My captain, Sarah 'Gin' Tonic was out flying an ultra-light scouting fleet in the far reaches of the Pisces constellation, past the clusters of the Basculae and Gray Ghost Nebula, as far as any human willed to go. The plan was to scout out more of the unknown sections of the map, looking for the elusive warning beacons that told of great spoils and riches within, upon the wrecks of the whispered Remnant.While the primary concern was looking for said warning beacons, given my large heart, i was also breaking up the monotony by taking up distress beacons events; giving fuel to stranded fleets.Most of those events ended with a happy ending, saving a few people and their misplanned journey, while the others had me dodging filthy pirate ambushes. Nothing this weathered captain hasn't seen before.It was all going fine until i got to Epsilon Piscum. Headed in following a distress call and found it was a system full of Domain relics, ancient probes and forgotten stations, all filled with great loot. I should have been thinking about where were the souls i was meant to save, but upon finding no-one at the jump point, i shrugged and went on my way looting and salvaging. Didn't take long and i had everything in my cargo hold and ready to sail off back home. I was literally a few inches from the sweet safety of the jump point when in a moment of too much time Shifting, a wild fleet of pirates approached me and decided they wanted to ask how i was doing... with lasers and machine guns.I almost reloaded the game then and there but said, 'you know what, let's give it a shot'. My fleet was comprised of a Safety-Override modded Lasher frigate with twin extended missile rack anti-shield Sabot missiles and three Light Assault Guns, for taking out mostly unarmored Domain drones, a Phaeton tanker for fuel and a Collossus Mk.2 cargoship for everything else that was needed.I disengaged the pirates and a pursuit commenced, all three enemy fleets on my tail. The Phaeton was lightly armed, same for the Collosus, guns more for show than anything else and Injector hull mods for speed. The Phaeton especially, given i wasn't expecting trouble, only had the one gun facing forward. It wasn't hoped that it'd do anything.My Lasher went ahead and did close air (space?) support, destroying enemy frigates that got too close with blissful accelerated ammofeeder-powered triple LAGs and sucking in fire on the shield from the bigger enemy ships like destroyers. I spammed the Sabots on a Sunder destroyer and got an easy kill, alongside a Buffalo Mk2 cargo/support ship to boot. However, only now did i realise how slow the Collosus was and had to do a bit of fancy flying to keep it safe, pulling back from my aggressive ops. The Pheaton took a few shots from the enemy frigates deployed to the flank but it ended up retreating fine. Whew.I was then thrown back to the overmap upon the successful retreat, plotting my course out of the problematic elements. Unpaused... and i got attacked again. Apparently, the immunity you get after combat with a fleet, to not get re-engaged, doesn't apply to the assistants/allies of said fleet. So here i was, not 200 milliseconds later, pursued by the same guys. With allies yet again.However, this time, things just spawned closer and got more CQB than i'd have liked. I had killed a few frigates, but i was doing double time taking hits on the shield, safeguarding the Collosus' aft. I also killed a Buffalo Mk2 going full speed, which had its wrecked corpse gently floating alongside my Collosus for almost the entire journey out of the combat area. However, as my attention was split to the Collosus i failed to see the Phaeton was meeting a Wolf and a Lasher that jumped in from the side sooner than i anticipated. I was there just a bit too late and the Phaeton, and all of my 700 fuel, exploded right then and there. I punished the aggressors and before you knew it i was back pushing away the final attacks on the Collosus' now almost at quarter health hull.I managed to retreat and this time, there were no more fleets ahead of me. I got away and found a deadspace to relax and take stock of the situation. Gauges were hitting zero fuel, navcomputers put me roughly as far as i could go from my home base, Hybrasil, and still be on the map and i was stuck in a system with a pack of deadly pirate fleets. However, i had a full stock of hundres of supplies capable of keeping me battle ready for a very long time... I messaged the pirates:Unsurprisingly, they didn't take the offer. Their problem.I cracked my knuckles and opened up refitting. I didn't have many options, pure LAG's won't do and i needed shield busting capability past just the limited number Sabots i had to draw on per engagement. Luckily i haphazardly, more for amusement than efficiency, put a strong anti-shield weapon, a Light Needler, on my Collossus; not that it did it much good in the previous chases. I saw it removed and slapped it on the Lasher's frontal mount, clicking in with a nice 'whirr'. That was better. As soon as i got repaired i began tracing my steps back to the enemy fleets, passing by the debris field left from my Phaeton on the way hoping to find some stray fuel of my huge cache, but barely scraping 15 units. Didn't matter. I knew exactly where to get more fuel.I got in range and saw the enemy fleets, slowly beginning to pull them apart until one of the smaller fleets peeled off. Given this new version of the game boosted me to the Destroyer class pretty quickly, i had gotten a bit rusty flying ridiculous-speed strike frigates, but i had a whole of twenty seconds before first contact to remember. I weaved and bobbed between enemies at break-neck speeds, closing in for kills at under 400su's with LAGs then darting back out. Made quick work of various Lashers and Cerberus frigates. I kept the Sabots loaded and the chambers cool for the fearsome Hammerhead Destroyer. Took a bit to get it singled out and the 'chaff' eliminated from sight but when that happened, six volleys of Sabots and an accelerated feed of LAG and Needler fire broke it. The summary had me at 20 something fuel, with a bit more gotten off the salvaging. In a bit of luck, i managed to recover a damaged Wolf from the fight, with a singular Annihilator Pod and three damaged mods. Had a few guns looted, but nothing that fit it sadly.It'll have to do. The hunted has become the hunter.Repaired and rearmed, and went ahead and angled to engage the other smaller fleet. Sadly, it wasn't going away, choosing to stick to the large one. Eventually i got too flighty with my movement and got caught, but it was fine all the same.What followed was a sequence of two separate engagements, attacking, destroying what i can, then retreating. Frigates fell, Buffalos, Sunders especially quickly due to their poor armor once overloaded with my Wolf dying as well, no doubt honorably; i couldn't tell from the haze of speed and overloaded shields. After the second engagement, seeing their fleets crushed before me, no frigates remaining, they retreated what they could to lick their wounds, namely the Hammerhead and the Falcon. I came out of it with a Kite, a light frigate, with a single torpedo launcher upon which i strapped an Autocannon to, and a Cerberus which i quite literally put on everything else i had managed to loot.But it was time for the final fight. Repaired combat readiness and double checked fits, and went unto the breach yet again, this time facing the strong Hammerhead and Falcon combo on their own.Having more targets to shoot at, the enemies happily exposed their backsides at the sanic Lasher, but it wasn't an easy fight, my two scrapyard challenge ships dying not too long in the engagement. However by that time, we've managed to drop the Hammerhead, and the Falcon was exactly in my sights when the Cerberus exploded. But the damage was done, the Sabots were in flight, and an overloaded Falcon crumbled helplessly under my barrage.As the battle cooled off, i cleaned house and took stock of the combat summary.The only ship recoverable, amusingly, was the Kite, now with max number of damaged mods. More importantly, after salvaging and checking the debris field, i had around 127 fuel. What did 127 fuel get me?An almost cushy ride to the closest Haegemony world that can supply me with fuel. That was enough. It would see me docked at Yama in the Naraka system in a matter of days with a petty 18 fuel to spare.As i left the soon-to-be-forgotten battlefield of Epsilon Piscum behind me, i couldn't help but smile. This wasn't a child's smile, large and innocent, nor a soft one of a wife caressing her husband's head as he slept. This was the smile of a crab fisherman returning to dock with a load full of King Crabs, after days of being at sea, rough and beaten, tired and afraid.It was a smile of smug victory.