Of late, Commander Altsain has settled into a nice little rhythm. Her efforts have been concentrated around the HR 4720 area, aiding socially responsible corporations with the Beluga-class Queen of the Stars in resisting the attentions of the Empire, with a view to bringing their systems into the fold of Shadow President Felicia Winters in the near future.

This involves running data courier missions, taking small haulage contracts (the Queen of the Stars only has a 64 ton cargo bay), and ferrying passengers around.

However, on the side, Commander Altsain is also moonlighting as a Fuel Rat.

This is the perfect set up, as far as the commander is concerned. On the one hand, she is furthering the goals of Ms. Winters (and making a little money on the side), but is able to divert her course at the drop of a hat to make a rescue run.

And this is exactly what happened last weekend.

* Names of the Commanders involved have been withheld *

While running these missions, Commander Altsain always has the Fuel Rats comms channels running on an auxiliary display (sometimes with a vid show from the 20th or 21st Centuries, a favoured past time of the commander). When a Ratsignal goes out (the emergency call signalling a commander is in trouble), she immediately stops what she is doing – tricky if the Queen of the Stars is making a planetary landing at the time – to see whether the stranded ship is within range and if other Fuel Rats are closer.

Just such a Ratsignal went out for the UNS Transport, a Hauler that had run out of fuel a couple of hundred light years trailing of the Bubble (anti-clockwise around the galaxy, along the Orion Spur). With no other Fuel Rats close by, the commander made an announcement to her passengers that their sightseeing tour would be interrupted by a rescue mission, and then the Queen of the Stars jumped into Witchspace to track the errant ship down.

Firing constant updates to the Fuel Rats dispatcher while closing in on the UNS Transport’s last known location, the Hauler was quickly located dead in space around a brown dwarf (a common location for stranded ships, as brown dwarfs are not scoopable).

Dropping from supercruise onto the UNS Transport’s wing beacon, the commander immediately fired off two fuel limpets and then contacted the Hauler’s pilot to see what had caused the problem. She quickly ascertained that the UNS Transport was bound for Soontil – which lay in completely the opposite direction to which the ship had been travelling until it ran out of fuel. It was also not equipped with a fuel scoop.

Sensing a deeper issue, Commander Altsain initiated voice contact with the Hauler’s pilot and, filling its tank to the brim (never a hassle, the Beluga has a 128 ton fuel tank of its own) gave instructions on how to use the Galmap navicom. Satisfied that the Hauler would now be safe, she watched it restart its systems and high wake back to the Bubble.

With a job well done, it was just a few jumps back for the Queen of the Stars herself to continue her sightseeing tour. As the passengers disembarked in the Sala system, the commander handed them a few pamphlets that explained exactly why they should vote for Felicia Winters in any forthcoming elections.

It was not long before another Ratsignal came in, this time for a Type-9 Heavy called the Big Pack. This was some distance away, out towards the Pleiades, but no other Fuel Rats were close by so the commander volunteered for the job. After travelling the best part of 500-odd light years, the Queen of the Stars dropped into a few issues…

The Big Pack was close to a brown dwarf (natch) and was almost completely dry of fuel – and as anyone who has piloted a Type-9 knows, those ships need a lot of fuel to make even a medium-sized jump. The first problem was that Commander Altsain was running low on limpets – she had synthesised some but was now also out of Nickel and could not make more.

Six tons of fuel were transferred, but that was no way near enough to get the Type-9 moving. The commander spoke to the pilot of the Big Pack and tried to help him find a suitable station to refuel, but there were none that could be reached with just six tons of fuel. So, she made her excuses and then located a station herself so the Queen of the Stars could load up on limpets. A lot more limpets.

Five minutes later, the Queen of the Stars jumped back to Big Pack, and fired more fuel limpets off to transfer another ten tons of fuel – enough for the Type-9 to make the jumps it needed to get back to civilisation.

The commander had a quick chat to the pilot of the Big Pack to make sure he would not get stranded again. Apparently he had removed his fuel scoop and forgotten about it (could happen to anyone) and was already knowledgeable about scooping stars – she had already kind of figured that, as it is hard to get to a Type-9 without learning about long-ranged travel.

That done, the Queen of the Stars bade the Big Pack the best of luck and jumped to carry her passengers (who had had a 1,000 light year detour from their intended schedule) back to Federation space.

The Fuel Rats comms channels continue to be monitored…