The Two Harbingers

The bubble cleared and Raphael was greeted with the sight of the Kourmonen star system. His ship was in tatters. The structure had been reduced by half, leaving much of the hull a burning, smoldering wreck. However, it was still in one piece (for the most part), and much of the crew was still alive. And it could still be flown. Setting a course for a station sure to have repair bays, he initiated warp and docked up. The rest of the fleet was still in Auga.

The fleet had started up as a small roam, a small gang to get a few engagements, and with any luck, destroy the TLF fighters out and about. It had consisted of a few small frigate-class vessels as well as two Harbingers; Shalee and himself. Before they set course, he had wished her luck. Now he silently cursed. The news had just come through that Shalee had been shot down, and worse yet, had awoken in Amarr. Some luck he thought to himself.

The gate camp had been set up on the gates linking the Kourmonen and Auga star systems, and with the order to jump through and ignore it, the fleet did. The gate camp, however, would have none of it. As soon as Raphael decloaked from the aftereffects of the jump, they aggressed and scrambled his warp drive. The tangling streams of energy from their stasis webbers engulfed his engine, slowing him down considerably. He warned the FC that he had been aggressed, and he began his slow reapproach of the gate, a race against time to try and get his ship out.

The FC called for the rest of the fleet to try and draw some fire off of Raphael, and they engaged. As soon as Raphael had jumped clear, the enemy switched to Shalee, the other Harbinger on the field. The FC’s interceptor went down in flames sometime during the fight. Shalee tried to follow Raphael through the gate, but unfortunately she did not make it.

Raphael cursed inside his pod, partially blaming himself. After all, it was he who had been caught by the camp, and he who the FC had ordered the rest of the fleet to save. He would have to try and make it up to her at some point. Do something for her.

The call for a fleet reform came over the comms, and Raphael moved to meet up in Kamela, the named staging point. As he landed on the Kamela gate in Kourmonen, he saw the camp. They had moved. He sighed inwardly, knowing this time wouldn’t be like the last. He had no support, and the camp surely had learned their lesson from the last time he had escaped. Jumping through, he saw most of the camp following suit.

As the haze cleared on the other side and Kamela came into view, his overview began flashing with the TLF militiamen as they decloaked and prepared to engage him once he did. He noticed the entire camp had not jumped through. Like he had thought, there would be no escape this time. He moved to engage the Omen that had appeared. He wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Immediately the claxons blared as his ship was locked up by numerous enemy ships and the fire began to pour over his ship. His lasers pulsed as he fired upon the Omen-class cruiser, the cruiser quickly shedding its shields under his heavy fire. The armor began to melt soon afterwards, but Raphael noticed the shields climbing at a steady rate. Looking about, he saw the Scimitar-class cruiser. It had saved the Omen by mere moments from death. Raphael’s own armor was shattering under the withering fire of the enemy gang, and he quickly surveyed the field again, determined not to go down alone. Then he saw it, the Thrasher-class destroyer.

With his sensors boosted, the lock was quick, but the ship’s destruction quicker under the fire of his heavy pulse lasers. As it disappeared in a glittery explosion, Raphael turned to reengage the Omen, its shields now full. Before he could, however, his Harbinger followed the Thrasher in its journey to space-dust; all hands lost. Raphael’s capsule initiated warp and returned to Huola.

He paid out the usual consolation pays to the families of the crew, not much by capsuleer standards, but enough to give the families to live very comfortably. Arguably more than the crew hand would have made his entire career, but nothing could make up for the loss of the husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. Raphael’s thoughts soon returned to Shalee’s loss, the capsuleer detachment making it easy to concern himself with his own problems over those of the now-forgotten crew.

Suddenly, a comm channel opened, Shalee’s face appearing. “I need a favor….” He smiled, having already accepted.