I didn't have much chance to write about a particular event that happened a little while ago but let's do some catching up. I've waited to post this for obvious reasons; I didn't want to give Test Alliance Please Ignore a free juicy kill! So some time in mid November, I logged on not being quite certain what I would do. Should I do some exploration to make a few more million ISK? Should I roam the near-by Low-sec pipes? Should i just chat it up with some buddies who are on? I don't know, I was kind of blasé that evening. But this turned around rather quickly. I said "hi" to my buddy Havegun in our good ol' MAPU channel and the following convo happened:
Me> o/
Gun> Hey Coz, I'm in a rescue mission in Provi
Me> LOLwut?
Gun> Yeah, one of the Grotto guys...
Me> An attempt at WH-fu that failed?
Gun> Yep!
Me> What system are you guys in?
Gun> D-GTMI
Me> OMFG! XD
Me> Aight, I'm bored anyways... omw to you guys :))
So yeah, long story short, one of the ex-AMC guys got his Orca stuck in a neighboring Class 5 system after escaping Certain Death in the form of a hunting Tengu. The "escaping death" part worked perfectly, but he was now stuck in deep W-space. After some probing he managed to find 3 exits: a wormhole leading to a Class 6 system, another leading to deep Null-sec (don't remember which region but something nuts like Paragon Soul or Omist), and finally the wormhole to D-G. Before I logged on Havegun had managed to reach Providence and scout the path for the wayward Orca, but there was a slight problem: this was right in the middle of TEST's little wardec against a certain player called Chribba. You may have heard of him. The plan was to go park the Orca in a classified station, put it on contracts in the hopes that some 0.0 dweller buys it, and get back to Empire space. So with these guys already in Null-sec, my job was to scout the way into and out of the Providence region.
At first I just did a "set destination" on the D-GTMI linked in chat, but from my current position in Heimatar space I noted a snag: the path was taking me thru the Dital system, making a jump straight from hi-sec into Providence. Huh... yeah, scratch that. With a little help from Dotlan and my previous experience with BOZO and CTA I found a slightly better door: the Assah/G-5EN2 gate. My vehicle of choice for crazy stunts like this was one of my trusty dual-propped Taranis interceptors. The trip to G-5 was entirely uneventful and before I knew it I was back in Sansha-land. I then set my destination to the undisclosed system and the only place where I did see more than 4 people in Local was in 9-UY, but nobody was out in space and no bubbles were on gates. I must once again thank BOZO, CTA and U'K for allowing me to collect tons of bookmarks in this space! Ultimately I got in touch with the guys and helped scouting gates and stations to make sure the Orca would get parked safely, and after it did we all took a much-needed bio.
So part one of the rescue op was done, but now we needed to get back home. Of course now we were much lighter and less expensive, but still, one of us had little in the way of Null-sec experience, and Havegun and I have very different ways of scouting; I find him too defensive and careful, and he finds me too aggressive and reckless :) But at least we've flown together a lot so there's no hard feelings towards each other. The first few jumps towards G-5 were uneventful but Gun scouted a small roaming gang. We were told not to warp but our inexperienced friend was already on his way... scratch one Incursus! Fortunately for him the small gang had no bubbler and he was able to get his pod out to safety. We waited a few minutes for the gang to get bored and move on, which they did much to our relief. The rest of the way out to Assah was very quiet, with only a Malediction which I was tempted to tackle but for once I thought of safety first, and finally we got to Hi-sec in the Bar system. Mission accomplished, at the price of a single T1 ship!
This whole trip made me realise something: I had missed this kind of flying greatly. The heightened sense of lurking danger at every corner, the possibility of The PvP at all times... yeah, I must do this more often! And who knows, if the Orca doesn't sell maybe we'll do another kind of rescue op. The kind with more ships with teeth :)
Fly dangerous
o7
3 comments:
That mission reminds me of a w/h collapse about a year ago with my former w/h based corpmates.
We had 7 pilots including me on a series of w/h sleeper cleanup ops in a constellation of 4 c3-c4 w/h. We had finished up the last sleeper site in a c3 when the OP commander informed us that our exit to the home c2 had closed on us while we were finishing the last site.
We had 3 drakes, a loki, a tengu, a Cormie salvager and a Badger in our group. All combat ships were PvE fit. The Tengu pilot had the scanner and covops recon fit. He scanned out the remaining sig in the C4 and discovered it was deep in 0.0 space. I have forgotten which region (I think Curse maybe or Scalding Pass?) but the HS entrance to our home system was 41j coreward.
We had 25 or 30 0.0 systems and 4 or 5 LS systems back to HS. Most of our trip home was moderatly uneventful. We did have a fun time in N-RAEL getting into a tag match with a gate camp there.
We ended up splitting into several groups and the tengu pilot kept a watch on the N-RAEL-Konora gate. Our badger holed up in a safe spot til we suckered most of the camp away from the gate.
We smacked the local camp into chasing us around for a bit then the badger and tengu pilots made a mad dash for the gate. A lone drake pilot was stationed there but he was on the wrong side and the badger and Tengu pilots just WTZ and hauled ass the remaining few LS jumps back to HS with the loot.
The rest of us continued to warp around safes in N-RAEL smackin a bit then we regrouped and rushed the gate. Everyone but me got through ok. I was in a drake and i think due to low spaceship command skills, I crashed and bounced off the gate past 2500m. I tried burning back to the gate but the rest of the camp blobbed me and I caught the HS Express back to Ebasez.
Ultimately I was the only casualty but the gang made it out with over 2.5b in sleeper loot on that run. 40m in losses to 2.5b in profit? Not bad if I do say so myself.
Thats one of my fondest memories of my Eve experiences. It wasn't so much that I lost my drake and pod but it was the adventure of getting stranded far away from home and having figure out how to get all of us home as a team, not knowing wtf was gonna happen. That incidentally was my 1st real experience with 0.0 as well.
Wow, nice!
Yeah, there's nothing quite like flying in hostile space, especially when you don't really have a choice.
Thanks for sharing the story man :)
Been there:
http://letrangeeve.blogspot.com/2009/09/lost-in-space-but-not-for-long.html
Done that.
Paragon Soul.
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