Tears in Nullsec

"Begin recording...

"So these past few days have been a whirlwind of activity...so brace yourself as this might be a bit long...

"To start with, I'm now out in Nullsec (and no, I didn't get popped on my way out. In fact, I've yet to lose a ship, knock on wood). Life out here is certainly everything and at the same time nothing like what I expected. Even the feeling you get flying around, calling systems with no real name but rather a series of letters, dashes, and numbers, as home is just....well....odd. Tactics are also a lot different really than those I'm used to in Empire. Understandable of course given the extra tools available for use, but I find it interesting how those few extra items make combat a completely different animal. I've also learned a few things already in regards to my skills. There are certain skills that I've learned are essential for living and surviving in 0.0 that I never really put much consideration towards while living in empire.

"For instance, as a 'younger' pilot living in nullsec, instead of having spent so much time training to use an assault frig, I think I might have been better off training up to fly an interceptor. Not saying assault frigates are bad by any means given they lead up to using a heavy assault cruiser....but perhaps it would of been better time spent learning to fly an interceptor well rather than the assault. With that ship, I would be more useful, or at least feel more useful, in large fleet ops, than I do trying to pilot a battleship I know I'm far from being able to fly appropriately. So my personal suggestion to all the younger pilots looking to eventually live in 0.0, learn to fly the interceptor. You'll be happy you did."

*a slight pause as she reclines further back into her seat, her mind going distant for a moment as she contemplates the events over the past few days*

"Anyways...I'm rambling.

"Also, forgive me if I don't get all the details right as things were a bit of a rush and thus quite a blur for me.

"I believe it was Thursday evening that I finally arrived at the designated location. I'd made the trip in my cov-ops frigate with pretty much nothing but my ship and a few changes of clothes. All of my personal and gear had been contracted to the corporation for transport but had yet to arrive. No real concern but it meant there really wasn't much I could do at that moment. I did take the frig out for a little roam around the area, to familiarize myself with the surrounding systems as well as to set up safe spots and other useful bookmarks. Besides that, I believe things were rather quiet that night, though I had a number of things to get organized in regards to my computer files and communications equipment, so I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to comms.

"Friday, however, was a completely different story. My gear had arrived sometime over night. Props to the corporation's logistics folks for the rather expedient service. I actually was impressed at how quickly it arrived. I still had a number of in-station duties I had to tend to but otherwise I worked a bit on getting my ships set up. Of course, as many know, moving can be such a trial. It was while directing the maintenance crew on what modules to install on what ships that I realized how much equipment I'd managed to forget. So yay! Another 4 or 500 mil down the drain on yet more gear....

"Fortunately, before I'd left empire, I was at least smart enough to hire on a hauler pilot. She's a Minmatar who'd recently escaped from Amarr captivity. She'd bravely lead a small group of slaves to take control of a Bestower industrial ship and piloted it back through hostile territory to the safety of Gallante space. I'd heard about her through an acquaintance and was quick to track her down and hire her on full time as my empire asset manager slash transporter. And so far she's been doing a phenomenal job flying the very same hauler she'd 'acquired' during her escape.

"Anyways, I sent her the list of items and then sat on my butt waiting for them to be delivered. There was an op that went down that evening but with the missing modules, I just didn't have a proper ship ready and had to pass the opportunity up. Instead, I headed out in the cov-ops again and sat around watching traffic at a heavily traveled gate. Comm log showed me a fellow writer and alliance mate, Manasi, had passed through the system saying hello but I think I'd fallen asleep in my pod when he'd passed. Oops! Sorry bout that Manasi!

"So okay...that might have been Friday... though it might have been Saturday as well. To be honest, as I said before, things are a little hazy for me.

"Either way, Sunday finally came around. That was when I finally got my first chance to go out on a fleet op with the alliance as well as some friendly 'blues'. It seems there was another alliance called Brick Squad that had been annoying my new employers for a fair amount of time. What this B.S. alliance doesn't seem to comprehend is that when a mosquito continuously bites at a giant, eventually it's going to get swatted.

"Now...truth is they're no small alliance themselves. And I don't completely disregard their combat capabilities. However, they definitely didn't prove anything to me this past weekend other than to show off their ability to google insults from the comfort of a station.

"ANYway......Sometime earlier, my alliance had put a station into reinforced mode. Sunday morning, the station was scheduled to come out of reinforced and a fleet was formed to take it down. For this op...I was (or so I thought) ready.

"We undocked from our staging base and formed up around a titan. At this point, I'd like to stop and say wow! I mean, it was my first time seeing a titan and I gotta admit, it was truly a sight to behold. I knew they were massive... but seriously, no picture can truly define the shear size of the thing. Seeing it for the first time was truly a moment I'll never forget.

"But okay....before I get distracted again.... once the fleet was formed, the titan activated a jump bridge, allowing us all to jump from our home system into the enemy's home system.

"At this point, I'm not going to go into too much detail for security reasons but through a coordinated attack, we easily destroyed the POS with minimal losses incurred by, forgive me, ignorant pilots. I was fired upon myself at one point and was easily able to warp away, replenish my shields (never even touched armor) and warp back to rejoin the op. So how some people lost their ships is beyond me when I, a rather young pilot, can so easily survive.

"Now this is where I gotta throw in my two isk on the completely undisciplined chatter in local comms from the 'fearsome' Brick Squad. If your POS gets attacked and put into reinforced mode, you know they're likely to return and you also know almost precisely when. You ALSO know they're not going to show up with just a handful of ships, especially being such a large alliance! For instance, a comment was made in regards to Manasi's entry about the whole engagement by one of their members, that I think had so many holes in it, it was comical to say the least. As I basically said earlier, don't cry your tears when you continuously poke at us and we finally grow tired enough to swat back. I mean seriously..... again.... they pretty much knew exactly when we'd be returning and yet they stood by and did nothing but talk shit while hiding away in their holes.... Gotta love tears in nullsec.

"Later that day, we went back to harass them some more. We basically sat around their entry gate while still, again, they hid and pretty much did nothing. Occasionally a stealth bomber would warp in and drop a bomb on our fleet. Big whoop. I'd say only only about 50% of their bombs even hit us, and those that did barely scratched our ships. OCCASIONALLY, they got lucky and i think we lost maybe one or two frigates but that's it. On the other hand, we destroyed a number of their ships in the process.

"So.... to sum up, it really was a very entertaining day. For myself personally, I had a lot of revelations about my own ship fit, to include how horrible my range is. I can currently only fit T1 large hybrids. Not completely horrible I guess, but when you take into account all I currently had to use was antimatter charges which have a serious range decrease..... well... needless to say, the range we were at to the tower was out of my reach. I made a couple shots but realized I wasn't going to hit shit, so instead just focused on helping by repping my fleet mates when needed. Sucked I couldn't add to the dps being laid on the tower but ahh well, it was still good to fly with everyone.

"End recording."