Fuel Rats under attack
28 Oct 2018Thunktone
3304 October 28, SundayFuelum
12:13
I heard about this war yesterday from the ARC leadership. The dictator behind the Constitution Party of Fuelum is making a bid to take the system from The Fuel Rats Mischief, and some of the galaxy's more disruptive elements have rallied around them.
We've been tied up with the elections in Tionisla, making ourselves extra useful as part of the campaign. But the polls suggest that things are going our way, so this morning a few of us headed out to help the Fuel Rats. I got there a little early and started scouting out the battles taking place. There are two other wars in the same system making it hard to find the right fleets. The only faction not at war here is a democratic Federal group called New Fuelum Future. They are making huge profits right now, presumably providing services to all sides, in all the wars. My own sense of "mischief" is telling me to send for my Type-9 and run haulage missions for them, give peace a chance.
In one of the battles I investigated, the Empire had sent the INV Duval's Might to help Ngalkin Emperor's Grace against Fuelum Crew. I have never seen a Majestic Class Interdictor in action before so I stuck around to watch. Then, after checking my bank balance, I decided to take a pop at it myself. I knew the theory, a ship that big needs special heat relays to cool it. Knock those out and it would be forced to retreat. I never expected it to be so easy though.
The only weapons it targetted my Viper with were the interceptor guns. These weren't as powerful as you might expect and I was able to knock them out with my plasma accelerators one at a time before destroying nearby heat relays. The local fleet wasn't anywhere near powerful enough to provide proper fighter support for a capital ship. The brief presence of the Majestic was probably a political move, someone trying to curry favour from a patron within the Empire. Or maybe they thought the Fuel Rat War would be enough of a distraction to let them mop up a few anarchists and claim a heroic victory. That could easily have worked if it had been easier for me to find the war I was looking for.
After that little adventure I docked to refuel and ask for directions. A low intensity battle close to the third planet turned out to be teeming with independent pilots. The official navies were outnumbered. I had some fun attacking what was left of the dictator's toy navy but I was only credited with one kill. I know I damaged a dozen or so and I'm pretty sure I finished a few,but never mind, I'm not here for the money. A heavily engineered Cutter jumped in and started making a nuisance of itself so we ganged up on it quite heavily. Even so it took a while to finish it off. CMDR Gagantua's powerful shields were coupled with what must have been huge cell banks to keep them up. I can't even begin to express how much I hate shield cell banks.
By the time we'd taken out that Cutter two other pilots from ARC were in system and I overheard someone talking about a larger battle raging around the seventh planet. So we formed a wing and got stuck in. This time it was just us and the navies so we were able to tip the balance very effectively. When the others were ready to reload we took a break from the battle. I didn't really need to reload since I fitted an extra fuel tank for my plasma accelerators, but we wanted to search for some good missions form the different liaisons. The best wing missions are being snapped up eagerly but we were each able to get a mission of our own.
Maybe I wasn't ambitious enough with my mission selection. I was trying to build a little local reputation so they'd let me take on something meatier but I haven't quite made the grade yet. I flew about two and a half hours this morning, I'll need a bit of R&R before I head out again. It doesn't look too good for the fuel rats, but I bet they could at least take the system back when all the hoodlums get bored.