Wormholes to Hel - an Eve story

I heard a new voice on the radio, “Fleet commander, what are your orders?” Static. My comms flashed with battle updates, we were losing ships fast. “Fleet commander, please respond.”

My heart sunk. I was training to become a skirmish commander, but this fleet needed someone with hardened battle experience. My finger twitched on the comm link. Should I take command? Then over the radio, “This is Alex, I’m taking command until Khun responds. All remaining units form up on me.” His callsign flashed in comms. I realized, I’d been holding my breath and exhaled.

I checked my shields and punched warp to get back in the fight.

I was looking over market data to see what I could import for profit when ping went out. I glanced down at my comms: “Fleet commander Khun: forming a fleet to jump a few wormholes. Be prepared to die.”

Reading through the fleet operations details, I realized I could join in my Cormorant–a destroyer class Caldari ship that I had just passed in flight school. The Cormorant wouldn’t turn any heads, but it packed a punch, and it was mine. I joined the ops channel and started the undocking sequence.

The trip out was uneventful, our group of 20 ships jumped from system to system nearly in tandem with little chatter in comms. Along the way we jumped through a few wormholes and found ourselves deep in hostile space, and those wormholes were one-way trips. With every warp jump and wormhole, we moved further from home and nearer death.

Khun barked out orders–none directed at me, many of which I didn’t understand before we made the last jump. What I did understand was that on the other side of this last jump was the target–a Hel.

I’d heard of Hels before: massive supercarrier class Minmatar monsters. These were the stuff of legends and the great wars from before my time.

On command, I warped and engaged. Our forward team already had the carrier’s warp capabilities disrupted. My rail-guns shook my ship as I slammed my Cormorant into an evasive orbit around the monster. It was like throwing sand at a shark.

It’s mouth opened and fighters streamed from it’s open bay, on comms, Khun barked, “All units target fighters. Free fire, free fire.”

I targeted the nearest fighter, and I was reminded of a saying I read about Hel supercarriers, “Imagine a swarm of deadly hornets pouring from the devil’s mouth. Now imagine they have autocannons.” I didn’t need to imagine anymore. We routed the first volley of fighters, but more poured from the devil’s mouth.

The alarm claxon blared–my shields were down. Another fighter went down. My armor was taking heavy damage. I reported my status, “Taking heavy damage, warping out to recover shields.” I selected a random planet in the system and punched warp–the pre-warp alignment time gave the fighters another few shots on me before I was on the other side of the system.

After silencing the alarms that lit up my console, I floated in silence. Diagnostics patched what could be patched without a repair station. My armor was half gone, but I could recover the shield with some time.

With the worst of the damage repaired, my attention returned to the fleet. How long had it been silent? Seconds? Minutes?

I heard a new voice on the radio, “Fleet commander, what are your orders?” Static. My comms flashed with battle updates, we were losing ships fast. “Fleet commander, please respond.”

My heart sunk. I was training to become a skirmish commander, but this fleet needed someone with hardened battle experience. My finger twitched on the comm link. Should I take command? Then over the radio, “This is Alex, I’m taking command until Khun responds. All remaining units form up on me.” His callsign flashed in comms. I realized, I’d been holding my breath and exhaled.

I checked my shields and punched warp to get back in the fight.

The Hel roared into view along with a host of other ships–where was the fleet? Six enemy cruisers locked onto my destroyer. I recalibrated and hit warp as their first volley ripped through my shields and into my remaining armor plating. At the same time, I heard Alex over comms, “Nef, get out of there!”

Khun’s voice came on comms. “Ex in fleet for all those who can refit and make a second run. Form up.” The comms channel filled with volunteers back at our home station willing to make another run. It would take a while for them to catch up.

Alex on comms, “All survivors warp to me. We’ll perform evasive manuevers until the fleet commander can get back in system.”

My Cormorant was nearly gone. The shields were gone, and the armor was down to 12%. I warped to Alex along with a ragtag group of ships–half of the fleet and in bad shape.

Alex led us in a random warp pattern with afterburners hot for what seemed an eternity. My shields slowly returned to full strength, along with my confidence.

Khun’s comms trickled through as the fresh fleet made its way toward us. Finally, they arrived in system. The handoff was calm and professional, Alex warped us to the fresh fleet, and he simply said, “Fleet commander Khun, welcome back, the fleet is yours.”

Intel said the reinforcements had lightened up, so we warped in and took a few ships by surprise before warping out. Khun led us through several stargates–even deeper into hostile territory.

He came over comms calmly, “On the other side of this warp is a small fleet.” He gave clipped instructions to each unit, but we all knew we were surrounded.

We warped together and unleashed a wave of missiles, railgun slugs, and autocannon fire on the waiting fleet, but they saw us coming.

Only a few seconds into the battle my shields depleted, and in the next second, my shields and hull breached. Even my escape pod was stripped away.

I floated in space as death embraced me and surveyed the carnage all around me in slow motion. Ships and missiles exploded like sparks all around me. To my right, I located Alex’s ship–that commander in our time of need. His hull was breeched, and the reactor core was overloading.

Everything went dark.

I woke up in a fresh clone back in my home station, the insurance claim on my ship already processed and credited to my account. The fleet was gone.

In comms, I thanked Khun for the op and looked up Alex. I looked him up in station and bought him a beer–for saving the op and keeping us alive, if only for a little longer. He even gave me some pointers for my importing business.

This is Eve Online. It’s the stories we experience with real people–barking orders over comms, making jokes and sharing advice. Every ship in this story (in my fleet and in the enemy fleet) was piloted by a real person sitting in a room somewhere around the world. Some of them run logistics and supply space stations with ammo, food, and fuel. Others mine asteroids and manufacture the ships we lost so quickly. Still others dedicate their time to training up new capsuleers, writing documentation, and planning the fate of the galaxy–or our small corner of it.

If you like my story, send me a note and/or some ISK: Nefili Kekalasing