THE CATCH
The fight in T-AKQZ appears to have been a compact but sharply focused interception. Fourteen participants were involved in the engagement, with Rainbow Dash Alliance on the attacking side and Goonswarm Federation represented by the victim’s camp. What stood out was not the scale of the clash, but the value trapped inside it: Tonic Gin’s Rattlesnake, a battleship that never got the chance to turn the encounter into an escape.
THE BREAK
The ship was under pressure from multiple directions before the final shot landed. Rainbow Dash Alliance had at least eight attackers applying damage, and the list of ships involved suggests a fast, hard-hitting group built to overwhelm a target before it could disengage. A Maelstrom from Capys Holding and Rainbow Dash ships including Tengus, a Loki, and the final-blow Cenotaph all contributed to the collapse of the Rattlesnake’s defences.
THE LAST SALVO
MEGApowerR, flying the Cenotaph, delivered the finishing blow. By then the Rattlesnake had already taken enough punishment to lose roughly 1.3 billion ISK in hull and fittings, leaving only 134.4 million ISK to be recovered from the wreck. The cargo tells the same story: thousands of Caldari Navy heavy missiles were either destroyed outright or scattered in the aftermath, evidence that the ship was ready for a prolonged fight it never survived.
WHY IT MATTERS
For Goonswarm Federation, the loss of a well-fit Rattlesnake is more than a single line on a ledger. It is a costly reminder that even sturdy battleships can be caught out when a hostile group gets the timing right. For Rainbow Dash Alliance, it was a clean and valuable kill — the kind that turns a local skirmish into a memorable prize and leaves the region’s hunters with proof that there was blood in the water.
