Cosmology recently encountered some Russians from a class 2 system (c2.1) that had connected to us. Their scanning Tengu, looking for easy kills in some Sleeper sites no doubt, scanned our system and jumped into our static, a class 5 system. We had already scouted that system and all the wormholes were now at the end of life and nearing collapse.
The Tengu would soon be back this way so a friend and I waited for him on our side of the wormhole. Naturally, we were correct in our thinking and the wormhole shook as the Tengu jumped back toward us, but our cruisers couldn't get a lock on it before it managed to cloak.
Knowing it would make a run for safety we warped to the c2.1 wormhole. I landed just as the Tengu was jumping through and quickly followed after. On the other side I immediately de-cloaked, hoping to catch the Tengu before he could warp off, but it seemed I was too far behind him and he had already escaped.
Instead, I was presented with two Stiletto-class frigates; interceptors that were far too nimble for me to lay hands on with my Proteus, which was slow and cumbersome by comparison. The Stilettos were soon joined by a Cynabal and shortly thereafter one of them interceptors reshipped to the Tengu we'd seen earlier.
During this time I stayed on their side of the wormhole, allowing them to work their way through my shields and begin gnawing on my ship's sturdy armor tank. This allowed the other pilots in our system, Headshed, to reship into ships that would be able to handle any sort of minor escalation the Russians might make.
Both the Cynabal and Tengu were staying outside my range while the Stiletto burned in and jumped through to Headshed. I followed, hoping to get lucky and catch him on our side with the help of those waiting, but none of us could get a lock on and he jumped back through.
I followed, polarizing myself in the process, but managed to point and web the Stiletto, putting him into deep armor before he escaped my range and warped off. I was left with the Cynabal and Tengu once more, but in Headshed were now an Arazu and another Proteus.
Burning off the wormhole I attempted to close with the Cynabal, but was unable to reach him. Our Arazu jumped in and damped them down a bit, but was unable to force them to within my short point and web range (my recent shift toward mitigating ECM jams had caused me to sacrifice my extended point and web, a fact that repeatedly reared its frustrating head during this engagement). It did force them to break off the engagement though, but not before our Arazu which was poorly fit had to jump back through to Headshed.
There was a lull at this point where both sides tried to think of suitable responses to the other sides tactics. They were unable to break the tank of a single Proteus, but we had yet been able to get a point on a single ship aside from a Stiletto which had made a mistake, but escaped anyway.
I reshipped to my Daredevil and went back to c2.1, hoping to engage one of the Stilettos and put an end to their troublesome buzzing around our ears. I was soon greeted by an Vengeance-class assault frigate, which gave me pause. It was slower, but better armed.
Eventually I decided to err on the side of aggression. If I managed to pull off a kill here then we'd have finally gotten a kill out of what had so far been a very tedious and frustrating dance. If I died then we'd hopefully provoke them to bring our more ships in hopes of further kills.
My aggression resulted in the latter of the two outcomes:
https://zkillboard.com/detail/36525854/.
Undaunted, I reshipped to my Proteus and returned to c2.1 with our second Proteus. I cloaked up and waited. Soon enough the Cynabal was back, landing 70km from the wormhole and in near perfect alignment with planet IX. I warped to that planet and returned, de-cloaking midwarp, landing nearly on top of the Cynabal, who wasted no time burning away from what might soon be certain death.
In spite of my luck the Cynabal escaped. At this point I was raging against Bob, whom I now suspect is a Russian dissident who during some prior life went by the name of Comrade Trotsky.
As to be expected the Cynabal was quickly joined by a couple of Stilettos as well as a new ship to the field, a Tornado. One of the Stilettos didn't waste time in wandering too close, however, allowing the two Proteuses to make short work of it:
https://zkillboard.com/detail/36526033/.
Since the Tornado was closer I turned to burn towards it, but it warped off, rather than get into close combat. At this point, my armor was deep into red, so I called in our two Guardians to get reps. At their appearance the Russians abandoned the field.
With the Russians unwilling to engage in close combat and we unwilling to abandon our logistics the was effectively at an end. We returned to our system, posting a watch on the wormhole to c2.1 and saw no more of the flighty Russians.
Ultimately there were no good fights here and everyone left with blue balls. I've already switched subsystems on my Proteus to extend my point and web range. In the future we will likely abandon the dual Guardians for a single Oneiros in the face of such light DPS, favoring more ships and long-webbing Lokis.
I'd like to congratulate the filthy Reds for their victory in the ISK war and encourage them to make changes that will satisfy Bob's thirst for the goodfights. The deity of w-space may indeed have been called Trotsky in a prior life, but he might also have been known as The Gipper.
