Invaders must die!

This is a story of a small POS.

It is, or rather was, totally without strategical value for R-NAT and Transmission Lost, and without any chance for juicy loot if you kill it.  Still, we spent almost 24h and 1B in ship-losses to see the explosion.

Crazy? Maybe. Fun? For sure!

It all started when we found a small, newly setup tower (no mods, shields at 53%) in Gloria, our static C2. I jumped out to highsec and at that exact time a hoarder landed on the WH. It obviously did not jump in since I was flying a Tengu and he saw me...

Now, this hoarder was from the same corp, some Potentially Irresponsible of the Northen Strike alliance, that had that small POS we found. Could it be this guy is the one that setting that POS up? After some quick investigations, it stood clear this was most likely some kind of stage-pos to take the system since there already where POSes belonging to other corps in that system.

This can't be! it's an invasion! Surly not any of our business, but hey, what do we care? Invaders must die!

We only had a few pilots on, but still decided that we should kill this tower, maybe it did not even have stront, and if so, it would be a quick affair.

We swiftly critted the HS, and started to work on the other WHs in the system. There was a lot of wormholes to handle, except from the static C3 and HS, we had our incomming C4, a C2 and Nullsec.

All except our home system got critted or closed to make it a bit safer for us to bash the POS. Remember that we only had like three or four guys online and could not keep system control the normal way.

While Magger and I  was critting the C3 WH, a covops suddenly appeared, but I failed to get info on it. Knowing where scouts come from by pairing them (by corp-belonging) to some POS that's been scouted earlier is very important. When you run ops with few pilots like we did here, you need to do a threat assessment on every corp who's scouts you see.

It was this I had in mind when I later decided to check that, now crit, C3 out. I figured, that if we had seen a scout at that WH, the inhabitants was worth checking out a bit closer.

I jumped into a thrasher, it's light so it would not close the critical static but still got the means to ruin any frigpilots day.

Well, I manage to close the WH with a bloody destroyer! What are the chances? Just my luck... Now we have to scan out and crit the new C3 - exactly what I wanted to avoid.

But no my friends, I was not stuck, the Thrasher have 8 high slots but only 7 gun-mounts, so I obviously have probes. And seriously, I think I'm going to start kicking people from corp that manage to get stuck with ships having utility highs and still don't fit a probe launcher.

Anyhow, I ask the guys still left in Gloria (our static C2, remember?) to find the new C3 while I start to make my what back. It looks like even if the WH-god of critical mass pulled my leg on that one,  I'm totally bro with the scanning-god, because first scan gives me a hit on what shows to be the static, an lowsec empire-exit. I'm out in 5 min, heading back towards Glorias HS. It's 17 jumps, 15 of those through lowsec - could have been worse.

In fact, it is worse. Back in Gloria one of our pilots in a cloaky T3, with the scaning subsystem, manages to be out-scanned by Magger, that's camping a bubbeled HS in a Dominix! There was some excuses made about our sigtracker not working and whatnot, but since this dude have not been even trying to help out in any of the scanning, his trial period is coming to an abrupt end. If you can't be trusted to do even basic scanning, then you are of little use to a WH-corp.

After securing the system and using only a few ships, we got the POS to 25% shields, but unfortunately it was stronted, we would have to wait 13h before it would get out of reinforced. We now had the choice of just going back and forgetting about the whole thing, or making arrangements and coming back to finish the tower off when it was ripe.

R-NAT decide to stay and see this through, this POS was going down! We checked who could be on when at the time for REO-exit, said good night and logged off.

In the morning, still T minus many hours, I log on and scout the system out. The sigs needs to be rescanned after downtime, so I do that. The highsec was new and needed critting, so we did that. Before this I had also sent a corp mail updating everybody on the situation and what plans we had. I remember that I explicitly said "one hour before it comes out of reinforced we will close the HS and crit the new one" knowing that you do not want to do operations with a old wormhole in system. When the time came, we broke this rule, and boy did we paid for it.

Finally, at the time for POS to come out of REO, we are getting set to kill it off. At this point we have 4 pilots on, the HS is critted and bubbled (should be safe, eh?) and we still have the connection to Natalie (our home system), even if it is pretty end of life by now. We also have a new incomming C5 in Natalie which we are currently checking out.

Suddenly our scout at the crit, bubbled HS calls that a neut Drake just jumped in and was burning out of the bubble. And because of I operate in a "when in doubt, go for it" mode, I call everybody to the HS. And of course the Drake is not alone, when are they ever?

We already have a Domi in the bubble, and I land a few seconds later with a Mega, right on top of the Drake. It goes down in a jiffy, like all drakes should, but now his friends are pouring in through that "secured" wormhole.

We obviously managed to lose almost everything we brought, and since I did not gave order to GTFO of the bubble, we end up in empire as well ;(

R-NAT - then unknown third party: 0 - 6

After the loss, we regrouped in Natalie and try to figure out who hit us and what gone wrong. The guys that found us was Enneagram Rocks, and describe themselves as a "highsec industrial corporation" - we are sceptical that that is still valid :) Anyhow, good job on that one!

After they leave we decide to still try to kill the POS. At this point we have a single Naga hitting it, just to make sure the shields don't recharge too much. I'm trying to get some more dps from Natalie, and like it was pre-ordered, Jimma logs on and comes to help out. But oh, no! The Natalie-Gloria WH is gone! We have no longer a convenient direct connection.

After a new Gloria opens up, we are pretty focused to just get Jimma and whoever else that want to come over. Jimma jumps into the new Gloria to discover a large mining-op going on, he reports several Hulks and a Orca not at a POS. They seems to know what they are doing thou, because as soon as Jimma jumped in, they pull back their minerals and ship into pvp ships.

They have a static HS that we want to use. To make our exit from Natalie safer (not having to worry about camps on the HS or scared miners trying to reroll wormholes) I convo one of the guys, explains who we are and what we want, and asks if we can just take a few ships to HS through their system. It's ok by them as long as we don't open their static C4.

Thanx for your co-operation, Jack Macca! Sometimes diplomacy is the easiest and quickest way to get things done.

While all this taking place back home in Natalie, I have Ashi on the WH to our target system in a Tengu, covering for Tashima that's alone bashing the pos, waiting for more dps.

It is then I realise that this highsec is actually just one jump from trade-hub, and that I could throw a torp Raven together real quick. It would do wonders against the small POS. I do so, just fitting the absolute basics, launchers, and dmg mods! I have no intension to ever shoot anything else except the POS with this thing, and it's going to be sold as soon as the POS is down.

We keep bashing the POS with what have become a Raven, Naga and a Drake. We don't have the HS bubbled, but it is on it's way to become crit, well beyond half mass after I used the Raven to reduce it.

This is when the POS owners show up! Earlier I have seen their scout check the HS out, so we know they at least know where it is. We don't know how many of their alliance that are actually in on this.

For a long time they only have one in local, but eventually they muster a Harbinger, a Mega and a Rifter.

They jump in and after some WH games I end up with Ashis really poorly fitted raven on the inside and the others out. I'm not to worried because the WH is not crit and I can always jump out, right?

All three jumps in and the WH is gone! I must have missed when it went crit, or they managed to close it with what they had. In any case, the Mega does quick work of the Raven.

R-NAT - Potentially Irresposonsible: 0 - 1

The status was now Drake with probes, Naga and pod on the inside together with their Mega, Harb and Rifter. Thats a fight we dont want, so we log the Naga off, and give Jimma in the scanning Drake the task of finding the new HS. As they put probes out at the same time, it becomes a race for the new highsec.

Jimma does a great job of onlining the rusty old probe launcher on his Drake and ejecting some T1 probes, beating the enemy Cheeta to pinning the new HS.

I  get my pod out, and goes to Jita to fit a new Raven and rush back towards the new HS. The control of the system are now back in the "invaders" hands, and we need to get it back.

By now, DethSilver have joined us with some DPS in the form of a Tornado and a scout in a quickly thrown together blackbird.

When we are ready, we log the ships in the system back on (Drake and Naga), fleet up and jump the ships we have in highsec in. A small fight at the WH follows, but we are quickly forcing the invaders to jump out. Hence, WH control is back where it belongs, in our hands!

Raven, Naga, Drake, Tornado and Blackbird vs Mega, Harb and Rifter is no contest, but we don't know what more they have coming so we decide to roll the highsec once again.

And from there on, we have enough DPS to kill the tower before they managed to get back and challenge us. Almost exactly five hours after coming out of reinforced, the small, 60M POS finally exploded.

During this, R-NAT never had more than three or four pilots on at the same time, and Potentially Irresposnible did not manage to bring any reinforcements from their alliance. Neither did we try to bring in a TL fleet to put the POS out of it's misery.

This stayed a battle over a strategically unimportant POS, fought by very few pilots, none of who lived in the system. This might potentially the smallest and least significant POS-kill/defence in the history of w-space! Well.. Maybe not, I'm sure there are quite a few Dominix and Geddon pilots out there that afk-soloed some small, undefended POSes.

A big thanks to everybody that at some point passed through this story, you're all important threads in the tapestry we call EVE.