Things are not always as they seem

It's a sad thing when you find a juicy target, but know it's out of your reach. This is the reason I multibox 3 Nestors, but it doesn't mean I can take on anything I find. The locals in a c4 undocked a surprising ship - an Archon. Accompanied by two Rattlesnakes it warped to a site.

Trey is off for holidays so I am all alone. Even if he was here, I doubt we could take on an Archon with 2 Rattles. I will confess, I know jack shit about capitals anymore. I heard horror stories of fighters being able to track mere frigates now. Perhaps we could take it, but the fact remains, I will be alone for at least a week and there's no point in sitting here, watching without being able to do anything. I tease the locals by dropping combat probes, but in the end decide to leave.

It didn't take long to find another c4. Upon entering I spot a Rattlesnake on d-scan, which shortly disappears. I warp to station, but nobody's there. After waiting a good several minutes and doing blanket combat scans of the system I decide it was time to resolve the signatures. There are only a couple of them anyways, both c3 and c5 statics. Using my judgment, I check out the lower class wormhole first. This Rattlesnake clearly disappeared in space and I bet my left testicle he went to a c3 rather than a c5. And there he was, appeared with all glory on d-scan and sleeper wrecks. Not at an anomaly though. I pinpoint his position and scan him out in one quick sweep.

It was time to make my move. His home system is rather small, but the station is outside the wormhole range, so I should be able to park my Nestors without being noticed. Moreover, the Rattlesnake is over 30 AU away, so most likely I will pre-warp my fleet before engaging anyway. Especially with that bloody mobile depot on grid. But first, I will pre-warp my Proteus to a 200km position. In the old days, when grids were small, you couldn't use camera or see a ship at all if you were too far away. Now there is no reason to make 200km perch, but I decide to do it anyway. Old habits die hard. I warp at 100 to mobile depot to bounce, only to have sleepers aggro me. I instantly realize my cloak is off and I have no idea why. I'm sitting at 100 from the Rattlesnake, uncloaked. Should I bounce anyway and pretend I was never there? Nah, that won't work. I rather sit and wait for the Rattlesnake to make a move. As I thought, he aligns and warps back to his wormhole. I follow while at the same time warp the Nestor fleet from the other side. The Rattlesnake jumps and gets tackled.

The ship soon gets converted to a wreck.

Not too shabby. I'm not sure if this guy panic refitted to two warp core stabilizers or he was actually farming with them. In any case, it was not enough to avoid my Proteus. Once the deed is done, I warp back to safe. I'm in no rush to move. Later that day, locals assemble a wormhole rolling fleet, clearly prepared for the unwelcomed Proteus.

I watch the guys roll multiple static connections. I don't know what's the intention. Do they look for a pvp or for a new farming ground? Whatever they were looking for, after watching them roll wormholes for a few hours, I assume they haven't found it.

For the next several days, I stay put. I believe I am forgotten and things are back to normal. System is kept clean, but locals are willing to go next door for that juicy sleeper loot. Once again I spot a Rattlesnake leave the system. Once again I scan him out without getting noticed.

Once again I forget to cloak or get decloaked when warping at 100. And once again the Rattlesnake warps back home, gets followed by me and is met by Nestors on the other side, gets tackled and killed.

No warp core stabilizers this time, but with a few extract faction mods. I scoop the loot and take my leave. No reason to stay here longer than I have to. I move next door and just park my ships without expecting much to happen. But no, just barely after two hours pass, a Gila warps to an anomaly, completely oblivious to a present mtu and a mobile depot in the system.

The pilot is from the same alliance, but different corp. He is also a CEO. So I gank 2 Rattlesnakes from the same alliance and now I've got a Gila doing sites? Yea, right. I watch him casually orbit his mtu and shoot sleepers. I'm not gonna go for it. What are the odds this is not a bait? Just to be sure, I drop combat probes. If he is legit farming, he will warp back to the wormhole right away. If he is baiting, he will pretend like those probes don't exist. I warp out, launch probes and go back to observing. Nothing. No reaction whatsoever. This is an obvious bait or the guy is as ignorant as he can be. I decide to chat the guy up.

The Gila pilot seemed genuinely surprised. He closed my convo and warped to a planet, while disappearing from d-scan and combat probes. I was a bit puzzled on what was going on. System was big so I just assumed the guy bounced and went back to wormhole. However, in some minutes, he lands out of nowhere and jumps back out to his home system. I can't help but feel this guy was actually legit. Especially after checking corp's killboard, it didn't seem they could mount a decent enough fleet to kill me. Oh well, I still choose to live by philosophy: if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Might cost a kill or two, but I'm pretty sure more than not it will prevent expensive losses down the road.