Rabbit Hunting
Hello, my name is Erica and I live in a wormhole. You probably wouldn't think to ask why I live there, most people do so for the profits that are to be made right? Not me and my family. In fact living in wormhole space is generally nothing but a huge expense for us. We actually take very little interest in the resources to be had within the system and with our Towers costing a small fortune in fuel, plus the occasional ship-losses, it all adds up to one big bill at the end of every month. Granted, when we first moved in about three years ago, it was initially about gaining profits from farming the system. We weren't alone though, as part of a small alliance we had two other allied corporations living in the pretty, but sparse, Class 1 wormhole and so the profits certainly didn't spread far between us. While those corps have sinced died or moved on, we've always had at least one other group of pilots who've shared this space with us as neighbours.
The reason why we stayed here despite the expense is pretty simple though. In this day and age New Eden can be an unforgiving and unpredictable place to live one's life. Having our own little patch of space to call 'home' changes this equation somewhat. Over the years we'd made many friends, spilled blood, learned hard lessons and taught a few too. This system has a great deal of sentimental value to my family, and so to me it's worth almost any cost to stay here.
The Hawk's Nest - our home in wormhole space for three years
Sometimes though this sentimentality barely holds us here. At times life in a wormhole can be downright depressing, boring and quite lonely. And so as you can imagine we're naturally very happy to have allied corporations to share it with, if for anything but company let alone the mutual defences. The latest such corp being a small semi-industrial/combat outfit, run by a wise young Gallente pilot named Mikail.
Mikail - Skilled Proteus pilot and leader of Sigin-tarag
In recent times however things have begun to turn into anything but boring in our homely little system. With technological scanning advances giving all pilots easier access to finding wormhole systems, we've been finding ourselves getting unwanted guests on a very regular basis. Sick of the tresspassing, Mikail had dealt with one such recent visitor only the day before. Now these visitors in themselves aren't so much of a problem, if anything I actually love company and rarely shy from the opportunity for a good fight, but when most of your visitors are inexperienced capsuleers flying lightly armed scanning vessels it tends to make us feel like dogs hunting rabbits. There's usually little honour, and even less excitement, in such a hunt. My Achuran heritage can't help but make me reflect a little on this, and leave me wondering if I'm a bad person.
However today had shown me that sometimes it's not always the wormhole's resident pilots that the inexperienced capsuleers need to fear most when stumbling into a strange hole, in fact it's sometimes the more permanent residents - the mysterious Sleepers. The wormhole aborigines.
The day began like any other. My little sister Dani was closely monitoring the inside of our static-highsec exit in her cloaked Navy Drake Bitch Please. On the highsec-side my long term Gallente employee, Candi, sat cloaked in her Nemesis Headshot watching the highsec traffic pass by and scanning regularly for avid probers who may come treasure-hunting. Never one to take on the menial tasks myself, I sat comfortable in my personal quarters within our tower's second level, sipping on a sythetic coffee and enjoying a flirty conversation with my friend Anatole via comm-link. We were just getting to the point of arranging our next date, an excursion to a zero-gravity facility in Amarr space. According to Anatole it was something I really had to experience, and I was genuinly looking forward to it. The moment was broken, however, when my sister's voice chimed in over the comm-net.
"Annnd, here comes another one. Imicus just jumped in, pilot is Beau Ormand." Stated Dani with a slight sigh over the comm. We were beginning to get a little sick of all these recent interruptions, this was at least the sixth one today. How dare this person interrupt my comm-link with Anatole, we were just getting to the good bit and now here comes this guy, no doubt looking to steal artifacts, raid our resources or some other similar nafiarous act. Enough was enough ... with a hasty appology to Anatole I stormed from my quarters and made my way to the docking ring. Boarding my capsule it was then loaded into my beloved Tengu, Lusty Wench, before I sped off toward the high-sec exit, as Dani kept me updated on the comm-net.
Ormand - Gallente Kids today ...
Ormand's Imicus was sitting decloaked 5km from the wormhole, so I ensured I landed just a little over 10 out. There he was, complacently sitting there enjoying the view. I set Lusty Wench into a holding pattern while cloaked, attempting to keep 7.5km distance at all times while observing the interloping Imicus. Little point in decloaking and unloading just yet, like most people we engage at the exit itself Ormand would likely just jump straight back out. So I waited. I would have a much better chance to snaring him once he warped to a site or planet.
Incredibly he warped nowhere. A few minutes later I watched in disbelief as Ormand began to slow-boat away from the wormhole, apparently aligned to the sun. He then popped probes out and I watched them warp off into the distance as the young Gallente turned his attention to his scanning console. Now was my chance, and I began to approach the unsuspecting prober. Under cloak however I had trouble keeping up with the nimble little frigate, and at 25km I realised my chance to bite was slipping away. Hoping that Ormand was fully focussed on his scanning interface, and not his overview, I decloaked and began to overheat my 10mn Republic Fleet afterburner, quickly closing the distance between us. At 15km I initiated target lock, disabled his warp drive and slowed his pace to a trundle with my web before unleasing a good dose of scourge rage.
Ormand was obviously caught completely by surprise, his shields crumpled in an instant, his armor and structure moments later as I watched the Gallente vessel explode in a little flash of white light. Now in his pod, still in shock, Ormand was again slow to react and within moments I had his capsule targetted. But then I hesitated ... my compassionate side began to creep in ... remembering what I'd read on this pilot's datafile earlier. He'd only recently joined the capsuleer program, and actually sounded like a pretty cool young guy with a promising future. I disengaged my target lock and watched as he responded by quickly warping away to the exit, pausing there for a moment possibly to take a breath, before jumping back to the safety of highsec. Feeling compassionate, like I do, I sent off a small amount of ISK to compensate the student-capsuleer, along with a comm-message containing some advice for when next exploring someone else's wormhole. I want to keep our home safe but I cerainly don't wish to deter avid-explorers from pursuing a career in the industry all together.
I quickly desposed of the Imicus wreck, but there was nothing I could do about the 8 probes Ormand had left floating in space. The encounter certainly wasn't a chellenge and not exciting, but it'd at least got me out of the tower for a short time. I was soon back there though, docking up once more and returning to my plush quarters on level 2, resuming my conversation with Anatole over the comms. I'd barely shuffled my bum into the sofa and began sipping at a fresh coffee when my sister's voice once more interrupted proceedings.
"Okay, we have ANOTHER one." Groaned Dani over the net, still floating in her Drake 20km from the wormhole, cloaked and watching. "Another damn Imicus would you believe? Pilot is Anthony Joy."
Right at this moment Mikail woke up, sending a greeting in our shared intel channel. "We got a visitor." I said as I relayed the details of our most recent party crasher. Wondering if I was beginning to leave a bad impression, I said my appologies to Anatole once again as I cut our conversation short, rushing off down through my tower and launching the Wench once again. Meanwhile Mikail had shipped into his Proteus, the Trolljegeren, both making making our way to the hole where we found Pilot Joy once again giving a great demonstration of what not-to-do when entering a strange wormhole. Slow-boating around the wormhole in plain view, he then deployed probes and began to scan the system.
Anthony Joy - came to our system to learn about sleeper sites and bookmarks
Seemed both Mikail and I had begun to lose patience with all these recent interlopers. "Kill him?" Asked Mikail. The obvious problem though was that Joy would likely jump straight out if we opened fire. "We'd had to both shoot at once." He added.
"Ok, sure. I'll try and bump him off the hole a little also." I replied. "Ready?" Mikail responded that he was ready, and with that we both decloaked and began to target the unsuspecting Imicus. There was barely 10km distance at this stage, so overheating my afterburner once more I managed to reach around 500m/s before the Wench slammed head-first into the rear of the little frigate, sending it lurching away from the wormhole. What I wasn't expecting, however, was that Joy had in fact been aligning to warp at just that moment - in the direction of my bump. I'd just inadvertantly lauched Joy to warpspeed and Mikail and I looked on in frustration as the ship warped off into the void before we could even land a target lock. Oops.
"Fuck!" Exclaimed Mikail.
"He's warped to a site" I replied.
"Camp or ambush?" Asked Mikail as we hurried to locate the errant visitor.
I wasn't sure exactly where he'd warped too, and was busy trying to narrow him down when Mikail came over the comms once again after managing to locate Joy faster. "It's the Camp." He explained, "Wait .... haha they have pwned him!"
Hitting my directional-scanner I discovered that sure enough, warping your scan frigate to zero in a sleeper camp generally isn't a good idea. The wreck of Joy's frigate was clearly visible on scan, along with his capsule which was busy warping from celestial to celestial, trying to avoid us as he contemplated exactly how we was going to get out without a ship or the exit bookmark. Mikail and I pursued the pod for a short time before it eventually vanished from our scanners, Joy shutting down it's systems and dissapearing from the grid.
Disgruntled at missing our prey, but amused by his fate regardless, Mikail and I returned to our towers. Not before I looted the wreck however (as expected, no spectacular treasure) and then disposed of it with a volley or two from the Wench. Returning home I once again settled in to hopefully continue my conversation with the lovely Anatole. Duty of compassion came first however, and before I sat down to my synthetic coffee I fired off a quick comm-message to Pilot Joy for when he awoke, offering him the chance to contact me to arrange safe passage out of our wormhole if he wished ... along with a few choice tips of course, regarding bookmarks and dueling sleepers with an Imicus.
