[Disclaimer: The author of this piece is the Head Diplomat for Phoebe Freeport Republic]
For the last couple of weeks rising tensions between Rebel Alliance of New Eden [RANE] /The Gorgon Empire [-GE-] and Phoebe Freeport Republic [PFR] has led to increasing escalations of action. Initially, it was a case of a few blops drops on ratters here and there however when [RANE] RF’d several of [PFR]’s R32s it caused a noticeable spike in hostilities. In reaction to this [PFR] reinforced/destroyed a number of [RANE] POSes in Wicked Creek’s 5Y1E-3 constellation, in particular the system of M-MBRT. One of the POSes RF’d was a R64 belonging to [-GE-]. The R64 was a personal moon belonging to one of Gorgon Empire’s leaders; White Don, so [PFR] expected little to no organized resistance from Gorgon, who would have to burn from Curse to defend the moon.
Due to a mix-up in communication [PFR] believed the moon to be coming out early on Febuary 17th when in fact it came out hours earlier, at 16:00 on the 16th. [PFR] flash-formed in an attempt to take out the POS however numbers were poor so the decision to use dreadnoughts was made. As [PFR] subcaps, primarily Augoror Navy Issues, made their way into system they found it empty and began engaging the POS whilst they got the cyno in place for their dreadnoughts to jump in and assist.
The Augoror Navy Issues came under heavy fire from POS guns and were not holding up very well. This forced the cynoing ANI to light it on the friendly POS in system rather than on grid with the subcaps. The dreads jumped in and warped onto the enemy POS, however due to a miscalculation by the FC they landed on the POS shields thus forcing them to burn off before entering siege.
Barely 30 seconds after the dreads landed on grid a [-GE-] cyno logged in and lit a cyno just off their POS. Half a dozen Sabres and an Ishtar fleet jumped through the portal and immediately began burning for the dreads, which were still in the process of aligning off. The ANIs were unable to track the fast Sabres so the dreads were soon trapped inside warp disruption bubbles. With the [PFR] dreads trapped on field, [-GE-} jumped in 3 supercarriers and a titan into system, and quickly destroyed all five Naglfars, the sole Chimera, and all the Augoror Navy Issues [PFR] had on field. Only 1 ship managed to escape the slaughter; [PFR]’s FC in a Naglfar.
In the end, the losses came to just over 17 and a half billion ISK in losses for [PFR] whilst [-GE-] lost nothing.
