Journal Entry No. 8

9/12/YC116

The CEO of our allianced corporation, Marshal, is looking for a new wormhole for us to establish a more permanent residence in than our current C1. To put it frank, our current wormhole contains nothing but absolute garbage. A lot of ore sites, and nothing else. Not even a static C2 or C3 wormhole.
The restraints of the wormhole was that it must:
-Be a Class 2 wormhole
-Have a static highsec wormhole (although strongly dispreferred, even a lowsec static wormhole would suffice)
-Have a static C3 wormhole
-The less POS's, the better.

Given these restraints I thought it might be a good idea to help in this task myself, by scanning down wormholes and investigating them. I could make a decent profit, too, by doing data and relic sites whenever I found one.

Sadly, I never found any data or relic sites. Still, I found a fair amount of wormholes. 5 wormholes, to be exact. I found one C1, two C2's, and two C3's. I found a really good C2, J171309, unsettled with a highsec static. However, it had a C1 static instead of a C3.
While I was in one of these wormholes, J171309 to be specific, I was was cloaked, scanning down a new wormhole to check out.

That was... my first mistake. If you're looking for a wormhole with a static highsec entrance, you should be looking in high security space, not wormhole space.

That said, here I was, scanning while cloaked in my Imicus. I hadn't even bothered to set up a safe spot for myself, which was my second mistake. I figured, since I won't be making a permanent or even semi-permanent residence here, I shouldn't have to bother making a safe spot.

I was wrong. When I was about 60km from the wormhole, a Tech 3 Strategic Cruiser Tengu jumped in and began orbiting the wormhole. A minute or two later, another Strategic Cruiser, a Proteus, jumped in as well and began orbiting. I was too busy panicking to realize that this should have been the time to scan and pinpoint the next wormhole. This should have been the time to warp away to a Customs Office, a moon, a planet, or any other warpable non-cosmic sign object.

And yet... I didn't. My third mistake, and possibly my most fatal. Another couple of minutes, my heart beat is pumping like none else, and a Tech 2 Interdictor, an Erin, jumps in and begins orbiting the hole with a high orbit distance. I had plenty of time to scan down the wormhole, but I didn't. I knew my only chance with this was if I lay outside of the range of the Interdictor, but less than 150km from all of the ships. I finished scanning down the C1 wormhole, and aligned to it at 125km from the camped hole. I wait for the Interdictor to cross the 150km mark in its orbit, so it can't warp to me. The Proteus jumps out for whatever reason, and I began to relax, thinking that they were bored and called off the camp. However, soon after it jumped back in. Once the Interdictor is at 120km, I use my chance to decloak and spam warp to the C1 wormhole.

I did indeed get away, without them even targeting me. However, once I exited warp, I saw that there was yet another camped wormhole. The warp disruption bubble was set in place, so I knew I didn't have any chance to warp back out. I spammed jump through hole, and once through, spammed warp to planet on the first planet I could click on. I'm sure my crewmates weren't happy about this, as every time I hit warp an automated request is reported through the entire ship: "Request to warp to [X celestial object]." Nonetheless, I spammed warp, because it put them in a rush, which was needed, and it gave me (and them) a chance of surviving. Once we got to the planet, I warped to another planet, in case they saw me warping to the one planet. Once at the new planet, I get 2000m away from the Customs Office and cloak up. They're obviously still searching for me, as just about 30 seconds after I cloak up, a Flycatcher Interdictor, the ship camping at the 2nd gate camp, warps in for about a minute or two, then warps off. Thank goodness I was cloaked up. This cloak cost me 4million ISK, but it more than paid itself off in how it didn't get caught by the Flycatcher.

I begin waiting out the 15-minute PvP timer. About 3-4 minutes left, and an Erin comes to the Customs Office I'm at and starts searching, but finds nothing and warps off.
Once the PvP timer expires, I make sure noone is in the area, decloak and log off safely.
Later, I log back on, put some core probes out, and cloak up. I begin scanning, still cloaked. I scan down the highsec static wormhole without any hitches, all the while noticing that it is more than 14.3 AU away, the maximum range of the D-scan. I began attempting to drain the capacitor out of my ship to do a partial warp, but I mis-clicked and began warping at 10km. Despite my attempts to cancel the warp, it goes through. I grit my teeth and prepare for a camp.

Sure enough, it was camped, bubble, Interdictor, and everything. I suspect he just put the bubble up, since my core scanner probes were literally all around him on D-scan. I turn on my MWD and try to burn back to wormhole. He targets me, I lose a large portion of my shield, but I still enter through the wormhole in time. My heart jumped for a moment as I thought it wasn't a wormhole to highsec, but a C3 wormhole, but then I realized it was just me freaking out. I'd made it back to Known space, encountering a gate camp at every single wormhole I passed in that trip. Since I'd bought a new ship and fitted it a cheap-fit specifically for this scanning mission, I didn't know the crew members' names, and as a result didn't say anything to console them. They were probably traumatized at this point. Not that I cared. They were just replacable objects. Things that make sure the ship is working properly, and nothing more.