Bumping in to a Buzzard
10th June 2014 – 5.21 pmCock it! Wandering monsters have swiped all the ISK from our home. No more anomalies for us. Well, not a few days. They'll be back, I suppose. Under the circumstances, finding a second wormhole in the system isn't a surprise, possibly being the trail of breadcrumbs leading back to the perps. I know they are probably long gone by now, but I still move to the K162 from class 5 w-space to see what I can find.
The wormhole isn't mass stressed, but it doesn't take much to send a handful of strategic cruisers both ways. To prove that the connection is active, though, it crackles as I approach. A Deimos heavy interdictor assault cruiser appears, accelerates, warps. He has gone to our static wormhole, judging by his vector, and jumps, given that he drops from my directional scanner. He stays off d-scan, nothing else comes through the wormhole. It's probably safe to take a look.
The other side of the wormhole is clear, as is d-scan, and this looks as good a place as any to launch probes. I perform a blanket scan of the system, revealing a messy sixteen anomalies and fourteen signatures, which doesn't strike me as the state the Hard Knocks corporation would choose to leave their home system in. I switch probe filters over to show structures, and there are none. Literally none, which is unusual, but a fairly good indication that there is no occupation.
Time to scan for K162s, loitering on the wormhole home in case any ships look to come home. Three quick wormholes are followed by gas, data, relics, and more gas. I have options, then. No Deimos has returned, nor any other ships, so I reconnoitre the wormholes. The first connection is a dying K162 from null-sec, Vale of the Silent region if my colour recognition is correct. The second is a healthy K162 from The Kalevala Expanse, looking quite vivid without space dust dirtying the wormhole. I should take a revised image for my collection.
Snapshots taken, I switch to the visual filesystem on my personal cloud server terminal mainframe interface and rename the files. Turning my attention back to space sees a Buzzard sitting on the wormhole. I didn't hear the wormhole crackle, so have no idea if the covert operations boat has just jumped through from null-sec, or warped here from somewhere in the C5, or chosen just this moment to decloak after a prolonged period of inactivity. Either way, he's not moving, I'm nearby, and he's not affiliated with the Deimos I saw. I'll try to shoot him.
I decloak and get my sensor booster working as the recalibration delay counts down. Once able to, I gain a positive lock on the Buzzard, disrupt his warp drive, and start shooting. His shields take a few hits, waking up the pilot enough for him to flee through the wormhole. What the hell, I give chase, following him to null-sec. Huh, twenty people in the system. I hope the Buzzard doesn't have friends nearby.
I get my Loki strategic cruiser moving as soon as possible, dropping the session-change cloak and enabling me to activate the sensor booster again. No recalibration delay this time, so with the Buzzard visible I go for a second lock, and get it. I make sure he can't warp clear and get my autocannons chattering away once more, not entirely sure if he's polarised or not. Either way, there's not enough left of the shields to protect the Buzzard for long, the cov-ops exploding with a few sparks.
No ships have come to the wormhole to chase me away, so I aim for the pod, unsuccessfully. It gives me to time to loot the wreck, though, bagging more Sisters probes than is strictly necessary for a whole fleet of cov-ops scouts. Maybe the pilot doesn't realise they are recalled after use. It pushes the small ship loss up to a hundred million ISK, though, which works for me, particularly as I loot most of the ISK.
Wreck looted, I shoot it and take time to reload my guns before cloaking in a lazy orbit around the wormhole. Still no one comes to shoo me out of the system. But why am I waiting? This is a good result, getting an opportunistic kill without repercussions. There aren't even any extra signatures in the system for me to scan. Best that I head back to w-space whilst I remain unmolested, eh?
4 Responses to “Bumping in to a Buzzard”
Just an fyi the deimos is gallantte heavy assault cruiser not hic :-) the phobos is the gal hic same hull though. Any way keep up the great blog and maybe see you in w-space one day
Oop, good spot. Thanks!
The use of "Cock it!" has been noted, and space brownie points awarded accordingly.
How's that for a slice of fried gold!