It began as I logged into Comms while running my
Planet Goo business and heard the rumblings of some activity with Stealth
Bombers in Null. So needless to say, the
restarting of extractors could wait and I quickly logged on to my combat character
in Null.
I guess to start I should mention that I love
Stealth Bombers. I mean I downright Love
these little beasts. I assume it is a
side effect of living so long in a Wormhole, where stealth is king, and bombs
are Queen. To top it off, I get great
satisfaction watching people in the Stealth Bomber when I know they are going
to die, and they don’t yet.
So I log in, jump into the Purifier, and head off
for the target system.
As I am warping to the system, I hear on Comms there
is a Command Ship in a site with wrecks.
Oh Sweet Lord of Eve, let it be true.
As I hang on the last gate to avoid another +1 spooking
the prey, I hear our fleet has grown to 3 Stealth Bombers and a Falcon. We all figured if it was a trap we were
willing to lose 3 SB’s for a shot at a Command Ship, but we were fairly certain
this was not a trap.
Our scout lands on grid with the Nighthawk and
confirms he is just merrily ratting away.
The order is given to assemble on grid, so I jump and warp to 10km off
the lead scout. Sure enough, the
Nighthawk is finishing a site with Fighter escort. I am sure he felt with Fighters he was more
than safe enough to handle the 4 reds in system.
When we confirm all 4 cloakies are in position, the
order was given to launch the attack.
With the unknown of where everyone was, we decided against bombs and
went straight for the torps.
The initial volleys hit their target and the shields
made no effort to recover. The Falcon
pilot happily reported the target was jammed, and the SB’s proceeded to pound
the target into submission, which didn’t take long. A look at the KB later confirmed the buffer
fit. We waited on grid for any response
and covered the SB looting the wreck. We
then warped to safes and warped back in at range to look for the response from
his almost 20 friends in local. Nothing
came.
As we waited on grid for something, anything, to
happen we received notice on Comms from our scout watching their station that
our friend had undocked in a Raven. “He
is aligning towards you” quickly followed.
With the Command Ship kill already under our belt we
were playing with house money at this point so we held on the field and waited
for our friend to arrive in another ship.
He did not disappoint as he landed on grid with his Raven about 20km off
my position.
I quickly confirmed everyone was in place, and
satisfied we were ready, I uncloaked, primed the Warp Disruptor and Torps, and
locked the Raven. Again the Falcon pilot
reported the target was jammed.
As the Raven melted, a Manticore uncloaked about
60km off me, locked me and started to launch torps. About the same time the Fighters reappeared on
the scene. My Neocom screeched at me as
my shields melted and armor started to vaporize. I aligned quickly and hit the warp button to
my safe. I landed and continued to listen
to the situation as a drake and another ship landed to aid their friend.
The order was given to warp to safes, and about that
time I suddenly had a fleet of fighters land on me. I was not happy to see them, but as I warped to
a second safe I was happy I had pulled them off the field. I remembered to cloak this time.
The fog of war played in here as we did not know if
we had succeeded in the kill of the raven or not. As we warped back in at 100km we saw the
Raven wreck, but we never did get a Killmail for it. On the shame.
So we were sure the night was done and the fourth SB
on the field was lamenting his bad luck at missing the fight and our scout on
the station had left to find other targets.
I guess the target also thought the night was over, because after about
5 to 10 minutes, in warps a Cormorant.
We laughed, got into position and proceeded to
dispatch the cormorant in plenty of time before they could “spring the trap”
again. As the Calvary arrived, we were
all in warp to safes and laughing in Comms at the persistence of these people.
Now we are sure they have learned their lesson and
are not stupid enough to try again to trap our merry little gang of SB’s (which
has grown to 5 now), but our scout (now back on their station) reports a
Pilgrim undocking. Say it isn’t so
Joe. Guess Forrest was right, “Stupid is
as Stupid Does”.
Sure enough, the Pilgrim lands on grid. One of our SB’s is fit to hit from almost
80km and we decide to let him fire a couple of volleys from that range and see
what happens. The rest of us closed to within point range. Nothing happens except the Pilgrim starts to
bleed shields.
Since we are still playing with house money, we
decide to go for another kill. We all
uncloak and proceed to pound the Pilgrim.
Sure enough the scout at station reports a fleet of 4 BC’s and a Falcon
undocking. At the same time the
Manticore uncloaks again at about 60km off the Pilgrim.
We all hold field long enough to kill the Pilgrim,
and start to align to safes. One of the
pilots announces they have the Pod, and three of us hang around just long
enough to launch a volley at the pod before hitting warp as his backup finally
arrives on the scene.
We throw a few barbs in local about yet
another fail trap, and we warp back in at range again. But alas, the Pilgrim was their final
attempt at trapping us.
They get at A for effort, and we get three ships
and a Pod, with a fourth ship destroyed but never accounted for on the
Killboard. Not a bad night, for us.
And yes Carebears, I managed to reset my extractor
heads too.
Fly Safe,
Mick
