That's part of being 0.0. We have friends, and we also have enemies. And we're the guys running around it easy to pop ships, so you have got to be vigilant of the local channel and check everyone for IRON/G friendly.
We got real damn lucky on the trip up, and being off-peak was a big help. Always use your map to check the route for kills/ships/jumps in the last hour. If you see alot of jumps, but no kills, it's probably safe.