The other pirate Captains were dotted around Flash: JManza, Persephone, Jmarr, Interdict and Nashh to name five. A total of fourteen pirate Captains, capsuleers all, dressed in the black and silver jumpsuits of The Bastards looked at their various ships. The whole range of human emotions played across all their faces, from sheer delight to horror to down right disgust. On a tier below them were some of each Captain's hand picked bridge crew. They were just as animated.
"You sure boss that you want us to go out in them?" Said Lord Breathnach with some disbelief as he pointed to his nominated ship, a battered looking Celestis class cruiser. Flashfresh nodded. Nashh and Persephone in contrast had grins on their faces - they were looking forward to the operation. Silvetrys, a long-time Captain with The Bastards joined everyone on the viewing platform with a face of thunder.
"I have only two fracking auto canons available on that piece of Bellicose junk!"
Jmanza performed a most elegant shrug and added, "I have one gun and do less damage than a T2 rifter. Should be fun." There were a few more grumbles. It was unclear whether it was in agreement with Silvetrys or JManza.
Taking a deep breath, Flash called for attention and faced the assembled crew members. Since this operation was posted a while ago, everyone was ready and did not need too much.
"It's time. To your ships, we undock in 15 minutes. See you outside."
Being pirates, just the chance of loot and plunder was enough. Long-winded pep talks was not to their liking, besides - it would eat into possible ransom time. With well practised ease, the crews sprinted to their new ships. Most of the crew were used to flying in the more out and out combat ships: from the rupture-class to the thorax-class to the maelstrom-class. Some of the running crew still had operating manuals clutched in their hands; such was their unfamiliarity.
In under ten minutes, the fleet was assembled. Scouts raced off ahead and a destination was set and the odd looking fleet fired up their engines and headed towards Ardar. A gate camp in Hagilur had meant two recruits had trouble joining the fleet but no matter; they would have to catch up.
Interdict was ahead in his stabber - not classed as a lol cruiser but it was all Interdict had at that time; he was ahead and managed to tackle a rupture near a planet but was then tackled by a jaguar and an arbitrator. His stabber didn't survive. Kingzolo arrived to assist but was too late to save Interdict, in revenge we killed the Jaguar but a drake had arrived and with the surviving rupture and arbitrator; King's omen popped. Much to his delight. We replied in kind and set the arbitrator as primary, since it was closer and shredded it. Actually, the term 'shredding it' gives an impression of overwhelming damage. It wasn't. The lol-cruisers pecked the arbitrator to death and it exploded from boredom.
With much fail, The Bastards fleet failed to point any other ships as the drake and rupture (with a great tank) slipped away.
Cooling off our criminal countdowns, Jmanza went on ahead and and called out that the Hadozeko gate in Ardar had a small camp with a couple of battle cruisers. We piled in and since our assailants were also classed as criminals, we were all free from sentry guns. We lost Jmanza's Augoror and failed to kill anything, we had webbed one of the hurricanes (Sir Quentin's) and tried to pour our fire onto it. However, the lol cruisers had more logistical ability than damage and Sir Quentin's mighty hurricane managed to crawl back to the gate and jump. There was much anguish among the surviving fleet members and cursing of the downright shocking abilities of these cruisers. Persephone, however went round being nurse as her exequoror went around repairing the gaping holes in the armour of our ships.
Nashh was then sent off ahead as a scout and popped a thrasher - Nashh was in a caracal (not a lol cruiser) and was much chastised by the rest of the fleet for this. The fleet waited for a while, moving around safe spots and not getting a firm location on a couple of targets: a small battle ship group and a battle cruiser gang. It was Nashh who spotted the same battle cruiser gang that had popped JManza and warped to the Frerstorn gate in Ardar to investigate. Unfortunately, at least one of the hurricanes was too close to Nashh and had the CDM Maestro tackled. We had no choice but to assist and the lol cruiser fleet leapted into warp and raced towards Nashh's current position. In mid-warp, Nashh informed everyone that he had popped and that he was now saving his capsule. When the fleet dropped out of warp, primary and secondary targets were called: Sir Quentin's hurricane and EhDuin Saladah's harbinger. The second hurricane was too far away and it was soon joined by an arbitrator. We were also now joined by TheHermit who was in his falcon.
The space between the ships instantly was filled with screaming missiles, lancing lasers and chattering auto canon fire. Drones zipped between the bulky ships, Silvetry's bellicose went from full shield to flaming hull in a split second and was scrapped by a disdainful broadside from EhDuin Saladah's pulse lasers. The lol cruiser fleet managed to destroy Sir Quentin's hurricane but then lost Interdicts' second ship, a rifter followed by my Moa and then Persephone's exequror. A third hurricane had arrived and it looked bleak for us as the second hurricane entered into flaming structure. Thanks to Lord B, who had sent his drones in, we managed to destroy the second hurricane before our lol fleet was soundly crushed.
Laughing, we sped back in our pods and spotted the ships we had engaged earlier in the evening. They were still hanging around the gates looking for kills and loot. We decided that for part two, we would be back in ten minutes but this time we would be rolling heavy.
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