Every day, Shadow President Felicia Winters hands every member of the Federal Liberal Command a set of objectives which, if met, will further her Grand Master Plan. These might range from delivering super secret data packages to accomplices in neighbouring systems, ferrying important passengers around, or engaging in full blown wars as her favoured corporations launch, umm, aggressive takeovers.

Commander Altsain is more than happy to engage in these duties as while they may not be as flashy as taking over a whole new star system in the name of the Federation, they can be fairly relaxing and allow her to intersperse her Fuel Ratting duties with something equally useful.

Of late, there has been a lot of activity on the Federation/Imperial border, what with clashes over the Ostyat and HR 4720 systems, and no doubt the commander will get involved in those disputes soon enough but, while other commanders battled, she had her eyes on systems that were being left by the wayside. One of these was Sala, a backwater close to the major control system Bulkuylkana.

Sala had been more or less run by the Workers of Sala Future, a Federation democratic movement – but that was no longer Ms. Winters’ policy. Instead, a corporation known as Sala Comms Limited had promised (there was a pinky swear and everything) to enact major social reforms through their capitalist programmes if the Federal Liberal Command could just give them a bit of a hand.

Seeing no other commanders taking the lead in Sala, Commander Altsain launched her Beluga liner, the Queen of the Stars, and jumped in system.

She spent several days in the Salan region, only leaving when a Ratsignal came in to rescue the odd stranded ship. During this time, she toured many of the neighbouring worlds, delivering valuable supplies (apparently Sala Comms Limited had a serious need of clothing before they could advance their position in the system) and hand-delivering important reports, often under the guise of sightseeing tours – a pretence that was easy to pull off, given the commander’s links to Cosmic Flipper Spaceways in Rhea.

This was an enjoyable time, as she got to see many new worlds she might not otherwise have visited, but the directors of Sala Comms Limited were carefully watching and waiting, judging when the right time to strike would be. Within just a few days of the commander joining their efforts, they felt confident to go ahead – and so the Salan Civil War began.

Ships loyal to both sides began skirmishing around the planets of the Salan system, and soon pitched battles were raging everywhere. Commander Altsain withdrew briefly to take the Queen of the Stars back to Shinrarta Dezhra were it was stored in its hangar, and returned with the Winters Frost, a battle ready Anaconda.

Its three large beam lasers soon had the ships of the Workers of Sala Future on the run. However, they rallied quickly and soon showed the commander several gaping flaws in the design of the Winters Frost, issues she resolved to fix as soon as the war was over (shields were far too weak and it lacked module reinforcement). For this conflict, however, she started making hit and run attacks, dropping out of supercruise directly into the heart of a battle, destroying half a dozen ships, and then flying back to the Evans Ring station before a response could be properly mounted.

Over the first two days of the civil war, Sala Comms Limited made steady progress, and the future of the Workers of Sala Future began to look decidedly shaky. As the end of the war came into sight, the commander briefly returned to Shinrarta Dezhra once again to pick up a new ship – one that would demonstrate that she was simply not mucking about.

The Kompensator had arrived!

Comms channels were flooded with the cries of pilots from the Workers of Sala Future (‘they’ve brought a warship!’), and the final resistance to the inevitable victory of Sala Comms Limited buckled and broke. With many of its commanders fleeing the system, the power of the Workers of Sala Future had been smashed and now Sala Comms Limited was ascendant, strengthening Felicia Winters’ hold on both Sala and the control system of Bulkuylkana.

Commander Altsain has not received her medal for winning this war as the only independent commander present, but she is sure it is on its way to her.