Not bothering with a bubble
4th June 2014 – 5.52 pmMy glorious leader has been busy scanning. Our static wormhole is bookmarked, as is a K162 from class 2 w-space, along with a class 3 system behind that C2 and a high-sec exit. However, there are no bookmarks for C3a, the neighbouring system through our static wormhole, so I head that way to take a first look. There's not much to see, though, my directional scanner showing me only a mobile depot somewhere in space.
Launching probes and performing a blanket scan sees little else, with no ships to suggest activity. Indeed, there's no occupation either, leaving me with six anomalies and eight signatures to sift through. The signatures are a bunch of weaklings too, almost making this a chore. My notes, from around two weeks ago, indicate there being a static exit to null-sec, so I'll have to drill down to resolve those weak signatures to find the K346 out of here.
Relics, gas, data, relics, a thankfully chubby wormhole, and the obvious K346. Scanning complete, I recall my probes and head towards the K162, but it's only another null-sec connection, this one coming in to w-space instead of leading out. The region beyond the K162 is quite obviously Cloud Ring, with the cloud ring itself making a stripe across the wormhole instead of a ring. Checking the K346 sees the dancing man of Malpais, so that exit will take me to Outer Passage.
I go to Cloud Ring first, where there are a handful of pilots, a whole load of rat wrecks, and a Noctis salvager somewhere. There's also visibility in the local communication channel, so even though the locals are friendly they quickly squirrel up. I don't blame them. They can get back to ratting, though, as there are no other signatures in the system beyond the wormhole I'm sitting on, so I lose interest and head back to w-space.
Across C3a and a brief diversion to the mobile depot that I took time to resolve the position of. I shoot it until it enters reinforced mode, which doesn't take much, but the 48h period of reinforced mode makes a mockery of wormhole dynamics, the owner almost certainly being able to return and claim his loot without threat. Our static wormhole will only connect to this C3 for sixteen hours, and I'm not isolating myself from home just to mildly inconvenience someone else.
Onwards, through the K346 to Outer Passage, where a dozen pilots are in the system, none in range of d-scan, and one extra signature isn't enough to convince me to scan. Back to C3a and home. Now what? Across to C2a to follow behind Fin, I suppose, where she's not wrong about it being a farm system. Towers are everywhere, my notes listing 'at least twenty-five'. I don't care to count them today, either.
It seems like the C2a occupants have a good policy of not leaving ships floating empty inside force fields, and although it doesn't look like Tarunik Redshirt is home for today's visit there are a few ships dotted around. As I find some, others appear, looking to be brought in through the high-sec connection. I suppose it's possible we could potentially surprise an industrial ship coming in, but so far it looks to be an Anomalous Existence operation to bring in combat ships.
I like Mick's style for suggesting we bubble the high-sec wormhole and force a fight, although I think it would be more a matter of bubbling the wormhole and dying to a superior fleet. As we consider this, Fin spies a Sacrilege heavy assault cruiser on the connection to our home system. I don't know what this means. Maybe that I actually quite fancy a quiet night in for a change. The HAC warps away, Fin jumps home to test the waters—the wormhole is clear, d-scan is clear—so I follow and put the plan in to effect. A quiet night in it is.
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