So much for “Trusted Mercenaries” (which ought to be classified as an oxymoron to start with).
I contacted the diplomat for one of the older, major mercenary alliances about clearing out some abusive Customs Offices in a system I’d planted my corp in and was convinced by this fellow that I shouldn’t take that approach.
Instead, I should move my corp into space his alliance controlled and pay a 5% tribute in the form of 5% of the ore we harvested (not a bad deal if it got me access to lowsec space with reasonable protections).
I agreed and packed all my stuff up and moved it to a staging system a few jumps away from where I’d decided to place my new HQ.
I bought the upwell structure I wanted and the service, defense, and engineering modules I wanted as well a a two month supply of fuel and packed it off to the staging base, deep in lowsec.
In preparation to actually firing up the structure, I contacted the diplomat character again and attempted to negotiate a one-day-on-my-schedule patrol/guard service to cover the vulnerability windows that happen prior to being able to fit and fuel the station.
That negotiation bogged down for reasons I never quite understood but I went ahead anyway.
Got the station in place without a hitch.
Following day attempting to bring the modules and the fuel over, I got hit in an 0.4 system between my staging base and the new home system by an unrelated alliance and the ship carrying it was destroyed.
The salvage/loot, however was quite large (4000 m3 modules and one 30k+ m3 module) so I waited a bit and went back in with a reasonably well-equipped Badger to grab what I could.
This time a ship from the mercenary alliance I’d agreed to pay tribute to was part of the attack itself.
Seems very much like the whole scenario was a setup to get that result.
There’s not much point in “looting” a station, but the service modules and particularly the fuel are valuable enough and fungible enough to (apparently) exchange for one’s honor.
I told no one in my corporation my schedule. Literally the only person I told was the mercenary diplomat I’d been in contact with.
I just want you folks to understand that it only takes one bad actor to paint the lot of you as scammers and thieves.
Enjoy your day.