End of the Line

“There will come a day where we all reach our end.  Don’t be in such a hurry to get there.”

YESTERDAY

VIVANIER SOLAR SYSTEM
PLACID REGION
GALLENTE FEDERATION

I jumped into the system with members of Penumbra Institute after Trianna had relayed intelligence that numerous members of The Marmite Collective were in Algasienan.  From the sound of it, they had prepared Loki-class Strategic Cruisers with Guardian-class Logistics support.  I willed Bacraut, my Hurricane Fleet Issue-class Battlecruiser into warp to the Algasienan gate as Arth called for the warp.  As I came out of warp, he called out that he was jumping into the system.  I was right behind him.

ALGASIENAN SOLAR SYSTEM
PLACID REGION
GALLENTE FEDERATION

The exterior visual sensors on the Matari battlecruiser which I piloted recalibrated as I jumped into system.  Upon gaining clarity, I realized that there were two Lokis and two Guardians.  Multiple members of The Revenant Order jumped in with us, and I was waiting, still cloaked on the gate.  Multiple -REV- flagged Vexor Navy Issue-class Cruisers decloaked along with a Celestis-class cruiser.  It wasn’t long before the Guardians were tackled and their capacitors being forced down, at which point I called tackle on one of the Lokis.

It didn’t take long with the swarm of heavy drones as well as the fire from my battlecruiser to tear through the Loki’s armor, even with the Guardians attempting to save it.  We then turned our weapons on the Guardian nearest to me, and due to its counterpart having no capacitor, it died relatively quickly.  The other pilots, realizing that they were outnumbered and outgunned, quickly deaggressed and left the area.

 

TODAY

VIVANIER SOLAR SYSTEM
PLACID REGION
GALLENTE FEDERATION

Sensors recalibrated as I jumped into Vivanier from Dour in Slatra, my Typhoon Fleet Issue-class battleship.  It was evident that our war targets wanted a rematch after the previous day’s skirmish.  Furthermore, I believed it an attempt to probe our capabilities.  Today, two Hurricane-class battlecruisers, a Gnosis-class battlecruiser and an Exequror-class cruiser were brought into the fray.  They were hanging around Port Royal, our Azbel-class Engineering Complex, which was being manned by Gavin.

They didn’t seem too keen on engaging anywhere near the structure after I warped into the local space, approximately 100 kilometers from the Duvolle Laboratories station.

I thought for a moment, and aligned Slatra toward the star, attempting to bait them into following me, but it was evident that they did not want to fight there either.  However, moments later, as Slatra came out of warp on the Dour stargate, it was evident where we would be fighting.

The Gnosis was the first to engage.

They had committed to their course of action, and even a neutral Augoror-class cruiser pilot had entered the fray in an attempt to assist our enemies.

We focused fire, and removed the logistics vessels first.

From there, it wasn’t long before their fleet fell.  This victory was not without losses, however, we had cost our enemy more, and those who lost ships were compensated.  From there, we went and celebrated.

END

 

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Recruitment Poster #8

Karma

“When someone takes it upon themselves to be an asshole at every turn, there will come a day where karma bitch slaps them.”

GRISPIRE SOLAR SYSTEM
PLACID REGION
GALLENTE FEDERATION

“Well, it’s only got about thirty seconds left,” I said over our communications channel as I surveyed the Fortizar-class Citadel which loomed about five-hundred kilometers off the bow of Gungnir, my Nemesis-class Stealth Bomber.  A response came back from one of my pilots, “You really think they’re going to show up to finish this thing off?  And you think that these guys will try to put up a fight?”  I smirked, “I don’t just think that.  I’d bet on it.”

A cynosural beacon suddenly came to life on my long-range scanners as well as my sensor overview, “Right on cue,” I said with a chuckle.

Local telemetry suddenly spiked, bringing the number of pilots in system to well over a hundred.  As I sorted through telemetry as ships began hitting grid, namely a very respectably-sized Nightmare-class Battleship fleet and a Cerberus-class Heavy Assault Cruiser fleet, I recognized the names of the entities entering the system.  Pilots from the corporation which owned the Fortizar undocked, and sat outside in inexpensive ships, as most had been seen evacuating their larger, more expensive vessels earlier.

Local communications channels were a flurry of people shit-talking one another.  A few voices I recognized, the others I didn’t.  With a bit of a laugh, I aligned Gungnir down toward the Fortizar.  I decloaked, targeted and launched a few volleys of torpedoes and awaited the reactivation of my cloaking device before warping back to my observation point.  Several of my pilots did the same.

It wasn’t long before the structure started venting atmosphere, and for a moment, I almost felt bad about the lives of the crew which would be lost, but then shook my head because they had chosen their path.  The first major hull breach came with a bright flash of light, and a series of I-beams collapsing in on one another.  Plates drifted away, the edges molten and ragged.  Clouds of flash-frozen bodies were emitted from the voids in the plating of the once-majestic structure.  Secondary explosions rippled through the structure, and for a moment they fell away to silence.  Immediately following the silence was a brilliant flash as the structure exploded, plumes of fire and flash-cooled slag erupted in all directions, the bodies consumed by the fire of the massive structure.

Karma.

END

Underestimation

“Go ahead.  Underestimate me and see how that works out for you.”

DUVOLLE LABORATORIES FACTORY
GRISPIRE SOLAR SYSTEM
PLACID REGION
GALLENTE FEDERATION

I was finishing preflight checks on Miskunn, my Ninazu-class Force Auxiliary when the call came out, “Jack, they’re here.  Looks like they plan on finishing the job they started.”

A group had moved into the area, and had reinforced our customs offices, and with a little bit of lucky timing, we had reduced a battleship fleet that they had brought to finish the job into a drifting debris cloud.  As a direct response, they declared war to attempt to intimidate us, making the mistake of underestimating us.  In the opening skirmishes of the war, we erased two of their fleets.  Well, this time the stakes had been upped, and they were calling for the ante.

I undocked and directed all of my pilots to warp off directly from the station and wait.  From there, I ordered the fleet to align to the Grispire V Customs Office, and wait for further instructions.  Our pilots were already set, and the plan was in place.

We dropped out of warp into the middle of a Muninn fleet, but they had also opted to bring a Revelation-class and Phoenix-class Dreadnought out.  As soon as we were able to confirm that both ships had engaged their siege modules, one of our pilots lit the cynosural field beacon on their ship, and help arrived in the form of a small Shadow Cartel fleet.  In a matter of seconds, both dreadnoughts were destroyed, and the fleet that had eradicated them left as quickly as they had come.

The Customs Offices were saved.

As with any comic villain, these guys tried again.

“Jack, I swear, if you undock your carrier, it ain’t coming back,” one of my pilots warned.  I brushed it off, “Dude, I got this.”

Moments later, Valhalla, my Thanatos-class carrier was in space, in warp to the Customs Office at Grispire V, as it seemed they had a hard-on for that particular Customs Office.  Again, a Muninn fleet was present, only this time they had brought out a Chimera-class carrier in an attempted to counter my Thanatos.  Well, what they weren’t counting on was the heavy tackle decloaking in a Proteus off the bow of the Chimera, and my Thanatos proceeding to neuting out the vessel, and then a cynosural beacon went up, and numerous Shadow Cartel capital ships appeared, making quick work of the Chimera before moving on.

I aligned and warped Valhalla out of there before any of the enemies got any more bright ideas.  After that incident, it wasn’t long before the war was invalidated and for the most part we have been left alone.

END

Thoughts From the Commander #214

Being a boss is easy. Being a leader is hard.

Catching Up

“It takes a while to catch up when you have so much going on that you can barely keep your head clear.”

DUVOLLE LABORATORIES FACTORY
GRISPIRE SOLAR SYSTEM
PLACID REGION
GALLENTE FEDERATION

I sat at my desk nursing a cup of synthetic coffee and smoking a cigarette before finally motivating myself to get up. I checked my chronograph, and realized that we still had about twenty minutes before our Customs Office came out from its reinforcement cycle. Gisl, my Magus-class Command Destroyer was prepared, and help was on the way.

I sealed myself in my capsule, only to undock, and warp to a pocket of space that I had established that I could scan from. I ran directional scan as well as monitored local telemetry. As the minutes ticked down, I definitely noticed an uptick of activity, and one of my pilots directed my attention to the spike in numbers in the system.

The trap was sprung. One of the pilots in our fleet had just finished scanning, and the fleet jumped into system, warping to the enemy fleet which planned on destroying my corporation’s Customs Office. I smirked as the fleet landed, and the fleet commander began calling targets.

The next few minutes to anyone watching from the outside would appear to be chaos, but our communications were clear with the exception of targets being called, and broadcasted targets as well as broadcasts for remote repairs.

The enemy battleship fleet lost its remote repairs as well as its electronic warfare first, and then the next to die was the pilot identified as their fleet commander. Battleships were dying all around, and it was a magnificent testament to the viability of cruisers, as well as a bloodbath. At the end of the battle, the Customs Office remained, and the entire enemy fleet had been destroyed with very few exceptions.

I snickered as I secured the area for those salvaging wrecks and picking up pieces from the destroyed vessels. “Well, that was fucking beautiful,” I said to myself.

END

Thoughts From the Commander #214

There need to be laws against being stupid.