Trial By Fire...

As I overloaded my afterburner and shrieked back towards the gate I had just come through, I couldn't help but think. "Well, now you've done it, you've gone and got them all screwed."

We had led some few members of Agony Unleashed on a bit of a merry chase through our usual stomping grounds, and in an effort to find a more plausible target for our small, six man fleet of frigates, we dropped into a dead-end system and swarmed upon the asteroid belts.

Our prey proved elusive, however, undoubtedly mooring up at one of the POS in system. Disappointed, but with no signs of the Agony crew, who we had run end-routes around several times, we headed back to the gate.

I jumped through first to get the lay of the land, and that's when the above thought landed in my head. A Drake, a Tengu and a Phobos, bubble deployed. Well, that doesn't sound too healthy.

My afterburner kicked in mightily to slap me back into a tight orbit on the gate as the jump system went to work, and I got back into our possible grave without a scratch. There was no answering flare from the gate to show pursuit, but we gave a bit of distance anyway.

After stewing and formulating our plan for a bit, we repeated the process, keeping everyone close to the gate while I went through to attempt to draw either their Phobos (unlikely, but we can dream) or their dps (more likely) into jumping through...

Turns out luck was very much on our side, the Phobos had warped away (briefly, he joined the following crew) and so the rest of the crew followed through and we zipped out of our dead-end spoke and back into open territory.

Our merry chase continued from there and we eventually lost our hangers-on, moving out of their hunting grounds and heading what I had arbitrarily declared 'north'. Skimming past another gate-camp, we eluded another set of pursuers with a bit too much firepower for our limited gang to handle and ended up sitting in wait on a relatively well travelled piece of the pipe.

Enter our new friend the Taranis. And his buddy, Taranis. And his buddy, Hurricane.

We dodged them at a gate, then held position while the two Taranis cruised in, and smiled when the first one jumped ahead of us. Rounding on the remaining Taranis, while aiming ECM at the Hurricane as it dropped out of warp, we demolished him swiftly. The second Taranis returned at this point, and it was then my inexperience showed. Knowing the difficulty we would have in disengaging, I called the Hurricane as primary, in hopes of getting our frigate sized hulls inside his guns, using tracking disruptors and high angular velocity to keep him at bay. This plan was proven ineffective as the Taranis, by far the easier target with our squad makeup, tore into our like-sized ships.

Our pods streamed for the far corners of the system before beating a hasty retreat. Pilot chatter was up-beat, as despite our ship-losses, we warped away having dropped a T2 interceptor with a gang of cheap frigates.

Three of us managed to stay on for another try. A much shorter roam with two frigates and my Hurricane battlecruiser, it ended in fire, our foolish plan to attack a lone bait-drake on a gate netting us a less than pleasant 'conversation' with a total of three drakes and two scimitar logistics. Yes, I hear you all saying 'OUCH' from back in your pods.

We called it a day on that note, and all in all, fun was had. I have another op scheduled soon. Cruiser's and below this time... Should be fun!

Fly straight, they'll never expect it!