HED Run

Instead of my usual Sunday night Eve time my wife and I spent it decorating the Christmas Tree much to my dismay (I could have vetoed but after 12 years of marriage you learn when to pick your battles). So instead my Eve night was Monday evening, i.e. last night.

I expected it to be quiet as it usually is after weekends and I was not surprised when fleet finder showed nother of great interest. I could have done some more work on Kla'strit's sec status but I felt adventurous so I jumped into the Gank Falcon named Bracket and set a course for Ushra Khan's station systems.

It was pretty quiet along the way until I was about half way there and entering the first UK system when I spotted a hostile. I began doing a search to see if I could find him, then local began to spike. I was a few hundred clicks off a gate when numerous reds appeared on grid, local reaching to 24 enemy pilots.

Then they began to shoot. Each other.

Turns out I stumbled into a Brick Squad fleet fighting a combined UK and AAA fleet. I watched with some amusement and some frustration, wishing I could assist my neighbours even though they are red to us. They're good neighbours, you know? Anyways, it appears they didn't need my help and eventually they held the field and started to drift off.

At this point I got wind of a fleet organizing back home so instead of continuing on into UK space I turned around and made best speed for the rally point. They were looking for Amarrian Zealot HACs, Amarrian Guardian logistics, Interdictors of any type, Interceptors of any type, and T1 frigates. Since I couldn't fly any of the first three, I turned to my stable of Interceptors.

I have a Raptor for shuttling/scouting/long range disruptor point, a Crow as a chase interceptor with a high top speed, and a slower Taranis that can dish out the DPS. I opted for the Taranis this time as I wanted to play with the newest toy.

As the fleet finished its formation we got wind of a "neutral" gang of Tech 1 crusiers terrorizing friendlies nearby. We paid them a visit, wiping out the eight cruisers in short order and in turn losing a Heretic Interdictor.

Next we did what is referred to as a "HED run". HED-GP is a Against All Authorities station system in Catch region only three jumps removed from D-GTMI station system in Paxton Federation space in Providence region. In addition it is one of those rare null sec systems directly adjacent to a High Sec system, Keberz, making it a popular route into 0.0. A "HED run" is where we go into that system and mix things up with whoever we find.

The interceptor wing led the charge and chased a few ships; I don't know for sure if they caught any as I was a jump behind due to not hearing a command properly but the Paxton killboard has none so maybe CVA interceptors picked up the initial kills. When I got to the Keberz gate in HED the reds had scattered.

But then a hostile Cerberus warped to the gate and got caught in the almost-permanent warp bubble deployed there about 80 km from the gate. Yeah, you bet we jumped on him as fast as you can say "boo". I got into a tight orbit with my scrambler activated and blasters running. He was a tough tanked ship and he targetted me as he probably didn't like him MWD being shut off but his heavy missiles caused only minor shield damage each salvo and the local Scimitar logistics ship took care of that with ease.

Then, as his shields approached the breaking point, another hostile uncloaked and a single word over voice comms was heard: "BOMB". I gritted my teeth as I saw the bomb icon on the overview sail to within 10 km and I figured it was do or die as I kept my course and stayed in orbit around the Cerberus.

BOOOOOOOM!

My shields and all my armour except ten points (not ten percent, ten actual hitpoints) were gone, but the structure held, the tackle on the Cerberus remained, and logistics soon but my shields back in place. The Cerb went down shortly after that and you will notice the bomber was fourth in damage; it was win-win for the Brick Squad bomber as we were all hostile to him including the AAA Cerberus.

After that we knew AAA would not sit around docked up waiting for us to leave and the response fleet would probably be more than we could handle (in the past, mutliple Doomsdays were the usual response, thank goodness for Dominion changes) so we completed the HED run with an expedient exit. At this point I was near the end of my allotted time so I took my leave of the fleet and docked up back at base.

Three killmails overall for me and I survived a bomb. Not a bad Monday night after all!

Kirith's Taranis: