Empyrean Guard (Tactical Narcotics Team) member Durgar Tulan was passing time in station when he caught an intel report that a Titan was gating through Fountain towards Cloud Ring. At first Durgar thought it was impossible, that maybe the intel was mistaken. Further reports corroborated the story, though, with the Titan continuing to gate through one system after another.
So Durgar grabbed his last Sabre, messaged The Bastion intel pilot to stop reporting so that spies wouldn’t catch on, and took off after the Titan. He thought his chances were slim – that the ship would jump out before he reached it – but he gave it a go.
He got to the Erebus just as they both landed on the DY-F70 gate in B-DBYQ in Cloud Ring. “I bubbled him there to push him through,” Durgar explained, “and once he decloaked on the other side I got him bubbled again.” Durgar reached out to Imperium Skyteam member Asher Elias. “I told him I had an NC. Titan tackled, and his response was, ‘Whoa. Wait? Really??'”
Durgar had a cloak on his Sabre. “I figured I would bubble, move, then re-cloak, but there was a (Metaliminal) storm happening in local so I couldn’t cloak.” He kept his transversal up and stayed outside of the Titan’s smartbombing range “because (the Titan pilot) was trying to clear the bubbles with smartbombs.” Meanwhile, Durgar said, Asher told him, ‘I’m going to fight this Muninn fleet off then come to you.’
Durgar’s Sabre was running low on bubbles so Asher sent a dictor pilot and another FC in a ceptor with more probes. “It was basically me and the Titan alone in DY-F70 at the B-DBYQ gate for 14 minutes,” Durgar said.
Map from DOTLAN
Meanwhile In A System Not Far Away
Fleet Commander and Full Broadside (Deepwater Hooligans) CEO Timoxa Zero had decided to take out a fleet. Also along were members of the Forsaken Empire. (FE) and Pirate Lords of War (PLOW) alliances. Together they planned to head into Cloud Ring to harass and shoot a cyno jammer owned by Sedition. “They own a ratting system in Cloud Ring that they keep cyno jammed 24/7,” Timoxa explained.
Full Broadside and their friends had skirmished with Sedition before and figured that, to get Sedition to commit, hitting the jammer would get their attention. “Poking the jammer was part of our latest hi-jinks in an attempt to get a fight from them,” Timoxa joked. “They’re hesitant to commit so we really have to string them along.” The Broadside pilots formed in Sacrileges while some newbros from Pirate Lords were in Mauluses.
Timoxa said that the fleet targeted a few jump bridges then turned its attention on the jammer. “Sedition showed up to defend with, like, seven Jackdaws. They got a lucky volley off on a Maulus bro who wasn’t paying attention.” The Maulus pilot, in a pod, started to burn home. “On the way (in comms) he says, ‘There’s an Erebus sitting on a gate, bubbled.'”
“We were planning on going that way anyways because we were going to third party an Azbel timer (where) we expected Tri to show up,” Timoxa said. “So we decided to pop over.”
Titan Rescue Fleet, or Help?
Durgar was close to running out of bubbles when Broadside’s fleet jumped in system. Instead of targeting him, though, he was relieved to see the Sacrilege fleet and their tackle aid him by tackling the Titan. “Once (Timoxa’s fleet) started jumping into DY-F I launched the last of my warp disrupt probes thinking they were there to rescue the Titan and hoping that the bubbles would last long enough for the Goon back-up dictor to get there,” Durgur said. “Luckily they were on a roam and not friendly to NC. so they started shooting the Titan and launching their own bubbles. I got a convo going with them and as their Sac’s and Leshaks were shooting the Titan a neut Falcon warped in. I told them it wasn’t with me and they said it wasn’t theirs so we shot it rather than risk it bringing in reinforcements for the Titan. Not long after that a blue cyno ship appeared; I told (Timoxa) not to shoot it, and in came some carriers. I convo’d one of the carriers to say the Sacs/Leshaks were shooting the Titan so they could focus on the Titan as well and not worry about clearing tackle and subcaps.”
Timoxa added that they “bumped (the Titan) off the gate a little, and started coordinating dreads and getting a midpoint cyno.’ He added, “We called WANGS (Pen Is Out) in to help as we thought it was going to be a big NC bait. We sent eyes to J5A- and it was totally empty so we got our dreads in a mid. WANGS jumped in like 10 Archons and two faxes.”
Broadside’s dread hammer showed up, and their DPS immediately was telling on the Titan as it died minutes later. Asher’s fleet arrived just after the Titan was destroyed, and while the groups on grid would usually be hostile with one another, the Imperium fleet stayed to oversee the others extract, then went their way as well.
Afterwards, Timoxa noted that it’s important that “people know that small groups like (Broadside), PLOW, FE, etc., still exist. We don’t tend to get a lot of media traffic because we try to fly under the radar of bigger groups, but we are out there working hard for the same content as everyone else and I would urge people looking for something new to look for a smaller group. You don’t have to be a sky marshal or a war director or a Strategic FC to make a difference. You just have to find the right group.”
