What's left behind
20th June 2010 – 3.59 pmAn alliance member needs to be guided out of w-space. Taking him along the route gives me a chance to passively scout our neighbourhood a little. I warp the pair of us between wormholes, waiting for him to bookmark them for his return journey, and keep an eye on the directional scanner for any activity. No ships present themselves in the three w-space systems and jumping in to low-sec only finds an empty system. It really is quiet.
I lurk in the low-sec system for a while, hoping for any kind of target to appear. I am only in my Buzzard covert operations scanning boat, hardly a threat, and there are no visitors. I jump back to w-space. Returning home finally sees some ships active, a Helios and Anathema both somewhere in a class 5 system. Both cov-ops boats disappear from the system and checking the C3, which is heading away from home, doesn't find any probes in the system. I head the other way, in to our neighbouring C4, to see probes on d-scan, which means the scanners could find their way in to our system.
Jumping home, I warp to the tower and swap in to my Malediction interceptor, now I know I can potentially catch a cloaking ship, and two colleagues get armed too. Fin plants her new Onyx heavy interdictor on our wormhole to accompany my interceptor, another colleague jumping in to the C4 in an Arazu recon ship to scout. The HIC's bubble preventing ships from entering warp should give my Malediction more than enough time to intercept a target and bump-decloak it, making us an effective pair. We don't get to test the theory, though, as our Arazu scout reports a lack of probes or anything else in the C4, and no one jumps through in to our trap.
The neighbourhood is not providing much entertainment, it looks like time to collapse our static wormhole. We wait for our alliance member to return from empire space after picking up his ship and pop goes the wormhole, the Orca industrial command ship returning safely as the connection collapses. It is time to scan again, this time with more ships available.
Our new static wormhole leads in to a system I've visited twice before, the last time only five days ago. Unsurprisingly enough, it remains unoccupied since the previous visit. The class 4 system holds ten anomalies and a bunch of signatures, which gives us a decent system to plunder with a suitable fleet. The question is asked about whether we keep this system's static connection closed and engage Sleepers, or push deeper and look for trouble. The decision is left with me, and I go looking for trouble. I resolve a wormhole within a few signatures, warp to it, and jump.
Now this looks interesting. D-scan is showing me tower modules, cargo canisters, and a Hoarder transport ship, but no force field. I mention this to my colleagues and suggest they get sharper ships warmed up, whilst I move away cleanly from the wormhole without launching probes. My first instinct is that a tower is being installed or dismantled and we may be able to catch a vulnerable capsuleer or two. I note from my records that I last visited this system about ten weeks ago, although it must have been a fleeting visit as I have no record of occupancy. Without a location recorded for the tower I need to find it, which should be simple enough but I ought to be quick.
Even though there is no force field or tower that the modules are tower defences, a ship hangar array, and a corporate hangar array it suggests to me that I will find them all around a moon in the same way I'd find a tower. I use d-scan to get a bearing on the modules until they are visible on scan along with only one moon and warp to that moon. I don't know how close I can or should warp to the moon, anchoring distances varying significantly and not knowing what to expect when getting there, and I appear over 100 km away from the Hoarder, modules, and cans. What I realise, though, is that the ship is unpiloted and everything is unanchored. D-scan remains clear of any other ships. The items look to be deserted.
Once in range of the items I call for my colleagues to jump in to the system and warp to my location, where we quickly survey the scene. D-scan still shows no other presence in the system and no one is looking to ambush us or return for the items left behind. Intelligence shows that there have been no jumps in to or out of this system for three days. I open one of the five cans floating and—fuel! The cans are packed full of starbase fuel. This is a good haul, if we can get it back to our tower. I can pilot a Bustard transport ship out here, but it would take half-a-dozen trips to return most of the items. Fin is happy to risk an Orca trip, which would haul much more and only needs to pass through one unoccupied system on its way. Our colleague sits by the modules in his combat ship, looking menacing.
Fin and I swap in to our repsective haulers and the web I fitted to the Bustard, when harrassing a Retriever mining barge recently, comes in handy again. Jumping between systems, I can lock on to the Orca and web it to help it speed in to warp, whilst I align and warp myself. The C3 is still clear of other activity and the fuel and most of the defences are scooped in to the Orca and Bustard, the Orca also able to hold the Hoarder, which stops us wondering what to do with a ship none of us can pilot. The goodies are returned to our tower safely and Fin takes back a Badger Mk II to pick up the few remaining defences.
Taking a guess, Fin suggests that it looks like a tower was destroyed, which caused its fuel to be jettisoned, and what we have found is what the attackers couldn't take with them. It seems a reasonable conclusion. For their troubles we end up with a healthy stockpile of fuel for our tower, some more defences, and a new ship. The C3 system is now clear, nothing on scan and all our ships safe. Rather than explore further, the late night and successful haul encourages us to end the evening feeling suitably positive and ready for what tomorrow brings.
2 Responses to “What's left behind”
Just a friendly head ups, there is a corp Agent-Orange that goes around attacking wormhole corps on weekends,and they have a one man corp that war decs you to distract you while the Agent-orange prepares there attack,
Feel free to msg me ingame for more info
That's good information, and kind of fun to know. Thanks.