After a couple of jumps, I entered a C2 wormhole named J110316 from a high-sec dead-end system and started doing my ritual, which includes checking Zkill for recent kills. This got my attention:
A smartbombing explorer-hunter Proteus killed a Magnate not even 30 minutes ago! I've seen these kinds of ships before, podding unsuspecting pilots in low-sec, but never seen one in action in wormhole space killing explorers. It's a pretty hilarious and effective way to hunt explorers, because it doesn't matter how many stabs the victim's ship has and the pod will also get destroyed in the process. And this wasn't the only victim. The Zkill page of J110316 is filled with explorer deaths. RIP.
I add all the relevant pilots I could find on my watchlist. Two of them are online, including the T3 pilot. Nothing on Dscan. Ran some locators and found out that both of them are in a wormhole. I naturally assume both of them are in here. I see alot of deaths caused by their POS, so I didn't warp to it and try to bookmark it, because it probably has a ton of dirty bubbles. I chose not to launch probes and scan the system with my Stratios, at least not, yet.
My bait was sitting in a Helios about 18 jumps away. I told my corpmates what my plan is, they liked the idea and they decided to join me, even though I wasn't sure if there were any relic or data sites left in that system, but we prayed to Bob. My Helios finally arrives in the high-sec entrance system. Before entering the wormhole, I refitted the Helios in station with a hull and passive shield tank and had to drop the probe launcher because of it, but it didn't matter, because it was a Sister one and didn't want to risk it anyway. The problem was I didn't have any tackle on the Helios, but I was confident in my ability to tackle the Proteus with my Stratios, oblivious to the fact of how slippery a smartbombing T3 can be.
My corpmates, who were sitting in high-sec on the wormhole, provided a warp-in for my Helios. I jumped the Helios through, cloaked up and warped to a safe near the sun. My Stratios was sitting at a safe, also, somewhere near the planet where their POS was. I chose that place because it was off Dscan from the entrance and all the other signatures and I was sure they had no reason to stay near their POS, they were either cloaked up at the entrance and saw my Helios come through or they were cloaked up at a tactical near a signature.
I decloaked my Helios and Stratios at the same time and launched probes with my Stratios to make them think the Helios was the one actually scanning, when, in fact, that ship had no launcher. I cloaked up the Stratios immediately, but left the Helios a bit more uncloaked just in case they didn't see it when it entered from high-sec.
Praise Bob! I found a faction relic site! I warp the Stratios at the site and position it a tactical, but not before providing a warp-in for my Helios pilot. Helios uncloaks and burns to a can. I position my cloaky Stratios near that can, hands shaking already. Helios starts hacking.
BBOOOOMM! Not even 2 seconds later, Proteus decloaks and pulses the EM smartbombs. I uncloak my Stratios and spam lock like crazy. Helios already had him targeted just to prevent him recloak. It seemed like ages until my Stratios could get a lock and SUCCESSFUL TACKLE!
I instruct my corpmates to jump through and warp to me. I escape with my bait in 20% structure. Proteus is going down, but another one decloaks 20k off. GET HIM! I point him and burn to him with my AB on. In the meantime, the smartbombing Proteus exploded, so all our focus was on his friend/alt. Alas, he was too fast for us and he warped off. We loot the field and smile when we see 480m ISK in the wreck:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/50287998/
In retrospective, I was really lucky. My bait didn't have any tackle and I still managed to tackle the Proteus with my Stratios. I guess he didn't stay aligned and panicked. My bait survived and his non-suspicious killboard was saved for another time. I talked later to the Proteus pilot and he recognized he saw my Stratios come in, but chose to engage anyway in the hope that a drive-by would kill my bait.
What I would've done differently was to not call my corpmates so soon and wait for the second pilot to decloak on top of me, but I call this an OP success, thank you very much!
This wasn't the last time we've heard of the Proteus pilot, or at least of a member of that corp. To be continued...
I add all the relevant pilots I could find on my watchlist. Two of them are online, including the T3 pilot. Nothing on Dscan. Ran some locators and found out that both of them are in a wormhole. I naturally assume both of them are in here. I see alot of deaths caused by their POS, so I didn't warp to it and try to bookmark it, because it probably has a ton of dirty bubbles. I chose not to launch probes and scan the system with my Stratios, at least not, yet.
My bait was sitting in a Helios about 18 jumps away. I told my corpmates what my plan is, they liked the idea and they decided to join me, even though I wasn't sure if there were any relic or data sites left in that system, but we prayed to Bob. My Helios finally arrives in the high-sec entrance system. Before entering the wormhole, I refitted the Helios in station with a hull and passive shield tank and had to drop the probe launcher because of it, but it didn't matter, because it was a Sister one and didn't want to risk it anyway. The problem was I didn't have any tackle on the Helios, but I was confident in my ability to tackle the Proteus with my Stratios, oblivious to the fact of how slippery a smartbombing T3 can be.
My corpmates, who were sitting in high-sec on the wormhole, provided a warp-in for my Helios. I jumped the Helios through, cloaked up and warped to a safe near the sun. My Stratios was sitting at a safe, also, somewhere near the planet where their POS was. I chose that place because it was off Dscan from the entrance and all the other signatures and I was sure they had no reason to stay near their POS, they were either cloaked up at the entrance and saw my Helios come through or they were cloaked up at a tactical near a signature.
I decloaked my Helios and Stratios at the same time and launched probes with my Stratios to make them think the Helios was the one actually scanning, when, in fact, that ship had no launcher. I cloaked up the Stratios immediately, but left the Helios a bit more uncloaked just in case they didn't see it when it entered from high-sec.
Praise Bob! I found a faction relic site! I warp the Stratios at the site and position it a tactical, but not before providing a warp-in for my Helios pilot. Helios uncloaks and burns to a can. I position my cloaky Stratios near that can, hands shaking already. Helios starts hacking.
BBOOOOMM! Not even 2 seconds later, Proteus decloaks and pulses the EM smartbombs. I uncloak my Stratios and spam lock like crazy. Helios already had him targeted just to prevent him recloak. It seemed like ages until my Stratios could get a lock and SUCCESSFUL TACKLE!
I instruct my corpmates to jump through and warp to me. I escape with my bait in 20% structure. Proteus is going down, but another one decloaks 20k off. GET HIM! I point him and burn to him with my AB on. In the meantime, the smartbombing Proteus exploded, so all our focus was on his friend/alt. Alas, he was too fast for us and he warped off. We loot the field and smile when we see 480m ISK in the wreck:
https://zkillboard.com/kill/50287998/
In retrospective, I was really lucky. My bait didn't have any tackle and I still managed to tackle the Proteus with my Stratios. I guess he didn't stay aligned and panicked. My bait survived and his non-suspicious killboard was saved for another time. I talked later to the Proteus pilot and he recognized he saw my Stratios come in, but chose to engage anyway in the hope that a drive-by would kill my bait.
What I would've done differently was to not call my corpmates so soon and wait for the second pilot to decloak on top of me, but I call this an OP success, thank you very much!
This wasn't the last time we've heard of the Proteus pilot, or at least of a member of that corp. To be continued...
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