All This for a Tech 1 Frigate?

It’s been a dull couple of days. The corp has had a great presence online lately and our pilots are logging in a lot and getting quite a bit done while there. Unfortunately there hasn’t been very much action in terms of combat. I logged in yesterday hoping that would change. The corp was once again online in force. With Snow now active in the HQ system, mining has come to the forefront of our thoughts. Hulks, crystals, and refineries are the topic of the day, as well as launching a second POS to house it all.

It’s all over my head though and I jump in the pilgrim to see if I can catch someone in our neighboring lo-sec systems. It’s not looking good. Our static system is empty. The system after that is empty. The system after that, is full of pilots. A huge fleet is sitting about 700km off of one of the gates. In fact I’m not sure how they are even showing up on my overview, I would think being that far away would put them off grid. Eh, what do I know? I keep moving hoping to find someone ratting in a secluded system.

I come across a Rifter or two, but they bug out as soon as they see someone in local. I can’t blame them, although I curse each and every one of them as they jump out. I’ve lost count of how many jumps I’ve done now. The lo-sec is a nice complex web of systems. It’s easy to keep moving but hard to get lost, and this many systems means inevitably someone is going to get careless, ballsy, or both.

I jump through a stargate to find a Ferox sitting on the gate I just came through. He’s not moving and the firing of the gate doesn’t seem to have disturbed him at all. I see two other pilots in local, but everyone of them is from a different corp. I know that doesn’t mean they aren’t working together but it’s enough incentive for me to call in for backup. Oz responds with a Drake in route. The Ferox still hasn’t moved and I’m beginning to think this pilot is afk. Interesting! Who leaves a battlecruiser at a gate in lo-sec? This seems too good to be true and I feel paranoid that I’m missing a trap here somewhere.

Oz warps in and engages while I decloak and launch my probes. We’re both aligned to celestial, well I hope Oz is aligned because I am. I’m still waiting for the local spike. After about 30 seconds I assume it’s not coming and Oz and I are very entertained as the ship explodes leaving the pod. It’s tempting to kill that too, just to really drive the lesson home, but neither of us really care for the security status loss we would incur from it. We loot the wreck and warp off to wait out our global timers. A kill is a kill but it seems somewhat hollow I suppose. We manage to make it back to HQ without incident and I log off for a bit to get some food and real life stuff taken care of.

A few hours have passed and I’m logging back in. There is a fleet invite on my screen before my systems have even finished loading which can only mean something is up. Apparently we are on full alert! A mining operation was interrupted by an Imicus entering our system. Oh no! It is impressive to see the reaction. Bubbles up on the static, flotillas stationed at each wormhole trying to intercept the intruder. Apparently he is fitted with a cloaking device, which will keep us from scanning him down, but it will also prevent him from warping from one spot to another without decloaking. I’m told to take up station on our lo-sec wormhole and point my pilgrim in that direction. I arrive on the scene but am the only one there.

Wait a minute, I thought someone was watching this hole? Apparently not, and as the minutes tick by I’m starting to feel convinced that our intruder has left a long time ago. But just as I’m about to scold the corp for their less than stellar vigilance, the wormhole flares. I call it out on comms and heat up my warp scrambler and other offensive modules. The Imicus decloaks and rushes the wormhole. I give chase, abandoning my wave of light combat drones. “It’s OK! I’ll be back in a minute!” I yell to them as I activate the wormhole. I always feel bad when I abandon drones. I can feel their sense of abandonment through the internets. I emerge on the other side of the hole just in time to see the ship align and warp off. I’ll never catch him in this thing, but I guess the mission is complete. We drove off the bastard! Good thing too, who knows what kind of damage that Imicus could have caused!