The journey back through the north west passage was an arduous one. I was repeatedly getting anomalous outputs from the Star Path Navigation System Hub, and at the time, it did not dawn on me that I was using an older version of the Neutron Router. Although the N.R version was adequate enough to get me into the region of Kepler’s crest, getting out was a different matter. It was probable that not providing the hub with navigational updates and repair schedules, or lack thereof, on the trip in, and the cruising of whole sectors without proper plotted courses logged, were the cause of the irregularities. That however, only occurred to me, when attempting to chart my way back going through the Eoch Phio sector. The plotted route was the straightest run to NGC 1981 Sector ZU-Y d27; which, by the ongoing relayed Fleetcomm transmissions continuing from the TTV Somdy, had now become the launch point for the upcoming expedition. The required FSD injections to make the necessary jump distances along that path, would have left me lost in space for sure without any way to keep the Ofo Olori 2’s power plant going. It was therefore necessary to switch over to the Galaxy plotter, more reliable than the N.R., and found to reduce planned jumps. It can certainly be more exact than the official navigation plotter built into the Asp. Lesson learned, never roam through vast areas of the black without inputting updates into SPANSH, especially if you are way beyond the red line for a galactic tow.

After forty-eight months heading out toward and exploring the vast expanse of KEPLER'S CREST in search of undiscovered planetary systems, stellar phenomena, landable bodies that teemed with life, and the queerest geological outcroppings with gushing geezers, I had decided it was time for my scientific mission to come to an end.

I sat in the cockpit of my Lakon Spaceways Asp Explorer, Ofo Olori 2, with a hot brew of Knightsbridge tea; no sugar, no milk, and the tea bag left in for good measure. I had been thinking about the return from my deep space exploratory mission for the last eighteen-months, but the effort getting into the southern 3rd quarter of the galactic region had required extensive planning, and so to simply up and leave would have filled me with some regret. I mean, the potential of lost opportunities was ever present in mind.

According to the onboard A.I., with the expanse of void, or to be more accurate, the distances from one system to the next, as there is more to the void than void; outstripped the capabilities of the average frameshift drive. Getting to this section required the traversal of the 'North west region' bordering the Formadine Rift, Elysian Shore, and Sanguineous Rim (as found and explained in the Wiki Fandom).

However, following its refit from approximately thirty light year jumps to over sixty, the Ofo-Olori 2 had proven itself a capable enough vessel. After all, with the assistance of the Distance World 2 expedition of 3305, it made the journey to Colonia, Anchorage, Beagle Point, and an eventual return to the Bubble on the former drive.

So, the mission, though with intent to end it on one hand, was regularly extended. Perhaps there was also the desire to stay ‘lost in space’ so to speak. Exploration of the void can be done alone, and riding in that SRV on the numerous landable planets is an amazing experience. That being said, exploration of the void can also be a lonely affair; and occasionally, just occasionally, the desire to touch the ground with your bare hands is overwhelming. It’s worth keeping in mind, if that urge persists, you might end up with frost bite on your fingertips should you remove your suit gloves. There’s an equal chance that your head will be sprayed across the vista, after explosive decompression; just a thought.

As I made headway here and there, and looping back as some jumps were simply not navigable for the frameshift. Ship systems began picking up scattered transmissions. Scattered, partly due to the massive blue white star I had accidently crashed into while fuel scooping; and partly, because ship systems were in a state of degradation. After re-servicing the (Hotas-Wannabe) steering couplings and patching the PXN driver, I was able to safely get away from that monster and jump out of the system.

Some thirty-six months earlier I had reached Lyed YJ-I d9-0. This planetary system contained the DSSA TTV Somdy [PZQ-24Q] #41.04.001, part of the Deep Space Support Array, which at that time I used as a place for much needed repairs, as well as rest & relaxation. That consisted of standing in the bar talking to NPCs. They are quite repetitive in their conversational scripting, but needs must, and talking to dummies was better than becoming one.

Back to the present day; it transpired that upon telemetric transliterations undertaken by the ship’s computer at my behest, it was shown that the transmissions were coming from the TTV Somdy. It was acting as a re-transmitting relay, boosting a signal coming from somewhere within the thousands of clustered stars, known to a fractured humanity as our home. I was unaware of which system in the Bubble the message originated, but the message of Kamzel, & co was clear enough. Fleetcomm had made the call to all commanders, ‘It’s time for Distant Worlds 3’.

Given my ever-increasing belief that I had been observing unexplainable transient lights in the night sky that my ship scanners could not identify, and hearing whispered voices coming from the bulkheads of the ship, it seemed clearly opaque to me, that I may have stepped to far into the grip of the psychosis gremlins, and that it was time to seek my own kind once again. At least the need to subdue, capture, catalogue, control, go to war with, take over, and destroy things under the auspices of scientific research, progress, and wrangler jeans, would place my ensuing paranoid psychological madness back into the realms of “Normal” human behaviour. Yes! it was certainly time for me to rejoin the fleet, at least for the period of the next Distant Worlds expedition. And anyway, by the look of the Ofo Olori 2, it was clearly in need of drydock for some much needed repairs and a retrofit. As for me, with the speed at which I was supping the hot stuff, I would be needing a few hundred pallets of Knightsbridge tea pretty soon.

An ode to the Fuel Rats, They have done so well.

They have saved my ass, yet again.

Distracted was I, from the cockpit too long, Cause a casual caller came along.

Upon my return to the joys of Elite, Iku my beloved vulture cawed “EMERGENCY! RETREAT!”

“Retreat?” said I with a frown on my brow, “Why such a thing? You greedy Ol Cow?”

Iku my beloved cawed, “Don’t call me a cow you silly fool, see that gauge, we’re low on fuel”.

“WHAT THE DAMN HELL!” I screamed and hollered, “Turn the ship around, head to Atkov then”.

We rushed and we raced to get back to that Station, Shutting down systems to aid the transition.

Atkov Station was just within reach, “Docking Request Granted”, that’s when the thrusters queefed.

The Life support timer began its twenty minute count.

“I need Inter’Galactic Rescue man, you know, those katz, The Amazing Fuel Rats”.

DuckDuck’s web search finds the link, Iku my slothful giant radios in.

“Fuel Rats here, how the dickens are you”, That’s not quite what they said, but the fear of asphyxiation does that to you.

Emergency beacons were fired off left right and centre, Providing 5d telemetry that would make Bill Gates surrender.

“Target locked” cooed AlphaJarvis and Delota, “Didans systems are down so we’re sending fuel over”.

Iku bucked and shuddered as she took that deep drink, Coming back to life from that near death brink.

“Thank you Thank you” I said to the team, then this ode to The Fuel Rats was born into being.

The end (Beginning) ©Copyright Didan Jagun-Jagun 2021

The journey has been long and many adventures have been had. Few have been published, but non could ever be as memorable as reaching Sagittarius A and visiting The Centre Tourist Beacon. Think I will stay here a while and contemplate the future of Man......Meh.

The en route exploration to Omega system was going well, and me, well I was feeling really pleased with myself. I had not come across any evidence of the fleet and resigned myself to their extremely over engineered FSD’s leaving for me for dust. That was ok though, I purposely kept this Space Tugs set up as original as possible, well that is what I’m choosing to believe.
I decided to make a pit stop and parked up in the PRU EUQ JS-E B53-2 system. Among all of the system hacks running on this Tug, some more useful than others, the Captains Log hud overlay was one of those I had become addicted to. I was still getting used to all the information it was throwing at me and occasionally it refused to update once a system jump completed; but it had become my in system resources goto screen, with EDDISCOVERY running in the background. Yet, for whatever reason a line of information I had not taken any notice of before virtually jumped out at me. The interpretation I could roughly work out was “Carbon geysers up in here”, and, “Oh yeah, get your FSD boost and Auto repair materials from here”. Vanadium, Geranium, Carbon, Zinc, the list went on and believe me when I say, I had a big grin on my face from one ear to approximately ¾ toward the other; the reason for that is a story for another time Planet after planet was scanned and the ones of greatest importance for my resource needs got the additional attention of launch probes. These were ice planets and I must say, I do not like landing on ice worlds for exploration at all; a past exploratory jaunt on one had almost proved to be my end. It’s no fun being trapped at the bottom of a canyon with the safety of your ship just metres away, and the SRV refusing to get purchase on the ice. Nearly fatal, nearly. And yet here I was again, tempted by similar promises; the promises of riches, the fees earned in codex, geysers, resources, potential death for the unwary yet driven, because if you can make it back to the bubble. “Ooh Wee…”. I had a friend, Commander McKenzie. He used to say ice worlds were like a woman filled with promises you could never quite get hold of; the riches were always out of your grasp. “And the trick is”, he would say; and then go into a diatribe of misogynistic chatter. None of that really matters right now, especially how McKenzie was found planetside in his ship frozen solid. Deylah was the one who raised the alarm; I have to say ‘bless her’, cause she was his long suffering wife and truly deserved a medal. Apparently the ships onboard life support had failed whilst she was doing reconnaissance in the SRV. In the Col sector if my memory serves me correctly, Col 285 sector JT-F B12-4. It might seem harsh but at least Deylah had the insurance to fall back on……………………………………………………

Right now though I made it my business to choose the two landing sites carefully, one of them close to the geysers but staying clear of the ridiculous gorges that seem to make the biggest promises; they called out to me like the Sirens of myth and legend. Deploying the SRV I moved out toward my quarry, scanned and mined. Geysers gushed their vapours, what a site to see. Each of the notable planets got my attention and after many hours doing this, I decided it was time to leave. I never quite got all of the resources that the portable Captains Log systems overlay promised; on the other hand, I’m careful as to how much l take from any planet, particularly Ice worlds. I guess I have Commander McKenzie to thank for that, I will visit his memorial head stone. Although I never did see Deylah again after the funeral, at least she did say where his stone could be found. 2nd planet to the Class T Dwarf Star; shouldn’t be too difficult to find once I contact the stations administrator. With SRV stowed and safety checks confirmed I browsed the starmap. Checking the Galnav Computer it was clear I had a long long way to go, and was still days out from the rendezvous point in the Omega sector. With Less than two Sol days remaining, it was time to find this neutron highway I hear so many Commanders talking about.
“Frame Shift Drive Charging”, the sound of the engines ‘thrumb’ was very welcome. “Pit stop over”, I said out loud, and the computer responded with the words that make me feel at ease when it’s time to move on. “….…..4 3 2 1……….JUMP………….”

The FSD had stabilised sufficiently to make the jumps, and with the exception of the occasional fuel scooping, I was skipping through the void further and further from the bubble; 4321….Jump, Jump, Jump, Jump, Jump. I planned on leapfrogging Witch Space for as many hours as was needed to recover lost time; that was until the Pipe stem sector.

The scanner locked on to a Notable Stella Phenomena, the first of the journey. “Well, I am here for exploration and science right” Once within the vicinity of the phenomena I could swear I was looking at exotic mines, a huge net of exotic mines. I set the engines to a crawl remembering the words from the book I had recently been reading, ‘Distant Worlds Survival Handbook’, I’m sure the author’s name is a Commander Satsuma. That aside, the words that are burned into my brain stem for this trip is: “you are an independent explorer”, “that means anticipating potential threats and doing everything that you can to minimize them.”

Me, paranoid, hell yes! Especially in this moment because the scanners started going crazy; it was showing multiple targets. Each of these ships was in a hostile attack approach, “Shit!” I wasn’t sure I could Spin up the FSD in time and was expecting to be mass locked. Fortunately Supercruise kicked in, and at least for now I was safe. A statement I don’t accept and one that is too readily spoken is: “Curiosity killed the cat.” However, I’m not related to the cat specie and now was not the time to run; DW2 Is the time of deep investigation in the name of science, a most notable God in these Godless space faring times.

I returned to the coordinates again transferring all power into ship systems, if I was to be attacked the shields would hold, for a while at least. I should have enough time to grab a few scans and see who these ships were; they were definitely not the fleet. I got incredibly close to one of the mines, virtually nose to nose, so to speak, and expected a loud boom yet was happily greeted with a signal lock; a signal lock?, of course, a signal lock. The ship computer chimed “Scanning in progress”, then scanners displayed the following information; Prasnic Metallic Crystals. The information uploaded to the ships Codex Database, I was slightly confused, Biological?

It may not be very scientific but I gathered that these phenomena are a crystal based life form which explained something else, the ships. And as if called on cue, the scanner showed the ships heading in my direction. I held my position because these I worked it out, these were signal ghosts, these were echo’s. They were in hostile attack patterns, weapons stowed and then showing jump wake signals, flickering randomly. By this time they were all around, but upon looking out of the canopy, there was nothing there except for the Prasinus Metallic Crystals.

I was going to see if I could cut a chunk of crystal and stow it in the hold but it just didn’t seem the right thing to do. And then another thought struck me, what if these multiple ship ghosts was their way of communicating, saying hello; or get the (add expletive here) out. The Langrange clouds were an interesting encounter but there will be much more knowledge to gain out there in the void. Four days remaining to reach the waypoint. With the next jump plotted, the Galnav Computer makes the call. “Frame Shift Drive Charging…..4 3 2 1……….JUMP………….”

I was one of many I’m sure, one of those Commanders who were late to the big DW2 party at pallaeni A1. I was only late by seven minutes I’m sure, but that was enough; my hope to have the company and safety of the fleet was shot. All was not lost though; looking at the galnav computer I plotted the next way point. Not a problem, my recent visit to the engineers would see me right. Plus, there were the additional tweaks I made to the ship systems overall. The Fleet could only be two jumps ahead at best; so then, destination locked, Frame Shift Drive Charging, 4 3 2 1…………JUMP………….

Don’t ask me what happened, all I know is I woke up floating in the cockpit, lights flickering and most of the systems down. I did not expect that. A systems check provided no solid reason for the outage, the ship systems seemed to simply crap out. That was my thinking the first time round until I was able to enjoy the same system errors several more times on a number of jumps. It was as if the FSD cooked the ships buffer server. “Damn it”. And then it hit me; it is true, my rewire hack job of the systems could have been cleaner, however, a scan of the local area revealed a mass of wake signals.

There were well over a thousand distinctive jump signals that the finely tune sensors picked out, and it became obvious what the problem was. Imagine that many Space Tugs, Fighters, fancy Yachts and converted cruise liners creating eddies in the current of local space. Yes, I think you’re getting the picture. It would not surprise me if other Commanders experienced similar Buffer Server failures as I did.

I have five days to make the next waypoint, In the meantime I’ll get some exploration in. Systems online, course plotted, the Galnav Computer makes the call. “Frame Shift Drive Charging…..4 3 2 1…JUMP………….”