Our fleet formed up due to a strange CTA vacuum. We ended up having a few Hurricanes, a couple of Scimitars, a Curse, a Drake, and a Sabre.
We left on the roam, checked a few places out but it was pretty quiet, found a few neutrals but they were docked up or safely tucked away somewhere.
Our Fleet Controller (FC) logged, and also another Hurricane so our small fleet became smaller.
By this stage I was scouting in my 'cane, jumped through a gate to find in local fifteen or so nuets, holding cloak and using the directional scanner to try and find their fleet composition. Which turned out to be pretty redundant as they started landing on the gate with what seemed like two of every battle cruiser, a logistics and an assault frigate.
Suggesting to our fleet on the other side of the gate they may wish to get safe, I attempt to re-approach the gate at speed.
The bad guys were still clustered close around the gate, they'd not spread out to try and find me, which is what I had hoped would happen as I'd jumped in before the first of them had landed on the gate, but now my thirty second cloak timer was running out.
Adjusted the testicles, selected the gate, hit approach, switched on the Micro Warp Drive, and other modules and waited to see what would happen.
It would seem I've surprised them as it's a quarter of the way to the gate before the first yellow boxes appear, building up speed and halfway there when the first damage starts hitting the shields. Expecting a bump from their faster ships at any second, or the soul crushing double web, but rather surprisingly hit the gate having taken only twenty percent damage and jumped through, they don't immediately follow.
Our fleet leaves the gate for the relative safety of a planet, the FC creates a safer warp position a couple of hundred kilometers further on and we align to a station. Not long afterwards one of their 'canes warps in on us, we then warp to station. The rest of their ships warp in and the order is given to dock up.
Bio break!
Refreshing! Hey look a blue is in local.
Then many more blues as local fills up, deciding this could be a good time to make a break for it we undock and warp somewhere to get off station.
Meanwhile...
In system the reds have entered combat with the blue gang, outnumbered about five to one they are destroyed, but like bad prawns they don't know when to give up.
Wearing the scout hat again I warp to the out gate only to be caught in a bubble, destroying the bubble another fleet member also becomes caught before the bubble goes down. Deciding sitting where a bubble was about 130km from gate is a substandard situation I start burning for the gate.
About a third of the way there and the reds start landing at where the bubble was, my fleet mate is not with me and soon becomes swamped by half a dozen reds. Their smaller faster ships start burning towards mine, I'm closer to the gate than my certainly soon to be destroyed fleet mate, the reds getting closer, I'm shooting "over my shoulder" to discourage them when the rest of our fleet arrives where the bubble was.
The rest of our fleet attacks the reds while madly repping the previously outnumbered fleet mate.
At this stage we are probably outnumbered and outgunned, the reds have re-shipped faster than a fat guy reaching for another donut but local still has plenty of blues, who start arriving at the battle.
Never have I been more happy to see a bunch of Goonies than now, but their fleet composition seems to be mostly frigates with some battle cruisers.
The battlefield is long, stretching about one hundred kilometres from near to the jump gate back towards where the bubble was. The outcome of the battle seems assured but with the blues so stretched out local pockets of reds are still dangerous, you could lose your ship while surrounded by blues very easily at this stage.
The FC calls out targets, but I'm well out of position compared to the rest of the fleet. Spotting a Jaguar fairly close I put a few shots into him, going down fast he's soon travelling home in the pod express for the second time tonight.
Suddenly the FC hands fleet control over to me as he's too busy to FC at the same time, by this stage though only three red ships remain, a 'cane and two Drakes.
However the Drake's are very close to my ship, one of them is running a NOS or Nuet, my cap is dropping faster than a heavy thing. Rather selfishly I call the closest Drake as the primary target and belatedly the other Drake as the secondary, their 'cane died during the FC change over. Pretty soon both Drakes are down and the battlefield is ours!
Exchanging much love to our fellow Goonies in local, who seem to be doing the same to us we back slap for half a minute and then start making our way home, arriving not long afterwards.
These are the fights we hope for when joining fleet.
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