Saddle Up!

We have been sitting near this moon for what seems like days waiting for our war targets to show themselves.  Roku and I have been piloting Stealth Bombers, staying hidden and trying to keep our enemy off guard.

We are outnumbered and outgunned, as I did not join the corporation until after the decision to declare war had been made I was not there to decide.  Given the situation we are now in I would have wished for a no vote.

However here we are, defending another corporation that is unable or unwilling to defend itself, we are barely able to provide an attack ourselves given the beat up nature of the corporation at the moment.  I’ve been promised the situation will improve but you fight with the tools you have available.

We have a war target in system, he is sitting outside one of the stations trying to goad the industrialists to undock, I am also trying to convince them to undock and together we can attack the ship, a Rattlesnake, a faction Battleship.  Our fleet is a motley affair, two Stealth Bombers, a Drake and an unknown combat ship, perhaps some of the other members of the industry corporation will undock and fight when it begins, I certainly hope so.

Minutes go by, I am anxious to attack this thing, Roku is almost making his bomber bounce with anticipation, he is on the comms to me constantly.  The industrialists are taking much convincing, all this time I am worried the enemy will leave the station or maybe the system.  One of the things keeping him there is his confidence, his arrogance, something I’m hoping will be his downfall.

Finally I get an agreement on a battle plan, however tenuous it is.  So the two industry corporation ships will tank with some attack and we in the bombers will be all attack, we have no damage mitigation.

“Here it goes”, was the only message I received from the primary tank pilot in his Drake, he sounded tense.

We warp to the station, the Drake is taking the damage well, also hitting the Rattlesnake for some damage.  The enemy has deployed heavy drones, just as we appear.  Both Roku and I target the Battleship and let loose volleys of torpedoes, the damage on his shields accelerates rapidly.  He pulls in his drones.

I chat with Roku, “Lookout for light drones, he’ll go for one of us”.

“Yep on it”, replies Roku.

The bastard targets me, drones come streaming out, flashing red as they target and start attacking the ship, I’m still attacking the Battleship but looking for an exit, somewhere to warp to, I choose a destination and warp away, almost in hull, I’m out of the fight for now.

The warp tunnel collapses and I immediately set warp back to where I came from but a little further out, engage the cloak and head back. The warp tunnel collapses once again and I can see how the fight is progressing.

Roku is now being attacked by the same drones and also warps away, though doesn’t seem as badly damaged as I was, he’ll be back soon.

“Don’t break my cloak when you come back”, I request giving him directions on how to avoid my now invisible ship.

“No worries.  While you were gone one of the indy ships undocked in a Frigate and flew away”, Roku said.

“What the fuck! Who was it?”, I yelled.

He told me, I was not happy.  So our promised local support was gone, non local support was too far away to help, though coming very fast.  However on the plus side the other guy acting as the tank was doing a great job.

We both un cloaked and re entered the battle, this time doing slashing attacks, I noticed the heavy drones, which he had brought back out to attack the Drake, were expensive ones, so I targeted them, he soon brought them back into his drone bay.

He was disengaging and trying to leave the fight, as we both had him warp jammed the only way was to dock up, at least thirty seconds away.

The tank pilot signalled he was shutting down the launchers and will disengage, I asked why but saw why at the same time.

Some local nobody had seen the attack, decided the Rattlesnake was in trouble and started repairing his shield using heavy reppers, his shields were coming back quicker than normal.

I called off the attack, told the Drake pilot to dock up and both Roku and I warped away to a safe spot, disgusted as we had the damn thing.  His shields were going down, he was trying to disengage and some local prick ruins what would have been a great war kill.

The rest of his corporation finally turns up a few minutes later in system, they are quite happy and tell everybody about it.  They regard it as a win.  They do not realise, and I would be surprised if their ‘snake pilot told them, how close he came to being destroyed if it were not for the random hand of fate.

We leave system and head home.