It has emerged that a capital class warship belonging to a capsuleer alliance operating in the northern fringe regions was captured late last week.
The incident, which occurred in the early hours of Friday morning, is reported to have been perpetrated by members of the R.I.S.K Alliance - who are believed to have removed a fully armed dreadnaught class capital ship from a starbase owned by their enemies, the Phoenix Alliance.
The dreadnaught - an Amarrian designed Revelation, the ‘PA Big Daddy’ is the first capital class vessel to fall into enemy hands since the Molyneux, a Gallente Soltueur titan was stolen by Serpentis forces early last May.
Speaking in an interview on Sunday evening - Rasitiln a representative for the R.I.S.K Alliance explained that the starbase force field access codes had been discovered by a spy within the Phoenix Alliance. This information had allowed a neutral pilot to enter in an Armageddon class battleship and physically “bump [the dreadnaught] out of the force field” where Lordmix, a R.I.S.K pilot, boarded the vessel and warped to safety while a friendly strike craft kept the starbase defences occupied.
Rasitiln later went on to declare the capture as a “significant victory” which had “obviously… affected moral within the Phoenix Alliance” and would aid their ongoing conflict. Going on to state that the R.I.S.K alliance would incorporate the ‘PA Big Daddy’ into its fleet and use it to “crush [the] Phoenix Alliance”.
When asked to comment on circumstances surrounding the incident. Anihilus, a Phoenix Alliance representative stated that the dreadnaught had originally been moved to the more secure starbase facility from its moorings at a former Immensea station in the BKG-Q2 Solar System which is now heavily contested by both alliances.
He went on to say that the theft had been made possible by a “combination of spies” and malfunctioning force field technology which allowed neutral ships to breach the force field boundaries.
Upon being queried as to whether the Phoenix Alliance regarded this incident as a setback – Anihilus replied “Not at all,the incident really helped Phoenix Alliance to wake up and work as a team, to retake control of the captured solar systems and stations and destroy all hostile starbases”. He later conveyed his personal gratitude to all members of his alliance and their allies who had assisted Phoenix Alliance in their time of need.
When asked to comment on this, Rasitiln of R.I.S.K put the loss of control of these key systems following the dreadnaught capture down to “human error”. Adding that R.I.S.K would not be defeated so easily “though our presence in the area is slightly diminished until we regroup and formulate a new plan of attack”.