100MN Tengu, Not a bomber But fun.

^ That post is insufficient. Therefore I will post my take on le battle.

I was sitting back relaxing- admiring the soft blue glow of my utilitarian caldari quarters, when suddenly the intercom crackled to life. It seems that one of our deep space covops pilots had detected something rather interesting. His voice sounded rushed, and excited. An orca was slow boating out of a large bubble, near gate 3 jumps from my home system. Feeling my heart quicken with the thought of enforcing the space lanes (it seemed this pilot was unlicensed), I sprinted out onto the gang plank- and horridly shoved my ocular implant special edition manacle into my eye. I stopped by the mini fridge near my pod, pulled out a Quafe, some blue pill, and a bit of crash for the upcoming altercation with this unlicensed flyer. As I sank into the warm link fluid of my pod, I hesitated a moment and looked out at my gang plank. There she was, standing in nothing but a grey night gown, looking as beautiful as ever, I flashed a smile, and hoped that I would come back soon. She waved, and a second later my pod closed with a soft thud. The cool electronic chords fused into my lower skull and along my spine. I was home again. As i slowly coalesced with my ship, tactical overlays began to dance in my psyche. I forgot about her, about space bills, everything else exited from my mind. I was ready.

I opened my mind, and pushed my ' Tengu ' class strategic cruiser through the docking port. As I took stock of my ship, I fondly remembered how I had become the proud owner of this vessel; A gift from a special friend. I checked over my fittings- Heavy missiles, pirate class shield booster, special 'federation' issue webs, and a nice disruptor from a friend of mine who was chummy with some thukker guys. As i was calmly towed out of station- a long shadow descended upon my cruiser. Looking up I noticed that it was none other than a 'Machariel' class Battleship. I grinned to myself; it seems that my fellow officer aeth gemulus had decided to take this job seriously. I could never figure out how he had gotten a hold of that ship. It being a pirate ship, he stuck out like a sore thumb flying alongside my police issue ship, but it had never let him down in a fight. According to him it was in some convoluted karaoke bet... that he had won the ship. But for some reason I just couldn't believe that story- no one in their right mind would part with something so deadly over a song.

Aeth invited me to link into his fleet, and I was happy to notice that another officer was already on the case. It seems that good news travels fast. As I linked into fleet communications, I was greeted by none other than Jed. Already a jump ahead of me, Jed was in his trusty ‘Tornado’ class Battle Cruiser. I had always through that was an interesting choice- every time we entered warp, I always thought that his ship would come out on the other end reduced to nothing but metal scraps. But if anyone could handle a ship like that it was Jed, and in the past few years- it had never let him down (scratched paint and duck tape aside) As we exchanged pleasantries I urged my ship into warp, and felt the familiar shudder as my engines screamed to life.

As I flew towards the first gate, it appeared that our unlicensed pilot was attempting to fly a huge ‘Orca’ class Capital Industrial ship un-detected through our patrolled space. Why a pilot could somehow think he / she could surreptitiously move an orca through space is beyond me. It must be loaded with illegals, or some type of contraband. This could potentially be a huge bust- and break our smuggling case wide open. It’s just what we needed.

Things started to get dicey when our covops guy lost sight of the target. It seems that our runner had taken an interesting turn through G-M4I8, and was headed towards R-2R0G. Luckily using his police instincts, and years of experience on the beat- Jed made the right call and was already warping ‘the nado’ towards the R-2 gate in G-m. Communications suddenly became hesitant. Jed had pushed his Tornado into warp, and was making best speed towards the gate. His scanner picked up the fugitive as it jumped out of system. We were racing against the clock, it was all up to Jed.

Jumping from Saranen into 93PI-4 I knew that I had to assist Jed quickly. With a bust this big, it will almost be certain that the drug lords will put up a fight. Communications became a monologue of Jeds status reports. It seems that he had missed disrupting the fugitive on the G-M gate in R-2 and was giving chase towards the system of CR-AQH. My feelings of trepidation about this job were almost uncontrollable. CR- is the home system of a band of scum lords, all of which were gnomes with a serious case of small men syndrome.

Jed continued pinging my ship with status updates, it seemed that the target had jumped into CR- and Jed was right behind. Luckily Aeth and I were just warping into R-2 so we were only a short distance behind. The seconds crawled by… Jed hit the gate and jumped- blind into CR-. Aeth and I awaited breathlessly, when suddenly ‘GATE CLEAR, D SCAN CLEAR, ORCA OFF GATE… I HAVE POINT!’ with a quick ‘hell ya’ on our fleet chatter Aeth and I jumped into the pirate den. I tried to hide my dumb grin- it was go time.

My tengu shuddered out of system trans warp, and I quickly took in my surroundings. D scan was clear for now, but my neocom showed 33 pilots in local. With our fleet consisting of Aeth, Jed, myself, and a scurrying officer tofu (who was a few jumps out in his trusty hurricane) I knew we had to take care of this situation quickly. I saw the machariels engines belch fire as Aeth punched the accelerator and proceeded to ram the Ocra farther from the system gate. It was all over now. I urged my tengu closer and ‘webbed’ the target- he was stuck now.

Now that we had secured the arrest, we attempted to ticket the pilot. However the pilot resisted our offer of a lenient 500mil fine, and instead preceded to retort- ‘Fuck you’ in local. We attempted to calm the subject down, however this only seemed to aggravate his unstable mood more- and he began calling out on all local subspace channels ‘I need help’. Unsure of how quickly the small men could truly mount a resistance force, officer Jed and Aeth decided to poke a few holes in the orca. With 15 800mm ‘Repeating’ artillery on the field, these ships could dish out a ton of hurt, soon fire had broken out aboard many decks of the now sinking orca.

However it was against officer policy to destroy ships outright- unless there was imminent danger, or outward signs of aggressing. Because the Orca had done neither- it was our duty to wait out until a proper resolution to the problem was found. In the mean time I proceeded to send a proper communiqué through all ‘Team Liquid’ space channels in an attempt to acquiesce additional supporting officers.

Thirty minutes later, and now 175K off the gate- the officers had grown weary. It seems that the gnomes were too drunk / high to mount a significant threat, and the orca pilot had resigned to his fate- he knew it was over. During this time, I had ordered someone to get a bubble set up around the orca (who needs a dictor? Not I. ), in the hopes that after we killed the crumbling ship, we could also take down the pilots pod. However before my brilliant plan could take effect, my neo-comm screamed in my ear- local space had jumped up to 50. It seemed that backup had finally arrived,

 and in force.

Giving the order, one round of shells out of the machariel and tornado put the orca out of its misery.

http://teamliquid.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14649098

Thankfully I also arrested the pod.

http://teamliquid.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14648982

Hitting my D-scan quickly, I found that it had exploded with ships, all comprising the enemy fleet.

3X Scimitar

Machariel

2X Maelstrom

Tengu

2X Onyx

Cerberus

2X Lachesis

Rook

4X Drake

Harbinger

2X Rifter

Harpy

2X Vigil

Taranis

Scorpion Navy Issue

Tornado

It seemed that our reputation had preceded us 26 vs 4. Now that is what I call good odds. As the Orca lay listing in space, our ever aware commander realized that we could not leave this large amount of litter in space. While our fleet began to align out I along with another trash acquisition ship approached the listing wreck. With a salvager equipped, my companion officer Orious had the orca cleaned up in no time- and luckily not a moment too soon. Officer Aeth called for a 50K warp to the small men home station, we were going to meet them for glorious battle.

I kicked the tengu into warp, and once I shuddered back into normal space- my sensors had exploded with ships. This is Just what I had been waiting for- a chance to really put my new tengu ‘Freckles’ through her paces. I overhead my special Gist- X type 100MN afterburner, and charged into the enemy fleet. As my tengu surged ahead into the fleet, I knew that I had to keep a keen eye on my piloting. Half of the fleet had already read boxed me, and I had a feeling that I was going to be called damage primary. There was enough alpha on the field to insta pop my hyper high end cruiser, I couldn’t get careless or lose transversal for a second. The battle on the station raged for about 10 min. During that time our fleet tried in vein to apply enough DPS to try and pull through 3X scimi reps. We got close on many occasions, but the small men seemed unwilling to go beyond 30K of their station, and certainly never out of Scimi rep range.

We were getting bored- so Officer Aeth called a warp out, to a Far gate. At 70K We had only a few seconds reprieve when their entire gang landed 50K off us. It was time for round two. Luckily I had just finished repairing most of my heat damage, and began to burn towards the fleet again- when I noticed a Machariel along with light tackle on a intercept course towards me. Again their entire gang proceeded to red box me, and my computer screamed in a symphony of warnings. I began to change my course, and punched my AB. I need to keep that Mach off me, and at the same time I need to ensure that light tackle didn’t web me. Slowing down would be death to me. Using my webs the first of the light tackle bit the dust thanks to a coordinated effort  focusing our DPS on the webbed frigate.

http://teamliquid.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14649097

The other frig disengaged, and I decided to strike out at the Machariel. I had it webbed, and pointed- and for a short while- the pilot had stupidly flown of his Scimitar Rep range. Officer Aeth called for all DPS on the machariel. I heated my launchers and prayed. Could we kill it in time before the scimitars could give their life saving reps? 75% Shield, 50% Shield, 25% shield…. And shit. The reps hit him just in time. I had been orbiting this Mach for some time now, and my tengu was feeling the strain. Their entire enemy fleet had closed distance on our position, and I was feeling the Machariels heavy neut slamming into my cruiser (along with a web… wtf a machariel with a web? ) with my 8 active modules all running, some running with heat, and a fleet of about 30 ships focusing on you- I would never trade this job for any in the world.

‘Freckles’ and I were in our element. I heated my AB, drank my Quafe, and took some crash. I over heated my webs and began the process of peeling frigs and the machariel off me. I grabbed the harpy first- with webs on and it called damage primary, I had hoped that we could kill it. But sadly we didn’t have the projection to bring it down under 3X sustained scimitar reps. Thankfully, Caldari AF’s are not known for their speed and I pulled away from his web, while he was still stuck under mine. Next came the rifter that was also webbing me.

http://teamliquid.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14649267

After him, it was only me and the machariel. Keen to keep my transversal up I had begun cork screwing down and away from the body of the enemy fleet. Thankfully I was faster than the angel battleship, and holding my webs on him, broke free. But I was hardly in the clear at this point. My cap booster, shield booster, webs, and AB were running all out just to keep me afloat. My mids were heating up and my Tengu shook as the combined brunt of the enemy’s fleet struck it. I had gotten through the worst of it. Or so I had thought. What remained of our small fleet was valiantly trying to bring down primaries. At this point we had not lost a single officer.

For the next twenty minutes I dove in and out of the enemy fleet- trying to separate them from the scimis, grab points, and webs on primarys and trying to find a way to pull anything closer to our fleet. Being in a tengu can be a blessing and at times a curse. Here I was: one versus thirty attempting to secure points and webs for my fleet, when primaries were called. I was the only ship that could get in this close with any hope of survival. However the pilots of the hatchery are not about to be undone: leaving me mostly to traverse the battle field as a lone wolf, the remaining hatchery pilots found ways to fly around the maelstrom and position their ships perfectly to apply DPS, and somehow manage to avoided the two lachesis and light (scimi repped) tackle on the field. It is a pleasure having the opportunity to fly with some of the best in the business of law enforcement.

As the battle raged on, officer Aeth and I had decided that the only way we could really get a kill in this fight, was for their fleet to become sloppy- and move out of rep range. It was going to be a waiting game. But the unthinkable happened. Jed our feerless Orca hunter, suddenly had light tackle descending on his tornado. Remaining calm he over heated his MWD and tried to pull as much range as possible, before the enevitable scram hit him: Because if that happened, his tornado would lose speed, range control and be volleyed off the field by the superior enemy fleet. Jed called for support, and myself along with our anti tackle ships flew to his rescue. He had a harpy, rains, and lachesis long pointing him.

Pangell, Orious, and I rushed to Jeds Aid. Orious split webs on the harpy- and Jed costed out of web range. But a tranis was gaining ground on him. Luckily I threw webs on the tranis, and took it down.

http://teamliquid.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14649268

The ranis exploded in a ball of blue light- and Jeds MWD once again screamed to life. But sadly it was too little too late. The lachesis had a long point on him. As our fleet tried in vain to kill it under 3X scimi reps Jed and his valiant tornado burst into blue light.

http://teamliquid.killmail.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=14649365

With the battle quickly becoming a stalemate, it seemed that the small men had gotten bored, and returned back to their home station. Through sheer grit and determination the EC- police held the field.

Flying back to Saranen, I remembered why I played this game. For great PvP battles like this. There is nothing better than returning home with most of your modules burnt out, successful, and being able to say-

“I was there.”