This is what he had been waiting for, a large scale battle with capital ships, a structure to kill and some glory fighting in New Eden. He had chosen the Onathura for this fight. A sleek Oneiros with a Serpentis coating, it had already served him and his crew well in the early skirmishes for this deployment.
Mori was in the Onathura tingling with anticipation. This was his first major deployment since the FI.RE coalition days where they fought a mostly out numbered, rear-guard guerrilla campaign against his new Allies the Goonswarm Federation. It’s funny how allegiances shift in New Eden. Cosmos felt the betrayal of FI.RE by Pandemic Horde particularily hard. It was time for some payback.
Karen’s passivism was rubbing off on him. He was not so keen to be shooting things and had started to appreciate the kind of work that support does in a fleet. He enjoyed keeping people alive for longer, making a fleet hard to break, driving the opposition to despair. Logistics had grown on him over the past few months. Especially in the Onathura, there was no need for cap chains, no need for any extra support. She had borne the brunt of more than a few scrapes so far. The fit was a standard GSF fit with no frills.
The previous days had seen Goons pushing to break the cyno jammer in x47, but they had failed to do this. Mori had felt the tension behind this moment, from the day Pandemic Horde had backstabbed FI.RE, finally he had a chance to fight back. The extraction from Immensea had been weary and challenging. Taking weeks along with Ekloke, Karen and Abby. Harassed all the way by Pandemic Horde and neutrals, they had lost a lot of stuff, but they had made it, finally arriving in 1DQ exhausted and anxious. Since then, life had settled down. Goonswarm had turned out to be a completely different place to live. Everyone was pleasantly surprised by the friendliness and warmth of their welcome. Karen and Abby immediately threw themselves into corporation projects, building Mackinaws and Occators for Ekloke to move and sell. Ekloke started trading in and out of 1DQ. Mori had been running in the Strategic fleets, getting used to a different pace, getting to know new friends.
He snapped out of his reverie, would Goonswarm attack a Keepstar with no ability to Cyno in Cap support? If they did, surely they would be driven off? Whatever the case, he was going to be there. The ping went out for the Tempest Fleet Issue doctrine.
“Yes!” Mori rushed to find the fleet and applied to join. The time had come. The Onathura was primed and ready.
Fleet chat was full of excitement, we were really going to do this. It took some time before everything was ready and the command to undock arrived. The Journey to X47 was already planned by the Fleet Commanders and so went very smoothly. The closer they got to the destination the more blue fleets along with a few red scouts could be seen in local and in the immediate vicinity.
“Check your stations, everyone is coming to this party.” Mori issued the command.
The crew also anticipating that something big was about to happen, stood in awe as the fleets around them grew and grew. Mori checked the Onathura’s systems, rechecked them, twitching in his pod with nervous anticipation. One system out and other fleets were already here. Like giant shoals of fish, spinning and weaving through space.
“Check yours systems folks. Emergency evac drill in ten.” Mori had been with this crew for a few years now, he did not like losing people, especially since this team were good at what they did. His consciousness extended out through the ship, listening, looking for signs of weakness. Nothing. They were steady, ripe with anticipation.
“System check complete.” The ship captain responded from the bridge.” Mori smiled inside. Efficient as always.
Mori triggered the emergency signal. The crew immediately left their positions, got to their escape pods and hit buttons to open their respective doors. All but one.
“Midshipman Vanir Alrekmur report to your escape pod.” Mori scanned the ship for the Minmatar citizen locating him moving quickly along a corridor well away from his escape pod.
“Apologies Captain, I was looking for my……..”
“It doesn’t matter what it was because you would be dead now.” Mori’s voice was tense.
Outside the Onathura space seethed with Tempest Fleet issues, Oneiros’, an assortment of ‘boosting’ ships and various small tackle. Boosting ships were known as such because they had the ability to release ‘nanites’ that could spread throughout the fleet enhancing various attributes of those fleet members in range, for example, enhancing reload speeds or improving armour resists. Fleet commanders would frequently give commands to have boosts “up” or “down”. “Up” usually meant a fight was anticipated, “down” meant either the fleet was about to jump into a fight, or the fight was over and the fleet was running for cover. Boosts were known because they would set a timer for the ship and pilot such that gates would lock them out because such an act was considered an act of aggression. Right now the boosts were down.
“Midshipman Alrekmur if we survive the fight I want you to report to the bridge.” Captain Veroga Gikar spoke through comms to Vanir.
“I am sorry Captain, it won’t happen again.” Alrekmur was at his station looking embarrassed.
“Do you mind me asking what exactly it was you had lost?” Gikar was looking at Alrekmur through a digital image. The slight figure motioned to a bag at his feet.
“I had forgotten to bring by toolkit Sir. I am sorry Sir. I have it now.”
“Alrekmur you do realise you are responsible for keeping the remote armour repair systems working?” The Onathura had three Large Solace Scoped repairers and a Medium Ancillary Remote Armor repairer. These systems were mission critical for the coming fight and if they went down many lives could be lost. This did not inspire much confidence in Gikar.
“Sir, yes. I know I am sorry Sir.” He remained motionless at his station. Truth be told, if a black hole could have opened up for him he would have been delighted. The Seibestor hated being the focus of attention. But he was usually so competent.
Gikar switched to private comms. “Are you OK Vanir?”
“Maam yes. Maam. I am just nervous.”
“We all are Vanir, but we have to be on point. Lives depend on us.” The Captain knew it was important to support her crew at times like this. There was little to be gained from further humiliation.
“I know Maam. I won’t let you or Mori down. I promise.” Vanir started to run a systems check on the remote armour repairers she could see from the data passing through her console that he was working very very fast indeed. With a loud thud and swoosh the ship jumped into X47. The sight on the other side had the whole of the Onathura awestruck.
Fleet clusters sitting cross bubbles in X47. Source: Courtesy of CCP Aperture.
The sight in X47 was dumbfounding to someone who had never seen anything on this scale before. Hundreds of warp disruption bubbles clouded the sky. Fleets appeared as small clusters of ships in the distance, there was at least twenty of them. Boosts could be seen spiralling out and around each fleet as they moved through space. At times the numbers of capsule pilots and their crew in and around the keep star numbered upwards on four to five thousand. All being moved around on a very large chess board.
On entering the system the fleet warped to a ‘perch’ sitting high above the gate where everyone waited for further instructions.
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is going to be our job to keep pressure on that Keep star, that means we are in the Vanguard. We will lose many of you but your job is to return to DO6, reship and come back. We must not fail.” Apple Pear’s voice was calm.
Apple Pear
Mori felt a strong burst of adrenalin as the command to align to the keep star appeared in fleet comms. In unison two hundred and fifty ships swung towards the keep star.
“This is it folks. Focus, we are hear to keep people alive.”
Everyday Eve 