^ 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.
Thankfully I also
arrested the pod.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
Your PvP in your 100AB is a pleasure to watch and participate in.