Okela Cleanup – Part 1

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station

11 December YC 126

Purkkoken was interrogating the latest group of prisoners saved from The Seven and didn’t have any missions for me. I got bored and went to the docks where I boarded my Buzzard.

“Good morning, Captain,” Aura greeted me, “What’s the plan?”

“No mission so far but I have an idea. During our travels through this constellation I saw a lot of signatures and anomalies which I left alone as I had other priorities. Today, however, I’d like to take a closer look, and poke my nose or gun into them.”

“Nosuri doesn’t have a gun,” reminded Aura.

“Yep, the nose will be Nosuri’s, the gun – Merimetso’s. I plan to fly around the constellation and scan all signatures first. If a sig contains uncouth public, I’ll leave it for the second flyover which I’ll do on Merimetso.”

Aura winked at me, “With a kind word and a gun…”

“Exactly,” nodded I, and undocked.

Okela Constellation
Okela Constellation

Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Jouvulen system

The first pass in Nosuri was almost a write-off. I hoped to find some data and relic sites but all I’d got were wormholes and Guristas bases. The only exception was Jouvulen. It was a dead-end system but was unusually populated both in terms of capsuleers and signatures. It was strange because the more populous the system was the fewer sigs were on the probe scanner screen. When I scanned the first of the sigs, the penny dropped – it was a career agents’ system. The signatures were exploration, mining and combat training sites which capsuleers were expected to scan as part of their career development program. All signatures had a strong signal and, with my top-notch equipment and skills, were scanned to 100% with an 8-AU constellation of probes. All but one.

“What do you think it is?” I asked Aura.

She shrugged, “An advanced training site?”

“There wasn’t advanced exploration training during my time,” I objected as I was zeroing in on the sig. A few seconds later the signature was scanned down and I exclaimed, “Seven hells! These bastards really have balls!”

The signature revealed itself as Lesser Guristas Covert Research Facility – one of the most difficult to scan hi-sec sites. Building that facility in an extremely busy career development system was a gutsy move. Even if some errant signal revealed their location, it would be so weak that the noobs with Civilian Probe Launchers would not be able to scan it down. It was Guristas’ bad luck that I happened to be in the system when that signal escaped their shielding. I went through the usual motions – stripped the fitting and unloaded the cargo in the local station, and jumped to the Facility. There I went straight to Covert Lab container and hacked it in no time at all, as coherence of every defensive node was the same as the strength of my virus, and I just alphaed it off my way. The container yielded 19 million ISK worth of Covert Research Tools and Shattered Villard Wheels.


Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system

Having completed my constellation roundtrip in the Buzzard, I returned to Tsuguwa and boarded the destroyer. It was time to flex the muscles. The first destination was a Guristas Hideaway, the most primitive and common pirate base. When I warped to the location I found a single prefab bunker patrolled by a Pithi Arrogator. I dealt with it without moving from my warp-in position. The explosion attracted attention of other miscreants, and a pair of Pithi Infiltrators emerged from the bunker. While they were checking their overviews, I already targeted both of them. By the time they started moving in my direction, their shields were gone. The armour and structure followed before they managed to get into their firing range. Then two Pithi Imputors decided to check what all those fireworks were about.

Pithi Infiltrator
Pithi Imputor
Pithi Imputor

I shook my head in frustration, “Who commands those hoodlums? Instead of deploying the full wing, they send frigates in pairs which do not stand a chance!”

“Would they have a chance if they sent the whole wing?” Aura asked with concern.

“No, but that would make my job faster and easier as I wouldn’t have to smoke them out of the bunker one by one.”

“Maybe you should have a stern word with their commander,” giggled Aura.

“I definitely will, if he or she dares to undock.”

It didn’t appear that the pirates had a commander, which would explain their amateur tactic. All I saw after the Imputors were a Pithi Wrecker and a Pithi Plunderer. After dispatching the frigates, I demolished the bunker and looted the wrecks. The pickings were slim – from the wrecks I extracted a Small Radiative Scoped Remote Capacitor Transmitter and a pile of metal scraps which could be sold for the grand total of 10,376.15 ISK. The bonus payments for pirate kills brought home more bacon, as they were ranging from 3,000 ISK for an Arrogator to 7,875 ISK for a Wrecker.

Pithi Wrecker
Pithi Wrecker
Pithi Plunderer
Pithi Plunderer

“Well, that was a walk in the park,” I said, summarising the battle.

“Not surprising,” commented Aura, “Hideaways have the lowest classification on EveUni difficulty scale – tier 1, level 1. If you want some challenge, how about raiding a Guristas Refuge? That will be tier 3,” and she pointed at the probe scanner which showed two such bases in the system.

“Let’s try,” I replied and reloaded the railguns.

It wasn’t meant to be. When I warped to the first Refuge I discovered that it was already occupied by an industrious capsuleer in a Cormorant who was killing pirates left, right and centre. Acknowledging the primacy of the other pilot’s claim on this base, I warped to the second one. Alas, no luck there too – another pilot in a cruiser was alpha-ing every hostile in sight and, when he ran out of them, he just warped off the grid, abandoning unlooted wrecks.

“That was a bit of an overkill, don’t you think?” I said looking at the carnage, “Where is fun in fighting frigates in a cruiser?”

“You aren’t much of a sportsman yourself,” Aura pointed out, “Why don’t you fly a frigate?”

“Hmm… I never thought about it. I guess, I could but it would just take longer.”

“Ah,” said Aura with a meaningful smile.

“What?” I asked defensively.

“Nothing,” she answered innocently.

Mildly annoyed, I shrugged and jumped to Ekura.

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