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Posted by: Havohej : Category: ¶ Far be it from me to ever say that I’m better than someone at a given thing - unless I am. And it’s patently unheard-of for me to say I’m the best - again, unless I am. And yet, during my time with VENOM Alliance, I heard people say those very things of themselves and of that alliance… even though deep down, in their heart of hearts, they knew it wasn’t true. They knew so well, in fact, that it wasn’t true, that they played this game with their killboards one night called “Let’s edit all the killmails so that instead of showing that 3 -A- nanoHACs and one Recon came into D2EZ-X, our current HQ system, and raped us, tallying 44 kills and no losses, they’ll all list the location as “Classified, 0.0.”
¶ I don’t know why they thought this would work, though… surely they knew that Against ALL Authorities would have their own killboard which wouldn’t be so coy about the location of the “battle“. As I watched this unfold on the regional intel channel, I was embarrassed to have been a part of VENOM at all. But ANTX had never been tested, as we didn’t hold anything worth attacking so we didn’t hold anything worth defending. Last night, I had the privilege of participating in a defense of D2EZ-X.
¶ I was at our Manufacturing installation in G-B3PR when the call went out on regional intel:
¶ “Hostiles inbound; three ShinRa reported in QSF - these guys like D2E so grab your guns!”
¶ Like D2E do they… hmph. Maybe they liked VENOM’s D2E… let’s see how they like Anthrax Death’s D2E. I ejected from my Hurricane-class battlecruiser and boarded my Stiletto-class Interceptor. Based on the Slasher’s hull, she was naturally fast, and with the extra love Core Complexion had shown her, she was one hell of a tackler. I’ve been in Omist for a while now, so I know these ShinRa guys like to fly nano-fit Recons, so I figured we’d need all the tackle we could get. I made my presence in the area known and started the 7 jump trip. By the time I jumped into XPUM, the ANTX intel channel was flashing with new reports.
¶ “Contact, M9-FIB, one ShinRa — no, two ShinRa ship types still unknown. Three now!”
¶ Shortly after that, another pilot reported, “Absolution-class Command Ship flying ShinRa colors in D2EZ-X… now a Sleipnir… Now another Sleipnir, all three are in Command Ships and en route to DJK gate.”
¶ Command Ships. These vessels were known for their toughness and the exceptional bonuses they allowed their pilots to confer to their fleets. But I had already joined the defense gang’s commlink and knew what we had in the area. My Stiletto was damned fast if I didn’t mention that before, so it wasn’t long before I was jumping into D2EZ-X as “Warp To” commands were filtering down to get to the DJK gate where apparently one of the Sleipnir’s was engaged.
¶ Just as I arrived, however, the Matari Command Ship jumped through. One of our gangmates said, “Battlesmith’s on the other side - they must have him pinned down.” It’d been a long time since I flew with other pilots, so even as I asked for the go-ahead from the FC to jump through, Aura had anticipated my intentions and transmitted the activation codes to the Stargate. …Oops.
¶ These Command Ships weren’t sensor boosted, though, and it was no sweat getting my pod out of harm’s way. I waited a few seconds on a planet then warped back to the gate and jumped through, looking to jump into the Claw-class interceptor I kept docked at D2EZ-X. Now that I saw they weren’t flying their customary nano-ships, the need for webs wasn’t as pressing, but they’d killed my prized Stiletto so I wanted pods - that meant I’d need another interceptor for the quick locking time.
¶ It seemed that ShinRa’s game plan was to bait with a single CS and get people to follow him through into DJK, separating our fleet and throwing us into disarray to dismantle our defense. It didn’t work that way, however, as our alliance’s PvP Director himself was present and coordinating us effectively. Calvinton saw to it that No less than 4 webs were put on the bait Command Ship and when he realized that there was no way in hell he could burn back to the gate to jump through, the other two ShinRa pilots jumped in to his aid. ShinRa lost three Command Ships and two capsules, to the tune of 600 Million ISK, not counting implants (if any). Anthrax Death lost a Rokh, an Abaddon, a Caracal, an Incursus and my Stiletto, for a total of about 300M ISK.
¶ It was a small engagement, but an important one, both for alliance morale and public image. VENOM Alliance’s downfall was the fact that their utter lack of coordination created a sore inability to defend space they claimed as their own, to the point that Stain Empire, ShinRa, Against ALL Authorities, Band of Brothers, and even small, unaligned corporations would bring small gangs through their space for easy kills - they had a terrible reputation and they lived up to it.
¶ Anthrax Death is an unknown entity at this stage of its development, and while that killboard might show many losses right now, it’s starting to show more and more kills - honest ones. And as much as I want to get back to roaming around lowsec making people love and hate me, there’s business that needs handling in nullsec.
Calvinton > gf
Airric > gf
-Havo out.
