16/1/3307: Unexpected Savior
17 Jan 2021Pariah Devalis
Let it not be said this trip has been uneventful.Pre-travel checklists have been completed. Secondary tritium stores have been shifted to the Cold Crescent for on the go refueling of the Fractured Abyss. Everything was set and good to go for the departure at 1700. Then I got an alert. Pilot distress. Another pilot distress.
To recap, on the way up to Rackham's, I was alerted to a stranded pilot at HD 102000, alongside a derelict fleet carrier of unknown designation, simply flying an SOS but long abandoned. Following that, three jumps farther up towards the Peak, I came across FC1 Colonia One way out of its typical route with an insufficient amount of fuel to get home or to Rackham's Peak, stuck in between two destinations. I am still both troubled and confounded as to why she was there, and the radio silence from her tower was especially worrying. As such, I had transferred over 400 tons of tritium to allow her safe passage back home when added to her depleted reserves. The rest of the way to Rackham went without a hitch and, in fact, was completed sooner than anticipated.
Flash forward to tonight. An alert by the Fuel Rats that a pilot was stranded. They were requesting assistance from non-Rats to respond. Evidently the pilot fell asleep on a carrier, and awoke in the middle of nowhere in a Beluga with only 25 light years of jump range. Considering the next nearest system was over 350 light years away, they were slightly out of their depth. The system name rang a bell, so I looked it up. Sure enough, the system was on my flight path. No need to deviate, within fuel consumption tolerances, and was just one jump away from where I had rescued the other pilot at HD 102000. What were the odds?
So, it seems, the Fractured Abyss is very quickly becoming a rescue ship. As it is, she isn't even two weeks out of the assembly yard, and she's exceeded her number of weeks in rescues already. This was not what I expected, though it isn't unwelcomed. I had not realized there were so many lost in the black who needed a helping hand, and the fleet carrier is the ideal platform to extend one. It's nice giving back to the galaxy.