Operation Saving Private J-Hole
Sky Fighter's dreads with support fleet rolling the static to find Jester's Hole
It's been an eventful time, the girls and I had been members of Sky Fighters now for almost two months. Within our first week with the organization we found ourselves deployed to Hek, one of the trade capitals of Matari space, where our corporation was engaged in a war with a sizable highsec alliance known as the Obsidian Front. It was a lengthy, and costly, endeavor and one that I'll write about in a future diary entry. The time since then had been spent training, running supplies and patrolling our chains alongside our fellow pilots. I'd recently learned to pilot the Proteus, and as blasphemous as it felt to be behind the helm of a Gallente vessel I did actually find it to be an extremely effective combat ship. Outside the wormhole my casual promotional work for the State as a holo-model continued, meaning so did my rigorous exercise and beauty regime, along with regular trips to Empire to visit my stylist or partake in holo-shoots. The money was good and it helped pay for the upkeep on the three systems my family now had towers anchored in. Of course though being a well known supermodel comes at a cost when you live in an isolated system with over two hundred hungry, hormonal, blood-thirsty pirates and mercenaries ...
Sith1s Spectre > /emote prods Erica
Sith1s Spectre > fuck me
Ok so I might have taken that a lil outta context, but these were also exciting times for our corporation as we founded a new alliance called "Sky Syndicate". We were soon joined by well-known wormhole corp End-of-line along with several smaller groups, in total making us the largest alliance in wormhole space at the time. We'd found much combat, many small and mid-scale encounters as well as one or two large fleet fights. But it wasn't until just recently that we faced our first major deployment on a wormhole operation ...
Jester's Hole - a small wormhole combat corporation that regularly flew on operations beside Sky Fighters. They were our friends and allies. I first met them when we spent time in Hek at war with Obsidian Front, Jhole being called in as neutral support in our conflict. The Jhole pilots seemed friendly enough and came with a crazy sense of humor which saw them fit-in well beside the Sky Fighters pilots. So it was that when Jhole found a large alliance known as DURA LEXX invading their home system Sky Syndicate was quick to respond and come to their aid.
I'd barely woken up when the call went out, standing before the mirror as I fixed the tension on my ponytail before applying my dark makeup while waiting for Candi to brew my first caramel synth-latte for the day. I slid into my tight black leather pants and my little black, cropped tank-top before slipping my neatly-pressed dark uniform jacket over the top, securing the velcro-like seam up the middle before adjusting the hem slightly to show just a hint of belly. Taking a seat on the sofa I began to enjoy my first coffee of the day when my neocom began sounding an alarm. I quickly rushed over and joined alliance comms.
"Form up in armor T3s guys. Jhole are being invaded and they're our bros, we're not going to let that happen." Said Key Dett, our lead FC and military commander. The excitement was palpable - I rushed around my quarters, quickly gathering up the supplies I'd need for a deployment that I assumed would be lasting several days. I jumped into Gangbang, my new Proteus, and formed up with the other pilots. Candi would be coming also, flying her Ishtar the Doggy-Style, but would follow along a little behind the main fleet. I figured the T3 fleet would be required to gain initial hole-control, but Candi's Ishtar may prove useful later if a siege of the invader's tower was also called for.
We'd managed to form an impressive fleet of around 50-60 T3 vessels including almost a dozen Guardians and more than 20 Proteus. With the aid of dreadnaughts we began rolling our static in haste, hoping to find a connection to Jhole's home system. The rolling continued for around an hour before word arrived that Jhole pilots had managed to find a route into their system via Empire space, so the hole-rolling was quickly abandoned and the fleet made it's way to Jhole via several lowsec system jumps.
With Key Dett in the lead we soon arrived at the entry to Jhole's chain. Key was first to land on the hole, much to the surprise of a local capsuleer who was also sitting off the entry.
"Dude, I wouldn't go in that wormhole if I was you!! There's been a lot of people coming and going from it." Said the newbie capsuleer in a convo to our leader, who obviously didn't recognise Key Dett as one of the heads of the largest wormhole alliance around.
Sky Fighters' military commander, Key Dett - Not new to wormholes.
"Oh..." Was all the newbie had to add as the massive fleet suddenly landed on grid with Key. "That's the most t3 shit I've ever seen!"
Jumping into Jhole's system we didn't know what to expect. DURA LEXX isn't the largest of alliances but they have a proven combat record and would also possibly have friends on stand-by. We found almost no resistance as we arrived, seemingly while most of the enemy pilots slept. Hole-control was quickly established, with large bubbles, cloaky scouts and small gangs manning the system's static which was constantly rolled to keep it at critical mass. Once the system was under control a small tower was anchored as a staging point for our forces, giving our pilots somewhere rudimentary to sleep - not that any of us would get much. We then set to seiging the enemy's tower, a medium Amarrian tower with light defences. Our large fleet, with the aid of a Jhole Moros quickly incapacitated the tower's defences before putting the tower itself into reinforcement. With a day and a half until it came out of reinforce it seemed there would be some long nights - Candi and myself quickly set to hole-guarding duty and tower over-watch and saw almost no sleep for the initial 24 hours of the operation.
Long night - Erica guards the static in her Proteus the Gangbang
During the first evening some minor skirmishes occured on the edge of the forcefield, with no losses to either side, however a nullified enemy Tengu managed to escape. Every capsuleer has different sleep-cycles. It seems that whatever sleep pattern you're used to from the original region you came from you tend to stick to, hence there were times during the operation when we had very few pilots active and awake. It was during such a time, early on day two, that we found ourselves in an interesting position ...
Enemy pilots had been gradually waking up and undocking from their tower in combat vessels. Among these vessels was an Archon, Moros and a Naglfar along with various subcap ships and one or two battleships. We'd effectively locked them into their own tower with a "rape cage" consisting of numerous large, T2 warp disruption bubbles placed around the tower enveloping it within their fields. This meant no ship could escape before first flying out of the safety of the tower shields and trying to make the edge of the bubbles.
Our ships surrounded the enemy tower, sitting on the edges of the bubbles or close to the forcefield, ready to attempt to head-off any more vessels which might try to escape. As time wore on however we quickly began to realise that as the enemy woke we were beginning to become vastly out-numbered. Fearless, we stood our ground around the tower ready to do battle as the enemy undocked their capital ships and began burning for the edges of the forcefield. If ever they wished to make a stand now would be the time as we were at our lowest numbers. Our FC, a groggy and somewhat sleepy Sith1s Spectre who'd barely woken again after a long night in-system himself, quickly put the ping out to our sleeping pilots to wake up. They began doing so, but it was too late as one of our pilots called tackle on the Archon which, along with the Moros, had just gone into triage-mode as various subcaps began burning out.
Our small fleet began by engaging a hostile Proteus and Dominix, however the triaged-capitals managed to keep both vessels healthy. I continued to orbit the battleship, my ship's blasters chipping away at it's armor until some quick thinking from our FC helped us find a break in their cycle and the enemy Dominix suddenly exploded in a hail of debris, it's pilot quickly executed afterward. By this stage more of our pilots had woken and joined us, boosting our numbers to over twenty. Our fire was turned back to the Archon who managed to hold his own local reps, so we switched back to the enemy Proteus quick enough to beat the Archon and send it up in a ball of bright blue flame, it's pilot then also promptly sent back to Empire space. Suddenly a Legion broke free of the forcefield and made a run for the edge of the bubbles. We let it go, it was far off and our attention was focussed on the capital ships. Our FC considered calling in the JHole Moros to aid us in breaking the Archon's tank, but felt the risk was not worthwhile, so we continued to attempt it ourselves - The Archon began slowly boating back toward the tower while at around half-armour.
Facing off with the enemy dreadnaughts and their support fleet
Sadly for us the Archon managed to creep back within the tower's forcefields before we could break it's tank. It'd been a quick but brutal battle in which we lost two vessels of our own as well. But from that point on though the enemy seemed to learn the futility of their position. Key Dett and Sith1s Spectre began diplomatic talks with them, demanding they surrender all their capital ships and T3 vessels and they would be premitted to leave the system alive. The hostiles refused, threw around a few loose-threats to call Goonswarm, and then proceeded to dock their ships at their tower and head to sleep for the night. For the rest of us there was no such luxury - Candi and myself went back to tower overwatch and hole-guarding duties into the night... Candi, in her Ishtar, had dropped a set of Garde II drones on the very edge of the tower's forcefield before retreating to a distance where she jettisoned a can to orbit, naming it "Candi's little box". Fleet numbers were now at a record low as everyone slept, only Candi and an interceptor were on the hostile tower when suddenly an enemy Ishtar pilot called Birdlike woke up, entered his vessel, and made a break for it. Candi was quick to respond, her sentry drones began tearing into the opposing Ishtar the minute it exited the forcefield. Candi was on the opposite side of the tower, so had no chance to tackle the Ishtar, however within seconds her drones had managed to reduce the Ishtars armor to almost half, causing him to turn around and run straight back into the forcefields where he promptly docked and went back to sleep.
As the following morning arrived Candi and myself remained awake, still attending our duties. By this stage all the towers of JHole that had previously been reinforced by the hostiles were now repaired and re-stronted. The enemy tower itself had less than an hour of reinforcement left and our pilots had begun to wake up, all forming at the hostile tower in preparation for the big bash - or - for a big fight, should the enemy try to break free once more or perhaps even call friends to help. Candi had once again dropped Garde II drones on the edge of the forcefield in readiness for the siege and was orbiting her little box. Once the tower came out of reinforce the order was given for JHole's Moros to warp to Candi's little box too and the bash began.
Candi in her Ishtar, Zannefair in her Legion and Erica in her Proteus do a congo
line while waiting for the enemy tower to come out of reinforce.
JHole's Moros goes into siege mode and begins blapping the enemy tower
Many of our logistics pilots were dismayed that they'd not be able to help siege the tower. Candi was wise enough to bring along a number of spare sentry drones and happily distributed them among logi-team. With everyone in the fleet now applying damage it wasn't long before the tower gave way in a huge flash and gentle shockwave, followed soon after by the tower's remaining modules and an errant catalyst that was sitting within the forcefield at the time. There was celebrations and a lot of back-slapping, but our work was not yet over - JHole were merging with End-of-Line, moving into Asgard with the rest of us and joining our alliance, thus they needed security cover while they dismantled their towers, packed their bags and followed us home. After a few hours this was accomplished, and with the operation to save JHole a success the fleet set out for home once more.
