Kicking a desk

When she arrived he was almost beside himself in anger.

“Dammit.”  A foot lashed out in a frustrated kick against a desk.  “I know betta dan dat.”

“What are you dong?”  She asked in an imperious voice.

“What it look like I be doing?  I be having . . . ”  he paused and took a deep breath.  “a tantrum.  I am mad at me because evrybody else, they weren’t.”

“Why would people be mad at you?”

“Because I made a bad mistake.  Here, sit down and I be telling you about it because if I kick dat desk again I gonna be a cripple.  We was in an incursion, had the Sansha on da ropes and almost beat back.  Funny ting is, when you is there and they almost are totally lost everybody stops, waiting to see the mom arrive and sometimes it gives the Sansha dat break dey need to bounce back.  Dat is what happened dis time.  So we is in a big fleet, bout 62 of us and we decide to hit the Sansha again, en masse to drive them right back before they can regroup.”

He sighed and grabbed a pair of drinks, giving her one.  “So in we goes and it was . . . I dunno how to say it . . . off.  We shoulda been walkin all over dem, but we was barely holding our own.  There was this station that was able to repair itself even though we was loading mtc’s into it.  No, don’t ask, I dunno what the hell mtc’s be but I know we was moving and loading dem.”  He took another gulp.  “I was in an Oneiros and us logistics, we had our work cut out for us.  No dozin off because the changes were coming fast and furious.  For two hours, two freakin hours we was shooting and being shot at.  Folks, they was beginning to run low on ammo and we began to consider pullin out without a win.”  He drained the rest of his drink and shook his head.

“‘Align to planet 2.’ was the call and I did just that.  Problem became obvious that if they called warp we would be leaving some folks behind to die, cause of all the scrambles the Sansha be laying down on us.  So we were fighting a retreating action and then I notices that range is becoming an issue.  I a small ship, and a lot faster than the big boats, I am pulling away from them.  So I calls for who be the anchor.”

“Anchor?”

“Da guy we forms up around.  Bad idea to be stationary but if you don’t wants the fleet spread out you make one person the anchor and the rest of us use him as a point of reference.  So dis guy is waaay back there and I cannot get a fix on him so I goes to my fleet targetting but 60 folks is a lot to move through so I see him making a broadcast and I use that as my targetting focus.  DAT was part one o da screwup.  Part two happened a few weeks ago when I turned off a specific override in my systems warning me when I was about to do someting dumb and illegal.  So I hits target and see red, what I am targetting is being hit bad, being a logi I switch reps before the anchor dies . . . except it aint the anchor.  I have been an idiot and targetted a Sansha.”

“Oh no.”

“Ya, dats what I said.  Concord, dey no be fighting the Sansha.  But if you rep one of them, they sure as hell be fighting you.  They showed up and boom, hit me and at least one other guy.  Like I said, we was barely holding our own so when I was gone it started a domino effect and the FC called for everybody to jump, leaving another couple of guys behind, caught by the Sansha.  Guardians, a Kronos . . . because I messed up.”

She put a hand on his shoulder.  “Was the fleet hard on you?”

His voice was almost a whisper.  “That was the worst of it, couer.  60 guys and not one of them blamed me.  They reminded me to reactivate the warnings and even sent me isk to cover my ship loss.  They knew what i did . . . but all they could say was ‘well done logis’.  We had held our own for two hours without more than one ship lost, until I did  . . .what I did.”

“So you fought for the defense of a system”

“Constellation”

“Whatever, for two hours, make one mistake and Concord, who has not lifted a finger to help you, blows you up.”

“Pretty much.  I understand some o da logic behind it . . . but this was bad.  I don’t blame anybody but myself . . . ”

“And nobody else does.”

“Dey didn’t kick me, they complimented.  Dey all was understandin.  In some ways dat makes it worse, ya know?”

“I still think it may have been Concord.”

“Some o the gents be filing incident reports, dey even tink dat the Sansha fleet had some secret weapons, to hold us all off for so long.  But I tink the secret weapon the Sansha have is stupid folks like me.”

*************************************************

Lessons

Warnings are there for a reason, disabling them is not a great idea.

A good fleet . . . hell a great fleet, does not waste time pointing fingers.

in the same evening Endymi won a Dominix in the GH prize rotation.

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