Captain's Log: A Close Call
24 May 2021Pon Pon
Well, I've continued helping my sibling, Ritsy, get set up as a CMDR. Showing them the ropes, and all that, though they seem insistent on learning through doing.Sure, they can pilot a ship, but what makes the difference between a pilot and a commander is your ability to, well, command. Analyze a situation and figure out the best way to approach it, or maximizing the potential of your equipment. Knowing how things work, and how to make them work in your favour. I've been trying to teach them both through gentle guidance and leading by example, though I'm not our mother--if Ritsy wants to go off and take missions on their own, I'm not there to stop them. Nor will I care if they happen to get themselves arrested, or need the services of the Rescue Rangers. They're alive, and they've (hopefully) learned not to do whatever stupid shenanigan they were up to again.
Take today for example. I had my Clipper flown from the Pleiades cluster to the Latugara system thinking we could make that our home system before beginning some more dedicated operations in one of the big three. But when I got back from salvaging some in-system crash sites, I found they had taken my advice to look for power regulators in the completely wrong direction. Yeah, I'm certainly not innocent of theft, in fact I'm really of the opinion that in the salvage world everything is "finder's keeper's." In the merc group, dead people's possessions also adhered to that rule. But racking up over a million credits of bounty taking missions to reactivate settlements then turning around and selling the regulators? I'm not mad because it's stealing, I'm mad because it's stupid. Rack up your bounty in some other system! Needless to say, they were on the run after that, and I docked the Reisender II to follow along with my sibling in my Clipper, the SWS//Abstransport.
We eventually settled on flying to the Rainbanin system, since that was both relatively close to Latugara, but also had a starport. We needed something where I could land and my sibling could jump to with their limited FSD range, and Merchiston Enterprise ticked all those boxes. Well, yet again that stupid sibling of mine decided to go off and forget something critically important. Before we left, I asked "do you have enough fuel to get there?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine."
"Are you sure? We don't want another Fuel Rats incident like last time."
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Well guess what? Guess bloody what? Today I got to become a self-proclaimed honourary fuel rat, with my latest purchase, the SWS//Kraftstoffratte, a DBS set up for some long-distance fuel delivery. Landing at Merchiston Enterprise, I heard my sibling mentioning their lack of fuel over the comms.
"How much fuel do you have?"
"Well, none. I think I can still jump though... No, wait. I can only supercruise."
"Alright, give me a minute."
"What do we do now? Can you bring me fuel?"
"That's exactly what I'm doing."
I bloody well sprinted into the Inter Astra, and must have looked like a maniac. I had already pulled up the Fuel Rats' common ship spec sheet, so I knew basically what I wanted already:
"Hello ma'am, how can I--"
"Diamondbacks, do you have Lakon Diamondbacks? It's an emergency."
"Why yes ma'am, both variants."
"I'll take an explorer. Kit her with a fuel limpet controller, a cargo rack, the best fuel scoop, biggest FSD you can. And don't forget the limpet controller! Pronto!"
"Roger that, that will come to--"
"Just charge it, I have enough!"
To give credit where credit is due, the Inter Astra salesperson handled my frantic, panicked purchase admirably. Thank god my paperwork was in order, and they had a ship like that on hand already--might have even been secondhand from a former Fuel Rat given how specific the build is.
Without bothering to change the livery, I christened her in my head then launched. My sibling's life support had cut out, and they had nonchalantly mentioned that over the comms as their Remlok mask activated. By the time I had the ship ready to launch, they had two minutes left on their emergency life support. Detaching from the docking pad, I launched through the docking corridor at rather unsafe speeds--though, flight control had probably been informed of the situation given the lack of even a verbal reprimand that I got. I boosted, flipping my ship around to align with the jump vector and activating my frame shift drive using the new voice command module I installed.
"Charge frame shift drive."
"Frame shift drive charging..."
It felt painfully slow, especially given that I had no idea how far from the central star my sibling had gotten in their harebrained scheme to, on low fuel, supercruise 10ly to the nearest inhabited system. Fortunately, they were only 40ls from the star, and I quickly dropped in on their low wake. Frantically navigating the ship's systems panel, I added the fuel limpet controller to a fire group and just prayed that it behaved like I expected. Pulling the trigger on my flight stick, a limpet launched and began its vectoring towards my sibling's ship, quickly delivering the life-bringing fuel. And not a moment to soon:
"That was a close one! I had 27 seconds left!"
I could only shake my head as I watched a second fuel limpet catch up, and make the final fuel delivery. After that, CMDR Ritsy finally made it to Merchiston Enterprise without much issue. We took a supply mission, to source around 300 units of non-lethal weapons, so I could show them the ropes of trade while helping them make a last push to their goal of buying the T6. They promptly stripped their sidewinder of all non-essentials, replacing them with cargo racks, then asked me why they had no shields or docking computer as we landed in a station 15 ly away, but that's another story. Needless to say, I think I might be a bit spoilt by my long jump ranges, because I can't even remember the last time I struggled to make jumps in the bubble. Or maybe it's because I'm more careful than Ritsy that I've never run out of fuel before.
Well, once they get their T6 I'm letting go of their hand. I need to get back to focusing on my own goals: Saving for the T9, raising my rank in the Imperial Navy Auxillary for the Cutter, and a whole host of other unrelated things like reading the guidebook for Colonia I bought recently.