Third time will be a charm
9th May 2011 – 5.13 pmI have some time on my hands, I think I'll take an early look around our w-space constellation. Finding our static wormhole is easy enough, and jumping to our neighbouring class 3 system sees a couple of ships and a couple of towers on my directional scanner. My notes also let me know where I am. I was in this C3 only seven weeks ago, where I missed bombing an Iteron hauler setting up a tower and a Prowler transport ship sent for whatever reason to jump through the K162 leading to our home system. I found the towers on this previous visit and they are both in the same place, letting me locate the two ships without fuss, both sitting unpiloted in different towers.
It's clear to scan, and I warp away from the towers to launch probes. The only problem is that there is nothing to find. A scan of the entire system returns no anomalies and only three signatures, one of which is the K162 home and another being the system's static wormhole. A single ladar site is the only other point of interest in the whole system. I check the exit wormhole and am not surprised to see it leading out to low-sec empire space, but getting the exit puts me in The Forge and only one hop from the safety of high-sec. Scanning has been rather quicker than expected, leaving me enough time to make the journey to Jita to buy a replacement Legion.
I drop my scanning boat back at the tower and take my naked pod out to empire space, making the eleven jumps through mostly low-sec to get to Jita. I collect the contracted subsystems and buy the strategic cruiser's hull and all its modules from the market. I stick to roughly the same fitting as used in the two I recently got destroyed, still feeling confident in its ability given better circumstances. I hedge against overcompensating armour for speed when buying and fitting rigs, though, fitting one armour and one speed rig initially and buying a second of each to fit at a later time, when I make my mind up about which attribute is more important.
On the whole, buying the ship is a straightforward exercise. I am getting better at remembering to buy ammunition and charges, and undock with a fully functional Legion. I even have a name ready, one that I am happy with, and I point Jeff K's Prophecy towards her first stargate jump. My journey back to w-space is extended by six hops, wanting to avoid low-sec as far as possible, but it doesn't feel particularly long. Jumping in to the low-sec system finds a few rats loitering on the stargate and, as I am in a potent combat ship and there is only one other pilot in the system, I pause to shoot the cruiser and two frigates.
As I am popping the rats whilst barely taking a scratch even to my shields the stargate flashes behind me, signaling a new ship entering the system. A Prorator transport ship appears, shedding its session change cloak. I'm loitering on a low-sec stargate in a Legion, I'm feeling piratey, I may as well act the part. I try to lock on to the unarmed hauler but he cloaks immediately and probably warps to the next stargate on his route. It was worth a try, but I'm not here to catch unwary travellers. I warp Jeff K's Prophecy towards the wormhole and jump back to w-space. Seeing no change in the C3 sends me homewards, where I park my new Legion and take a break for food.
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