Commander Altsain has heard stories of Fuel Rats going far, far out into the void, way beyond the reaches of civilisation, to rescue stranded commanders thousands of light years away. She has always wanted to do a long-ranged rescue herself and, recently, she got the chance.

Brave Commander Trickylionheart put in a request for rescue to the Fuel Rats, and Commander Altsain was present when the Ratsignal went live. It listed his distance from Sol, which the commander initially mis-read as a little over 100 light years. She only realised her mistake when she plugged in the co-ordinates to the navicomp and saw it was closer to 11,000 light years…

One long-ranged rescue coming up!

The commander had always planned to use her Diamondback Explorer, the Fuel Rat Jenny, when a long-range rescue came in but, after considering the jump distance, she decided to instead fly back to Shinrarta and pick up the Cosmos, her light year-crushing Exploraconda, recently refitted with a Guardian FSD Booster.

By this time, Dispatch had been talking to Commander Trickylionheart and discovered that it was not fuel he was low on, but hull integrity. His Asp Explorer, the Raspy, had received a few knocks, and was down to 19% hull. He had decided to stop his exploration and give the Fuel Rats a call, which was damn smart of him – after all, you can call the Fuel Rats when your fuel tank is at 0%, but that is altogether a lot trickier with 0% hull…

Commander Altsain quickly replaced the Cosmos’ AFMU with a Repair Limpet Controller, and also took the opportunity to remove the SRV and fighter hangars to give the ship a bit more range – it was now capable of 75 light year jumps, which would get her to the stranded Asp that much quicker.

Before setting out, she gave Commander Trickylionheart an ETA for her arrival, allowing him to go into stasis but be awoken just in time to bring his ship’s systems back online and ready to be repaired. With that done, the commander could begin her journey out of the Bubble.

This was a long trip, and one that had to be done without breaks, but Commander Altsain was prepared. She activated the Cosmos’ onboard entertainment systems for the voyage, and caught up on an old 21st Century vid show she had discovered, The Expanse (she thinks it is funny what writers thought the future would look like back then…).

Overall, the journey out to the rescue point took a little over two and a half hours, and she arrived on station just shy of two minutes earlier than her predicted ETA – not bad for an 11,000 light year voyage!

Commander Trickylionheart had already roused himself from stasis and his Asp Explorer soon appeared on the Cosmos’ sensors. After a dash of just a thousand-odd light seconds, the Cosmos quickly dropped in on his position, and Commander Altsain dispatched repair limpets.

Another successful rescue!

As the limpets did their work, the two commanders started chatting. It turned out that Commander Trickylionheart had been conducting a survey for uncharted Guardian sites – and had been quite successful, having found three brand new (well, undiscovered) ones in neighbouring systems. His ship had sustained damage while investigating ruins on the dark side of planets.

With the Raspy all repaired, Commander Altsain saluted the Asp and wished its commander luck. She then plotted a course for a nice, relaxing journey back to civilisation…