Sleeping in the Enemy’s House

Having checked the day prior, Selina had read an alliance mail of an early morning CTA. No particular goal in mind, it was claimed to be a simple roam, hoping to get some nice kills in. When the time came however, the CTA was called off and instead, a small gang of about 20 to 25 pilots decided to go for a long roam anyways.

Powering up the systems of her Ishkur, she undocked and made her way to the rally point. It had been quite some time since she’d been on any organized roams and she was determined to fulfill that growing need for blood and destruction. This particular fleet consisted of mostly smaller ships; a few cruisers, interdictors, heavy assault cruisers, some battlecruisers and a small flight of frigates, hers included. It felt good to be back in her Ishkur and with the minimal numbers of frigates in the fleet, she expected she was going to be busy.

After they had gathered at the rally point, the destination system was given and they immediantly set out. Thirty-seven jumps, her navigation computer informed her, with much of that through Goon space. As much as she despised Goons, as much as she wanted to wipe them from the face of Eve and everything they stood for, it still made her a tad nervous to travel so far through the space they held sovereignty over. They were an enormous presence in 0.0 with perhaps the largest pilot roster currently in existance. They weren’t necessarily considered exceptional pilots, but their numbers certainly made up for it. And with so many numbers, they had the luxury of forming large fleets rather quickly. However, the beauty of it was the inevitable ability to find plenty of targets as well as a good fleet fight.

But anyways, for the first half of the roam, things went alright. Few significant targets were found except a passing Hurricane that was obviously set up for ratting. Sadly, Selina didn’t even get in close enough to let loose some of her dust covered ammo. The unfortunate pilot had decloaked on the far side of the gate from where she was and went down so fast that just as she’d got her disrupter on it, the ship went poof.

From that point forward, things took a definite turn for the worse…

It really was no fault of the Fleet Commander’s or a lack of skill in the fleet. Fact of the matter was they quite possibly of a spy amongst the fleet, relaying their position and heading. It was either that, or the nearly 40 man goon fleet waiting for them had Lady Luck flying their wing.

The scouts for Selina’s fleet reported the present danger and even after resetting their course and trying to evade, the enemy fleet always seemed to know where they were going and used their jump bridges to repeatedly get ahead. Inevitably, they became trapped in a system, outgunned and outnumbered. All they could do was run from one safe spot to another, hoping to evade at all costs the numerous scanner probes seeking them out. At one point, they counted roughly 20 combat scanner probes out, in an attempt to locate them in their safe spots.

Finally, the order was given for them all to power down their systems and wait a bit, hoping that perhaps their pursuers would get bored enough to leave, or at least become slightly lax, giving them an opportunity to escape. Eventually they did and after quickly powering back up, the fleet made a run for it. But as with before, the goon fleet jump bridged ahead of them and once more they were cut off. It was still a hopeless fight. so once again, the order was given to power down all but the most basic life support systems. A brief discussion ensued from which it was determined a set amount of time would be waited out. If they powered their ships up once again and found themselves still camped in the system, then they would just go down fighting. Either way, after unplugging herself from her pod, Selina got a bit caught up in a movie in the frigate’s rec room that she missed the designated time to make their escape.

“No worries,” she explained to the crew commander over her com link as she prepared for bed that evening. “It might be better to make our own run for home, flying solo, than to fly in a large, fairly noticeable fleet.”

Staring out the thick window as she laid down to sleep, the dark mass of Goon space beyond, she took a deep breath. “At least I hope….”