One of the best things, of many things, about being the CEO of Stay Frosty is the opportunity to just sit back sometimes and watch things happen. It is possible to take a long-term strategic view and watch as your plans unfold around you, change, evolve and generally take shape. It is a journey that is very rewarding and exciting. Who knows what might happen next?
Along that journey there are moments that help to define who and what you are as a Corporation. All Corporations have them. Moments when one path taken leads to another path not taken, and each decision, reaction, plan and opportunity has consequences that often cannot be predicted.
This all being a rather high-brow and unnecessary way of saying someone started shooting our POCOs on Sunday. The whole "Stay Frosty has POCOs" thing is handled by a different department, overseen by me of course, but mostly I stay out of it because I suck at carebear things. I have enough trouble remembering to re-load my nanite paste, much less remember the ins and outs of reinforcement timers on isk-generators. (I exaggerate of course, but I do have an image to maintain!)
So my mail starts blinking on Sunday and I start looking into what is happening. I send out some intel feelers and organize an actual CTA for Monday. (CTA = Call To Action) We don't call CTAs in Stay Frosty, so this was unusual to begin with. In fact, in some ways, this was our first actual organized response fleet planned ahead of time... thing. So what would happen?
Turns out we had a rather robust and enthusiastic response. Seeing as how most of us were 26 jumps away, this was rather encouraging. In fact, even after the main force started moving, we had even more people x up and join the effort. For our first attempt, this was rather remarkable.
Setting out we had no idea what we'd be faced with on the other end. Intel was sparse initially and only stared filling in as we moved. It is often amazing how quickly the puzzle starts being put together on these operations. I actually fitted up a Scythe and flew Logi for this operation!! I know, crazy huh? I named my ship "wtf am I doing?" and set off.
I want to say up front that I have nothing but admiration for anyone in a 30 ish man Alliance that shoots the POCO of a 160 ish pirate corporation. Kudos all around for having a pair. I'd also like to say congratulations for following through with that initial attempt and not running away and hiding. Well done.
We arrived in force and began repairing the shields on the POCO. For this part of the operation I was the only Logi on the field. We knew they had several T3s and a Falcon around, so we weren't sure exactly what they might bring if a fight started at all. And, of course, the ever present threat of being hot-dropped was present.
Our fleet was rather unique and the only common thread was that we were all shield based, other than that? Well we had a Drake, a Gnosis, a Naga, an Oracle, a Talos, a Caracal, a Gila, a Hawk and a few fast tackle - along with my Scythe. The enemy did show up and landed on us directly. 2 T3s, 2x Omens, a Rupture, Thorax and Vexor. Strangely enough they focused fire on the Gila and the fight was on.
Despite having only flown Logi a handful of times in the past, I have been well schooled in their operation over the years. I had my watchlist properly set-up and immediately started repping the Gila. I had also brought along combat drones so I could get on some friggin' killmails! (Fix this someone!) I know the enemy wanted a Gila km, but picking the one ship in our fleet with the highest resist profile wasn't the smartest move. It was touch and go for a few minutes, but once they started exploding, the amount of dps dropped off quickly.
You can see the Battle Report for yourself. But we came out of this without losing a single ship and got some nice kills. We switched up additional Logi after that and got the POCO back in shape.
Well done to everyone involved. Our FC did an excellent job of organizing the fight and we all had a blast. Which is, after all, the most important part.
I love it when a plan comes together.