Looking to cause trouble

11th May 2010 – 5.31 pm

The early bird gets the worm. Sadly this bird is not early enough to catch yesterday's static wormhole and roam for unsuspecting targets. However, there is a mail alert blinking at me. Our scan man disappeared through a stable wormhole that unexpectedly collapsed before he could return, and he is trapped in empire space with no way home. I need to scan anyway, now I have a purpose.

I find our new static wormhole and jump through to a system I visited about five weeks ago. It was unoccupied then and it is unoccupied now. My comparitive method of scanning locates the system's static wormhole on my first choice of signature to resolve and, after noting the large number of anomalies in this system that we could clear if we get a fleet together, I jump through to a class 3 system. This C3 is occupied, a Bestower and Impel showing along with the tower on the directional scanner. Finding the tower also finds the ships, so my hopes are thwarted of their collecting gas or ore, or making a run to empire space that I could rudely interrupt.

Scan, scan, scan. So many signatures, but the potential of using the sites to locate targets later motivates me to be thorough. I find a low-sec static exit wormhole and then a static C1 connection amongst the sites and, with still no activity in my current system, jump through to explore more w-space. The class 1 system is occupied and has ships visible on d-scan, as well as a can named 'we're recruiting, ask in local'. I'll be sure to enquire. I locate and warp to the tower, seeing eleven ships sitting inside its shields. The ships range from shuttles to a Hurricane battlecruiser, so nothing particularly menacing, and only a Moa cruiser is piloted.

Two Badger Mk IIs warp in to the tower as I continue scanning w-space. With only three signatures I am guessing they have come from an exit wormhole, and that's probably where they are leaving to again right now. I resolve the wormhole and warp to it, but not quickly enough to see them jump. The wormhole is a high-sec exit, which is excellent for getting our scan man back, but maybe not for ambushes. It is also unstable, although not critical and not at the end of its life. The only other signature in the system, not counting the wormhole I entered through, is also a wormhole, a K162 that actually is critical and EOL. I warp back to the high-sec exit, jump, dock, and contract a copy of the bookmarks to our isolated colleague, before heading home.

As I jump in to w-space a Hoarder industrial ship warps to the wormhole and jumps to high-sec. I hold my cloak and wait for it to leave before warping away. There isn't long before the galaxy gets rebooted, and I always seem to misgauge travel times, but the temptation is strong. I get back to our tower and swap in to my Onyx heavy interdictor, hoping to catch someone in a bubble. Travelling back to the C1 I make a silly mistake, warping directly to the wormhole instead of dropping out of warp 10 km away from it. Because of this, I need to move away and reposition myself before I can cloak instead of getting set-up immediately. It doesn't matter, though, as the pair of Badger Mk IIs warp to my position as I turn my Onyx around.

These haulers are safe and I know it. They are simply going to jump to high-sec and warp away, but I try to get a positive lock with my weapon systems anyway, inflating my warp bubble as a token gesture to invoke panic. The two industrial ships remain invulnerable to my systems until they drop out of warp, at which point they jump through the wormhole without delay or danger. I'm not sure I've achieved anything, except potentially isolating myself from the home system in a ship that cannot scan. I drop my bubble and warp and jump as quickly as I can along the route home. I can see the seconds tick down before consciousness will abruptly stop, and it is with relief that I make the final jump and see my ship appear in our home system. I fail to warp to our tower before the reboot, but at least I am home. There are times when I need to think more clearly before gallavanting around in an expensive ship.

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