Knowing you're alive...

It was one of those reverse-"yaaaarr" moments. We had just missed a perfect opportunity to kill a carrier. Three carriers, all fleeing from the system. Our nanophoon had managed to bump him out of range from the station to redock and we barely missed him! He'd surely had died had we been able to put a tackle on him, but he was out.. jumped to a cyno somewhere out of our reach.
Having stirred the bee-hive and woken our bloodlust, we decided to set out...
Not to fight just one enemy, but a whole fleet!

It wasn't just a fleet that was our target, it was goonswarm... They're notorious for bringing out cheap ships in massive numbers. Even though the ships are cheap, they can still pack a punch just cause of their greater numbers.

Our commander assembled us moments after and have us set a destination. A gang of roughly 20 set out, consisting of a mix between interceptors, interdictors, battlecruisers, recon ships, hacs, battleships and one commandship. We could certainly pack a punch, but it wasn't a big fleet compared to what most alliances can muster in their homesystems.

The reports coming from our scouts sounded dangerous, "Lots of hostiles, everywhere" and I wasn't too happy about bringing out a fleet-setup battleship with minor tank. It only had one precaution, a microwarp drive and a damage control. Least we had a good fleet commander in our squad.

The system we had entered had about 30 hostiles. Would they've brought out all their ships, we'd surely have been in trouble had they been organised. I was starting to feel a bit uneased...

To my surprise, one of their battleships warps to the gate we're at. Our commander shouted "Charge him! Bubble this gate.". (Bubble refeers to launching an interdictor bubble to prevent escape) Half of us manage to do so before he jumped through into the next system. We're immedietly told to jump and pursuit, those of us that hadn't agressed before jumped through.

I had felt a bit uneased before, but now I was really beginning to feel uncertain if I'd actually get out of this operation with my battleship intact. The system was packed and I noticed that there were just me and two other battleships aswell as the command ship which had managed to jump. The rest were in the other system waiting for the agression to pass.

My speakers crackled, "They're amassing outside the station". It was of our cloaked recon ships who reported.
Our command told us to kill the battleship as soon as possible and line up or try and jump through the gate.

It was too late however...
The battleship wasn't particulary well tanked so it went down pretty well, but he had friends coming in all the time.
Cruisers, frigs and battlecruisers were dropping out of warp at a steady stream. Our commandship did wonders with taking out smaller ships and our battleships quickly disposed of the larger ships.

The speakers sounded again "They look like they're warping!" . An angry voice of our commander told us to "get the fck out". The rest of the gang in the other system were told to stay put. But that's when I realised I was too close to the gate, and not lined up to anything.
My big and slow ship was tangled in the gate and couldn't get out or jump, since I was still agressed.
Ships were arriving everywhere, and shortly after target-indicators were starting to flash yellow and turning red.

I hit coms (communications button), "Shit, I think I'm going down. I cant jump and they're all on me."
Seconds felt like minutes, and all I could do was watching my shields and armor of my megathron quickly ripped through.
I did what I could and hit my armor repair and armor-hardener. Almost forgetting my damage control, I managed to turn it on in the last moment. That's when my screen froze. Nothing, game was totally frozen. "Crap, I'm gonna die" I thought to myself. But luckily it was just the gate-lag of gate activation that caused me to freeze.

I was out... just to jump into another dangerous situation. On the other side of the gate, Imperium Alliance who were friendly to goons had arrived to strenghten their friends.
A hostile command-ship and multiple enemy battleships came out of warp and I remained cloaked for some moments more to avoid being called primary. With no armor and no shields recharged I uncloaked and hit microwarpdrive to get out of scramble-range. It was a gamble, but it paid off. My mates were doing a good job of taking the enemy apart so I joined in the battle and started hitting the nearest enemy.
On the other side of the gate, the enemy was still agressed cause of their attack on me. The others of our gang in the system managed to jump through and join in the battle.

In waves, more and more enemies arrived. But they had lost their edge, the alphastrike of the goons was a failiure.
They had targetted a lone battleship for a cheap kill but barely missed it. They were in a disarray.
Now their friends on the other side of the gate were already dead as they finally came in to follow their fate...

The battleground was eventually won and we left with only three losses, two interdictors and an interceptor.
Luckily the loot left behind was good enough to pay for any losses of our gang and we had achieved our goal... Getting a good!

Such battles as this, is what makes you feel that you're alive.