Gone in 60 seconds

I’ve hit a bit of a draught recently, which is to be expected by anyone who pvps regularly. I had engaged a few cov ops at WHs hoping the pilots were asleep, but they all just jumped through. I uncovered two Hulks being guarded by a Hargringer. They didn’t notice my combat probes, but did notice my Hound as it jumped into hi sec to get my ‘phoon. None of the hulks had mining drones out, and the Harbringer was at a tactical distance from the Hulks so I wasn’t really excited about uncloaking on them, especially if the Hulks were going to spit out 5 drones each. I had been out about 4-5 times each for a few hours with no results.

My wife was making lunch for the kids so I logged on for a bit. I managed to probe down two holes. The first hole was surprisingly unique. There were two heron wrecks, both from the same guy, that I could not seem to locate, they were likely at a site that had despawned. There was also a small tower that had been put into reinforced mode and was at 18h on its timer. I consider myself lucky that it was the first reinforced tower I have ever seen. Interesting system, but there were no other exits into unknown space and nobody seemed to be bumbling about so I moved onto a second hole. This second hole was also a story in itself. Around the hole was a gaggle of concord ships, which made me immediately weary. On the other side of the hole were three cargo containers, another warning sign. I cloaked up and watched the hole for a bit.

Exactly as I expected a Pilgrim uncloaked and attempted to sweep me. Uninterested in tangling with him I started to investigate the two towers and three ships on scan. Both towers were faction and the ships were a Megathron, Tempest and a Retriever. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the BSs were at one tower and the retriever at another. The Retriever’s tower was closest so I moved in for a closer look. I found it abnormal that there were 5 mining drones out, but that according to my scans the retriever and the drones were at the tower. When I finally came out of warp I saw a typical tower with a retriever sitting just outside the shields with 5 mining drones out. No one was in the Retriever.

Stuff like this has stopped phasing me. Anyone who has read this blog or travels worm space frequently knows that you see some incredibly weird stuff out there. Knowing I could fly the Retriever out I warped my bomber in to get a BM. I warped to the exit to stash my bomber in a hi sec station. After uncloaking my hound both the BSs went off scan and I never saw them again although an Anathema came on a few times. I waited out my 5 minute timer and warped in to the retriever in my pod. After boarding the Retriever the POS guns started making short work of the incredibly slow ship. The warp drives caught at 56% structure. I warped around between a few systems to clear my session change timer before exiting the WH. No KM, but it was my first stolen ship. Looking back at my history of finding unattended mining ships I should train up through exhumers as this was the seventh pilotless mining barge/exhumer I have come across, but the first I could drive.

It always amazes me how interesting some of the holes I stumble across are. At least for now all the clutter of known space is removed in unknown systems. So each and every thing you find on scan is a small piece to a much larger story. Every hole has a story to tell and trying to unravel the clues to learning about what happened there is often the best part of what I do. One time Kiritsubo and I came across two different corporation’s towers in the same hole. Both the towers had fallen into disrepair stripped of everything except their less valuable guns. From what we could tell the corporations had no connection to one another. We of course assumed that one of the corporations came later and waged a war of attrition on the other to get them to leave, but the war simply left both corps unable to keep up with tower fuel costs and thus both were forced to leave. An entirely unlikely story, but certainly more interesting than the likely story that they simply came and went independent of each other.