The hunt for a suitable Class 1 Wormhole has been a trial. Initially I thought I'd just buy one, they're not very good ISK farms and residents come and go, but the only opportunities of note had LowSec or Null statics and my alts aren't trained into blockade runners. It had to be a HiSec static. So the last few days have seen me diving down holes from HiSec and exploring chains for suitable systems. One C2 looked the goods and the occupants weren't opposed to having a tennant but when I learned they already had almost twenty pilots harvesting their planets I knew pickings would be slim. So I continued my hunt, stumbling upon an unoccupied C2 with a HiSec/C1 static and the right planet arrangement. Perfect. It was late so I logged off in system and resolved to move the Orca laden with POS materials in the morning. You know where this leads, right? I log in the next morning, literally seven hours later, and there's an online tower in system.
*sigh*
Bob hates me. It's been too long since I've offered him any sacrifices. I promptly rage quit and shuffle off to work with the intent to start over that evening. Upon logging in again a new Z647 to a C1 has spawned so I take the aperture through and see a rare sight indeed. No force fields, only one POCO and an N110 static to HiSec space. I quickly warp around system to double check it's unoccupied and sure enough, no force fields spotted. Moreover, there are fourteen planets and all but one have no POCOs anchored on them. The one that does has a 0% tax rate! There's even four Lava planets. It just seems too good to be true. I get the feeling there's a couple of dreadnaughts logged off in system ready to blap anything that gets erected but the killboard isn't indicative of such scurrilous behaviour so I drop everything and get a tower up.
Save for a few details my new home is settled and although I only have a skeleton crew within, an opportunity for some PvP wasn't far away. The only thing that even resembled a combat vessel was one of the three Asteros and whilst idling at a safe spot another Astero was spotted on D-Scan. It was soon located at a Relic site and a quick review of the pilot's killboard showed he was no mug, clearly capable of defending himself. Still, even with only alts on hand, I couldn't let such a transgression of my newly acquired sovereign space go untested. With my most capable alt in a dual rep Astero I tackled the offending pilot, only to quickly have the scram returned. OK then, this is really happening! D-Scan was clear and what played out over the next twenty minutes was one of the most frustrating, key smashing engagements I've ever been in. We both recognised early on that we wouldn't be able to break each other's tank quickly so attention turned to drones. For the longest time it was a war of light drone attrition, until we were both left with only a handful each. I had well and truly had enough of this fiasco now so I warped in my other alt in another Astero and set him up to kite at 30 km's. He was without tank, really just adding five more Hobgoblins to the mix, and this was enough for my quarry to decide to bail. He was afterburner fit and thereby able to evade my tackle whilst keeping my MWD switched off long enough to enter warp. Thank fuck that's over. At least I've got his Hobgoblins to replenish my stocks.Before long I'll have some actual combat vessels in system to better deal with such incursions but hopefully the more entertaining tales will come from my mains, not my alts, as they dive a little deeper into the swarthy unknown.
Welcome back!
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