Commander Altsain has been flying the Beluga Queen of the Stars as a multirole Fuel Rat ship of late, doing odd jobs for Shadow President Winters while waiting for a Ratsignal to come in. However, while the Beluga performs admirably in this fashion (and has saved 11 commanders from a cold death already), it is somewhat lacking in the combat department. A new ship was needed, one that could fight when Ms. Winters was getting a bit pugnacious, but could drop out of battle in an instant to respond to a call.

A lot of thought went into what would be the right ship and, for some time, the Commander was considering the Alliance Chieftain. However, in the end, to get the right balance of fightability, speed and jump range, she went for an Orca.

Commander Altsain had heard of a famous ship from the the olden days called the Exxon Valdez. She did not actually know anything about that ship, but imagined it was a noble Fuel Rat, delivering fuel in a quick and efficient manner to those who most needed it.

The standard Orca is not well suited to Fuel Ratting, so the Commander immediately dispatched the ship to the Outfitters. There, after receiving a nice new orange paint job, the Power Plant, Thrusters, Frame Shift Drive and Power Distributor were all A-graded – the Exxon Valdez needed to jump as far as possible, boost as often as possible and fly as fast as possible (not least because it would need to disengage from combat quickly as soon as a Ratsignal came in).

After that, the interior was gutted and replaced with more suitable equipment – a 5B Fuel Scoop (to avoid the high cost of a 5A), a 5C Bi-Weave Shield Generator, Advanced Discovery Scanner (essential for a Fuel Rat!), Detailed Surface Scanner, 16 ton Cargo Rack (for plenty of limpets), a 3A Fuel Transfer Limpet Controller, and a Docking Computer because the Commander likes to relax after a rescue.

On the outside of the hull, two Shield Boosters were mounted alongside a Point Defence Turret (the Commander swears by those) and a Kill Warrant Scanner, intended for Haz Res work for when Ms. Winters has no need of the Commander’s services.

As usual, she went for a mixture on the weaponry, with two class 2 Multicannon and one class 3 Beam Laser to round things out.

The first cruise of the Exxon Valdez was, predictably, a tour of her favourite engineers. Along the way, the Frame Shift Drive was tuned and had a Mass Manager added, allowing the ship to leap 41 light years while fully laden, and the Thrusters were tinkered with by Felicity Farseer, boosting the Orca to more than 570 metres per second – disengaging from combat would never be an issue.

However, during these trips, the Commander did detect an issue – the fuel tank was not particularly massive and the fuel scoop was not refilling it fast enough to sustain multiple consecutive jumps, an important consideration for a Fuel Rat. After all, you don’t want your client waiting around in deep space while you stop to tank up at a convenient star.

So, back to the outfitters the Commander went, to upgrade the Fuel Scoop to a 5A (biting the bullet on the cost) and replacing the Detailed Surface Scanner (a luxury for a Fuel Rat anyway, the Advanced Discovery Scanner is far more important) with an 8 ton auxiliary fuel tank. That seemed to do the job, and the Exxon Valdez was still jumping a little over 40 light years, even with all that fuel sloshing about inside!

No sooner had the ship left the outfitters, a Ratsignal came in – and the Exxon Valdez was off, using its jump range (now greater than the Beluga’s) to beat another Fuel Rat to rescue a stranded Cutter!