Flashy Red say hi to the locals

So, I got home from work and logged on to howls of glee and a reassuring (although inaccurate) statement from 8agpuss

"We're not gatecamping by the way!"

Turns out they guys had happened across a member of Care Bear Stare in a thrasher, and had not only popped it, but also killed his corpse, along with alleged expensive implants.

Not wanting to even consider camping, I quickly got a fleet up, and in short order we put together a Falcon, a Claw, a Wof, 2 Ruptures, an Arbitrator, a Hurricane and a Drake. XXXXXXX also flew nearby in his cov-ops as an extra pair of eyes/prober if needed.

We quickly zipped down to Hasama, while Otto went into Mara cloaky to look into Blackdog's report of a hurricane in the top belt. He clearly had friends waiting in Dantumi, but we were confident we could kill it, so we prepared to jump in and attack. Unfortunately two members of Care Bear Stare chose that moment to investigate the 'cane, in a phobos and a cloaky-other-ship-that-we-didn't-see. Shocked

CBS then vanished back to Passari, and the Hurricane came out to play again, and despite having a myrm, stiletto and curse as backup waiting in Dantumi, warped off almost as soon as we landed in the belt.

Frustrated by this, we began the run up to Tama. We moved fairly quickly through the empty space lanes as far as Manjonakko, when I, a system ahead in my interceptor, spotted an Atron heading through the system. The fleet waited on the gate, and the larger of the ships (read: Ticks) popped the frigate in short order.

We pushed on into Tama after a brief chat with Arch Widowmaker in Asakai, and before long it seemed we were facing a mirror of the earlier situation in Mara. Otto found a red Hurricane in a belt.

Having already prepared ourselves for death or glory, I warped in and tackled the cane. Otto decloaked and jammed it and the rest of the fleet warped in to destroy it.

Except...

Just as the 'cane was going into half shields, a similarly red Vagabond and Zealot warped in. Deciding to keep DPS on the cane as it was moving very slowly do to our scrams and webs, I called the Vagabond as a secondary target, figuring it the easier of the two HACs to kill.

Otto had to warp out once the Vaga and Zealot moved out of his jam range and started pounding on him, and so missed the pretty lights when the Hurricane exploded. I too had to run around that point, as a couple of well-aimed shots from the Zealot stripped away my 400mm plate and left me trailing flames into the void.

As I landed at my warp-out spot and began the process to return, Ticks called point on the Vagabond, and as I landed, in fact before I could lock it, the Vaga bit the dust. The Zealot by this point had obviously grown a yellow streak, and was moving steadily away from us, so we looted the field, and destroyed the T2 wreck so that it couldn't be salvaged. Cos we're mean like that. Grrr.

As we explored a little further, Ticks, heading to a station to dock, encountered SBG Dose in his Stiletto, and his drones made short work of him.

We finished our patrol and headed back to our home in Ishomilken, discovering some interesting things along the way...

but that's a tale for Otto to tell.

Tonight was a night of excellent fleet discipline, even when things weren't so exciting, great teamwork and communication, and a fantastic do-or-die spirit that for me embodies what FLASHY RED is all about.

Fleet, I salute you.

JK