Following the fall of 6VDT to TEST, I returned with my crew to the main staging system of PNQY. Having determined that my services would no longer be needed for a few weeks on that front, I returned via jump clone, to FA home territory in the YI system. This gave my crew much needed R&R after the 6VDT siege. I returned to find our home territory rife with hostile gatecamps and roaming groups of enemy ships. While jumping to another system to check out a report of strange signals I received in 1-N, my Hurricane class Battlecruiser was attacked and destroyed by 9 hostile ships deep within FA territory. This attack was complete, including the loss of my pod and my entire crews escape pods. Fortunately for me, as a capsuleer, my back-up clone was activated within the YI system. My crew was not so lucky.
Death and destruction are a part of war, and my crew knew what they were signing up for when they agreed to serve on a capsuleer warship. However, following the activation of my clone within the YI system I received an urgent message calling for ships to proceed to the jump bridges and head to the rally point for an attack against Blast within the Fountain region. Rather than being able to mourn my lost crew and giving the rest of my people a chance to grieve for their fallen comrades, I was forced to launch my ship and proceed to the rally point for a Titan mediated assault into Blast territory. I am sure that my crew resents being forced into another siege on such short notice and without the time to honor their dead, but duty has always come with a heavy burden for those that serve.
I gather my crew aboard my alpha fit Maelstrom class battleship and launch into space. We make a mad dash for the rally point in 5-M and barely make it. We are launched by the titan across many light-years to a system near 6VDT. My crew and I are now once again deep in enemy territory, on our way to participate in the sieges of not one but many systems. With the fall of 6VDT to CF forces earlier in the week organized resistance from IT alliance in the region has collapsed. The local inhabitants are the only ones putting up warships and fleets attempting to prevent our takeover of their space. While I can not help but admire their determination to make us fight for every meter of space, they are hopelessly outnumbered, yet they continue to offer resistance.
Following several jumps we enter into the new campaign region for the FA alliance, the area that will fall under our direct control once the shooting stops and the wreckage of ships disperses in the depths of space. Already FA has taken control of several systems within the Fountain region, and more are to come in the following week. My battleship formed up with the rest of the fleet and we proceeded to attack and reinforce POS's, IHUB's, and Stations along the path from 57-KJB to PXF-RF. While sov warfare is boring to everyone, and no one wants to be in fleets attacking stations and POS's all day, they are needed to take control over hostile space.
Each day the fleets are formed and further destruction of Blast assets occurs, whether it is a POS and all its modules being destroyed, or the reinforcement of stations and the use of disruptor bubbles to prevent enemy ships from escaping, the losses taken by Blast during this campaign amount to many billions of ISK. In fact, during an operation which occurred yesterday, our FC informed the fleet that the alliance had offered to buy the space from Blast, allow them to evacuate their assets and even provide friendly escorts out of the combat zone. The Blast leadership refused and thus we are relegated to shooting and destroying everything that we come across. It is most unfortunate that the Blast leadership choose to fight rather than allow us to buy this space from them, but in New Eden animosity runs very deep.
With us relegated to the long path of sov warfare, the needs of the fleet for supplies is critical and our logistics people have come through in a major way. Ammunition is being shipped in from bases within Cloud Ring on a regular basis so warships generally do not have to leave the field for long to replenish stores. Friendly POS's have been set up in all the attacked systems and most are stocked with ammunition that is free for the fleet members to use. So far in this campaign, which has only lasted 2.5 days, I have fired over 15 thousand rounds of large projectile ammunition. If not for the supplies brought in by our logistics people I would be almost out of ammunition at the present time, but my ship is sitting with nearly a 75% ammo load.
Once this campaign is completed I will be returning to Cloud Ring and my corporation's home system, to assist in the efforts there. The main issue at present is the lack of roaming patrols throughout FA space which resulted in the loss of my Hurricane and crew a few days ago. A meeting held by our corp leadership yesterday before the start of active operations discussed the need for small fast reaction teams to be on active patrol within FA alliance territory to respond to gangs like those that attacked me. While even the largest of alliances cannot patrol every system under its control and prevent these attacks from ever happening, the absolute lack of any patrols has made these pirates and raiders much more bold. It is only a matter of time before industrial activity takes a severe hit if they do not stop. My corporation appears to be willing to take up the mantel of fast reaction teams and roaming patrols to help step on these guys and force them out of FA territory.
But before any of that can occur the fighting in the Fountain region must come to an end. Given the lack of IT and Blast organized resistance projections indicate that this will occur soon...
Ranger Gama
Ordos Humanitas
Fatal Ascension
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