Merdaneth
Amarr
PIE Inc.
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Posted - 2007.07.17 18:35:00 -
[1]
The Passing of TES Truthseeker
I entered my pod last sunday to find the PIE battlegroup was already in Heimatar. I resigned myself to defending Amarr. I patrolled the system in my Arbitrator-class cruiser and encountered terrorists flying a Purifier and a Crow. Both seemed determined to stay far away from danger, only launching the occasional ineffectual barrage of missiles at my ship.
Advance elements of the PIE battlegroup returned to Amarr and several pilots retired for the day, among them our excellent scout, Lt. Miranor. That made me decided to board the TES Truthseeker, my Pilgrim-class Recon vessel and aid my brothers with locating hostiles. The crew of the TES Truthseeker greeted me warmly, eager to defend the Empire. Only two weeks ago we had celebrated the ship's sixth' month of service in the fleet.
The Purifier did not show itself again, but I did manage to get within 11km of the Crow flown by terrorist Paddington, but was unable to engage him and chose to remain cloaked. Several uneventful encounters in Sarum Prime with the agile terrorists prompted fleet command to request a change of ships to smaller and more agile vessels.
Admiral Lok'ri was returning in his Crusader-class interceptor when he encountered a Dominix-class battleship at the gate. The order was given to annihilate the Gallente monstrosity, and I soon found myself engaged with it. The Domi buckled quickly in response to our concentrated fire but moments later my HUD stuttered and bright red alerts went off: a large fleet of ships had come out of warp right on top of us!
When my on-board computer had recovered sufficiently I noticed the tell-tale sign of active webbing modules around my vessel. I quickly identified the opposition, no less than six enemy vessels had actively engaged me. A Typhoon, Hyperion, Hurricane, two Huginn-class vessels and a Caracal. I ordered my crew to target the battleships first with tracking disruptors, unfortunately my HUD displayed unusually long locking times, not only was I webbed and scrambled, but had been dampened as well!
Given the fact that the enemy fleet outnumbered our fleet by more than 2 to 1 and a large portion of the enemy firepower concentrated on the TES Truthseeker, the ship would not survive the combat intact. That made me determined to buy my brothers as much time as I could. I activated my tracking disruptors, directed my NOS at one of the Huginn's and slammed on the afterburner.
Drones, missiles and gunfire shook the hull, but the Carthum armor proved strong, and 30 seconds after the first impact my vessel was still intact. A fiery explosion startled me: 'Crow down, enemy down, hail Admiral Lok'ri!' my scanner crew reported. Even outnumbered, the first kill was ours!
Thirty more seconds passed and the red warning signals on my HUD multiplied tenfold, but the TES Truthseeker remained intact. Two more bright explosions flashed by in rapid succession signaling the destruction of two other ships. My thought went out to brave Lord Kador, or perhaps vice-admiral Blake succumbing to superior enemy firepower. Then my crew yelled at me: 'Both Huginns down sir, repeat Huginns are down! All friendlies alive!' The webbing around my ship disappeared and my mobility increased. I was amazed, had God decided to intervene and crush the terrorists?
I was rudely pulled from my hopeful reverie by my chief engineer, who reported that the capacitor was running low despite the three nosferatu's and he needed to offline the repairer unit. Only then did I notice a regroup order had been given, but with my ship still scrambled I was unable to comply. Moment after my capacitor died, my nosferatu's and tracking disruptors went offline as well as enemy jammers finally defeated the Pilgrim's superior sensor suite. Then, nearly two minutes after the first shot was fired, my HUD briefly blacked out as the pod failsafes activated and ejected me into space moments before TES Truthseeker disintegrated.
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