The Massacre of Maut

As requested by corporation high command please find below my recollections of the engagement the members are calling “the massacre of Maut”

I remember my pulse was racing. We were at war. We had been losing and this was a chance to show we had pride, skill and a determination to fight back. We lived in Osmeden back then, they lived next door in Maut. They were pirates and low sec scum, we were new recruits learning the ropes and hoping for a promotion to the parent corp further down the line. We flew thrashers, easy to skill into, cheap and deployed in 15-20 man groups like we flew them, able to devour larger targets like a swarm of stinging insects.

When you get out there, what you need to remember is most things are not what they seem. They had a bait mining barge out in one of the belts. We had an interceptor tackle it and two of our thrashers played with it for a while, enough damage to put it in jeopardy but not enough to kill it too fast. We knew it was bait, our initial strike was bait, we wanted them to escalate so we could have more to kill, we just didn’t know if they knew our opening move was bait.

It comes back over the fleet communication frequency that directional scan has a Maelstrom, Tempest Fleet Issue, two Dominix and an Armageddon within range. They are pumped up on their war success so far, they are flaunting their hulls on the station undock. Either bored or arrogant they commit the Armageddon to the field, it begins to neut out the interceptor to allow the mining barge to retreat off the field. Probably a large amount of overkill for that particular task but it is going to do the job. That is no longer relevant, we are told to jump into system, the interceptor has a warp in on the newly arrived Armageddon and that is our first target.

It is later revealed the enemy had scouts on the Osmeden gate in Maut watching for our fleet size and composition as we translated into the system. We however can from the Adacyne gate, too many of our counter attacks had been foiled by early enemy intel and the fact we had become predictable in our approach. Changing things up by coming in the side door from Adacyne allowed us to get on top of the Armageddon before they knew what was going on.

Twenty thrashers nipping and biting a battleship to death is a beautiful thing, twenty thrashers mopping up five enemy battleships while losing only one of their number is like watching a dream unfold around you. Each of our pilots was driven and ruthless executing the fleet commander's instructions beyond the best of their ability, driven on by a desire for revenge against the enemy. The Armageddon was gone before the next enemy ship made it out of warp. The two Dominix were on field a different proposition, the enemy is known to deploy these ships are close range remote repairing drone damage nightmares. These ships would allow have allowed the enemy to gain a foothold on the field from which their other battleships could push an advantage. This time however favour was on our side. One of the Dominix took an unlucky bounce off a chunk of Veldspar upon landing in the asteroid belt it forced the ship out of remote repair range initially and our Thrashers pounced.

Already in warp the Tempest Fleet Issue and Maelstrom landed as the first Dominix exploded. The second Dominix was buffer tanked with no self repair, reliant upon its partner for logistical support. It did attempt to engage a micro jump drive in a last desperate attempt to flee but  was quickly shut down. We mobbed the remaining battleships one by one, Dominix, Maelstrom, Tempest held until last, the fleet commander savouring leaving their most expensive ship helpless on the field the longest. The remaining Dominix did manage to account for our only loss of the conflict with a lucky salvo from it’s Gardes.

Overall I feel morale, performance and pride were greatly improved in this engagement. We have outnumbered our enemy from the beginning a fact they are keen to remind us, that we only get kills when we swarm them with superior numbers. In this engagement we finally out thought them, we were patient and changed our tactics to force an advantage. I look forward to the continuing of the war as a chance to learn more about both my own capabilities and those of my corp mates.