Exploring

Our latest quantum leap brought us in line with the core Amarr worlds, Deepari, 4 jumps from Amarr, 10 jumps from Jita.  We were in familiar territory, systems i'd run missions in early on.  I reprenished some supplies for my amarr ships, different frequency crystals, cruise missiles and more. 

I was also discovering scanning.  As practice I scanned down both the new exit to Deepari and the new exit to a C4 on my own, though their bookmarks sat for anyone to download from the corp hangar.

I equipped probes on my Battleship, confident that I could traverse the linked highsec systems of my brethren without worry.  I found nothing in Deepari, moved past Abaz to Kudi and found one signal.

I was firing my probes at different ranges all over the system,  and it took another half hour of shifting thair perimeters and widths to track down a 100% signal.  Once I had that I locked my navigational computers on it and barreled in 100k from target.

Another wormhole.  It warped and restitched the spatial fabric around it, skewing the bloody background glow of a red dwarf. 

Anything could be on the other side.  It wasn't worth the risk.  I warped home to Veronica and brought out my Covert Ops ship. Back at the wormhole, I scanned it directly.  It read that it was on the verge of collapse.  Damn my adventurers spirit...

I cloaked as soon as I was spat out on the other side.  Moving to a blind, empty corner of this alien system I appeared just long enough to launch 5 expanded probes into the dark reaches of this pocket universe.

The Data came streaming back. This was a high-ranked C4 alive with the dealings of Aquila Inc.  I had my First Officer summarize from their datasite:

Aquila Inc. is an ambitious, multinational corporation made up by friends working together to make themselves a nest amongst the stars. With only a 1 million skillpoint minimum, we welcome both veteran players and new players alike. We work as team, and every pilot plays an important role in the success of Aquila.

Goals:
I. Erect and maintain our own POS.
II. Build up our industrial and security divisions;
III. Work with other corporations to build an effective alliance.
IV. Research and build advanced technology.
V. Expand into low security regions.

Members of Aquila do not make a difference between their success and the success of Aquila. Those who work for the success of Aquila do so with the confidence that they are backed in full by their comrades.

Clearly they had graduated past owning a single POPS and now commanded sovreignty over a powerful wormhole universe.  I flit through the system, never closer than 100k to an item.  Hulks and Roqs floated unmanned between vast towers of ship maintenance arrays.  Several player shuttles moved between structures.  It was a hive, and with the 0.0 security status of everything in here I couldn't afford to be found sneaking amidst their operations.  Any respectable defense force, in full knowledge of the lack of CONCORD response, would eliminate, and fast.

Taking the stick once more I aligned to the hole back to the known galaxy and warped striaght through, a gut feeling telling me i'd been lcuky to stay a fly on the wall even this long.

Back in Veronica, our activities seemed comparitively sleepy.  Lazy Battleships lolled between stark structures, everything under the haze of our Blue Shield.

I docked, found my cabin on board the POS station.

I checked my communications and heard news that my old

 When I woke up we'd be tethered between two completely different anchors, one guranteed safe, one that could be anything.