Following fellows' footsteps

21st October 2010 – 5.48 pm

Late-night scanning by colleagues has made some bookmarks available, giving me a choice to roam or scan. A time-stamp has been manually added to the bookmark for the home system's static connection, a convention we have adopted to better gauge the life of the wormhole, and it suggests the wormhole is about to enter its end-of-life stage. Out of safety, I decide to take my Buzzard covert operations boat out to scan, knowing I can return for my stealth bomber if required.

The neighbouring class 4 w-space system is unoccupied, as it was four months ago, and inactive. But maybe it wasn't dormant earlier, as a bookmark points me towards a K162 in the system. The incoming connection is enticing as my next destination but warping there leaves me floating in empty space, the wormhole having collapsed since the bookmark was made. I move instead to the system's static connection, leading in to a C2.

Jumping in to the class 2 system finds nothing of interest, not much having changed from my last visit three weeks earlier, although there are three wormholes to investigate. The two static connections of this C2 lead to null-sec space and a class 5 w-space system, the third wormhole being a K162 from a C3. Again, the incoming connection is my first choice to explore. It looks like my colleagues didn't venture this way, though, as there are no bookmarks for the system. Even the return wormhole hasn't been bookmarked, which I also note is not the system's static connection. I register the location of the outbound wormhole in my nav-comp and warp away to explore.

I have been in this w-space system before too, when I bomb a bubbled barge as bait six months ago. But the only sign of occupancy now is an off-line tower, anchored where my notes list the on-line one was, the rest of the system devoid of activity. Despite there being another wormhole in here I don't start to scan, instead heading back through the C2 to the already bookmarked C5 connection. My thoughts of not having to scan evaporate after I jump, though, finding the C5 to be unexplored too. I bookmark the K162 and warp off to look for activity, only the outer planet currently visible on my directional scanner.

There's nothing to see in this C5, it is unoccupied and dull. I launch probes to have a quick scan, and it will be quick with only six signatures and two anomalies present, ignoring a ladar and radar site to find a static connection to a class 3 system. This could be promising. Entering the C3 even finds occupation, a tower anchored to a moon nearby, although no ships are to be seen. Scanning reveals little else, the system holding no anomalies and only six signatures. I soon resolve two wormholes almost on top of each other, a static exit to high-sec empire space and an outbound connection to a class 4 system.

The wormhole heading further in to w-space is my best opportunity to find any activity, but jumping through puts me in to another unoccupied and empty system. I'm now five jumps away from home and don't fancy delving any deeper. I turn around to head home, diverting only briefly to get a red dot of exploration for the SNFV-I null-sec system in the Catch region, apparently forgetting about not having looked for the static wormhole in the earlier class 3 w-space system. But I have explored far enough for now. I copy in to the can the updated bookmarks I have made and take a break.

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