Fumes
19 Apr 2016TheDarkLord
Location Unknown. Fer-de-Lance “TDL PhotonFlinger”.February 3302.
The patch of brown dwarf stars seemed interminable as I travelled to the target area of my sortie. I called up the Galaxy Map. My path through space showed three more jumps, then I would run out of fuel. But that last jump was into a system with an Orange Giant star, so I could gather fuel off it.
I continued along my route, feeling reasonably upbeat. The mission I was on was a good one. Was going to make a real difference. It was also a difficult mission, but now I was a Squadron Leader in The 9th Legion, I could no longer shy away from the difficult missions.
I jumped into my refuelling system with slightly over 0.6 tonnes of fuel in the tank. However, the scene that greeted me was an unmitigated disaster. Where I expected to see the warm welcoming glow of that Orange Giant, there was a tiny ball of fury. A White Dwarf star, which would give me no fuel at all.
Was I stranded?
I rechecked the Galaxy Map. It was adamant that there was a scoopable star in this system. I re-checked my fuel, and rechecked the Map.
0.6 tonnes of fuel. Not enough to get jump to anywhere scoopable. My fuel burn rate was 2.2 tonnes per hour. A quick calculation, and I knew that I had approximately 16 minutes remaining. Plus 25 minutes of life support. Was my life expectancy now less than one hour?
I fired off the Advanced Discovery Scanner. Only one other body in the system. Another star. An ORANGE GIANT!!! The Galaxy Map had been right. But it was half a million light seconds away.
I ran through the calculation in my head. I reckoned that 500,000 Ls was a 30 minute supercruise. Did I have fourteen additional minutes in the reserve fuel tank? If I went for it, and ran out of fuel en route to the Orange Giant, I’d potentially be very difficult for a Fuel Rat to locate. Should I just call the Fuel Rats right away?
What if I ran out and self-destructed the ship? It would be expensive, but not the end of the universe.
I pushed the throttles all the way forward and set course for that beacon of fuelling bliss. I had nothing to do for the next thirty or so minutes except look at my burn rate, and watch the fuel drain from PhotonFlinger’s tiny tanks. The time to reach the star kept falling as the supercruise drive warped space over the ship ever faster. But it looked hopeless. As we accelerated, the time remaining to reach the star started to decrease. Still showing way over 35 minutes, and although that time was still decreasing fast, so it would increase again as we slowed on approach.
0.4 tonnes. 11 minutes remaining. Now 32 minutes to go. The situation looked bleak, but I refused to believe that it was the end.
2.21 tonnes per hour.
The figure burned itself into my consciousness, and an idea formed. What if I could reduce that burn rate?
I was alone in this system. I could turn some of my systems off, direct everything to the engines. I opened the modules panel, deactivated the weapons, shields and shield boosters. The fuel scoop that would soon save me was switched off. I left sensors and life support on for now. I’m not sure how much of a burn rate reduction I was expecting, but I felt pleased with the effect that my power-saving had had.
1.53 tonnes per hour. 0.3 tonnes remaining. 12 minutes of fuel. Plus whatever was in the reserve tank. 11 minutes to the star, plus whatever slowdown time there was.
My supercruise speed peaked at 716c. Although we were in an almost total vacuum, I liked to imagine air passing smoothly over PhotonFlinger’s sleek flanks, its large engines pushing us onward like the last-ditch attempt of an exhausted horse to get its rider home. But PhotonFlinger was not immune to the gravitational interplay of the stars in this system, and although the throttles rested against the stops as they had over the last 18 minutes, our speed began its decline as we approached the Orange Giant.
“Main Fuel Tank drained,” announced the ship’s computer. I estimated that we had around 8 minutes of fuel in the reserve tank. Although our time to target was showing as 3 minutes, it was climbing inexorably as we slowed.
The Advanced Discovery Scanner ran a Level 2 surface scan on the second star as we approached, confirming this to be a K class star, from which I could gather fuel. I was literally going to live or die based on momentum and the fumes remaining in the tank.
As I approached, there were a number of distress calls around me. I assumed that this was from people whose calculations on fuel had proven to be as wrong as I was hoping mine were right. It looked as if I was going to make it. I estimated 3 minutes of fuel remaining, and 90 seconds to the star.
Sixty seconds. I kept the throttles pinned. Trusted the star gravity to pull me towards it and prevent an overshoot.
30 seconds to the star. Fuel scoop powered up and back online. I feathered the throttle and guided PhotonFlinger’s nose to graze the star corona.
And then the words I had longed to hear from the ship’s computer, those for which I was holding my breath:
“Fuel Scooping.”
Gorgeous hot plasma poured into the scoop, and thence into PhotonFlinger’s tanks. The tension of the previous thirty minutes drained away in a sudden rush. After reactivating my weapons and shields, I slumped back in my chair. Warm. Alive. No longer stranded. But something was driving me onward, preventing me from feeling too deeply about my brush with a cold isolated death. I re-plotted my course to destination as the computer announced that the fuel scooping was complete.
My mind turned to those less fortunate than me. Lacking any cargo racks, I couldn’t help the pilots who were in distress, even if they were still alive. I signalled the Pilots’ Federation about the distress calls, and high-waked out of the system.