Let The Battle Drums Be Heard

I jacked into my pod yesterday evening expecting to either find a group to join up with for a roam or if none were to be had, to go out hunting on my own. It seems however, that was not to be.

“You can't say civilization don't advance -- for in every war, they kill you in a new way.” –Will Rogers

I’m still pretty new to 0.0 but from what I’m always told, things always have a tendency to heat up during the latter part of the year. Already, things have begun to heat up in the northern areas of Nullsec. Up until now, the south, where my alliance resides, has been for the most part fairly quiet. I honestly had a thought that little would happen until after the release of Dominion and Concord’s changes to the sovereignty rights of 0.0 alliances. However, my lack of experience in 0.0 warfare is exactly why I didn’t put any real weight on that belief and it’s good I didn’t cause as it appears, I was wrong.

At some point yesterday or the night before, Goonswarm and their pets, Zenith Affinity, invaded Esoteria and more specifically, my alliance’s home systems.

The difference between 0.0 and empire is that there doesn’t always have to be an “official” proclamation of war filed with Concord. It’s not that it doesn’t happen; it’s just not a common occurrence. Declaring war by filing with Concord is not only bad for the group being attacked but bad as well for the attacker. So when I say we are at war, understand that is an “unofficial” statement.

However, when your home space is invaded as ours has, I think it’s pretty obvious.

So….with that in mind, and taking a cue from a fellow blogger as well as alliance mate, Manasi, I will be locking down my comments section. They will not be blocked entirely but will now require approval before being posted. This journal isn’t nearly as popular as his, nor am I a corporation director within the alliance, so I don’t entirely feel the need to block the comments entirely. However, Goons are known for their out-of-pod babble and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see them eventually attempting to post their drivel here whenever I may post something about my engagements with them.

Beyond that though, I look forward to the plenty of battles I’m sure we will be having. This is, after all, the reason I wanted to move to 0.0. So to all the goon children that may read this, “See you on the battlefield!”

Back In The Pod Saddle

Life outside the pod can get a little hectic at times. I never deny being the individual who is easily distracted from one thing to another but eventually….. I always come back. So has it been with being in the pod and more importantly, being there for my corporation/alliance. I still can't quite commit the time I'd like right now to going out and fighting the good fight, but hopefully soon that will change and things will settle down.

I did, however, manage to get out on a roam with some of my alliance mates yesterday. I almost felt it was necessary given it appears my absence has been noticed. Since I'm still fairly new to the corp and I don’t want them thinking I’m just useless weight. More importantly, thinking I’m some alt spy. I spoke with my good friend, Prom, who'd originally recruited me and he, in his non-chalant way, also expressed his concern for me and my lack of interaction. That conversation took place on Friday, so I made a point of hopping in the pod over the weekend with hopes of perhaps redeeming myself. Unfortunately, out-of-pod events kept me away from the hanger on Saturday, to which it seemed I missed some sort of CTA, but Sunday, it was game on.

I had just connected into my pod systems when I saw an invite for a fleet op. 'Perfect,' I thought as I quickly linked my comm systems with the gathering fleet. There was a bit of discussion for some time as to what exactly we were doing and eventually it was decided on a simple random roam. The fleet consisted of a whole slew of ship sizes so I opted to just go in my favored ship, the assault frigate. "Buzz”, my Ishkur, has been a faithful companion to me for many months now. Having seen numerous engagements, and getting my ass out of them alive and intact, it had earned itself a very special place in my heart. This roam, as it turned out, would see Buzz saving my stupid butt once again.

Just a quick side note. I realized a desperate need to start taking notes of things, as they happen, given my inability to remember a lot of the details when I do finally sit down to write about them. So is the case with this incident. In other words, forgive some lack of details and info or, for those involved, anything important I might miss.

So yeah…back to the story…

We were roaming through Period Basis, looking for possible targets to engage. There were a couple of small engagements I believe, a frig here or a cruiser there, but really nothing grand until a call came in on the intel channel. Two Zenith Affinity carriers had been tackled in a system fairly close to us, about 6 jumps away. Immediately we put the burners on and rushed towards the system. Being in an assault frig, I was fortunate to be one of the first on scene and quickly moved in to get a point on them. Goal was to further strengthen our hold until the main dps of our small, roughly 20 man fleet could arrive. My rusty experience nearly taught me a hard lesson though, as I moved too close to the primaried Archon. In a sudden blast of blinding light, my shields nearly vaporized. It was quickly followed by a second blast which tore away a large chunk of armor. Smartbombs. Damn I hate those things...

Quickly, I spun the frig away from the carriers and hit the MWD. I had surprisingly just survived a double whammy as both carriers, fairly close together, had set off smartbombs. Silly me had gotten right between the two ships when they were set off, and much too close to the Archon for my usual taste anyways. I had surprisingly survived, but in the blast, I'd also lost my first set of drones, Hobgoblin IIs, which I had stupidly deployed already. I had expected to be engaging deployed fighters. However, the lack of fighters present really should have put up a giant red flag for me to be wary. Obviously I wasn’t. Hindsight is always 20/20 right?

Anyways, burning away, I reached a distance of about 30km before turning back and setting myself in a nice orbit just close enough to keep my overheated point on the carrier while staying out of his bomb range. By this time, the rest of the fleet had arrived and were already chewing through his shields and armor. A few other enemy ships appeared, ranging from battlecruisers down to frigs, all of which we quickly dispatched before returning to work on the carriers.

But a carrier kill was not to be had.

Suddenly the gate activated and local spiked. A large fleet from Goonswarm had just appeared to save the tackled carriers. Having focused so intently on keeping my point, not getting too close to their discoing smartbombs (though failing a couple more times beyond my initial hits), I’d only been able to assist on one other kill and that being only a small amount. So when the Goon fleet had entered the battle and comms went just a little crazy, I determined to go after a kill even if it meant suicide killing “Buzz”. I just sort of tuned out the ‘static’ on the comms and spotting a nearby Amarr cruiser, unleashed the remaining Warrior II drones. I then ordered my ship to set a nice tight orbit and opened fire with my 3 Ion blasters. Under the combined fire, the cruiser’s shields peeled away quickly and I was soon half way through its armor when suddenly I realized my ship had left it’s orbit around the cruiser!

“What the hell,” I stammered, seeing my warp drive activated by what appeared to be its own accord. “NO!!” was all I had time to scream as the warp bubble wrapped itself around my ship and my Ishkur hurled itself away from the battle. Not only had I just left a likely kill but I’d also left behind my remaining drones! Come to find out, the FC had made the decision to withdraw and, given the current lack of discipline on the comms, he had simply initiated fleet warp.

When my ship finally came out of warp at a safe spot, for a moment all I could do was just sit there, stunned by what had just happened. Even as local continued to rise with the usual goon blob continuing to roll in, still I remained motionless. I mean, being fleet warped… unannounced… from the middle of a battle… can have a very disorienting effect! Especially when your blood lust is pumped up so high.

To be honest, I’m not sure how long I simply just sat there. However, after some moments, I came back to my senses. Thankfully, it was just in time to hear the order given to move out while one of the gates were still clear. We’d taken a few losses, but for the most part were still intact and it was determined that it’d be best to just make our way home and regroup there. We were chased, of course, but made our escape with very little problems and were soon safely docked at home.

Once I’d completed the docking sequence, instead of sticking around for a regrouping, I chose to just unplug and go for a coffee or something. One close call was enough for one day.

Maybe this evening I’ll go out for a little solo roam and see if I can redeem my abrupt denial of a kill. I definitely could use something to get myself back into the flow of things and a solo roam would certainly do that…