Chapter 3
The Hek Affair
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and no cheese concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.
I. The Problem with Hek
While the guns fell quieter in Auga, a different war was being assembled in a highsec trade hub eight jumps to the north.
In Hek, the Hek Mining Association ran renting schemes that extracted ISK from smaller highsec corporations under threat of wardec.
FL33T placed spies inside. What they brought back was a business with two faces. Nebula Industries offered mining incentives and infrastructure, while the Hek Mining Association ganked any pilot who was not affiliated.
They were run by the same players, under different names.
The racket sat on top of Minmatar Fleet's own industrial base, and the alliance had written the rule for that in February: touch the industrialists, and the rats appear.
II. The Front Page
Metropolis Daily News, the alliance's propaganda arm, ran the story on the tenth of November, across two pages:
Hek Mining Asociation: A dark story about crime and renting in Minmatar hisec.
The same day, FL33T declared war on the Hek Mining Association.
It went live twenty-four hours later.
On the fourteenth, BearThatCares published "The end to corruption in Minmatar high security space." He had appointed Jerran Osbourne as FL33T's diplomat to Nebula Industries.
FL33T was negotiating with one face of the racket while at war with the other.
III. Four Killmails
For six days, nothing died. On the seventeenth, FL33T brought Tempest Fleet Issues, Typhoon Fleet Issues and Guardians to Hek. The first thing to die was an Apocalypse belonging to Amity Lane, the association's vice president, final blow to HeavyForces.
Every name on that killmail, hers included, was enlisted in the Minmatar militia.
Then the Athanor.
Then Amity Lane's pod, parked beside the wreck of her Apocalypse.
That evening, the Raitaru.
FL33T retracted the war one minute after the Raitaru died. It had killed two structures, a battleship and a capsule, worth over four billion ISK on the killboard. The Hek Mining Association had killed none.
IV. Capital Ships Down
In Floseswin, five jumps from Hek, pirates had dug into the insurgency sites. They were Deepwater Hooligans, out of Turnur, two jumps down the road.
On the eighteenth, BearThatCares decided to push very hard, in Cyclone Fleet Issues with dreadnoughts behind them. The battle record went up afterward under a plain title: "Capital Ships Down in Floseswin."
Deepwater's Phoenix Navy Issue died with a hundred and fifty-nine names on its killmail, more of them enlisted with the Angel Cartel than with the Minmatar militia. Raptor Lake's Revelation did the heavy lifting on it, and again on their Minokawa.
Then a Deepwater Zirnitra killed one of FL33T's Naglfars.
Its pilot was called Best Nestor Pilot.
Raptor Lake took the final blow on the Zirnitra's mobile depot. The Zirnitra went on to kill the Revelation, almost by itself, and then a second Naglfar.
The only thing Best Nestor Pilot lost that night was the mobile depot, worth about two million ISK.
V. Kek
On the twenty-ninth of November, Metropolis Daily News ran an Extra:
Hek renamed to Kek following petition by Metropolis resident! Extra!
On the ninth of December it followed up: "FL33T issues stern warning to metropolis extortionists! Extra!" FL33T never had to declare war on them again.
The association's corporation description still carries its motto: "If you want to mine, you can go to Hek." It has two members.
