It was a cold and stormy night in Fountain…
The Set-Up
The system of DBRN-Z was close to deserted, having been camped by a lone TNT pilot by the name of Rusty Boon, for in his sights, an abandoned super-carrier sitting in an unarmed small POS. For days, Rusty had members of Dot Dot Dot on edge, holding the whole system for ransom. The owner of the Hel, Skadi Endashi, begging for him to leave as he couldn’t afford to pay the ransom. But pirates be pirates.
Rusty had been watching the system, the locals and the pos for days, so he decided to take the risk and called in some help from fellow TNT members Hunter Roy and Terraj Oknatis. Terraj, being switched on at the time, took it upon himself to bring ammo, and they commenced shooting the POS.
After many hours, Terraj who had fallen asleep, awoke to the sounds of explosions. A daredevil had appeared and Rusty and Hunter were engaging. However, being as tired as they were, Rusty found himself accidently adding to the loss of Hunter Roy’s stealth bomber, but the daredevil was dead. Terraj gave his manticore to Hunter and left for work.
“I’ll shoot this pos all f**king day if I have to”, Rusty said.
The Long Bash
They knew it was going to be a long haul, but the prize was too good of an opportunity to pass up. As Hunter got more sleepy, Rusty went looking for reinforcements, finding ITAI members Industrial Oblitorator and Annexe looking for something to do. With the prospects of grabbing a super-carrier, they were both keen to sit for hours assisting in a POS-bash. So they both made their way 40+ jumps down to DBRN-Z in bombers to assist in the grind.
“Race ya!” said Annexe, challenging the CEO.
After about 10-15 minutes of travelling, through enemy systems, through small gate camps, the two ITAI members arrived. With Indy’s alt making a detour to pick up a stealth bomber Rusty had near-by. Tower locked. Torps firing.
76% shields as the torps were continuously cycled. But still the system was dead, only 1-2 pilots coming in and out wondering what was going on. Another hour had passed, and it was looking like a null effort as downtime grew closer. But the TNT pilots had plenty of time, and plenty of ammo. And they sat there grinding at the POS, staring at the shiny super-carrier sitting lifeless inside the shields. Jokes were made as another abandoned Hel sat in another POS with guns.
“Maybe we can use this Hel to kill the other pos and steal that Hel too” they joked.
In the Nik of Time
The pilots had almost forgotten that the system had gone empty, when a neutral pilot by the name of NIKYUS jumped in warped his gallente shuttle at range of the POS. The TNT fleet, unphased, watched as the shuttle warped off again. Cloaked eyes watched the pilot land at a citadel, then warp to the station and dock. Then undock and warp back to the POS, again landing outside the shield. The shuttle pilot turned around and warped off again.
The TNT fleet started to take notice now, confused and trying to work out what the pilot was doing. The bombers continued to shoot the POS, while Industrial Oblitorator maneuvered his imperial navy slicer into alignment between the POS and the station, hoping to grab the shuttle, only this time the shuttle landed inside the POS. Next the tower. Next to the Hel.
Rusty, Indy, Hunter and Annexe were all sitting upright at this time, they knew there was only 2 possibilities at this point. Either the shuttle pilot was moving stront from the hangar array into the tower, or was getting ready to board the Hel and get it out of harm’s way. The TNT fleet knew that whatever happened, the hours of structure shooting was going to be a wasted effort.
All of a sudden, before the fleet’s very eyes, the Hel shot out of the POS, sideways at over 5000m/s!
What the Hel?
There was silence for a moment, every pilot wondering what the heck just happened. Did the pilot board it and warp out? Zooming the camera out, they saw the super carrier drifting further and further away. By the time it hit the fleet that the Hel had been ejected from the POS due a ‘possible password error’, Industrial Oblitorator was already full-speed burning, overheated, in his Imperial Navy Slicer, towards the super-carrier which was now well over 500km away from the POS.
“Burn! Burn! Burn!”, Indy yelled as he rocketed towards the massive super-carrier. “I have the skills to fly it!” “Board ya c**t!”.
The TNT fleet sprung into action. A safe spot was made as Indy boarded the Hel, who then immediately began to warp. At this stage, NIKYUS had slow boated outside the POS shield in his shuttle, hoping to catch up to the super carrier, but was swiftly tackled and destroyed by the nearby bombers. https://zkillboard.com/kill/63589348/ The Hel landed at a safe spot and quickly began to safe-log. The system slowly filled up with 3-4 neutral pilots, obviously racing to try and save the super-carrier. Combat probes went out, but it was too late, the Hel was no longer in system.
As TNT sat back and took a deep breath, the laughter ensued, the disbelief of what just happened still hadn’t washed over. And the silence of local chat was broken;
[ 2017.07.20 10:14:13 ] Annexe > what hel?
[ 2017.07.20 10:15:06 ] Hunter Roy > lol
[ 2017.07.20 10:15:26 ] industrial oblitorator > Hel this one
[ 2017.07.20 10:18:33 ] Aravinth > well thats just neat
[ 2017.07.20 10:19:00 ] Hunter Roy > you will be on the news dont worry
[ 2017.07.20 10:20:34 ] industrial oblitorator > it was at that moment he realised ‘ i fucked up’
[ 2017.07.20 10:20:42 ] Hunter Roy > lol
[ 2017.07.20 10:20:46 ] Annexe > #whoops
[ 2017.07.20 10:20:59 ] Aravinth > haha ya i got a CTA and jumped in
[ 2017.07.20 10:21:09 ] Aravinth > well congrats guys
[ 2017.07.20 10:26:41 ] Rusty Boon > Tell skadi to take it easy on NIKYUS
[ 2017.07.20 10:26:49 ] Hunter Roy > lol
[ 2017.07.20 10:26:58 ] Rusty Boon > Skadi is my friend we have formed a lasting bond
[ 2017.07.20 10:38:49 ] industrial oblitorator > Eloninnia ill trade ny slicer for a hel
[ 2017.07.20 10:39:08 ] Rusty Boon > conselation prize
[ 2017.07.20 10:39:21 ] industrial oblitorator > constellation
[ 2017.07.20 10:39:21 ] Annexe > fly it like you stole it!
[ 2017.07.20 10:39:39 ] industrial oblitorator > should do that with the hel
[ 2017.07.20 10:39:56 ] industrial oblitorator > has kill marks that slicer so look after my old girl
[ 2017.07.20 10:57:41 ] Eloninnia > i wont i will reproces it
[ 2017.07.20 10:58:55 ] industrial oblitorator > for your next hel build?
NIKYUS returned to the abandoned Imperial Navy Slicer and jumped in. TNT traded an Imperial Navy Slicer for a Hel. Not a bad deal eh?
Extraction
As the downtime timer hit, the TNT fleet planned the next move, evaccing the stolen Hel. Unsure if it was even fueled, a cloaky fuel truck was raced down. As soon as the server was back up, the TNT fleet was already at work. Cynos were put in place, the fuel truck moved in, the only gate into system watched.
The Hel logged on. Fully fueled. Fully fit. With bonus officer mods inside. Indy deployed a mobile depot, refit the officer cloak, and cloaked up while the capacitor recharged. The TNT cloaky ships were quickly bridged out, and with a quick ‘oi’ in local, the Hel uncloaked and jump to a cyno. Dot Dot Dot -1 super-carrier.
The Hel was moved safely back to Delve where the ISK will be divided amongst the TNT fleet.
All we can say is, it was one Hel of a heist.
