Battened Down

I am writing this on Friday, although I will not publish it until later.  You cannot expect timely truth from a blogger at war.

As expected, my tower has been hammered into reinforced mode.  (Parenthetically, "reinforced" as a verb is horrific in that it means the exact opposite of its non-POS meaning.  This confused me as a newb.  I understand why people need a verb for this, but couldn't whoever coined it have come up with something non-confusing?)  Now, there is waiting. 

As soon as the enemy went for our main tower and I realized our predicament, I contacted Noir.  Alekseyev Karrde has gotten back to me, and we have made a contract.   Our plan is simple: I will scan out in the hours before our tower comes out of reinforced, and bring them in.  If I can.  (The Night Crew will have their say.)  If I succeed... well, I don't actually expect that.

If I do manage it, I expect Noir to win the fight for hole control,  although that is not certain either.  It would, at the very least, be very exciting.  Content for everyone.

This is the main reason I did not want to fight when the enemy first went for my POS.  I felt my corp's chances alone, even with the tower defenses to support us, were worse than the chances with Noir, even discounting for the likelihood that I will not be able to get Noir in. 

Can I get Noir in?  That's the million ISK question today.  Will The Night Crew have good hole control?  I will attempt to slip out just before our tower comes out of reinforced, then scan out, and bring in Noir.  I think it is highly doubtful this will work.  I have not seen the enemy make any clear mistakes.  If I were them, I'd keep eyes and ears -- at least ears -- on the wormhole out as much as I have men for.  And I would disrupt it to 10% mass any time I did not need it for my own movements. 

That said, sieging for two days 24/7 has to be tiring.  And also my corp has kept activity to a minimum.  We have not tried to blow up the bubblewrap around our tower.  We have not tried to get out anything, even scanners.  Perhaps the enemy will grow complacent with our apparent acceptance of defeat, and not reduce the wormhole.

Or perhaps the wormhole will be destabilized as I expect.  Then I will attempt, though without much hope, to pop it, rescan covertly, and get out via the new static, and scanned down to kspace, and bring in Noir, all before they re-reduce it.  Good luck on that.  Probably get killed.  But have to try.

We have extracted as much of our wealth as possible from the tower, stripped all the ships except those we may make our last stand in.  (I'll strip those tomorrow if the enemy maintain proper hole control.)  We've sneaked it all out in various ships and logged it out in separate safespots.  The enemy will capture many ships.  There's an interesting argument as to whether we should insurance-fraud them.  (That is, suicide our ships.  This pays out insurance (?), and so has positive value for us.  OTOH, many wspace corps hate it and find it terribly unsporting.)  My feeling is we should not, because the enemy has had the capability to smash our POCOs, but he has not taken it.  That is, they have not chosen scorched earth, and so we should reciprocate.  Quid quo pro.  Some of my guys feel differently though.

This morning we scanned down the wormhole, to make sure it was instantiated before 13:00.  This means it will not be EOL within the timeframe when Noir will be standing to.

There is nothing left to do.   We wait.