop out some probes in a safespot and as I have asked the gang to either cloak or assemble in one place I quickly spot a ship where it shouldn’t be. Narrowing down, I prey it won’t move off before I can complete, and ascertain it’s a Drake. I ask if any of the Drakes in our gang are not where they should be… no, they’re all in one place. Weird, as the Sylph Drake pilot isn’t showing in local comms. Oh wait….no…..surely not…. we think he has shut down his ship’s systems to avoid being probed. Normally, this works fine, but not if you’ve recently been in combat due to the electromagnetic build up of combat systems on the hull. You have to let it dissipate first or you can still be probed.

Sure enough, I narrow down, warp to the Drake which is effectively dead in the water. I apply warp disruption and put my drones on him, calling in the rest of the fleet. I can’t imagine what the Drake’s crew must be feeling, their pod pilot has doomed them. As the Drake’s shield collapses, I see tiny escape pods shooting away from the stricken BC at all angles as the crew decide enough’s enough. The Drake explodes but there isn’t anything spectacular in the wreckage.

We spend the next ten minutes chasing the Proteus, but he has a cloak fitted and there is no point trying to find him. I head back to V2 to drop off the loot.

I have to say that although they were silly to get caught, they did have courage to stay and fight. Also, they said “good fight” in local afterwards, which considering their ISK loss, was sporting. Interestingly, I think without the Centus being there, the fight would’ve been a lot closer and we’d have taken more casualties. As our FC put in his AAR:

“As a sidenote, the Sylphies had guts, and they stayed on the field and fought but we had better coordination. Fleet cohesion and discipline won the day. Point rotation was critical, as it allowed us to keep them under constant fire, while we could get out and back.”

Great fight. I need to get me a T3 ship soon

~ by Ombey on December 25, 2009.