Always on the go

Sometimes wormholes can be very unexpected. You never know what's on the other side. I was scouting a high-sec for a new home. I jump through a random connection and hostile ships immediately decloak.

I don't panic too much. For them to kill me on the high-sec wormhole I would need to mess up my cloak. Even then I could probably get within jump range in time. I hardly see any point in trying to gank any ship smaller than a battleship. Also, since I came to this system randomly, these guys were either waiting for someone else or it's most inefficient camping setup possible. I jump out and few seconds later a Viator appears on grid. At first I think it's a scout, but turns out it's just some random guy doing a logistics run. Maybe that's what they have been going after. Being a bastard, I warn the pilot of lying dangers ahead.

I continue my search and jump to another c2. Before I can make a proper perch, I bunch of ships come and start orbiting the wormhole.

Everyone is so fucking aggressive today. Every wormhole I jump to, someone tries to kill me. I linger around to see if I maybe can get someone polarized, but nobody from the hostiles jump to high-sec. Besides, my Nestors could have hard time burning back to high-sec should I decide to attack. I consider if I should stalk these guys, but obviously they have scouts, so it wouldn't work to do it discretely.

Finally I find a system that I can settle down in. I manage to spot a Prospect mining a gas site. Knowing gas sites in w-space, I patiently wait for the sleeper cavalry to arrive. Which they do.

Prospect warps away and Rapier decloaks in his place. That's an interesting choice of ship to kill sleepers. I was hoping for a Tengu or something, but Rapier is a nice target too. To be honest, I don't think I have killed any Rapiers at all. I grab him by the throat and get it over with quickly.

Pretty good. Gank went smoothly. But I was not yet satisfied. I decide to stick for a day or two. It's a class 3 system and I would love to see them in action doing anomalies.

Wishes are one thing, but reality is another. System is mostly quiet during my time and there's nothing to kill. I grow impatient and I want to explore new systems. To quench my thirst, Bob sends me a rolling wormhole Typhoon.

Being bored, I decide to go for it. It's been a while since I saw a rolling or any kind of Typhoon for that matter. I decloak and get ready to tackle. The battleship pilot seeing a hostile Proteus immediately cloaks up. Unfortunately for him, few brief seconds was enough for me to set the right course and ship gets decloaked. Funny thing about rolling battleships with cloak and mwd. Even when fully plate fit, they should be able to do mwd+cloak trick, but I have yet to have anyone escape such way.

While I'm busy killing the Typhoon, a bomber appears and starts shooting torpedoes at my Proteus, which does nothing but tickle.

The battleship pops, netting me a standard 200mil killmail and bomber bails to the high-sec. That's a second kill in this system of the same corp. I never stay in one place too long so I pack my things and move out.

A whale goes down

Right place at the right time. That's how majority of good kills and opportunities happen. It applies not only in EVE but RL as well. There are things when you can maximize your odds to be at the right place at the right time. I do just that when I stay in a c2 with a high-sec static and a direct, freshly opened, connection to a c6. As I expected, soon I started seeing an activity. C6 was inhabited by Indigo Generation, a rather small corp, but since they live in such high-class wormhole, they must be active. For the most part it was the usual blocade runner transport runs. Since I don't have a partner with a dictor I usually cross these ships out of my list and wait for something more slow. My prayers would be answered. An Orca appears!

Things were getting hot. I usually orbit wormholes at 30km. I believe it's optimal range. I can get close to wormhole in relatively short time and I have extremely low risk of getting decloaked by a random fleet or a ship. To avoid losing the Orca and having him jump back to the safety of high-sec I follow him. I warp straight to c6 and will make my move there. As soon as Orca enters warp I have a Helios decloak. I enter warp shortly after and do not manage to get the name to check if it's the scout from the same corp and get uneasy feeling.

An Orca is a very special ship. You won't often encounter it outside high-sec and is rare enough for it to be seen in a vulnerable space. It will get anyone excited and I am no exception. Orca jumps to the c6 and I go after and warp in my Nestor fleet. Only when Nestors land on the wormhole I get extremely worried.

Core and combat scanner probes are flying around the system. Shit. I have a bad feeling about this. I have to act fast and pray that I don't get jumped by a big fleet while killing the Orca. I jump in the Nestors and proceed killing the Industrial command ship.

I keep Proteus within scram range and jump range. If I had an overheat option for my drones I would use it. When Orca goes into structure and is about to die I hear a jump sound. A Tengu appears. Fuck. Orca goes down and I don't waste a second and don't even wait for drones return that are 10km away. I jump back to c2. Grid is clear. I initiate fleet warp back to high-sec, leaving the Orca's wreck behind me. I don't even open the kill report. GTFO is my priority at the moment. It doesn't take long for Nestors to align and enter warp. Just when I land on the wormhole I see a Sabre land on grid.

Phew, that was fucking a close one. Had this Sabre landed on c6 before I warped out it would have been some bad news for me. The pilot is from Kill at Will corp. They are quite active in PVP arena. I was right to fear and not waste any time retreating. Once safe in high-sec, I check the kill.

Ah, isn't she a beaut? A 2 billion kill. A trophy kill. I am extremely happy with the outcome. When I saw this Orca appear on an overview I had a few seconds to make decision and intercept it and manage to get out before getting ganked myself. Of course it would have been nice to collect that 300mil worth of loot, but I'm sure Kill at Will took it. Let that be a courtesy of Cloaky Bastard.

When wormhole meets market hub

I haven't noticed at first exactly what was wrong, but something was off. Since new map introduction, we now see d-scan inside the map view. Here's the catch - you can't change d-scan direction by moving your camera anymore. So to find your target at the site you rely on sensor overlay, which shows all sites and bookmarks on the screen. It worked fine until the Citadel expansion. I suddenly realized my screen is empty and I can't bring back the overlay unless I jump through the wormhole or re-log. It's a huge pain. Now I have to find ships by narrowing angle in an empty screen. Like for example this Tengu, that I saw warp to a site, except I couldn't know which one until the angle was small enough to intersect only one anomaly.

As a responsible New Eden citizen, I've submitted a bug report and opened a thread in the forums. 1 week later and bug still persists and I find more and more people facing same problem. Get your shit together, CCP.

I moved to a c2 with a high-sec and c4 statics. High-sec was leading directly to Dodixie - a fourth largest market hub. I just couldn't skip this opportunity. I was very interested to see who will I meet.

Back on the Tengu. First to come is DanderDarkheart. He jumps through the high-sec and warps to an anomaly. It's a bit tricky to get a proper warp in position as the strategic cruiser sig tanks sleepers with his afterburner turned on. Finally I manage to intercept him and with Nestors on grid ship explodes in no time.

Bob smiles upon me. Both the deadspace shield booster and the faction probe launcher drops. I shoot the wrecks and export the loot back to the market

During the day, most visitors are 1-10 days old pilots. When I see an Imicus with core scanner probes, I just ignore it. It's usually not worth the effort of blowing the cover, generating a few million ISK killmail in the system. But since wormhole is in the trade hub it sefl, I am bound to see more transit. Especially since it has a connecting c4 static. It's a dream chain for any wormhole corp.

I keep my Nestor fleet on the high-sec side and the Proteus inside the wormhole. This way I can see both sides. All of a sudden I hear an exit out of warp sound. An Imicus lands on grid. Meh. Then I see few more ships land. Imicus, Thorax, Megathron Navy Issue, Helios...wait, Navy Megathron??

Oh boy, looks like I got myself a farming fleet. Everyone is from a different corp, but looks like within the same fleet. I get excited and patiently wait to see what they will do. Fleet warps to a site like they mean business. I move Nestors close to the wormhole, ready to jump, only to have more ships land on grid, one of them being a Vindicator.

I get quite concerned. You don't often see a Vindicator with good intentions. And my Nestors are sitting on the wormhole in open sight. I check out the pilots and they seem to be from the corp that belongs to Illusion of Solitude, a rather big wormhole alliance. Are they after the same guys I am? Damn it. What should I do? Broadsword jumps in and bubbles up the wormhole. Fuck it, I'm not backing out. If they do have reinforcements in the system, I should be relatively safe hugging the high-sec exit. In any case, I decide to fight for my targets and in I go.

We slug it out and I force everyone out. I guess they did not expect those Nestors to go in. Since now I'm the king of the hill, I've got a few minutes before polarization ends. To my luck, the fleet I am after is out of d-scan range, so they have no idea there was a fight on the wormhole on who will get a chance to kill them. Quite hilarious when you think about it. I warp to the site and tackle the most valuable targets.

I kill both, the Mega and the Gnosis. I check for any valuable loot and warp to safe. Upon checking the kill I cringe.

A Navy Issue Megathron with 5 tungsten plates and two medium armor repairs in lows, a couple of cap rechargers and a shield extender in mids and, of course, blaster fit. No wonder that c2 site was far from finished when I came. But I can't say I'm surprised. I've seen many bad fits during my days and that is about what I expect when meet someone coming from a high-sec hub.

I park my Proteus on the wormhole and forget about EVE as I do not expect any more guests since the wormhole is now end of life. But young pilots are not deterred by such things. A Brutix Navy Issue jumps in and warps to an anomaly.

It's piloted by a 1 year old pilot who haven't learned to change his ship name yet. Suspiciously, he jumped not long after my encounter. With quite possible scout from Illusion of Solitude still in the system, I decide to wait. For all I know they are trying to bait my Nestors with some random alt. Especially after our little convo.

I ignore Brutix and go on with my day. In an hour I check d-scan again and see a lot of wrecks. This Brutix guy has been busy. Funny thing though, the high-sec wormhole is now gone. I do not know if he has a probe launcher, but I think I will do him a favor and stop his farming before he wastes another hour.

When I'm just about to make my move, the Brutix warps back to the high-sec wormhole. I find him floating in the middle of space, looking confused. I decloak, tackle and kill him. Pod warps clear, but I can't imagine him making out alive.

That's some expensive Brutix. I chat up the pilot and ask why he has only npc corp in his employment history. Roman was very cool about his loss and admits it was his first time in wormholes. We talk a little bit and I encourage him to find a corp asap if he wants to have any fun in this game. Flying solo without a corp can get boring very fast. Unless you stalk wormholes with 3 Nestors and a Proteus that is.

A tough customer, Part 2

After settling in a c4 wormhole and killing a Rattlesnake and a Megathron, locals asked what I wanted. After asking for 600 mil payment to leave them alone, they countered with 1 bil payment request for not killing me.

It was time to see who would Bob favor more. I never understood the concept of threats. When someone threatens killing me, it only makes me pay more attention. After our conversation finished I was closely watching d-scan. There were a lot of ships being swapped, no doubt something was going on. Coincidentally I received a convo request. Oh, what's this? Are they checking if I'm still online? Thanks to no more watch list that's the only way they can do it. Only problem with that, I can see who initiates convo request. Especially when it's done from the member of the corp that I'm hunting, it rises a big red flag the size of the moon. And wouldn't you know it, all of a sudden I have a big fleet land and orbit the wormhole with their drones out.

The corp I'm stalking is only 21 members, but here I see almost as many ships on grid. After a detailed check I see there are at least three different corps. Look at that, someone is very dedicated to keep their word. I wonder if I actually paid a 1bil, would they grant me a free passage?  Time to go in to super stealth mode. Which means I won't be jumping and scouting any active connections. Lack of watch-list works to my advantage. Unless locals get lucky enough to spot my ships on d-scan, they will have no idea if I'm on or not. Well, not unless they initiate a convo request. Otherwise they may be baiting me while I'm actually sitting in a bar enjoying a beer. Afk stalker chooses when to engage, that's the big advantage. Figuring things might be hot in the next few days, I decide to stay low and be patient. And I can be very patient.

Next day locals have more things to worry about than me stalking them. Wormhole is packed with action.

Holy that d-scan, batman. I guess I know what I will be doing tonight - absolutely nichts. Lazerhawks slaughtered Gambrini. Good fights were exchanged in local and everyone parted their ways.

I don't even bother scanning. When you've got two big corps fighting in your home, you don't really plan on doing anything anymore.

New day, new opportunities. System was nice and quiet, sun was shining and it was perfect time for gas mining. That's what Telgu Gypre was thinking as he was clearing the gas site.

This site had plenty of sleepers. Not that I needed all that time since I actually was already sitting in this particular site, anticipating the enemy. They have done nothing but gas sites since I moved in. My decision to wait in one was spot on the money and with that many sleepers, Vexor Navy Issue won't cut it. I kill the Rattlesnake. It's almost exact copy of the previous kill.

Over 600mil went up in smoke. That ISK could have been in my pocket and ship still be intact. It's a different Rattlesnake pilot, but I convo him anyway. His title is a director. Perhaps he will see things in a different way?

I bring up my initial offer to pay me 600mil for peace of mind. Telgu does not agree. They would simply do "other" activities while I camp them. I do not know what other safe activities are there in wormhole with hostile ships in the system.

I try to ransom as respectfully as I can. Don't think many people get paid while taunting their victims. Unfortunately Telgu wouldn't bulge. He was willing to sacrifice multiple hours of many people instead of paying. I was willing to go down to a very symbolic payment, but no luck. Oh well. Of course I could try my luck and force the sale to happen for the third time, but instead, I decide to leave, hopefully leaving a little bit of paranoia behind. I believe Bob has great things planned for me ahead.

A tough customer, Part 1

I moved into a nice quiet little system. It was a c4 inhabited by a corp named New Divide. It had a quite few anomalies, but when it comes to signatures, the place was kept tidy. On my initial scouting trip, when warping to an outer planet to launch probes, I find two Rattlesnakes on d-scan.

I try to pinpoint them on one of the anomalies, but it seems they are in some signature. System is new and not scanned yet. Somehow I doubt they will be doing the anomalies so no point in waiting. I warp to another outer planet and launch my combat probes. Judging from small and medium sleeper wrecks that are piling up it must be a gas site. Gas sites don't have many sleepers protecting them, so time is of the essence here. Thanks to a new feature of seeing your d-scan in a map mode, I quickly get the position of the Rattlesnakes and scan them out. Unfortunately I land with only two small sleepers left on the field and by the time I make my perch site is cleared.

Radio Active's Rattlesnake is still at 0 velocity. I warp at range, but he quickly picks up speed and both ships warp away before I could make my move. Damn it.

There are still some signatures present. I do not know what types are they as I do not want to scan since locals are active. It doesn't take long when I spot a Rattlesnake in range at some signature.

Time for a second chance. Since they are doing another site, I assume my combat probes have not been spotted. My gut feeling says it's another gas site. Again, time is of the essence. I have my probes out already so I scan the ship right away and warp at 100. Upon landing ship is nowhere in sight.

God damn it. Only two small sleepers were guarding this site. I am too late. I wait for another opportunity, but nothing much happens. I guess there are no more sites to do. It's getting late. It's only my first day, but the wormhole already proved to be with potential. I scan the signatures and log out.

Next day I log in to a what looks like an empty system. I guess I started EVE earlier than locals. Of course you never know, but I take the opportunity and scan out all the sigs. Later in the evening I spot first activity.

How underwhelming. They downgraded from a faction battleship to a faction cruiser. I guess that is enough to clear c4 gas site, but I did see a Rattlesnake clear just two small sleepers and that's what I expected to see. I decide to leave this Vexor alone and wait. He clears the site and two Prospects lands to mine. Sigh. With a Rattlesnake following them. Wait, what?

Yes, a faction battleship is coming out of warp. Is he some personal escort for the Prospects? Did he miss-click and warped by accident or was fleet warped? I don't care what's the reason. He is right in front of me and I am going in. It probably was one of the fastest decisions I made. I get positive lock, tackle him and soon all my fleet is on grid focused on the Rattlesnake.

Radio Active goes down. I scoop the loot and warp back to the safe. Op success. Finally getting some luck. I guess these guys won't be doing anything for today. I use the opportunity and explore down the chain.

Usually leaving my BS fleet in one wormhole and flying away with a scanning Proteus is a small risk. I never explore wormholes that are end of life. So no risk right? I'll go around, do a sweep and come back. I do just that only when returning I meet a Megathron rolling the wormhole. Looks like these guys decided to close the doors. I feel really lucky to be back just in time and go in without a second thought. The Megathron goes back in and holds cloak. What an interesting opportunity. My priority was to get home and I did not really consider ganking the rolling battleship, but since he is holding cloak, for some reason, I burn to wormhole at 0, toggle my modules and lock the battleship once he appears. In no time, I am working on my second kill!

Poof goes the battleship. Two kills in the same evening of the same corp. I'm on fire! All of a sudden I receive a convo request.

Locals were interested in knowing what I am doing in their wormhole. They wanted to know if they can be in any way of help. I happily suggested paying 600mil ISK for the peace of their mind. Sending someone money always helps that someone. Radio did not like my offer and countered with an offer of his own - sending him a 1bil ISK for them not killing me. How quickly the tables have turned. Despite me doing 800mil damage and receiving 0, Radio was confident I was the one who was in danger and not his corp. We discontinue conversation with a disagreement. The question remains: whose side is the truth on?

To be continued...

When smack talk bites you in the ass

There has been a general advice going around that you should not smack talk in local. There's rarely anything good that will come of it. I try to live by this philosophy and not taunt my opponents too much. Sometimes it's hard to resist. But smack talking in local will only make your enemies extra motivated to kill you. If you do manage not to get killed, chances are your name will be remembered next time you encounter same people, which brings to our story.

After stalking yet again inactive c4 I was on my way to scout for a new home. The current system has a c2 static which has a c4 and a high-sec statics. That's my favorite kind of c2. I scan the system, check surrounding connections and get ready to move to, what looks like, a decent c4. As per standard procedure I check a killboard activity of every system I visit. Killboard was nothing out of the ordinary. It had bunch of random kills/losses as expected for a system with a high-sec static. I usually look for same corporation/alliance to appear on different dates to identify locals. With a bit of scrolling one particular name stands out - ArcAngel7 saken. He has repeating kills and losses in this system. But there's something more to it. For some reason this name sounds very familiar. I do a quick search in my blog and indeed, I have a last year's December post turn up.

Memory quickly comes back. This is the guy that me and my, at the time, partner tried to ambush by setting a trap bubble between the towers. Our trap failed as instead of expected shiny slow battleship he swapped for a quick light dictor and escaped the bubble before we could get him. We then proceeded to fool around on high-sec connection, hoping that one of us will make some sort of mistake. In the end we called it a day and moved on. But it wasn't an "elaborate" plan that made this encounter memorable. It was the smack talk:

ArcAngel7 was very confident. And why shouldn't he. He had all the rights to brag. We failed to gank his ship and we failed to trap his Bhaalgorn on the high-sec wormhole. I did not reply anything, but simply moved on and forgot the encounter. Until today.

Everything that happens in w-space happens for a reason. It's no coincidence our paths have crossed. It's Bob's will! I prepare for the hunt. Wormhole seems to be empty so I move in my Nestor fleet and scan out all the remaining signatures. Park my Proteus on the high-sec exit and wait.

Glimpsing with a corner of my eye to the monitor while watching TV, I spot a strange visual effect. Upon closer look I now see an active bubble. Interesting. I did not hear any jump sound, but now there's a mobile warp disruptor. An guess who shows up on my overview!

ArcAngel7 in a Tengu! Of course he is in a safe spot and I can't get to him. I could warp from celestial to get his position, but my Proteus is not interdiction nullified and I don't feel like refitting as I might get spotted with wormholes all around the system. Instead, I will scan him out.

I warp off d-scan range, launch probes and get back to my safe. I'm not sure what ArcAngel7  is doing, but we must not be alone in the system. There are sisters core scanner probes and I don't think they are his. Regardless, I scan the Tengu out and warp to him at range. I could decloak and go for the kill right here, right now, but I keep the cool head instead. First, I check out which direction this strategic cruiser is flying to. Turns out he is aligned to his tower.

If probes are not his, he must be waiting for someone to make their move. If that's true, my chances in getting him are very slim. I try to follow and wait for him to change direction, but he slowly gains distance. His speed is higher than mine and soon I find myself out of scram and web range. Then Tengu turns on his propulsion module and flies away with 1km/s+ speed. Back to square one. I get back to position and wait for the next opportunity.

I start to think that next opportunity might not arise anymore. He warps back to tower. I follow. He warps back to high-sec, I follow again. To my surprise Tengu lands on exactly same spot as I have scanned him out. I must have been very lucky to get his signature when he was in his "safe". Of course he immediately aligns back to the tower and warps away again.

I watch him swap for a Dominix this time. There are a couple of active c4 exits and he is crashing them both. For a second I think if I should try and get him polarized or when he lands 10km off the wormhole. It's very tempting, but I am not sure if he is not fully wcs fit. I must be patient. If he is crashing the wormholes, farming might take place. In his killboard he has t1 battleship losses, so I guess he won't use anything more expensive to clear the c2 sites. I sit at the tower and wait for Domi to finish rolling those wormholes. At least he is doing like a man and not using any yachts. Points for that. Finally Dominix lands and I eagerly wait for him to swap a ship. What will it be? An Armageddon? A Rokh? Or Perhaps an Abaddon? He has different kind of battleship losses on his killboard. No, he swaps to a Tengu again!

My hunter senses go off. I've already seen him warp to the tower and back to the high-sec wormhole to the same perch. Perch that I have bookmarked. Without even waiting for Tengu's velocity to go up, I warp out to his spot near the high-sec. It's a gamble, but I follow my hunch. In just a matter of seconds Tengu appears on overview. I watch distance decrease and once I'm sure his exit from warp will be close to me, I decloak.

I spam lock like a mad man and nervously watch his speed pickup while my lock timer counts down. Target locked. Scram, web and disruptor are on. I exhale. He is not going anywhere now.

My Nestor fleet arrives and I proceed in murdering the strategic cruiser. With combined 6 heavy neutralizers I was expecting this to be a short fight. But Tengu turned out to be quite resilient. His shield would just go up and up and up. I would understand for it to go up once, twice or even trice after neutralizers kicked in, but he just kept boosting his shields up. Suddenly I see my heavy drones were going down like flies. I even use faction drones for that extra hp, but that didn't seem to matter. What the hell is going on?

Figuring this black magic shield boosting sorcery can't go on forever I keep applying the pressure and throw more heavy drones from my vast drone bay. Finally the shield gives in and ship explodes.

3 large ancillary shield boosters with light missile launchers. That explains this supernatural tank and why my drones were taking such heavy damage. Given the circumstances, I must admit he put up a good fight. I even manage to lock the pod and send him pod express back to high-sec, saving the travel time. Such a good guy I am. With the fight now over, I convo the pilot to see if he still feels in the same chatty mood as he felt almost half a year ago.

Turns out he also had a memory of our previous encounter. I must admit, this kill felt good. The value of the ship is nothing to brag about, but the hunt itself was a worthwhile experience. But probably the most fun part is that if it was not for the smack talk I would have most likely ignored this wormhole and the pilot as I had a very attractive c4 to go to. I guess every action has a consequence. I throw the dead body to cargo container to pay my respects to Bob for granting me such an opportunity and move on with my journey.

Don't count your chickens before they hatch

Risk vs reward is the name of the game. Or at least it should be. There are many things I don't agree with how things are in EVE. One ship that has been annoying in particular is that god damn yacht. Big advantage of orbiting wormholes was that I could often encounter a wormhole rolling battleship. I could prepare myself and do a surprise attack. That has become obsolete. All I can do now is helplessly watch a couple of cruisers crash a wormhole. Fuck you yachts.

With all the recent patches, I encountered an awesome bug feature - unable to turn off my cloak.

The only way I was able to decloak was by flying into an object. If I had this happen when trying to grab my target I would have been upset to say the least. Thankfully this stopped occurring after few days of patching.

I do some scouting and jump to one system and immediately spot an interesting sight.

A recent violence took place. I fire up the z-killboard, but don't see any kills, so must be very recent. I fly around the system and sure enough I find the fleet. D-scan can tell a lot of interesting stories.

The fight seemed to be happening at one of the planets. I land just in time to get visual on the bad guys.

Or what's left of them at least. Fleet warped out with few still left on grid. I was very interested in a Tengu, but he was not there anymore. I ponder for a few seconds if I should try and attack them, but it's only cruisers. I would be risking Nestor fleet without proper intel for a cruiser kill. Not a risk I'm willing to take. Anyway, with hostile fleet around, locals won't be doing anything for today. I go back home.

Next day I launch probes and resolve several active connections. There is a high-sec down the chain and also a connecting c5. As I was expecting, soon I started hearing activity. To find a high-sec few jumps out when living in a c5 is a big deal. Few ships pass by during the extended period of time, but one piques my interest. A Barghest lands on the wormhole!

Oh, what a ship. Too bad he is already sitting on the wormhole and I am too far away to do anything. I watch him jump out, but don't get too upset. Not like I expect to kill much on transit route anyways, unless it's a very slow ship like an Orca.

I continue to passively orbit the wormhole when I hear an activation sound and see the very same Barghest appear on overview. Oh boy, oh boy. He warps to an anomaly. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. I follow. As per normal procedure I wait a little bit and warp at 100. I land, but Barghest is nowhere to be seen. D-scan shows he is on the wormhole again. I warp there, but now he is back at the site. Then another site. To be honest, I am just chasing the shadow.  I have no idea what this guy's game is. Finally I meet him at the original anomaly.

I watch him spew missiles at the sleepers from 300+km range. Talk about being over protective. Problem is, I don't really have a good warp in. I need to bounce few times from random celestials to get into tackle range. After few tries I get closer.

It's not close enough, but after few more bounces I should be golden. I become optimistic and already start dreaming about my first Barghest kill. How special will that be! While I'm in my own dream world, the faction battleship warps back to c5 and jumps out, never to be seen again. Wait, what? What about the sleepers? I then spot sisters core probes on d-scan. Nooooooo. I soon see a random guy in a scanning frigate jump to the c5. My prey has been spooked. God damn it. This is what you get for celebrating victory too early. May Bob forgive my impatience.