Stealing an Orca

A scout reports significant pilot activity just one jump from my own scout. I jump into the next wormhole and get eyes on their tower. Ships are coming and going and there is a retriever which is nearby but not at the tower. A little dscan magic shows that he is 100M klicks directly below us.

Shortly after getting the range on the retriever, 2 orcas land at the tower along with an iteron mark v. All of them coming from the same direction. Too bad we didn't have a trap on their static connection. One of them reships into a Buzzard and flys off to deploy probes. They scan for a bit and pin the K162 we arrived through. At this point we are hoping they will investigate the wormhole and warp an Orca out to close it before they start mining. After all, they have 2 retrievers, a hulk and 2 orcas now piloted in the tower.

Time passes and they continue moving around. The missing retriever shows up back at the tower, a couple of pilots reship to an Abadon and a Tengu. They warp to the apparent grav site and shortly some wrecks show up. The combat ships come back to the tower and the retriever and a noctis return to the grav site. After a while the noctis returns to the tower and reships to a retriever and returns to the grav site.

Too much time and inactivity for our fleet has passed. People are getting antsy so we decide to deploy probes and see how they respond. I warp my scout back to the wormhole and deploy probes within dscan range of their tower.

I arrange the probes around the grav site and lock it on the first scan. Without pulling my probes, I warp to the site to find one retriever warping off but the other is still mining a kernite rock. I bookmark the kernite while making my way toward the ship and pull my probes. Before I make it to the miner, he also warps off.

Now we wait to see what they do next. It doesn't take long. I am shocked and amazed to see a Hulk and an Orca land 40km from my position in the grav site. Really! I start moving toward the Orca just in time to see him disappear. Oh boy! Oh boy! I hit accelerate and keep burning toward him, keeping track of distance in my head. I tell the fleet to jump into the target system and hold cloak.

I move between the two ships and once I am 10 km from the Hulk and approximately 20km from the Orca, I call in the fleet. As they land, I decloak and start burning toward the Orca's approximate position. He decloaks 16km from me and starts aligning back to their tower. Not going to happen! I overheat the scram on my ship and lock him up. The phobos puts up the bubble to make sure we also get the pods.

At this point, both pilots eject from their ships. Huh? We lock and shoot the Orca pilot. The Hulk and it's pilot are next. Why they ejected from ships while in a warp bubble is a mystery to all of us. Not that it matters at this point. I unlock the Orca and jump in it, scooping my ship to the SMA. We thank those left in local for the Orca and head home, happy with our spoils.