The Fearless Few?
If there's one thing wormhole life delivers in quantitudes it's time. Time to ... well, that's often the question I guess. Time to wait, time to waste, time to think, time to kill abandoned tower modules maybe. One of the other ways I occupy myself during this down-time, despite having little interest in Empire politics these days, is by tuning into some interesting comm channels, such as The Summit. I also enjoy spending time browsing the galactic forums. Recently I noticed people talking in one thread about mining in wormholes. The recent breakthroughs in scanning technology had meant that unprecedented amounts of people were venturing into strange holes in search of fame, riches and treasures, but it also meant that those who mine in w-space are now much, much easier to find ... and kill. Has mining in wormholes now become "impossible"?
I would go on to learn today that it's certainly not. Well ... at least people will still attempt it.
Miners. Industry. We always think of combat pilots as being the bravest, most resilient, risk-takers. The fearless few. But stop for a moment and think about it; after you witness the risks taken by some people in industry, particularly the mining sector, to secure their prey then you begin to wonder who're truly the bravest pilots in New Eden today.
Today began like most - Awaking in my quarters onboard the Crow's Nest tower, wearing nothing but an oversized Caldari Navy t-shirt, I tip-toed from my king size bed out into the living area to check my comm-net and make a coffee. Yawning as I tied my messy morning-hair into a ponytail, I discovered a comm message from one of my senior employees, Miallia. Former Caldari Militia Ensign, Miallia is a brilliant scanner and an experienced scout. I'd sent her, along with two other pilots, to oversee a recent mission involving our corporation securing 'ownership' of a second Class 1 wormhole system and beginning to move in. I settled into the plush sofa that sat before a large viewing window in my quarters, shuffling my little backside to get comfy, and began to read Miallia's comm message.
Miallia reported that their static high sec exit that day was merely two jumps from Amarr, and so it'd been seeing a lot of visitors that morning. One of which being a Venture. The pilot, Omar, was alone and drifting fearlessly in one of our three ore sites, busily blasting our asteroids, intent on hijacking our resources. Knowing these new mining vessels had inbuilt systems to strengthen their warp drives, Miallia quickly began going through the ships in their maintenance array looking to find an extra warp scrambler to fit to her Manticore the 'Roid Guardian. Sadly, she reported, there was no spare scrambler she could use as our corporation had only just moved in there within days prior and not yet completed stocking up on spare modules and the like. Equipping her bomb launcher, and hoping Omar wasn't aligned to anything, Miallia cloaked and warped off to the nearest grav belt in hopes that she could bomb and torpedo the brazen ore-thief before he had the opportunity to warp away.
Miallia - Great scout despite lacking more than 1 point
Unfortunately she landed at the site just in time to see Omar warping away to the static high sec exit. Apparently he'd seen all the commotion at the tower on his d-scan when Miallia was desperately changing ships in hopes of finding an extra warp scrambler, and decided discretion would be the better part of valor. In anycase it was the first example I'd heard of first-hand of our people having to contend with ore-thieves in our wormholes. Strangely though it wouldn't be the last time that day ...
Several hours I found myself in my pod, at the helm of my tengu the Lusty Wench, half asleep as I listened to the comm-chatter taking place in the channel belonging to those in our second system. Meanwhile it'd been a slow day in our home system, Mikail and I had ran a few sleeper sites earlier, ensuring the vermin were being kept to a minimum in our fine system. Cloaked in a safe spot I think at one point I actually did fall asleep whilst listening to Miallia and Vadaath over the comm as they conducted a small operation to clear out the sleeper population in our newly aquired system. I remember waking up with a start, cursing myself for falling asleep adrift in space, and immediately hit my-dscan thanks to muscle memory. "Huh?" Something odd on scan. I scanned again. "You've got to be kidding me..." I thought as I slapped myself hard in the face twice then looked at the scanner once again. I wasn't hallucinating - there were not one, but two Procurers sitting fearlessly in one of our ore sites, rushing to fill their pirate cargo holds with our asteroids.
Last Exile Jove and his brother Spy Jove - Fearless and brazen ore-thieves
Apparently brothers who trespass together also sometimes steal ore together. Last Exile Jove and his partner in crime Spy Jove, were sitting about 10km apart, both casually blasting away at an asteroid completely unaware of the Wench cloaked 60km away and slowly burning toward them in silence. As I approached I began to formulate a plan. There was only one of me, but two of them. Surely when I engage the first I'll lose the opportunity to apprehend the second. Unlike Miallia earlier that day I was fully equipped to tackle the new plague of Ventures, my ship equipped with a Shadow Serpentise warp scrambler. However this wouldn't help me at all to restrain two Procurers at once, I needed a second pilot to even the numbers.
"Candi. Candi..... CANDI!?!" I yelled into my comm. One of my oldest and dearest employees, also an adopted member of our family, Candi was cloaked 30km off the highsec side of our wormhole that day, keeping an eye on passing traffic and giving early warning of interlopers. Unfortunately, like me, Candi had fallen asleep earlier. With a few more shouts she awoke, flailing around in her pod in shock as I relayed the events I was witnessing. Moments later Candi, in her Nemesis the Headshot, jumped back through the wormhole into our system and warped under cloak to join me at the ore site where I was now drifting 10km away from Last Exile Jove. Timing was everything - we decloaked in unison, my target lock engaged Last Exile, immediately scrambling his warp drive before my heavy assault launchers proceeded to unleash a rain of Scourge Rage. Candi targetted Spy Jove at that same instant, disrupting his warp drive to ensure he wouldn't be going anywhere before also targetting Last Exile. Painted and under the barrage of both Inferno torpedoes and assault missiles we watched his shields give out after a slight struggle, followed by armor and structure in a flash of bright light. As the pod warped away we turned our attention to Spy Jove - his mining laser still firing as he sat stunned, forced to watch his brother's vessel imploding.
Drone-loving Dominix pilot, our adoptee Candi
Also flies stealth bombers on weekends
A small number of volleys from both Candi and I later and the second Procurer followed, Spy Jove's pod quickly warping from the wreckage to the highsec exit. Candi cloaked up and warped into pursuit, landing just over 30km from the hole with bomb launcher at the ready. The young ore-thief was quick to react this time however and slipped out into highsec before Candi could reach him. Meanwhile I checked the wrecks for loot, discovering almost nothing which led me to believe these guys were really on a budget. Disposing of the wrecks I quickly cloaked once more and return to my safespot while Candi orbiting the highsec exit. A moment later our d-scan lit up once more, an Anathema, piloted by a third Jove brother, decloaked and began warping to the exit. Headshot began to line up for a bombing run but the frigate moved faster - Candi watched as the pilot swiftly jumped to highsec in an attempt to catch up with his two cohorts.
Returning to my tower I fixed myself a fresh cup of sythetic coffee and sat down to ponder the day's events. I considered sending a comm message to the Jove boys, giving some tips on keeping safe while mining in w-space and perhaps even gifting a small amount of money to compensate them for their losses, but after having inspected their corporation's data-file I discovered they likely wouldn't speak my language. In any event I concluded mining definitely is more dangerous now days, that much was certain it seemed. But like all capsuleers in pursuit of whatever it is they love, the miners won't be deterred either and will continue to attempt the "impossible".
