Stuck in high-sec

13th September 2012 – 5.34 pm

Aii's here and would like to mine. I'm cool with that, just as he's cool with my desire to explore, even though it means opening our static wormhole and exposing him to additional risk. That's just the way Aii rolls. With only stale bookmarks stored I launch probes to scan for the new static wormhole, resolving it as the only unidentified signature, and jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. My directional scanner is clear from the K162 in C3a, and with only a single planet in range I am hopeful that there will be more to see.

Launching probes and blanketing the system shows me eleven anomalies and five signatures, which sits between being tidy enough for the system to be occupied and tatty enough for it to be empty. Warping around shows it to be the latter, with an off-line tower being the only sign of previous capsuleer presence, leaving me to scan for more wormholes. The first signature is promising, being chubby enough to be a K162, and even though it is a K162 it only comes from high-sec empire space and isn't terribly interesting for it.

Continued scanning finds a thoroughly unsurprising K346 static exit to null-sec, and the other two signatures are equally weak radar and magnetometric sites. I poke out to high-sec to see what's happening, appearing in a system in Metropolis that's probably pretty dull. I go with that assumption for now and merely bookmark the wormhole for reference, returning to and crossing C3a to see what null-sec looks like instead. And it looks rather more interesting for the nine pilots in the system in The Spire, a region I'm not sure I've visited before.

The null-sec locals appear to be ratting, and although Aii is keen to blow them up he gets right back to mining when I mention the large ships they outnumber us in. I don't even bother scanning here, heading back to high-sec to see what I can find there instead. One extra signature resolves to be only a radar site, which isn't too disappointing considering there is already one wormhole in the system, and as I'm in high-sec I can hop one system across and scan again. And one system across looks promising, with three signatures that end up to be a site of Angel rats, and two wormholes.

I look to pop the Angels as I resolve the two wormholes, but the acceleration gate protecting them prevents my strategic cruiser from entering. That's okay, as I have two outbound connections to class 1 w-space to pique my interest. One of the wormholes is already at half-mass, which either means the ships have been and gone, or are on the other side at the moment. I'll go with been and gone for now, and poke through the healthy wormhole first. I'm soon back and looking at the half-mass wormhole, though, as C1b turns out to be as blue-occupied now as it was two months ago.

C1a isn't much better than C1b. There is nothing on d-scan from the K162, and the system is small enough that there is nowhere to hide. Screw it, I'm not scanning for another link to empire space, and just jump back to high-sec, hop one more system across, and look for more wormholes to w-space. I find a wormhole too, along with a radar site, but just not to w-space. I drop out of warp next to an A641 wormhole connecting high-sec to high-sec. That's pretty amusing, space. Still, it may lead to a more fertile system, so I jump through.

I appear in the Tash-Murkon region, a mere three hops from Amarr, which would be fairly convenient considering the high-sec route it provides, but I'm not interested in logistics at the moment. I launch probes and scan again. One extra signature becomes a wormhole, just as a Buzzard covert operations boat appears on the high-sec link I'm sitting on, clearly as disappointed as me in the find, because he decloaks and re-launches his probes. I wonder what his reaction will be if he follows me, as the wormhole I've found is another high-sec/high-sec link. What the hell, wormholes? Sleeper technology is on the blink.

I still can't resist a wormhole, so jump through to the next system, which puts me in Domain and now four hops from Amarr. Okay, I can take the hint. I make the four stargate jumps to the capital to buy some more ammunition for my Loki, before going the three jumps to the wormhole-holding system in Tash-Murkon, and making my way home to give up for the night. What a disappointing set of connections.

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