Fiction Friday: Old Times 2.2

Sorry for the lack of updates on this storyline, real life work has been crazy but its starting to recover now. Enjoy!

Previously:
0.1
1.0
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
2.0

2.1
* * * * * 

I checked the intel channels again. I was feeling extra paranoid as it had been over a year since I had been near null sec space, much less in it. All was quiet except a roaming Rote Kapelle gang over 30 jumps away. I landed at the gate and jumped.

My heart jumped into my throat as the overview resolved and I found myself in a bubble. The overview finished pinging the gate and showed me about 20 ships in the local vicinity and happily displayed them as "good standing" according to my corporate and alliance database searches. 

But I held cloak.

There an eclectic group of ships on display. A couple battleships with short ranged weapons and a few battlecruisers a few thousand meters farther out with drones orbiting. A handful of cruisers to one side where the edge of the bubble intersected a straight line from this gate to the next one in this pipeline system. A Loki hovering about 150 kilometers on the z-axis. About three interceptors zipping around in laxy orbits around the gate. And most terrifyingly a Gallente Lachesis recon cruiser idling only 5 km off my port bow.

All with the Obsidian Sword alliance ticker.

There was no friendly acks in the local channels. The bubble was a large anchored version and the nearest edge was over 20 km away from me. Sure, I was blue to them but it would not be the first time that they had an "overview malfunction" to kill a lone unimportant friendly. And my expensive faction frigate would be a tempting target I suspected.

My gate cloak was almost over. I followed my intuition and started to approach the gate I had just jumped through, punching my microwarpdrive to full overheated throttle. It was 15 km away but even if I was scrammed I could jump through and make a run for it on the other side. 

No one did anything and I breathed a sigh of relief. I put an ack in local to act like I was just roaming around and jumped through the gate, not stopping to plot a new course to the station until I was safely away in warp.