Full of false alarms
22nd August 2014 – 5.36 pmI align my ship away from one wormhole and towards another, AUs distant, that will take me to another class 2 w-space system, but call a full stop before I accelerate in to warp. A final look at my directional scanner before entering warp sees a new ship in this system, a Tengu strategic cruiser. That could be quite interesting.
The Tengu is not only a new ship but a new contact, as the Mastodon transport, up until a minute ago the only ship in the system, is still also visible on d-scan. I'd like to see what the Tengu does, if it decides to do anything, and so point my Proteus towards... well, where should I go? There are seven towers in this system, all around the same planet. I'll go to the tower that holds the Mastodon. I suppose it would make sense for the tower with one pilot would be where a new one would also appear.
Warping to the tower sees the Mastodon but no Tengu. I'll have to find where it is manually, like I did with the towers earlier, and in much the same way. I didn't visit each tower to create a bookmark at each one, meaning I am back to sweeping d-scan around on a narrow beam to locate the Tengu. The moons aren't even conveniently labelled, without highlighting them individually, so little time is saved to see if the moon matches one in my notes having a tower around it. Never the less, it doesn't take long to locate the Tengu.
The strategic cruiser is piloted, of course. Few ships blink in to existence in the middle of space without a capsuleer on board. The Tengu even looks like it is fit and ready for combat, more likely against Sleepers than other capsuleers. Whether he will actually enter combat or not, with his static wormholes opened and another wormhole connecting in to this system, is another matter. I've seen other pilots risk it. This one, however, seems to just like floating weightlessly.
Never mind the Tengu, then. There is still that other wormhole, coming in from more class 2 w-space, and I was headed that way anyway. I leave the Tengu behind, warp to the wormhole, and jump to C2c. Checking d-scan on the other side of the wormhole sees a couple of ships, a Rook recon ship and Iteron V hauler, and another seven bloody towers. My notes don't even have anything on this system.
Thankfully, opening the system map shows the task of locating the towers to be far less onerous than first expected, and much simpler than in the system behind me. There are only seven planets in the system, all in range, and holding nine moons amongst them. I can pretty much identify the locations of all but one of the towers from the wormhole using d-scan alone. I can see that the Rook is at one tower, the Iteron another.
I head towards the tower with the Iteron, hoping he's up to something. I should say so, as the hauler isn't at the tower when I drop out of warp. It's still on d-scan, though, and, ah, he's back at the tower, warping in from, well, somewhere. The vector of the Iteron's arrival doesn't seem to give away his intention, or if it does it suggests the hauler has just come back from a wormhole, or maybe one of the mobile depots in the system. Neither option really makes sense, though.
If the hauler was checking on a wormhole, surely pinging the silly discovery scanner would tell him whether it was still alive or not. And there seems to be little point in having mobile depots that you warp to in a vulnerable hauler in a system where you have a tower anchored and on-line. But, whatever, the Iteron is swapped for a Stratios frigate, and the pilot blinks off-line. Nothing's happening.
I don't care for the Rook, as it won't be doing anything by itself and hasn't yet been swapped for a ship that might. I'm heading home. Returning to C2b and swinging past a tower sees the Tengu still idling and no wrecks in the system. A second Tengu appears on d-scan, swiftly followed by a Sabre interdictor, both of them together, neither of them with this first Tengu or the Mastodon.
I would try to work up some excitement about the appearance of two new contacts, but the night has been full of false alarms. Even when I locate the new pair of ships and, just as I am deciding to give up and go home, see the Sabre warp off, I don't know where he's gone and can't locate him. Not even jumping to our home system gives me the half-hearted ambush attempt on my Proteus I was almost hoping for. Home is just another inactive system. Never mind, tomorrow is another day.
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