Admiral Akbar wants a word

Targets don't come much juicier than an Orca. A Tengu visible on d-scan makes me think the strategic cruiser is acting as an escort for the industrial command ship, but the Tengu disappears and the Orca remains. Maybe something else is happening here. I sweep d-scan around and it looks like the Orca is at a K162 wormhole, the one coming from a class 5 w-space system, where Fin and I bombed a Crow interceptor earlier. After our first engagement we didn't really show ourselves, so maybe the capsuleers think we took our opportunistic shot and moved on, making them comfortable in moving an Orca through the system to one of the exits available. I hope so, anyway, as I lurk here in my Manticore stealth bomber.

I warp to the wormhole, dropping short enough to be in decent bombing range, and I see the Orca lazily sitting on the wormhole. There is no sign of an escort, not even the Crow from earlier, and the bulky and expensive Orca is too tempting a target. I decloak, launch a bomb, and lock the Orca so that I can light it up with a target painter and pummel it with torpedoes. A split-second after my bomb launch a Loki strategic cruiser decloaks and locks my tiny Manticore. I have a couple of seconds to wonder how the Loki's sensors were able to recalibrate so quickly after decloaking, but only a couple, as then my focus shifts to warping my pod away to safety, leaving behind the smouldering wreckage that used to be my ship.

My pod gets away, back to our wormhole, and I jump home and warp to our tower. I think I'll file this experience under 'what was I thinking?' The Orca was sitting passively on an active wormhole that saw a bombing earlier, what could it have possibly been but bait. Sure, capsuleers can be stupid at times, but stupidity flows both ways. I was suckered in to an obvious trap, and lose my ship as a result. Oh well, I'd better see if I can replace my ship. I have a choice of exits, a couple of them leading directly to high-sec empire space. I think my best choice is to pass through the C3 to use the K162 to C2 w-space and use that system's other static connection, as it appears that the C5 occupants are using the connection to high-sec in the C3 and I probably ought not bump in to them again, particularly shipless.

I get out to empire space safely, the high-sec system being a convenient enough link from where I can buy a new Manticore and fittings. My only trouble is accidentally buying some fittings in a low-sec system, and I don't quite fancy getting ganked outside a station when not being entirely sure of the laws and mechanics. But I also don't want to lose millions of iskies on the sale, and with a nearly fully fitted Manticore, already with a cloak and with some loaded launchers, I decide to risk the low-sec docking. A Megathron battleship appears to be waiting for naive capsuleers like me, but either he's fallen asleep in his pod or his systems aren't as freakishly quick at locking my stealth bomber as the Loki, and I get in and out of the station unmolested.

From low-sec it is a short trip home again. I enter the C2, jump through to the C3, and warp to our K162. I wonder if there will be an ambush waiting for me somewhere, but perhaps the high number of connections—at least five in this C3, and another three in the C2—makes determining my route home too uncertain for the C5 pilots to care about. They hit my ship and gave me my comeuppance, that seems good enough. I get home and back to our tower without incident, where I park yet another new stealth bomber before settling down to sleep.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: eve online, loki, low-sec, manticore, megathron, mmorpg, orca, penny ibramovic, pvp, tengu, w-space