Jetsam

Another day in our w-space system, another neighbor to groom.

I wasn’t the first one get up this day, as Brad and Liza were already busy decimating one of our Grav sites. However, they hadn’t gotten around to our daily scan routine, so I took on the duty for today. After a light breakfast, I hooked up to my pod and let the amniotic fluid wash over me.

The signatures in our system were quickly confirmed: nothing new, just one of the older Mag sites had evaporated. And of course we had a new connection to a Cl.3 w-space system, which was the real objective.

Once jumped through, a quick lookaround confirmed that this system, too, was occupied. For ‘unknown space’ we sure kept finding lots of dwellers. Also on scan: about fifteen CAs, one Grav site, one Ladar site, and exits to 0-sec and lo-sec respectively. The Ladar site looked promising, filled with C-28 and C-32 gas, and outside d-scan range from the central system. It would be just a matter of waiting for the Sleeper patrol to show up, then the riches would be ours.

Of course it didn’t go as planned: after waiting some time, not only did the Sleeper patrol show up, but so did a number of Core Scan probes as well. A quick jaunt back to the central system showed a Probe on scan, but only briefly: the pilot was apparently moving around and I lost contact as often as I regained it.

Eventually I managed to trace the Probe down to the POS, but just when I arrived to eye the scene, the pilot changed into a Hound, warped off and cloaked.

I knew he hadn’t seen me, but with him around I couldn’t risk calling our non-cloaking gas miners in, so after a few minutes of diddling I gave up for the moment and headed back to our own system. I had a couple of other things to take care off anyway, so I docked back up, not without reminding Brad and Liza to keep an eye on the scanners.

A couple of hours later, I returned to our system, only to be greeted with this message:

Remember the Hound guy?

He warped in to our WH in the Hound with no scanner. I scanned out the cl3 as he asked. He said he would give me the Hound in return. I'm not stupid. I made him eject over the pos and I fleet warped him to the WH by himself. Now I have a shiny new stealth bomber with named and T2 equipment.

-- Brad

I’m so proud!