Incursions Into Intaki

I woke to the sound of blaring sirens, as ear piercing klaxons sounded across all levels of the station with a decibel level high enough to shake even me from my normally coma-like slumber.

"This is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill. Gravimetric sensors have detected the opening of several wormhole interstices across the Viriette constellation in rapid succession.  Analysis of the pattern indicates we are facing a sizable incursion by the forces of renegade capsuleer Sansha Kuvakei.  All nonessential personnel are advised to report to designated shelters. All station defense crews are to report immediately to their assigned posts and remain on standby until further notice. Once again, this is not a drill."

The color had drained from my face during the announcement, and any semblance of tiredness was quickly banished. I quickly brought my Neocom online, Aura's synthesized greeting carrying a hint of worry as my normal chat windows unfolded. There was a new addition among them, the constellation wide fluid routers had been put online, displaying a warning to all capsuleers of the Sansha incursion. The last part of the message caused a moment of panic in my mind before I was able to tamp it down. Under normal circumstances the Empire navies would provide planetary overwatch while capsuleer forces would work on pushing back and eliminating the Sansha invaders. Intaki though doesn't enjoy the protection of either of the two Empires that bicker over it, neither the Gallente, nor the Caldari maintain a standing naval garrison in the system. Instead, home is protected with almost zealous fervor by the Mordu's Legion mercenaries, many of whom are ethnic Intaki or Caldari sympathizers. If I remember what my contact told me, they'll be pulling their ships into a defensive cordon around Intaki Prime, with round the clock sensor coverage to protect the civilian population below.

I imagine that Phalad will have his consciousness moved planetside in order to provide any assistance that he can. My own duties will be making sure that the stargates into and out of system remain clear, and the destruction of any Sansha assets I can find in the asteroid belts. The Serpentis who would normally be hunting them have just as much to worry about as any law-abiding citizens, so they are more than likely to pull their forces to defend any habitats they have in system. For now though I'm going to prep my ships for heavy combat and see if I can get in touch with some of my contacts in E-Uni and see if they are planning any offensive actions. There's a lot of work to be done if we are going to repel these zombies...

A Combat Filled Day

I can probably mark it down as one of the most turbulent days I've had in my time as a capsuleer. I've been neglecting my blog the last month or so due to a lack of anything terribly exciting happening, but this day was just filled with ups and downs, both physically and emotionally.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m still busy making ships, modules, and drones, both for my own use and for the market. And I’m still maintaining my planetary production lines, making it a stable source of passive ISK on my part as they only need my attention once a week now. My industrial efforts continue apace, and I've even made a few of the new Prospect frigates for my own use and put some up on the Placid market. I even plan on taking one into Nullsec in the coming days and mining some Mercoxit for myself…  

I haven't been slacking in my combat efforts either, a good portion of my income still comes from Concord payouts of the local Serpentis pirates' bounties. And I was just as active against the capsuleer threats to Intaki, it's just that I was doing awfully in those engagements. I'd lost more than a dozen ships of various sizes and classes with nothing to show for most of June. Pend Insurance is threatening to increase my rates, despite the fact that the payout on some of the ships I lost was just abysmal. For example, I had a few Tormentor frigates in my hangar leftover from their days as mining vessels, and decided to refit them according to their new specifications as a front line combat vessel. I received less than 50,000 Isk when I inevitably lost them, even though they were Platinum insured for the full cost of the materials that go into their construction. In any case, I've told my hangar manager not to hire crews for anything smaller than a destroyer at this point, so at least I'm not costing other people their lives in my attempts at even a Pyrrhic victory. 

The rut I was in was not improved by the three ships I lost that day, one of which was the Aliastra Catalyst I'd received for our roam into the Serpent's Coil earlier this year. The others were just situations where I ran up against superior firepower. At that point much of the corp began to join me in space, and I had a pirate Enyo in system whose location I was reasonably sure of. I decided to go for broke and brought the Caracal online and stocked it with explosive warheads. I was initially disappointed with my warp-in, more than 20 km off, but the Clone Soldier Negotiator he was fighting had him disrupted and damaged allowing me to close range. It didn't take many volleys before I found myself alone with the notoriously vicious Serpentis pirate, who wasted little time in focusing his attentions on me. I called for help from my corpmates, knowing I didn't have the kind of sustained damage necessary to break the Negotiator's tank. Several minutes later, corp-mate Richard Masseri and I left the belt several million ISK richer, and me with my first PvP victory for the month. Richard and I roamed Placid for a bit in smaller, less expensive vessels, with numerous sightings but no engagements before most of the corp decided to get some sleep. 

My own elation at finally getting a pirate kill led to a flurry of activity on several projects I'd been putting off, mostly finishing the fits on various ships. I tend to have plenty of hulls on hand, but gathering all the guns, modules, and rigs that I can't make myself, from all over the region, tends to put me off leaving station. One of the fits I had recently finished was one of my favorites, the Vexor. The fitting I had devised enabled me to make short work of the local Serpentis menace, while also being capable in most PvP situations. I worked for several hours, clearing the asteroid belts around Intaki, and occasionally warding off curious capsuleers in vessels smaller than mine. All but one, a pilot named Lincoln flying a Rifter who insisted on attacking me, despite my warning that it would only result in the loss of his ship. A short fight later I had another kill for the day, and Lincoln hopefully learned not to attack a drone boat cruiser with frigate. We continued to talk for a few hours as he stayed in system fighting other pilots as they came through. Apparently he'd spent the last few months in the safety of Null sec and was looking to become less risk averse in his flying. His situation was one that was familiar to me, as I'd spent a considerable amount of time fighting for Nulli Secunda in their war against then rising starts TEST Alliance. He eventually ran out of ships while fighting against local pirate Brian Skrudland, and left on amicable terms and with a neutral setting in my personnel notes.

I continued my search for Serpentis pilots throughout Viriette Constellation, finding and eliminating several more Clone Soldier Negotiators and Transporters before I came upon a vessel that left me checking my sensor readings. It was one of the new Mordu's Legion Cruisers reported to be patrolling in Lowsec space. I quickly transmitted my intentions not to attack to the cruiser, but to no avail as it quickly closed the distance between us and began its assault. My Vexor was rocked by massive blasts as the first volley slammed into my shields, severely depleting them. I released my Hammerheads from their cradles and brought all of my E-war and guns to bear against the vessel I could now identify as an Orthrus. A second volley smashed into my Vexor, taking another significant chunk out of my shields as my drones streaked towards a vessel I was reluctant to call an enemy to swarm it with plasma fire. The third volley knocked out my shields and started damaging my armor, forcing me to cycle my repairer as my drones and guns began unleashing molten plasma against their own shields. The next few volleys hit even harder, forcing me to keep my armor repairer online as the cruiser's shields began to fail, with shots leaking through the gaps in their coverage to splash against it's armor. I was beginning to receive armor integrity and heat damage notifications when the Orthrus finally succumbed to the onslaught of plasma and exploded.

The skirmish with the Mordu's Orthrus had caused minor structural and heat damage as my repairer cycled back down to work on mending my plates back together, and my shields began to recharge. I approached the result of my retaliatory actions with a grim mindset, I hadn't planned on destroying the ship, but I think they more than likely have standing orders to destroy any capsuleer vessel they encounter. As I drew closer I remembered a talk I had with one of the corp leaders in the days after the first sighting of these new, formidable vessels. We both lamented that we had insofar been unable to make diplomatic inroads with the Mordu's Command, despite their presence guarding our home station above Intaki Prime. We had discussed this very event occurring, with the hope that we could establish peaceful or at least neutral standings to avoid just such a situation. Maybe in the future we'll have more success on this front, and I earnestly hope so, as fellow Intaki, many of the Mordus' are likely just as interested in a free Intaki as we of the ILF are...

I coasted next to the wreck and efficiently tagged those escape pods I detected for pickup by rescue crews from further in system, and then began salvaging what I could. My efforts were rewarded as I discovered the potent warp scrambler used against me was still in working condition, and seemed to be a design favored by the Caldari Navy. The real treasure I was able to find however was a schematic blueprint, good for just one production run, of the ship I had just destroyed.

Returning to Intaki soon after was necessary, both to repair the damage incurred in the battle and to give my crew some shore leave after what for them was likely a terrifying experience. It left me in a rather more contemplative mood, wondering how I could better relations with the Mordu's and maybe stop such a thing from happening again. No matter how lucrative hunting these vessels might be turn out to be, I still knew they were all crewed by people like me, fellow Intaki who had found a place they could do something useful with their skills. Maybe a personal visit out to the Mordu's Command station deep in Nullsec might help bring me some clarity on the issue... 

A Battle to Remember!

My day began innocently enough, communiques were exchanged with my personnel ground side throughout Placid, I updated the few market orders that required my attention, and I finished reorganizing my hangar, something I'd neglected to do the night before after mining for several hours. Then I undocked for my regular patrol of the Intaki system, looking for any potential Serpentis pirate activity and my day really began. I was just finishing up my salvage work after "removing" another set of Serpentis craft when a Naga battle cruiser flown by Duluku Ukaladu (Dul) warped into the belt at more than 100km away and took a shot at me.  I quizzically sent a greeting in local, and received a friendly one back in response, saying he'd just wanted to see if his fit worked. Mentally shrugging to myself, I finished my salvage work and warped to the next belt in my patrol route and got to work on destroying more Serpentis vessels. A few moments later Dul warped at zero on the belt in a Hawk, still suspect from the shot he had taken at me earlier. Once he closed range our epic battle commenced!

I was quickly scrambled and webbed and I reciprocated with my own limited e-war capabilities as our guns began to fire and my drones started their assault, the Serpentis ships in the distance momentarily forgotten. A cry of warning came from my drones as they began to take fire from my opponent, Dul's shields being rapidly regenerated from their withering blasts of plasma. One of the drones winked out in a fireball, and I momentarily overheated my guns to compensate as I swiftly brought one of my reserves to bear.  Two more of my drones ended up being vaporized before I was able to get through to my opponents armor as his ancillary shield booster was being reloaded.  My own armor was taking a beating and I was forced to overheat both my afterburner and my own repair systems as he tried to pull away until his shields began to regenerate again. 

We closed range again, superheated plasma and rockets flying back and forth to slam against both Dul and my poor drones, who he had focused on again once he could bring his ASB back online. I lost the last of my reserve drones before his shields began to falter once more, and I burned after him with my engines exceeding their tolerances as I tried to keep him in range of my guns this time. My overheating repair systems struggled to keep my ship together as we both began to take shuddering hits to our internal structures. Heat warnings went off over most of the ship as my overtaxed systems began to melt from being pushed far past their operating limitations. I was starting to lose my control of structural integrity when I was finally rewarded with a backwash of heat and free neutrons as my opponent's vessel exploded in a glorious nimbus of hard radiation and shrapnel.

I quickly turned off all my modules to prevent further damage to my ship as his pod warped away from the scene of our battle. We exchanged a "good fight" in local before I got down to the dirty business of rendering the remains of his ship for usable modules and materials. The escape pod for Dul's minimal crew floated nearby, and I tagged them for pickup by station services. The escape pod for my own crew had been tagged as soon as I finished bringing my modules back from the brink of melting into useless scrap. I'm pretty sure Dul and I both told our crews to abandon ship once we both started taking structural damage. I finished gathering what usable material I could from the wreck of Dul's Hawk and limped my way back to Intaki 5-5. I'm pretty sure I saw Scotty down on the hangar floor shaking his head after I asked him for a repair quote before I began to decant from my pod. I still had a big grin on my face once I finished toweling off and heading to my couch for a nap, I refuse to sleep in the cubbyhole, or "bed" provided in my quarters. That had probably been one of the most stressful, yet enjoyable skirmishes in my career, and seemed like a great way to end my day. 

The next day I would be heading deep into Amarr space to continue my work with the Aliastra corporation, who had sheltered me in the turbulent months after my escape from the drudgery and politics of Null space warfare more than a year ago. I felt good knowing that I was part of a recent push by many in the Intaki Liberation Front's recent efforts to foster better relations with the people known throughout the cluster as, "the Intaki megacorporation." Hopefully our work would shed more light on our cause among up and coming Intaki capsuleers, and perhaps give hope and purpose to those who found themselves without a cause or corp of their own...

Lost Drones

A lone Tech 2 Hobgoblin floated, adrift in the depths of space, rudimentary Artificial intelligence slowly winding down as its internal power stores were depleted. All the Tech 1 drones nearby had already gone dormant, their less advanced power supply and systems forcing them into an earlier hibernation to preserve energy for their emergency beacons. The other T2 drones it had been able to sense nearby had stopped communicating an eternity ago, the pinpoint lasers they used between themselves having been turned off since then. Timescales were different for combat drones, much shorter than those of the organics that guided them, the fast paced action of their usually brief lives required calculations and decisions in the fractions of fractions of a second. No, their last burst had really occurred maybe an hour ago when the final T1 drone had gone silent, their simpler cousins drifting in a cluster of their own nearby.  This single drone remained online as a sentry for the others, on the off chance that one of their owners might return, life sustaining energy radiating from them in an almost magical aura. The drone's sense of time began to shift to longer lengths without further external stimuli. Nanoseconds morphed into milliseconds, into seconds, into minutes, hours, and finally days as power slowly dwindled away...

...

Senses instantly snapped back into focus on the here and now as a mass spike was detected nearby, a ship uncloaking less than 2 kilometers away, profile recognition software instantly identifying the hull as an Imicus, the next instant locating the distinctive Creodron corporation logo and paint job signifying this was an advanced Covert-ops frigate, Helios-class. The next few milliseconds saw the Hobgoblin beaming wake-up commands to all the drones in preparation for retrieval. The faintest stirrings of joy permeated its complex circuits before it and all of its brethren were brought into the ships life sustaining embrace. 

...

Another group of drones was loaded into the cargo bay, a full flight of T2 Hobgoblins and many more T1 versions, as well as some Hornets. As I brought them back to station I wondered to myself why I never thought to do this before? I fly through the Placid region constantly, whether I'm looking for unsavory characters or looking for resources for my industrial pursuits. And almost every time I'm in space my directional scanner is crowded with the signatures of drones, sometimes dozens of them, left behind in some pilot's frantic attempts to save their ship. The saddest part to me is the T1 models, even the few enterprising scanners will leave them in favor of picking up the more economically viable T2 ones. The way I see it, these (hundreds of) T1 drones are just waiting to be made into brand new T2 models with all the bells and whistles. Many of them will go into my personal stores for use in my oft lost combat vessels, but about half of them will go up on the market throughout Placid, hopefully to find new homes. And if not hopefully I can find them drifting in space, just waiting for someone to come find them and make them useful again...

Transition to a New Year

A steaming cup of strong black tea sat cooling on the table in front of Erun as he relaxed in his quarters in Intaki 5-5.  The last two months had been a storm of frenetic activity, filled with the completion of old projects, laying the foundations of current ones, and brainstorming of new ones.  He'd passed several personal milestones in December and January, and February held an even bigger one. 

Continuing his efforts at becoming a better combat pilot had seen him doing quite well for both months, with his losses becoming fewer as his skill at analyzing situations improved.  Finishing his small missile skills had greatly expanded his combat options, ships like the Corax, Breacher, and the Crow now viable.  The Corax had seen mild success, and he was working on fittings for the Breacher and Claw. Encountering several Serpentis Clone Negotiators had also done a great deal to pad Erun's wallet, having been fortuitous enough to locate three in a single day in January.  Having more Isk on hand had done wonders to soften the blow every time he lost a ship, and his crew losses were minimal due to their small size and the general predictability of his battles.  The frigates he tended to fly himself, and his destroyer crews had procedures in place depending on their tanking method. 

A cautionary sip of tea was taken as Erun leaned back in the couch, as he reviewed his balance sheets for the last two months.  Many of his projects had borne fruit, to the point where he had nearly doubled his cash on hand.  A significant part of that was his continued research into the most used components of his ship fittings, namely his guns.  He was now producing all of his own T2 hybrid turrets, greatly reducing the Isk burden he had to replace them.  Flying and losing as many Gallente ships as he did meant he lost a lot of turrets, as well as the accompanying drone complements.  Being able to pull replacements from personal stores instead of buying them off the market saves him a lot of money.  His newest research into hull and armor modules was doing just as well, with dozens of shiny new Tech 2 Damage Controls coming off the assembly lines in the last few days, with Energized Adaptive Nano Membranes soon to follow.  Another big contribution to his much expanded wallet was the asset consolidation he had done in the last two months.  It had taken several days to travel throughout New Eden and clean out dozens of hangars, with most everything being sold, or broken down and then sold.  It was also his hope that it would stop his Aura unit from grumbling every time he needed his assets displayed for navigational purposes.  

Thinking of Aura caused Erun's eyes to glaze over as he checked his Neocom and chuckled quietly to himself, thinking of another milestone he had passed just a week ago.  With the completion of Rapid Launch to Level 5 he had finally passed the 100 Million Skill points mark.  While many would mark this occasion with partying or some other frivolity, Erun had more than likely been asleep or meditating. It had honestly slipped his mind with everything else he had been working on.

Setting the now empty cup of tea on the table in front of him, Erun came back to the present. The biggest milestone on his mind was the anniversary of his joining the ILF! A year ago today he had joined the secessionist cause, hoping to find something worth fighting for after the endless drudgery of Nullsec. A loneliness had grown in him in the months leading up to joining, most everyone he'd started his career with more than five years ago had retired planetside, leaving channels emptier and emptier until he was soon left with only one or two semi-active channels.  The pilots of the ILF had become like a family to him in the year he had been with them, providing the camaraderie and basic PvP training he'd been craving since he'd first entered lowsec all those years ago.  Hopefully he'd be able to spend more time with them and work towards theirs, and now his, promise of a safe and secure homeworld...