Running in to a siege

Three extra signatures seems like a lot. Can they all be Sleepers? Yes, they can, being gas, gas, and our static wormhole, which doesn't really count as a new signature but a replacement for yesterday's. Silly me. I activate the two new ladar sites and jump to our neighbouring class 3 w-space system. I see some ships on my directional scanner, the Tengu strategic cruiser, Rokh battleship, Drake battlecruiser, and Noctis salvager potentially out shooting Sleepers, and the Viator transport maybe collecting planet goo. But there are no wrecks in the system and I suspect I'll either find no pilots, or pilots doing nothing. I move away from the wormhole and cloak, and perform a passive scan of the C3 anyway.

My passive scan throws up nine anomalies, which I bookmark whilst checking my notes. This is my third visit to the system but the last was fourteen months ago, and as the C3 was unoccupied back then I suspect I'll need to locate the tower the old-fashioned way, using d-scan. It takes a couple of minutes before I'm floating outside the tower, looking disappointedly at all of the empty ships inside its shields. At least they aren't blue, I suppose. Confirming a lack of activity, it's time to scan. I warp away, launch scanning probes, and blanket the system. I've cleared all the anomalies from the scan results already, leaving me with fourteen signatures to sift through. I'd better get to it if I want to go anywhere tonight.

Ladars, radars, and gravimetric sites, oh my! A single magnetometric site hides away amongst the noise, along with two wormholes. The system's static exit leads to low-sec empire space, which wouldn't be surprising even if I hadn't noted it over a year ago, and the second wormhole is a boring old K162 from high-sec. By Odin's 0·6 system, I jump out to a region that is Devoid, but not of pilots, where I don't even bother scanning, instead heading back across the C3 to its exit to low-sec, where I do scan. I am simply getting back in to the habit of getting exit systems for emergency use. Maybe one day doing so will come in handy, even if I hope otherwise.

Two signatures are in the low-sec system, which turn out to be gas and some drones. How dull dullity dull. I pop some Gurista rats in the sole anomaly here, hardly a strenuous activity, and decide to scan the high-sec system after all. One extra signature is in the high-sec system, causing me to wonder what the odds are that it also is a wormhole. Pretty good, it turns out, as I stumble in to a K162 from class 2 w-space. This is a rather good find, as the C2 system will have a second static connection that leads to more w-space, which should prolong my exploration. I jump in to class 2 w-space with good spirits, only to see on d-scan a whole fleet out and about somewhere. Even better!

Well, 'even better' if the fleet is shooting Sleepers and leaving an unguarded salvager to sweep up behind them, but I rather suspect not. There are no wrecks to be seen on d-scan and I wouldn't imagine a battleship fleet of an Armageddon, Abaddon, Megathron, Typhoon, and three Tempests, plus several flights of drones, would have much difficulty demolishing Sleepers in a C2, even without a pair of Guardian logistics ships to keep them all afloat. Something else is happening here. Maybe manoeuvres, as the ships all appear to be coincident with the local tower, and as drones are out I imagine they are not sitting passively inside the shields.

Ah, how slow I can be sometimes. The fleet is indeed at the tower, but this is no training exercise, the tower itself is being actively engaged. All of the defences have been incapacitated and now the tower is being steadily ripped apart. And with the static exit to high-sec I imagine the fleet will return after the tower enters its reinforced mode and depletes its strontium reserves, or maybe even simply stay here. And as I watch the fleet shooting mechanically at the tower, Guardians supplying extra capacitor juice to the hungry, hungry battleships, a Prorator transport ship appears, this one blue to our corporation.

It looks like the Prorator is supplying ammunition to this operation. That he is allied to our alliance, and none of the other pilots are, is interesting but not so much to try to find out what's happening here. It pretty much stops me interfering, however, if I could actually think of a way to interfere without stupid risk to myself. I don't feel like interrupting, although it would probably take a fair amount of threat to interrupt the tower attack, nor do I want to announce my presence to the fleet because of the sole blue pilot. My explorer spirit has been sated for the evening, so I simply turn my boat around and head home, thankful that I'm not the one shooting a stationary object for the next few hours.

Posted in Gaming |
Tags: abaddon, armageddon, drake, eve online, guardian, megathron, mmorpg, noctis, penny ibramovic, prorator, rokh, scanning, tempest, tengu, typhoon, viator, w-space