Stopping short
2nd March 2014 – 3.45 pmA standard start to the evening sees no one around, new gas for my colleagues when they appear, and a fresh static wormhole for me to explore beyond. I suppose I should do that, for it is what I do. It's a standard first jump too, as updating my directional scanner in the neighbouring class 3 w-space system sees a tower and no ships. There's nowhere to hide either, the system being rather small, so rather than try to hide from nobody I launch probes on the wormhole and perform a blanket scan.
A mere three anomalies and six signatures are revealed by my scan, and my notes tell me I'll be looking through the weakest of them to find an exit to null-sec. Hopefully there will be something else to find. The static wormhole is found, and one of the fat signatures resolves to be a wormhole too, which is nice. ...which could be nice. I need to remind myself that not all wormholes are created equally, and my caveat pays off when I drop out of warp next to a K162 from class 4 w-space that has been mass-stressed to critical levels.
Maybe I could sneak in to C4a and still make it back, but I'm not really in the mood to take the risk of being isolated. I'll just see where the K346 takes me. Null-sec, how novel. Curse, specifically, and alone, just the way I like it. One extra signature keeps me in the system and encourages me to find a rat whilst I launch probes. Of course, scanning a single signature is not only somewhat quicker than ratting, but somewhat quicker than warping to a rock field. I learn that the signature is a data site on my first scan, recall my probes, and belay my ratting.
That's the straightforward constellation explored, but I think I can afford to extend it tonight. I hop a stargate to an adjacent system, where I share the system with another pilot, one signature, and a ghost site amongst the anomalies. I wonder, is that other pilot hacking the ghost site? It is 70 AU distant, so hidden from d-scan, and it's got to be worth a look. Nope, no ship to be seen out here. And I don't think I'll try my luck either, even if the other pilot doesn't seem active.
Checking the signature in the system shows that it is weak, and thankfully in this case not a wormhole but a combat site. A weak signature for a wormhole makes it an outbound connection, and those have not been my friends for finding activity for a while now. Still, there's little point in rueing something I haven't come across, and I can try hopping to another system to find wormholes. Two pilots this time, and three signatures. Three weak signatures, though. I check them anyway, identifying another combat and data site each, and resolving a wormhole. Whoopee.
The wormhole is an N432 outbound link to class 5 w-space. Be still my beating heart. No more do I feel the pull of exploring a chain of C5 systems, wondering what I may find in any of them, but regret the lost opportunity that once came from finding a fresh wormhole. But you never know what you'll find if you don't look, so I head in anyway. It doesn't look promising, though, not when appearing over seven kilometres from the wormhole in C5a. Oh, there's a black hole too.
A blanket scan of the system reveals twenty-seven anomalies and seventeen signatures, which looks bad for locating occupation, but one ship is a surprise. What is it, and where? I dunno, Penny, it's gone on the second blanket scan. Exploring finds no occupation, which actually makes the ship's appearance almost interesting. K162s are easy to find, and a quick poke finds one. Or it doesn't, as that wormhole says H296. A second go at finding a K162 succeeds, but only at finding one coming from null-sec.
Exiting through the K162 puts me in a system in Delve with a handful of other pilots, perhaps one of them being the curious sort who opened the wormhole to C5a. I won't ask, though, as I am shy around people. I just take myself back through the wormhole to w-space and, in fact, straight back out again, through the other null-sec connection on my way home, ignoring the wormhole to C5b. Maybe another day I will regain my curiosity. But not today.
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