Appropriate Caution

Things are kind of back to normal in my system.  We've killed off the vultures that pecked at our corpse before we de-zombified.  (I admit it: bad simile.)  We've not got all the stuff we have become used to, but we've got to tighten our metaphorical belts and deal.  One thing I can do is jump in Blindside, my trusty Manticore, and go hunting.  (Blindside survived the recent unpleasantness on one of our Orcas.)

Our static has timed out and self-popped.  So we're zipped up.  But there's nothing to do here.  We have a gas site, but I have no Ventures.  (Note to self: get in new Ventures.)  I guess I will open up and see what's up in C4b.

I warp out to a safespot, then fire probes and scan.  Our static is easy to pick out, being one sig of two.  I scan it quickly then align to the resolved sig.  Once my speed is up, I warp.  I want to give the minimum warning to anyone on the other side.  I land on grid with the wormhole, and I head towards it.  Then I bookmark it, and jump through.

On the other side, I don't see anything on scan.  Just some customs offices.  Typical.   But I am at an outer planet, so there is still hope.  I fire probes, move off the wormhole, and cloak.  Then I throw the probes out of the system.  There are several planets out of my dscan range, and these might have someone doing something.  I don't want to alarm them with probes until I discover that they actually don't exist.

I warp to an inner planet... and dscan shows a small gang.  No wrecks, so it is probably at a tower.  I point at some local planets: not there, not there, not there.  Hmm.  Try a 360 dscan again.  Yes, they are still there.

A sleeper wreck is also there. 

A sleeper wreck means one thing: I have site runners.  Site runners mean site salvagers.  And that means ganky PVP.  My pulse rises.  My eyebrows raise up a notch.  Then my eyes narrow.  My nose twitches.  My hearing grows more acute.  Yes: the hunt is on.

The enemy in action.

First things first: find the anom the enemy gang is in.  I narrow the dscan aperture and point it at various anoms.  Ah, there it is.  I warp to the anom at 100km.  Yes, the gang's all here.  Two Ishtars, a pair of Basilisks, two battleships.  No rush.  I'll just move back and make a perch as I watch.  As I move back, one of the enemy throw out a mobile tractor unit.

Ugh.  That's bad for my potential earnings.  But I'll keep watching.  Ganking beats money any day.

I get back at 150km, then keep going.  It only really matters how far the tractor unit is.  I bookmark at about 200km, and that is far enough.  Now I sit and watch and wait.  The encounter now depends on the enemy.  Will they do something stupid like put an unescorted salvager out for me to kill?

A Noctis... mmm.

The last wave of sleepers enters, and they slowly kill it.  Last one gone, I wait for them to warp off to the next site.  But they don't.  Instead, on dscan I see an Noctis.  Mmm, Noctis.  A perfect target once they warp off.

They don't warp off.

The enemy Noctis lands on grid, then starts salvaging.  The enemy don't leave.  I am not about to try an attack versus Ishtars, much less the other stuff present.  So I just watch.  Maybe they will make a mistake...

They don't.  When the last wreck is salvaged, they all warp off.  Now I am alone in the site.  I watch dscan, hoping they go to another anom.   But they don't.  Instead they disappear.  Hmm.

I warp around the system to look for them, but they are gone.  My guess is they saw my new wormhole via the discovery scanner and GTFOed.

Kudos to you, enemy gang.  You escorted your salvager, got your loot, then got out.  That seems about right to me.