Yes yes, I know, I was leaving for the night…
I got a pass for a few hours so I decided to go and make some isk on a whim. Not happy with the idea of screwing around in lowsec for hours on end for minimal gain and the slim chance of bagging an explorer, I decided to take the Vital Spark out to a local dead-end system where it’s usually quiet, scan out a hole, bookmark some sites and roll out the Magnate, my go-to ship for site running and risk aversion.
Normally in this particular system there are quite a few sigs so you can imagine my face when just the one popped up on scan.
Luckily it was an R943, a wandering C2 connection and nobody in local appeared to be WH affiliated. Jumpy jumpy.
J154606 materialised in front of me and my probe scanner visually throbbed with lots of sigs. My happiness at seeing a plethora of potential, however quickly turned to dismay as I clicked dscan…
… and just as I cloaked after launching probes, an Astero landed on the exit exclaiming in local …
It was indeed, and out she jumped, returning a few minutes later and launching probes. Intermittently I caught site of a Heron, the Astero, a Magnate and a self-named Slasher. Oh well, this clearly wasn’t going to be a money-making session.
I checked out the Astero pilot and earmarked her a suitable candidate for death then set about scanning out a few sigs and putting down some pings. With 3 data sites and 2 relic sites scanned out I set up at a safe within scan range of all five signatures and waited.
I was kinda hoping the Astero was hunting too and considered baiting her by dropping a scram for an analyzer and looking all innocent, but that thought quickly vanished when I noticed the Magnate had landed on a site nearby. Maybe the bait was already here…
My ping was a little short of warp range for the first can if the Astero decided to attack and I turned to bounce. Then I started thinking that the Magnate may be bait as he was acting a little odd, moving to each can in turn and not activating any modules. He wasn’t a new pilot, but his killboard didn’t indicate any nefariousness. But then I thought, neither do the alts I use to bait. You’ve got to love wormholes. So many variables!
Oh well, in for a penny as they say…
As I hit warp to bounce back at a suitable range he did too and went off dscan. “Very odd”, I thought and checked my dscan. Nothing to indicate he may have been spooked, and he clearly wasn’t bothered by the other probes in system. Maybe he’d seen something I hadn’t? Checking the site at the outer planet I could see he was there, at another data site. It was getting late and I figured it was now or never.
The Slasher was in the site too and I figured if he was running guard for the Magnate I may be able to snag two kills, plus pull the Astero into a fight if she made an appearance.
I landed on the can at 10km and drifted in with the Slasher 40km off and heading towards us. I decloaked, locked up the Magnate and sent in the drones. Stupidly I webbed the Magnate and not the Slasher and he managed to get out of scram range and warp, leaving his friend to die.
After looting the wreck I went back to my safe and realised in all the commotion I hadn’t bookmarked my exit. Tsk tsk. That’s what happens when you’re rusty I guess. At this point the Magnate pilot opened a convo with me and we chatted about how I found him and I gave him some tips on staying safe. He was a really nice guy, heading up a small, new corporation for new players and I’m a great believer in all of us having a duty to help foster new blood, especially given the decline in player numbers. We exchanged positive standings and on returning to Derelik I contracted him a Magnate fitted how I would consider one ‘safe’ for exploring.
Kinda glad I didn’t log off now.
G’night o/
Poking Your Hole 