Out in the depths of Angel infested zerozero, if you manage to avoid gate campers and local wars, you may run into the odd Machariel or three. They’re gorgeous ships, the hotrods of the stars; long, sleek, black fangs hanging in space. If you don’t know what you’re doing up against zerozero pirates, they’ll kill you quick. But then if you’re in zerozero and you don’t know what you’re doing, you deserve to die.
Every now and again, though, a blueprint will make it’s way onto the market, perhaps from an agent, perhaps from loot salvaged from Angel wrecks, and an ordinay, average EVE pilot gets himself the fastest battleship in the galaxy. It’s not easy flying one - apart from needing to be skilled with both Minmatar and Gallente ships, you’ll need the better part of a billion ISK just to have the honour of letting it go dusty in a hangar somewhere. And if you’re spending that much…well, its weapons and sub systems are hardly going to be run of the mill Tech 1 crap.
They’re dangerous ships to fly: their power makes rightly feared, but their rarity makes them primary target in any combat situation. You have to be a confident and skilled pilot to take one into PvP and have a hope of surviving. You don’t see a Machariel everyday, and the chance to kill one is often too good to pass up. So when your corporation is at war and you go gate camping in a busy Empire system in your billion ISK faction battleship…you had better be good, because everyone will be gunning for you.
I don’t think anyone knows why NUBS. declared war on FREGE. They’re a pirate corp, mercenaries, and we were just trying to scratch a living out of frontier 0.0. Our claimed space is small, and the rule is that we wont shoot first, so it’s a far calmer and safer environment than the Forsaken Empire’s base in Tribute. It’s also right on the edge of Gallente-claimed space, so shopping trips are short and easy. I was in my Badger II, on one of those trips, when I found the Machariel. NUBS. favourite tactic: rather than come into FREGE space and engage our fleets, they’d gate camp in low-sec Empire and wait for lone pilots to come through. It made the whole thing less of a war, more a terrorist threat.
FREGE had been dissolved, at the time. We had twenty-four hours left where NUBS. could still shoot at us, before the former-FREGE corporations joined the former-Ekliptika corps in their new allied identity as Sunstorm Dominion. However, until that time limit passed, the two sides could still legally shoot the shit out of each other. Which meant that when I saw the two red bars on my overview, just as I jumped into Orvolle, my heart leapt into my throat, adrenaline surged through my body, and I spat lukewarm coffee over my keyboard.
With luck - and three warp core stabilisers - a Badger II can survive a gate camp. It all depends on speed: yours to warp and theirs to lock and scramble you. Luck was with me this time, and just as my computer warned me the Machariel was trying to lock me, I hit optimum speed and warped to safety.
Thirty seconds later, StateCorp had decided to go kill it.
Sitting on a gate in Empire, safe in the knowledge that despite his corporations’ negative standings to most of the residents of Essence no-one could shoot at him without CONCORD retaliation, the Machariel was a raptor amongst a flock of pigeons. The only reason to be there was to show off his ship and to catch vulnerable war targets. And even though a vulnerable war target had just escaped his clutches, still he sat there in his arrogance.
You don’t get to kill a Machariel everyday. But he was making it really easy.
Dramatis personae: StateCorp - Jaldo Dron (Armageddon), D’Jannek (Prophecy), Doc Neil (Apocalypse), Redeye UK (Rapier), Zekk Pacus (Ferox), Roburky (Arbitrator), M Piquet (Hawk). NUBS. - Danitar (Machariel)
The plan went like this: Roburky in his cheap cruiser would amble towards the gate, acting like a ignoramus, ignoring the big red bar o’doom and hoping to be fired on. As soon as Danitar activated a module on the cruiser, thereby committing an act of aggression, he would be locked out of the gate he sat upon for thirty seconds. Jaldo and Doc hovered on the other side in their battleships, and the rest of us were one system out in the opposite direction, just waiting for the word.
The tension could have strangled a cat. Without zwiss, our Fleet Commander, it’s fair to say that we were a little disorganised. We were also pessimistic. Even with two battleships and two battlecruisers, with as many racial jammers crowbarred into our fleet as possible, we knew that some would live and some would die. We had overwhelming numbers, but a very powerful opponent.
An Ekliptika pilot in system, who had been passing along intel all the while, told us that Danitar was slowly drifting away from the gate, all alone, with no other NUBS. around. This was it. roBurky warped in, sauntering towards the gate at normal speed, fifteen kilometres to go, just a n00b on autopilot, nothing to be afraid of. Any second now the Machariel would lock and fire, and he’d pass the word for us to engage. Any second. Just about now.
The comm channel rattled: “I think he’s AFK”
Click. Roburky hit the jammers, Jaldo and Doc jumped in. Our group warped to the gate, trigger fingers itchin’. Click. Warp scramblers joined Roburky’s electronic counter-measures, a webber cut the Machariel’s top speed down by about 70%. Boom! We opened fire.
Voices screeched over comms as our little StateCorp fleet pounded Danitar, who finally woke up and smelled the cordite. But he was helpless. Even though the Machariel requires Minmatar and Gallente battleship skills to fly, it’s basically a Minnie design - we knew this and had equipped our own ships accordingly. With a total of seven racial jammers fucking with his electronics, he was toothless; with webbers and scramblers screwing his propulsion systems, he was no longer a raptor. This bird of prey was going the way of the dodo.
Thirty seconds is a long time when you know you can do nothing to stop the destruction of your ship. All you can do is wait, and hope that someone is listening in the friendly chat channels, already warping to your location. That someone, from somewhere, will save you. As those seconds pass and your armour slowly gives way to structure, you have to hover you hand over the command to warp, ‘cos soon your pod will be loosed from it’s comfortable compartment and laid bare to the ‘verse outside…and slowly, ever so slowly, you get ready to die.
Danitar’s pod escaped in the aftermath of his ship’s destruction, but his death would have been merely a bonus. Our objective had been to destroy a Machariel, and hope that some us came back alive. Not only did we succeed, but the enemy didn’t even fire a shot. His billion ISK faction battleship - and the two billions worth of faction modules either destroyed or salvaged from the wreck - was prize enough.
You don’t get to kill a Machariel everyday, but on this day, StateCorp did.