Wrecks. And when there are wrecks, there are ships. I warp through the system, but nothing else shows up on d-scan. I check the stations and they are empty too. One of two scenarios might just have happened. One, someone was doing sites, saw a hostile ship on d-scan, warped away and logged. Or, someone finished a couple of sites and decided to salvage. I orbit my exit and patiently wait for this someone to comeback. Time passes and the system remains as is. Oh well. I launch my probes and get to scanning. There aren't that many sigs so it doesn't take a long time.
There are 3 connections: a low-sec, a c4 and a c3. I check the low-sec first and my prayers get answered. It has a high-sec gate. I go to the nearest station and setup a courier contract to transport my loot from a previous gank. A cool 300 mil towards my Proteus/Nestors replacement program. Once that is done, I check the c4.
The system is active. I find mining retrievers and a Cormorant which warps to a c3 I just came from.
It's a Dark Skies Dojo. For some reason they have a negative standing to my corp which normally means I should be cautious. However, judging from their killboard they seem to be primarily a US tz corp. There is no point in trying to gank such a small ship in hopes to get some blue loot. I'd rather wait for him to finish salvaging, after which, hopefully he will continue running anoms. Meanwhile I go check out the miners.
Just look at them. I guess everyone has their thing in EVE. At almost 150 million SP I'm not even sure if I can fly a Retriever. I won't deny, looking at these two dudes mining peacefully really makes my finger on a trigger itch. Now that my Proteus actually has dps, I don't even need to bring the Nestors. While tempting, I decide against it. The plan is to wait for the Cormorant to return and see if he feels shooting some more sleepers. If not, I can always pop those Retrievers. It's not like this ore site will be gone anytime soon.
Meanwhile I have my Nestors fleet logged. The system I am staying at is quite small. Locals have their station in the middle between the sun and an outer planet. I had to make a safe near the middle of the system to be outside range. Downside is that most anoms and signatures spawn in the middle, so if I do not log in before locals come online, I risk exposing myself. Upside is that d-scan of the Nestor can see a big part of the system.
An activity at home! From the tag I recognize it's the locals. As expected, it's a poco bash op. The fleet is at planet XI. Now it's time to take a decision. An attack battlecruiser is a nice target. Not particularly shiny, but much better than a Retriever. Since I haven't seen Cormorant return yet, there's no point in waiting anymore. I head home.
I jump back in. Planet XI is out of d-scan range so I am confident I will be able to sneak back in without being spotted. I warp to the customs office, but no ships are present on the overview. Did I get the planet wrong? No, that's not it. They seem to have warped back to the station. An awfully big coincidence if you asked me. Then I watch weird stuff happen. Rook undocks and warps to a safespot somewhere. Same thing with Stratios. A venture undocks and starts scanning the system with core probes. If I didn't know any better I would say they are preparing for me. But that killboard though... It might be a threat for my solo Proteus, but I just can't see them beating my Nestors.
An Oracle and a Tornado warps back to a poco.
Something is definitely up. I decide to go for it anyway. I'm sure my Nestors can handle whatever they throw at me and if there's another hostile entity I haven't seen, then so be it, but I highly doubt it as these shenanigans started as soon as I jumped back to the system. I decloak and attack the Tornado. It pops fast.
No surprise there. It's hard to tank without a single tank module. I still keep my Nestors cloaked. I don't see the need to show my trump card just yet. Let's see what they will bring and if I can get a secondary kill.
Sure enough I now have a Rook jamming me and a Cynabal landing on grid. There is no way I can catch a fast ship such as a Cynabal while my tackle Proteus is being jammed. I decide to warp out, but get pointed. I try to wait a little bit for jamming cycle to drop, but it doesn't seem like I will be able to fire any more shots with the Proteus. It's time to bring in the big guns and save myself. I warp in the Nestors fleet.
I expect to scare the Cynabal off and go home, but instead, upon landing, I manage to lock and scram the faction cruiser with my Nestor. I don't know how it is possible, but it happened.
My only theory is that Sarah got so excited about soon™ Proteus kill that she completely forgot she was flying a kitting ship and 3 hostile battleships landing on top was not enough to wake her up.
Well, that went better than expected. Locals were completely caught off-guard.
So these guys had eyes on every exit, which explains how they saw me jumping in and why they felt so confident to spot any incoming backup. Too bad for them, backup came from within the system. I technically did come from a c4, but not the c4 they are thinking about, but from a c4 that was connected to their system a few days ago.
We exchange a few more words and wish each other good day. What a great sportsmanship. They get my respect with an attitude like that. Many other corps would have just docked up and not left the station, but these guys decided to take a go at it. Sure plan could have been executed better, but it's the effort that counts.
I'm so happy to see you return to your old style. I very much enjoy reading your blog. I saw you in channel the other day (Wormhole PVP Channel)and figured I'd see what you were up to. Nice to see you out and about back in wormholes. It's unfortunate about mass-collapse. I did see the reddit post from adhocracy.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to reading more of your adventures.
I hope we meet in space one day...
ReplyDeletePraise Bob!
ReplyDeleteGood kills and it's nice to see you terrifying wormhole space again!
:D
I enjoy reading this place. Thank you
ReplyDelete