Ships in towers
12th August 2012 – 3.31 pmIt looks like I have a new site in the home system, but it actually turns out to be a new direction to explore. I like that. The signature resolves to be a wormhole, and a K162 from deadly class 6 w-space too. But a wormhole is a wormhole, and I know that I'm more likely to be ambushed on a connection with class 2 w-space than class 6, so with barely a second thought I decloak and jump through the K162.
There's no one waiting for me in C6a, unsurprisingly, and no one on my directional scanner. Moving away from the wormhole and cloaking lets me feel the space wind in my hair, as my Loki strategic cruiser blasts along at over 3 km/s, thanks to the black hole that somehow went previously unnoticed, and exploring finds the system empty and unoccupied. I launch probes and scan for more K162s, plucking one from class 3 w-space from the nineteen signatures, as well as an outbound connection to low-sec empire space. I think that's it, so I continue backwards through the constellation to C3b.
D-scan is clear from the wormhole in C3b, but unlike C6a the system is occupied. There is even a piloted ship in the tower's force field, but as it's a Heron and there are no scanning probes to be seen I imagine the frigate has finished whatever he was doing and is now dozing. That lets me scan instead, and as there are only four signatures to resolve it doesn't take long. Rocks, a static exit to null-sec, and a K162 from class 5 w-space are all resolved, and as the K162 is reaching the end of its life it looks like the constellation ends here.
I watch the Heron for a minute—a space minute, which is time-dilated—and when he doesn't stir I head back through C6a, across the home system, and jump to our neighbouring C3. I see ships and towers on d-scan in C3a, with two Harbinger battlecruisers, an Absolution command ship, and an Abaddon battleship, but no wrecks. My notes from a year ago indicate the system is occupied by blues, but when I find the ships they don't look blue to me. The ships are all piloted too, although the Absolution has disappeared, and as there is nowhere to hide in the small system the command ship has either left through a wormhole or gone off-line.
I bounce around planets in C3a locating the other towers, and find that one of the three actually is owned by a corporation blue to our alliance. I double-check the others and they definitely aren't, which I would say makes them fair game, as I'm pretty sure our corporate policy is to shoot first and rely on diplomacy later. Or, at least, it would make them fair game if the ships were to leave the tower, and as the Harbingers are now mysteriously unpiloted—or always were—C3a has become less interesting. Or maybe more interesting, with a lone Abaddon as a potential target. I'm not sure. He still has to leave the tower to become an actual target, and he hasn't stirred yet. I'm moving on.
Rather than scan C3a and spook a potential target I head back Heron-wards, but the frigate hasn't budged in my time away from C3b. I duck in to null-sec from C3b's static exit, appearing in Delve in an active system with a couple of corpses on d-scan. I'll leave capsuleers to their politics and try the low-sec system from C6a instead, which sends me to a system in Kor-Azor where I'm alone. Ratting and scanning doesn't result in much, with only cruisers to pop and a radar and magnetometric site each to resolve. One last look around the w-space constellation has no change, with the ships still sitting inside their respective towers, so I take myself home for a quiet night.
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