Avoiding an ambush

There is some excitement in the wormhole engineers channel. It seems I turn up shortly after a Curse is popped and its pilot podded, and there is much adrenaline being pumped around. I would be more excited if I knew what a Curse is, still not really doing proper research in to ship identification, but successfully defending our w-space system is always cause for celebration. It actually may have been more of an opportunistic kill, but I am not going to discourage that either.

With the virtual pats on the back complete, and not much else happening, I grab a Retriever from the ship hangar and head out to mine some more arkonor. I appear to be mining more often, as a productive pastime whilst in w-space, so perhaps I should heed a sage's wisdom about training to get in to the pod of an exhumer. If I am going to be spending my time shooting rocks, I may as well make it as profitable for the corporation as is reasonable. I can also share an exhumer instead of investing in my own, if I am only mining part-time. It's something to think about.

'Run!' My Retriever is already aligning to the corporation tower when the shout comes over the communication channel. I have been monitoring the directional scanner as normal, spotting the Curse and Malediction turn up, not ships our corporation pilots use, but it's always good to have someone else watching my back. It seems that the clone of the podded pilot has come back for revenge, and with a friend. Our own killer is still around, and is happy to run this fellow out of our system again, and along with myself there are two more pilots available to help. As we review our options, a Manticore briefly appears in our system. Presumably it cloaks as soon as it can.

We aren't using our death squad cruisers, as there aren't enough capsuleers around for the squad to be effective, but we feel there is enough tank and firepower in the ships we can fly to act at least as a deterrent. I grab my Drake, and two of us head out to the asteroid site, expecting that to be the obvious place for the intruders to spring an ambush, perhaps hoping to catch us mining unawares. But the absence of the Retriever and appearance of combat ships on their directional scanners no doubt indicates our awareness of the situation, and no one reveals themself.

In the end, I grab a Crane and make a couple of trips to pick up the jet-canned arkonor, zipping back and forth between the site and the tower. There is still no sign of the intruders. There is no revenge fight, nor the expected ambush, but there is a concern that the pilots shut down whilst in our w-space system, with the intention of waking up and catching us hours or even a day later when our guard is dropped. A quick message is sent to all the wormhole engineers alerting them to the possible risk. It turns out to be an evening without an encounter after all, but even a little threat in w-space requires some action to be taken.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: crane, drake, eve online, mining, mmorpg, penny ibramovic, retriever, w-space