A Heron Pursued

It's the weekend.  Last night we ran sites in our static C4.  Before doing the sites, we closed C4b's static wormhole to a C2.  After our last site for the night, I stayed online.  I went into the new C2a from C4b.  All C2s have dual statics.  For this one, nullsec and a C6.  I searched down both wormholes and both were EOL.  So, not much to do.  I went to bed.

Today C4b and C2a will still be there, although time is starting to run short on our connection.  So, when I get up I log in and go through.  It is possible the inhabitants of C4b will be around, but no such luck.  There is one empty Probe, just like last night.  C2a is uninhabited, but I enter and dscan in any case.  Nobody.  I fire probes to look for wormholes.  A highsec connection would be useful for logistics.  If none, then I will open the C6 to look for good gas.

There are only two new sigs since last night.  They will be both statics.  I search them down, then randomly pick one to try first.  (Both have very weak sigs.)  It's the C6, bingo.  I enter and dscan.  The system is inhabited, but they are not here.  A trip to the outer system finds a second tower, but still no ships.   Now I deploy probes and look for gas.  The sites I want are all very weak; all the sites in the inner system appear to have a pretty strong signal.  There is one, though, near the fringe that looks weak.  I search for it.  After a few iterations, I find what I am looking for: a Vital Core Reservoir.  This will have 500 C320 and 6000 C540 -- both quite worth getting, although C320 is superior.  It will also have nasty advanced sleeper battleships and frigates, but not until 20 minutes.  You can get 30m in that time, mining C320, and perhaps 20m in C540.  So, that's my plan.

But not now. There are real life chores to do.  So, I go away for a while.  When I return my machine has crashed and rebooted.  I log back in with two characters, preparing to mine gas.  Jayne is there.  We get on coms and Jayne will come with a miner.  Now three of us set off and hop into C4b.  I dscan, and there is something new: a Heron is on scan.  Hmm.  OK, our gas mining plan is off.  A new impromptu hunting plan is on.  All three of us go back through the wormhole.  I hope he did not see.

Jayne gets a stealth bomber on a second character.  I log off one of mine to bring in Von.  This takes me a few minutes, during which Jayne has entered C4b and started looking for the Heron.  It is not at the tower.  It is not at the C2 wormhole.  And not at ours.  There are a few other gas sites we know of, but it would not be at those.  So, instead of heading directly for C4b, Von heads to our tower to get a ship with combat probes.  (Why does this guy not cloak? I dunno.  Let's not look a gift horse in the mouth.)  But before I swap, Jayne announces that the Heron is at the C2.  I guess that Jayne will get him, but he is not in range yet.  I warp straight for our static.

I cross, and Jayne says that the Heron jumped into C2.  I warp directly to the wormhole.  I figure that by the time I cross and jump, the Heron will be gone.  However he may still be in the system, and if he really has no cloak maybe I can catch him on a wormhole as he explores further.  I land on grid with the wormhole, and I jump.

I load grid, and to my great surprise there is the Heron.  He's 5000m from me.  Trap?  Dscan shows nothing, but that is not dispositive.  I'll find out.  I head straight for the Heron, and get my sensor booster on, then all weapons systems.  I expect him to jump, but he does not.  I have him locked.  The torpedoes fire and hit him.  Again, and boom, got him.

Got him!

Now I start locking the pod, and fire.  I got him!  Wormhole noise.  Uh oh.  And where is the corpse?  I loot the wreck (just low value stuff you'd expect), and Jayne says the pod is there.  Oh, I did not kill him.  Darnit.  Jayne goes for it but the pod warps off.  I jump back through.  We can see the pod on dscan, and we start getting a ship with combat probes again.  But before Jayne gets to that, the pod disappears.

Did he log off?  Maybe.  Or maybe there is a wormhole hidden among the 16 sigs.  We have probes and can check this out.  Eventually Jayne finds a new wormhole, another C2.  I go in, but the pod is not there and I can see several ships on scan including a Sabre and a T3.  That's not going to go well.  And anyway, our wormhole is down to about a half-hour left before it might despawn.  I think that's enough hunting for now.  It's time for lunch.

Just now I looked at the screenie and I can see it a guy from Brave collective.  Probably newbie in wspace.  Dude: you have a cloak.  Use it.  Never sit near a wormhole uncloaked.  Warp off to a celestial before firing probes.  In fact never sit anywhere in wspace uncloaked except safe in a POS.