Locating the towers in our neighbouring class 3 w-space system also locates all of the ships. This is no surprise, given that Aii and I have only just ambushed a couple of their miners in an ore site. To find other ships not huddling inside the womb-like comfort of a force field at this moment would be quite unusual. Or, at the very least, be stinking like bait.
Aii finds the Retriever mining barge now nestled up to its boosting Orca industrial command ship in one tower, and an empty Noctis salvager in a second. A piloted Viator transport sits alongside a piloted Buzzard covert operations boat in a third tower, but I doubt the capsuleer is thinking about collecting planet goo right now, more's the pity.
The fourth tower is the interesting tower. The pod of the popped Retriever is here, along with a Viator transport, Dominix battleship, Mammoth hauler, and Bestower hauler, all piloted, and an empty Buzzard. This accounts for the rest of the ships in the system, making the remaining two towers currently irrelevant. And I'm curious about that Mammoth. I'm sure it wasn't visible on my directional scanner a couple of minutes ago. How newly on-line is it?
The Mammoth isn't quite as newly on-line as the Badger hauler now warping in to the tower. Either he came from a wormhole, or is freshly awake. 'Are they going to make a goo run, with all of these industrial ships?' says Aii. They'd be dumb to, so I hope so. Surely no one who was on-line when the Retrievers were ambushed would be unaware of the two strategic cruisers stalking the system, but a pilot only just turned up may remain oblivious.
Would you look at that. It's truly a sight of majesty to watch the Badger align towards a far planet and accelerate. Of course, the two unpopulated towers lie in that direction, but I'm assuming he's heading for the customs office there. I tell Aii which planet the hauler's heading towards and he assumes the same, and his Tengu and my Loki hurtle behind the Badger hoping for a really easy kill, mere minutes after the previous one.
You have to love the lack of communication here. The Badger has indeed warped towards the customs office, which is where I find him. There is a chance that this is bait, but it's an awfully slim chance given that we've not seen any pilots or ships appear or disappear, beyond the Badger itself. I don't think I'm throwing caution to the wind by decloaking and getting my systems hot.
I'm pretty quick. Quicker than a Badger. That's not much of a boast, but it does mean I have to wait a few more seconds for the hauler to finish decelerating out of warp until I can start shooting. I suppose I should wait for Aii, if he's not already creeping up behind me, but I am wary about my target having warp core stabilisers fitted. I think I should just blow the Badger up.
Pop! It takes little encouragement for the hauler to disintegrate, and the pilot is perhaps a little disorientated, as he fails to save his pod. I scoop the new corpse for my collection, and loot and shoot the wreck, before apologising to Aii. The blood lust takes me sometimes. And considering how cheap the basic Badger is and the pilot's empty head, maybe this excursion was intended to see if we were still around and watching. If it was, it worked. Either way, I suppose that's now got to be it for local activity.