Lonetrek region – Okela constellation
Tsuguwa system – Planet VI
Caldari Navy Assembly Plant Station
16 January YC 127
Following Aura’s suggestion to ‘buy more tickets’, I boarded the Buzzard and undocked in search of pirate bases – that riff-raff requiring periodic pest control anyway. The first ‘ticket’ revealed itself right on my doorstep in Tsuguwa – cosmic signature YVD-57 turned out to be a Gurista Hideout base.
“Why is it Gurista Hideout, and not Guristas Hideout? Is it just for one pirate,” I asked, amused at the classification.
“No such luck, according to the Eve Uni academics. There will be a few ships but nothing scarier than a destroyer,” said Aura after consulting UniWiki.
I returned to the station, boarded the Cormorant and warped to the scanned location. The place had an acceleration gate guarded by a Pithi Arrogator and a Pithi Despoiler. There was also an unlooted wreck of another Pith Arrogator floating between the gate and me.
“Has someone already discovered and attacked the base,” I wondered, “I wouldn’t like to step on another capsuleer’s toes.”
“Whoever it was, they did a sloppy job here,” said Aura, pointing at the red triangles on the overview.
“Let’s finish it then,” I replied enthusiastically, and targeted the pirate frigates.
The Pithis were quickly dispatched by my rails. Two Demolishers came as reinforcements and soon joined their fallen comrades. When all the threats were neutralised I took another look at the overview. One object attracted my attention; it was called Guristas Research Center.
“What do you think they are researching here?” I asked Aura.
“You’ll need a squad of marines to capture the structure and get an answer to your question or… you may find it in the next pocket,” said Aura raising her eyebrow, “and since we don’t have a squad of marines…”
“I get it,” I mumbled in irritated voice and activated the acceleration gate.
When I came out of the warp my viewscreen was filled with an image of a spindle-like tower.
“There you go,” murmured Aura in a satisfied voice, “it’s called Guristas Experimental Weapon Tower.”
I looked suspiciously at the structure, “Let’s hope they won’t use us as guinea pigs.”
“Nah,” Aura waved her hand, “it’s offline and poses no threat, unlike that Pithi Wrecker that is targeting us.”
I snorted, “Since when is a Wrecker a threat to Merimetso?”
“Since the moment when you forgot to activate your railguns and shield hardener,” Aura replied caustically and nodded at the red sector which was slowly growing on my shield damage indicator.
“Alright, alright,” I grunted and targeted the pirate.
Before I could acquire a target lock, two more Pithi Plunderers warped in and attacked me. I went into a 45-km orbit around the tower and picked off the chasing frigates with my railguns. I was about to turn my attention to the weapon tower when another two Plunderers landed on the grid.
“Idiots,” I mumbled through gritted teeth.
That trickle-feeding tactic of lower-level Guristas was my pet peeve. I targeted the johnny-come-latelies and shot them out of the sky only to see them replaced with a Pithior Renegade and a Pithior Anarchist.
“How many more sacrificial lambs do they have in reserve?” I grumbled in frustration.
“These are the destroyers that academics mentioned on the Wiki. Shouldn’t be anything else,” Aura said soothingly.
I inhaled a lungful of pod goo and got to work. Initially, the Pithiors managed to land a few hits on me but, as I built a distance between them and Merimetso, the incoming damage reduced to zero. I spent the following two minutes methodically working through the pirates’ defences with iron hybrid charges.
When the last of the Guristas destroyers exploded, Aura looked at me thoughtfully, “You know, Vlad, I think you should concentrate your fire on one destroyer at a time, rather than spread your guns across multiple targets.”
“Why is that?” I asked curiously.
“Well, the less DPS you apply to a target the more time it takes to kill it. The longer it stays alive, the more shield it can regenerate. It is not so important with frigates which are as crunchy as crackers, and go down after 3-5 hits. With the destroyers, however, the extra time spent on shooting at the regenerated shields adds up to an appreciable fraction of the combat duration.”
“Hmm,” I mused, “you are right. I’ll keep it in mind next time we encounter Pithiors,” then I steered the conversation to a more burning question, “I don’t think we should leave this experimental weapon tower here. Killing the guards is all good and well but if we don’t destroy that experiment, they will just resume their nefarious research after we depart.”
Aura agreed and I mentally prepared myself for the boring task of structure bashing. My boredom didn’t last long as after a couple of volleys the tower started shooting back!
“Aura!” I cried in panic, “You said the tower was offline. How can it shoot at me?”
“It is offline, blockhead,” Aura scolded me, “Look at the overview!”
I checked the overview window and found that Aura was right – it was not the Experimental Weapon Tower which shot it me but two Guristas Light Missile Batteries.
“Where did they come from?” I asked dumbfounded.
Aura shrugged, “They were probably camouflaged as pieces of junk until you attacked the tower.”
I exhaled with relief, glad that it was familiar missile batteries and not some super-weapon from that experimental weapon tower. While I was flying in 45-km orbit around the tower, the batteries didn’t do much damage, only occasionally sending a light Scourge missile my way. I ignored them for a while and concentrated all my fire on the weapon tower. As it was a test model, Guristas installed only token defences which crumbled under my hybrid charges in a minute. While the tower was busy exploding I turned the railguns toward the missile batteries. They were properly tanked, sturdy military installations but they were not particularly big. Still, I spent more time destroying each battery than it took me to take down the tower.
When my overview showed only gray inert objects, I waited a minute in case there were more surprises lurking in that Hideout. The minute passed; nothing happened; I breathed.
“Right, I think we are done here. No overseers this time, though,” I said and started aligning Merimetso for warp-out.
“Wait,” Aura said urgently, “I have just discovered that these hideouts often give start to expeditions.”
“What’s an expedition?” I frowned.
“It’s a chain of bases which can be uncovered one by one following clues found in the wrecks.”
I made wide eyes and pointed at the overview, “There was no loot dropped from that tower or the ships. Or do I need to destroy every structure in the vicinity to find those clues?”
Aura chewed her lip, “The other pilots didn’t say how they discovered the clues but I have an idea. If we could find an electronic device used for data recording or transmission then I would be able to analyse its logs and maybe deduce some useful information.”
I made a grimace, “There is no such device, as you can see. The explosions did not leave any usable pieces of equipment. A salvager might give you something but it’s typically a burnt-out circuit which is only good for recycling.”
“Ah,” Aura raised her finger, “that’s where you are wrong. The overview is calibrated to filter out small debris so that you are not drowned in a sea of unnecessary details. But if we change its configuration like this…”
A window appeared on my screen asking me to confirm a system configuration change.
“If you be so good to select OK,” said Aura sweetly, “then we can get a better view of that field of debris.”
I gave Aura a suspicious look. She made an innocent face, “I am just trying to help.”
I sighed and gave my consent. Suddenly my overview exploded with a myriad of line items, all categorised as Small Object. There were Deformed Bulkheads, Broken Water Pipes, Intact Air Filters, and even one Chipped Coffee Mug.
“That’s what I meant,” said Aura excitedly, “it’s all the stuff that you can’t sell on the market, so the overview just ignores it.”
“But how am I to find anything useful here?” I asked in frustration, “This list runs into hundreds of thousands lines!”
Aura wiggled her eyebrows, “Leave it to me! Finally, there is a task to which I can apply all my processing power.”
Aura’s image froze for a second and then she was back smiling triumphantly.
“Here you go,” she said fast scrolling the overview list to position 131713 (yes, she gave me the number; no, I don’t know why).
The item was labelled ‘Intact Commlink’.
“Now, scoop it to our cargo bay,” commanded Aura.
After the commlink was dragged into Merimetso by the tractor beam, Aura looked at me apologetically and said, “I am afraid that now I need you to get to the cargo hold and get that commlink. I would do it myself, but…” she spread her hands helplessly.
I looked nervously at the overview and said, “Can we do it in a station or at least at a safe spot?”
Aura shook her head, “No, if we are to use that commlink it has to be here.”
I sighed and extracted myself from the pod. Dripping the goo all over the place I made my way to the cargo hold. There, next to the crates of hybrid charges, lay a small rugged commlink which survived the explosion of Experimental Weapon Tower. I picked it up and tried to unlock it but it was protected by a PIN.
“I can’t do anything with it,” I told Aura, “It is locked.”
Aura appeared on the wall comms screen and said, “There must be a button on the lock screen which allows you to call the last dialed destination. Tap it.”
I slapped my forehead, “But of course,” and touched the button.
The screen showed a meaningless sequence of digits and letters which represented the destination code. There were three beeps after which Aura exclaimed, “Got it! Hang up! Hang up!”
I quickly aborted the call and scowled at Aura, “What have you got? And why did I need to terminate the call?”
Aura laughed, “What do you think the person on the other end would have thought if they answered the familiar number and saw an unknown face covered in pod goo? As to what I’ve got, it’s the coordinates of another Guristas base!”
I looked at Aura in surprise, “How did you manage to do it from the aborted call?”
“Hah! You are obviously unfamiliar with FTL communication protocols. While the payload is always encrypted, the source and destination router IDs are sent in a plain-text header. Then I just checked the coordinates of the destination router in the public register and voila!”
“Do you mean that Guristas base location is available in a public register?” I asked with disbelief.
“If the pirates want The Upwell Consortium to give them access to the Fluid Router Network, they have to agree to their terms. But of course they won’t register themselves as Gurista Hideout #4278. It will be an innocuous shell company with a stated purpose of gathering stardust.”
“Well, I am very keen to test your theory,” I said returning to the pod, “I just hope we won’t land in the middle of a hostile fleet equipped with stasis webifiers and warp disruptors. Where is that mysterious location?”
“Just six jumps away, in Outuni” said Aura.
“Righteo,” nodded I, and warped to Nourvukaiken gate.