This evening started in a pretty mundane fashion. I had shopping to do and things to sell, so I stripped down the worm I ‘stole’ from the wormhole a few days ago, piled up my exploration loot and headed to Amarr to put up a few market orders and offload some salvage.
I also wanted to pick up my old Anathema, ‘Prophet of Doom’ and put her through her paces as she’s been somewhat neglected of late. I decided to dust her off and head into Amarr FW space on the way back to Derelik by way of Raa and see if any ghost sites were spawning.
Sadly, nothing of any real interest was apparent so I grabbed what I could and started to head home.
By the time I made it back to Sasta, the Dread Guristas Invul had already sold, so I decided to treat myself. I’d had my eye on a Deathglow Hunter skin for the Astero for some time and there was a reasonably priced one for sale in Hek (yeah, I know right?) so that was my next stop.
Doesn’t she look pretty?
So, feeling all happy and positive, I decided it was time to hunt or be hunted. I left Sasta by way of Hasiari with the intention of actually getting around to killing something in lowsec but was rudely distracted by the latest Trigalvian invasion in Radima and ended up sat cloaked off the Hasiari gate for some time eyeing up the wrecks left by two Nestors and a Praxis.
Reminding myself that procrastination and a distinct lack of time don’t make good bedfellows, I proceeded on up the chain to Mohas where I found three signatures and three wormholes. I wasn’t going to make it to lowsec…
Two K162s and a lowsec were scanned down and I entered the one that wasn’t EOL first. This led me to J223650 a bland an uninteresting C1 with a hisec static and no sites to run. Back in Mohas I considered heading straight into lowsec through the hole here, but decided to check out the EOL first, just in case.
J121412, a C2 with hisec and C4 statics greeted me with 12 signatures, most of which appeared to be wormholes, pirate data and pirate relic sites. This was going to be a good place to loiter for a while. As usual I toyed with the idea of running them, but didn’t. I may have mentioned how lazy I am previously.
Having checked out the Raitaru in system and finding it empty I settled in at my safe and waited.
I’d probably been waiting for around an hour before the first signs of life appeared and it wasn’t long before a Heron appeared on scan. It didn’t take them long to find the first relic site and experience told me that if they were knowledgable explorers they’d go for the Sansha relic sites first. I know I would… if I wasn’t so lazy.
Lo and behold just a few minutes later, the Heron appeared at the first Sansha site and commenced hacking. She gave me a few clues as to her experience level early on. Firstly she dropped a can at zero on the site to decloak any unwelcome guests warping in to the beacon.
Secondly she was orbiting with her prop mod off which would ultimately mean a longer lock time for me. On the plus side the Heron only has two low slots, so I knew she’d have a maximum of two stabs. I also noticed that her killboard only had onewormhole loss as far as exploration ships were concerned and also one of her previous Herons had been fitted for combat whilst carrying an analyser. This was going to be interesting.
I decided to let her run the first site and I would grab her on the second one in order to maximise any potential profit. To her credit, however she warped off and disappeared for a few minutes and I guessed she’d gotten some nice drops and didn’t want to risk it. Smart move, exactly what I would have done.
After a few minutes she reappeared in dscan but unexpectedly went for the Guristas relic site and not the Sansha one. By now it was getting late and I wanted a kill before bedtime, so I set up a pounce off the site and watched her hack the first few cans. Seeing her probes still in space, I guessed that she was distracted and I made my move as she idly orbited a can she’d been hacking for what seemed like a long time.
I resisted the temptation to web immediately, there was no need given the range I was at and I didn’t want to web her into warp. No incoming damage meant the combat fitted Heron wasn’t being used as I suspected and in short order she was dead.
Just a few million in loot appeared in her wreck and I kicked myself for not jumping her at the Sansha site. I guess I could have waited, but as I mentioned previously I was running out of play time.
Ah well, a kill’s a kill and more importantly fun was had.
Laters.
Poking Your Hole 