PR-8CA, Delve - On the 13th of this month, the first sign of a possible renewal of active hostilities in Delve came when KenZoku and their allies managed to gain control of PR-8CA for long enough to evacuate multiple capital assets.

Over the last few weeks, GoonSwarm have attained sovereignty over all of Delve, Skunk-Works lost their sovereignty in Querious, with RAZOR Alliance ceding two territorial enclaves to their GoonSwarm allies. A month-long camp of PR-8CA was initiated to contain KenZoku's capital assets, which had been cached in the system.

Xeliya stated at the time: "We ([KenZoku, Against ALL Authorities and allies]) have been controlling PR-8CA for the last 3+ hours. Numbers are even but no major fights. Local is holding mid 900's with about 100 hostiles few jumps out hanging out... A ton of assets - [capitals, motherships] and titans have been jumped out."

Shadoo of Pandemic Legion fought the GKC forces at a Pandemic Legion control tower in system:

"As Tau Ceti Federation jump-bridged in [to our tower], they were able to retreat inside shield with no losses taken. In fact, the A/ROL/SE fleet did not warp in until pretty much the last Tau Ceti Federation battleship had made it inside the shields. However, we could not resist such a chance to enjoy some pew-pew and quickly bubbles were called on the A/ROL fleet with [our tower's] guns [primarying] and Tau Ceti Federation's battleships and Pandemic Legions HACs dipping in and out of shields to take potshots.

"We were pretty outnumbered in terms of battleships even against just A/ROL... and as such about an equal number of battleships were lost on that engagement with support dying as well. The A/ROL fleet appeared to have a pretty good buffer tank with multiple logistics ships and drones to soak out the [incoming fire] from the tower. I can only assume that [system overloads were] affecting their logistics pretty heavily as we still managed to chew through few battleshipswith the control tower's guns.

"I had to leave at this point... but it appears most of the hostiles came back to [the tower] for some reason afterwards though this time keeping range from the warp disruptors. Not sure why they were shooting the Pandemic Legion tower; probably to entice another round of fights. The tower was not reinforced, though a number of guns were incapacitated... I presume they took potshots in hopes of a fight. With local about 900 at this point though, it didn't seem likely.

"During all of this, [KenZoku reportedly evacuated] around 60 [dreadnoughts, 4 motherships] and 2 titans out of PR-8CA with multiple [jump freighters] and a good amount of carriers as well. [A prize] goes to [Waagaa Ktlehr] for the most dreads moved according to count; ouch on the cloning cost I'd say but fair play for the efforts. [Executive Outcomes] had joined in as well with a support fleet and capitals evacuating."

Tyyrax Thork, who had an agent in the affray, disputed Xeliya's perception of the numbers: "[It] looked more like 2 to 1 numbers to me (in favor of the [Against ALL Authorities] side, which [my agent] may or may not have been on).

"[There were] not many engagements until Stainwagon/-A- was leaving, then I think Goons caught one of the groups and did some damage, then made up for it by jumping outnumbered into a "camp" and getting massacred (support was all on gate waiting with bs farther out and aligned)."

StainWagon is the collective name given to the coalition of C0VEN, Stain Empire and Systematic-Chaos, who are allied with Against ALL Authorities and RED.Overlord in their efforts to conquer GoonSwarm's former space in Stain and Feythabolis.

Shadoo gave this account of events at the aforementioned camp:

"From what I can gather it appears there was a "somewhat" of a "welp" moment with the pursuing GF/TCF fleet . From what I heard, in D-3 the fleet scout had reported A/SE/ROL/EXE/ETC BSes warping OFF the gate with support remaining behind. Thus TCF/GF jumped in with about 200-220 with local going up to reported 600 or so.

"What turned out to be the case was that A/SE/ROL/EXE/etc fleet had warped to sniping positions on the incoming gate, and well... Shall we say "squish?" Pandemic Legion was unfortunately 2 jumps ahead so we missed out on all the action apart from some Atlas Alliance HACs who didn't seem to know we were there."

Full accounts and debate on the events of this battle can be found in this thread. Perhaps the most interesting question was rasied by Atius Tirawa of Destructive Influence:

"Now we will see if people jump ship because they have their capitals back or they will stay and use the capital ships in space."

Forthcoming articles will cover the answer to that.