Fighting in TVN – Paying the price

Not sure what day it is. We have been patrolling the space lanes constantly in the system called TVN. It’s deep in the hearth of Hydra Space. Have not had a good night sleep in a while. Powering down the ship and spending the night in a pod is not my idea of fun.

There are pod pilots that spend weeks on end in their pod hooked up to the internal systems of their ship. It is not healthy and many fall victim to drugs and some even inject boosters directly into their pods. There are side effects of such abuse of course and seeing the human wrecks wandering about aimlessly in stations is a horrible sight.

We hit the Hydra Cyno Jammers constantly in hit and run tactics. We are outnumbered 1:3 at most times but occasionally we are at pair in numbers. There have been grumblings in the Hydra High Command that they are victims of spies that pass on vital Intel to us.

Spies is a risk we all have to run, but actually Hydra have far less spies than they believe. Those they have on the other hand are the worst kind. They would sell their own home planet for a few ISK. In the beginning we were contacted daily if we were interested in buying this and that information.
Many think that because we have a titan we would like to use it in the most disrespectful way imaginable. The full annihilation of a fleet inside a POS force field. But we don’t play that way, or as some would claim, at that level. On the other hand we would not stand back to use the titan on any other occasion and last night was such a night. We did however not have any vital Intel inside Hydra at that point. That honor of superb Intel befell our Recon pilots.

There was heavy fighting in TVN. From early morning to late night we fight. We all feel the fatigue.
Mistakes are bound to happen, but not that night. I joined the battle at a stage where we were outnumbered by a fleet 3 times the size of ours. Our fleet was happily busy taking down the Cyno Jammer once again. The TVN Station was bubbled so Hydra could not just undock and warp in on us.
More than once we had to pull out as the Hydra fleet undocked and got aligned for our location.
We had many cloaked Recon and Covert OP ships in the system. As I have mentioned earlier we have very good Recon pilots.

The Cyno Jammer had the full attention of two Recon pilots, the station had one, our own POS had one and another Hydra POS they seem to use a lot also had a pilot sitting and watching.
We know Hydra employ Recon pilots them self but they are not as effective in conveying information.

The fighting had reached a critical stage and the Hydra fleet started warp procedures to the Cyno Jammer. We in turn warped to the station and caught a straggler. Keydan of the DEFCON. Corporation and was first to fall victim, caught in the bubble at the station, he missed the gang warp of the Hydra Fleet and was caught and reported by our light support fleet.

His battle cruiser was reduced to a wreck of twisted metal in the blink of an eye, but for some reason my 425mm rails did disappointing little damage. The crew was reprimanded for having failed to maintain the guns properly and a hectic activity took place to ratify the mistake.
I’m going to have to fire some of the slaggers when we get down to empire or hell, even leave them at some low security space station to fend for them self. We are tired and mistakes are made but we have to keep a tight ship and never slag on maintenance.

We aligned back towards our own POS, at some point our fleet got stretched out, and as our doctrine dictates that the fleet should be within remote repairing range of each other we warped to the POS to reform.

At the POS we aligned for the Cyno Jammer once again and warped to it. We constantly had eyes on the enemy fleet. This time the enemy fleet had a plan, and we were about to fall victim if it were not for our Recon pilots. At the Cyno Jammer we kept a steady pace at about 70 m/sec. First the enemy fleet aligned for another planet than the one we were at but quickly discovered their mistake and aligned for planet 8.
We aligned full speed ahead ready to warp out. The enemy let a lone Sabre class interdictor warp to us 3 seconds in advance of the main Hydra fleet. This was where their plan faltered. Our ships warped out to a Recon ship just 2 seconds before the enemy fleet landed on us. A slight miscalculation unfortunately prevented us from taking on the Hydra fleet at range.

The two fleets eyed each other from afar. The tension could be felt from far away. The Hydra Pilots hated us for invading their space and wanted nothing else than landing on our small fleet.
Unable to engage us the enemy fleet commander warped out the Hydra fleet but for some reason not all were aligned and what was a large fighting force turned into a target of opportunity. A quick interceptor pilot named Skittish, was on the straggler in seconds and started pondering on the Typhoon class battleship. The small ship disabled the warp core of the enemy ship and held him in place till the main fleet arrived.

The Hydra fleet had had enough for one day and prepared to leave the system. Eddz and TJ had a quick communiqué and decided it was time for a titanic goodbye.
As the enemy fleet sat on their jump bridge the titan warped in and took out a large proportion.

Slow reaction will get you killed, straggling behind will get you killed and bad maintenance will get you killed. EvE is a harsh universe where the least of mistakes results in paying the highest price. We all make mistakes and it is only a matter of time before we eventually must pay for them.
Everyone pays.

Day of Doom

Monday, god I hate Mondays. But not this one, this was going to be one of the best.

Coffe is a lifesaver in the morning and no less than three cups can make me awake.

We had just relocated from Torrinos, a high sec system with the unique property that it was right next to the lawlessness of a system Concord had seen fit to name EC-.

We had great fights with TRI and one time I was more close to loose my HAC than I would like to admit.

Right after Mondays I hate relocation. However our CEO had had dealings with an agent of an alliance that would like to see the head of another alliance named Hydra on a plate.

Hydra is known to me as I previously have mentioned I was employed by the alliance in a former life that now seems far away.

We started the exodus and moved through the low sec systems with our destination set for Obe. Blessed is the auto pilot in high sec systems. They have never interested me and I almost never pay attention to what goes on. Though they reportedly should be filled with hardworking and honest people I know better.

Everyone is trying to screw everyone and illegal sales of everything from money to slaves and drugs are common sight. The local chatter on the public communication channels is no different this travel than any other. I ordered the crew to complete radio silence as we slow boated along through one stargate after another.

When I arrived small skirmishes had already taken place all sunday. First blood had been drawn by the opening of fire on an unarmed mining barge. KIA had arrived and we were letting our hosts know it by sending in small raid parties to scout the area.

Ombey, McKinlay and Mikhalio had the honor of “first to draw enemy blood”
http://killboard.kia-clan.info/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=18180

As a Phylacista mentioned when he heard of the barge: “and so it begins….”

As the day progressed Daisho Syndicate, Body Count Inc. and Sharks With Frickin’ Laser Beams showed up as well to join the battle. The friends of Tortuga was back to work.

The objective was set to take down the Cyno Jammer of the system called P3EN so that we could call in capital support in order to take down the other towers.

We started early so that we could take the Jammer down before the Hydra pilots could react in force.

A fleet of over 40 battleships enganged the Jammer, while a small force of Heavy Assault Ships held the gate to Obe and recons were sent into the IPAY system.

I myself had not gotten my Megathron class Battleship to Obe yet so I was in my brand new Falcon. I scouted the Jumpbridge that led to TVN and as I was former Hydra we had full intel on their logistic routes. Intel ticked into my com board that Hydra was on an OP with PURE to take down a TRI POS. I relayed the information and was informed to keep an eye on Hydra activities.

The Cyno Jammer was down to half armor when Hydra broke off from the siege and started to head for TVN (one of their major Hub systems). Desperate calls were going out that all Hydra members were to report in TVN and form up in battle formations. As they formed up in TVN we took down the Cyno Jammer and our alliance sneaked in a surprise.

A plan was quickly formed that the trap should be sprung on the Tower where the jumpbridge was but there were reports of warp jamming towers and other nasty stuff. We were told to wait on the gate to Obe for Hydra. We were sure they were here to fight for their space.

We waited a long time as the Hydra commanders got the fleet set up and finally jumped through. They warped straight to their damaged Cyno jammer and started repairs. Communication must have been bad cause from my cloaked position I saw no carriers or other ships that were up to the task of repairing such a large damaged structure. They did have 2-3 Logistic ships but nowhere near what should have been there.

When it became apparent that Hydra was not going to fight us we tried to appear small and insignificant by swapping out a large proportion of our battleships with Heavy Assault Ships.

Hydra did not take the bait or did not care about us. Their only priority was the Cyno Jammer.

Disappointed with the development Tjakka (TJ) took command in his Rapier and ordered everyone back in Battleships and to be ready at the Obe gate in P3EN.

The fleet got back and hit and run tactics started. The fleet warped to TJ, aligned back towards the Obe gate and opened fire on a target that strayed too far from the safety of the tower shield.

It quickly resulted in kills and the guys in the fleet made jokes on the fleet communication channel while we bled Hydra.

After a few losses they adapted and did not stray from the tower shield but came to the same conclusion as I that there were not enough to repair the tower and even worse they could not repair the structural damage as their engineers were only trained in basic armor repair and not the finer art of structural repair to complex systems.

The result was that they opted to shoot the tower and place a new one. Not a bad plan at all but again it involved them coming out form the tower shield.

Our fleet changed tactic and warped in to start repairs of the very same tower we had previously damaged. The irony was not lost on any of our pilots and comments went out once again over the communication channels.

We again got contacted if we were interested in buying information on the tower password. We all knew what that meant and it was yet another road we were not prepared to walk down.

It was late and I had to leave the fleet. I powered down all systems in the station in Obe and went to bed. Only to wake up to the news that not only had yesterday been a complete success but as the enemy fleet left P3EN they ran into yet another logistic problem in the form of too little jump fuel in their jump bridge.

The trap that was initially thought to be sprung when they entered had been changed to when they exited. The Hydra fleet had been milling about the jump bridge while waiting for refueling when our Titan saw action. In one swift strike the once proud fleet was decimated to wrecks in a fiery blast.

As quick as the Titan had entered it was gone again.

This had concluded what had started as a dull Monday.