Dipping through a dying wormhole
28th May 2014 – 5.45 pmI'm here, and so is Fin. I think. 'C3a has a high-sec exit that's nine hops from Amarr, and a wormhole to a C5. I've not been to the C5.' So my glorious leader has scanned and is taking advantage of a fair connection in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system, ignoring the one that heads in to dangerous w-space. That's cool, I can scout that. I'm even told that a Tengu strategic cruiser and Cheetah covert operations boat came from the class 5 system, one going to high-sec. Pilots and corporations are left unidentified, as they were warping as Fin reached the C5 K162.
My first step is jumping to C3a, which I do moments after Fin returns to the home system. We're both in Loki strategic cruisers, so maybe our timing will confuse anyone watching. You never know who's out there, after all. No one obvious in C3a, anyway. My previous visit was only two months ago, but the occupying tower has moved since then. I press on, albeit backwards.
My directional scanner sees nothing when updated inside C5a, and the discovery scanner shows little more, with a mere three anomalies and two signatures, one of which I'm sitting on. I launch probes and perform a blanket scan of the system, checking for ships. None, and the second signature is too weak to be a K162. That implies occupation, and probably that the two ships seen earlier originate here, and a flick of a switch with my combat scanning probes reveals a whole bunch of tell-tale structure signatures out by a planet with a single moon.
Warping to the moon finds the expected tower, of course with no one home. It's good to know it's here, though, and that the owner corporation is red to us. Bastards. Probably. Out of curiosity, I scan the other signature in case it's an exit to k-space, but the strength is more indicative of a data site. Or a good gas site, apparently, not that I know what a good gas site looks like. That leaves me one direction to take, which is back to C3a, across the system, and out to high-sec.
Three extra signatures in the high-sec system mean I can keep scanning, and an anomaly lets me try to pop some frigates just to keep my Loki busy. I resolve two wormholes, one relic site, and the anomaly is cleared of ships without anything interesting happening. The wormholes are dull too, one being a K162 from class 3 w-space that's at the end of its life, the other an R051 connecting to low-sec.
I continue wormhole hopping, jumping to low-sec to look for more wormholes. This system in Sinq Laison holds one from two additional signatures, the other being a combat site, but again it's just a dying C3 K162. Dumb wormholes. What do I do now? Sod it, I'll poke the dying wormhole in high-sec. The worst that can happen is that I'll have to find a new static exit to high-sec.
D-scan shows me a tower and no ships, confirming that I am indeed in class 3 w-space. The discovery scanner shows me no anomalies and one other signature. It's almost certainly a wormhole. I launch probes and scan the signature directly, resolving a wormhole and warping to a K162 from class 5 w-space, curiously in good health. I can't resist a look, and jump through to see very little still, just some drones, no ships, no wrecks. Again, not much for the discovery scanner to show me, just two anomalies and two signatures.
I launch probes and blanket the system, not scanning the signature directly this time because of that planet out of range. There may be ships there, and pilots of ships. There are. I warp across to see five towers to accompany the four ships, a Helios cov-ops and Eos command ship at one tower, the Iteron hauler and Loki at another. I locate the industrial ship first, seeing both it and the strategic cruiser piloted. The Loki's obviously dozing, although the Iteron may have some life in him yet. Naturally, I sit and watch a while.
How long can I watch an Iteron doing nothing, knowing that my route home could collapse at any moment? Longer than I should, either way, and long enough for the Loki to go off-line and the Iteron to be replaced by a Nestor battleship. That's mildly interesting, but still the pilot does nothing, and I'm becoming ever more aware of the dying wormhole I jumped through. I'm going back.
The good news is that the wormhole to high-sec lives. I still don't know what to do with my time, however. That is, until my glorious leader suggests a trip to Amarr. I can't quite muster the spirit to do so, but I know how much effort she puts in to maintaining our operation, so I motivate myself to make this simple trip. I even load up a Crane transport with our loot to sell, made simpler knowing that there are traders of Sleeper loot in the Amarr trade hub.
Hey, warping around high-sec isn't so bad in a Crane. It's really fast! Selling a whole load of different items for the default price isn't, nor is working out what really big gun I should be buying, so the trip takes longer than I expect. Even so, by the end of it, our wallet is fatter than it was and, on returning to w-space, I vastly increase the damage output of our new toy. I'm sure it can go higher, if we add more guns.
2 Responses to “Dipping through a dying wormhole”
the strength is more indicative of... a good gas site, apparently, not that I know what a good gas site looks like.
Hmm. Should learn. Good iskies, can be ninjaed solo, and no more than 20 minutes of time can be invested before sleepers appear. So it is tedious but quite finite.
It remains to be seen whether I hit such desperate straits that I turn to huffing gas. But you never know.