Remember Cmdr Persera in December 3303? 51 hours in super-cruise seemed a lot at the time. We flew our ships to the limit of their endurance to reach her and successfully refuelled her just before Christmas Eve.

That was a walk in the park compared to this one. It's Friday 4th January 3305 and The Fuel Rats receive a distress call from a commander stranded out in the void. Not just 51 hours in super-cruise but 600 hours or 141ly whichever way you want to look at it.

I was at my home station of Colonia when the call came in. Ordinarily, I'd have launched through the mail slot and turned right, heading up to the edge of the galaxy but not this time. I had to return to the bubble and do some serious ass-kissing with a couple of engineers, farm materials and get the guardian tech. You see, my Rat Conda with it's 60ly jump range wasn't big enough for this job. I needed to be able to carry at least 760 tonnes of fuel to have any hope of rescuing the stranded commander. I needed the largest ship in the shipyard and I needed it to be able to jump at least 42ly and run with a low power yield.

I went to Dav's hope and did 50 laps of the place - collecting everything on offer. I went to the Hyades Sector to visit the Guardian sites where I could get Guardian blueprint fragments and Guardian tech in order to get the power plant, power distributor and FSD booster that I would need.

And so it was, I bought my Imperial Cutter and took it to Felicity for the FSD upgrade, a G1 Clean Thruster upgrade (stripped down) and then to Lei Chung to get my sensors a G5 lightweight upgrade. I really needed to get my life support upgraded but I didn't have the rep I needed to gain access to the engineer I needed. I also wanted to get a G5 lightweight upgrade on my Fuel Transfer Limpet Controller but, alas, I was unable to avail myself of Ram Tah - or so I thought...

After fitting out my Cutter Tanker she was named HMSV Tenacious and we set off on our 65,647 light year journey to the void. I decided to make a stop at Colonia on the way - to pick up the additional fuel tanks I needed and also to drop in some cartography data. Prior to that point, I was getting a 50ly jump range but without being able to carry an AFMU because I didn't have the power for it, I wasn't able to avail myself of the Neutron Highway. Having collected my additional fuel tanks, I headed northwards towards the void. The really frustrating part of this section of the journey was being constrained to a 35ly jump range because the galaxy map route plotter makes the assumption that your additional tanks are full. Mine weren't so I had the unenviable option of either going with the galaxy map route plotter or manually plotting every jump for 44,000 light years - just to get an extra 15ly on each jump. I manually plotted my jumps for the first 1000 light years but I began to lose the will to live and so reverted back to the galaxy map plotter. In the nicest possible way, damn you devs for not giving our ships' computers the ability to disable additional fuel tanks when they are empty. It's 3305 for crying out loud!

After a week of preparations, outfitting and jumping, I finally reached the edge of the void where I rendezvoused with another Fuel Rat - my dedicated refuelling ship. You see, my 768t fuel capacity wouldn't be enough to get me to the stricken commander and refuel him and have enough to allow me to jump out of the system again. Much work was done behind the scenes by The Fuel Rats Mischief - in particular CrunchyBaton who did the calculations. the science and produced an operational order that outlined who would be involved, their specific role and more. This rescue wouldn't have got off the launch pad without his skill, that's for sure.

So we have a reincarnation of Operation Black Buck with 5 fuel rats, 3 cutters, 1 Anaconda and an AspX involved.

My refueller, Cmdr Numerlor and I set off at 16:20 (UTC) on 12 January 3305 - beginning our 600 hour super-cruise journey out into the void. There is nothing here. No visual reference points to guide us. Nothing. We will carry out bearing checks periodically with our stranded commander but we can only do a maximum of 11 before he runs out of fuel. At this kind of range, being even 1 degree out on the line of travel could mean a course alteration of millions of light seconds later on. We have to accept this and remain vigilant throughout. Our fuel margins will be tight but we can do this.

Cmdr Highwaywarrior

27 June 3304 19:20 UTC

System: EOCH PROO GX-T D3-79 Body: B1 Co-ordinates: -86.9504 / -127.0858

System: SCREAKE SJ-Y D1-265 Body: 1 A Coordinates: 14.0976 / 46.2400 with landing

Elements found: Technetium, Iron, Nickel, Cadmium, Vanadium

System: PYROOM EOU GE-C C28-0 Body: 5 A Coordinates: -6.5964 / 48.8725 Landing Site: As above

Major Water Geyers

System: PHOOE AUF HV-I C24-0 Body 5 A Coordinates: 46.7216 / 106.6146 Landing Site: 46.6613 / 106.5559

System: GUENAE SB-I B57-0 Body: 3 A Coordinates: -7.8779 / -63.6280 Landing site: -7.8964 / -63.4991

Landing site OK for large ships

System: PHREIA FLYOU JT-P B22-2 Body: 11 C Coordinates: -31.2557 / 78.3029 Landing Site: -31.2589 / 78.2883

Location is very rugged terrain unsuitable for SRV. Landing site will take large ships.

System: Blau Euq MI-T D3-27 Body 3A (Rocky Body) Co-ordinates: -13.0843 / -147.4026

Active Silicate Vapour Geysers located. Materials on site to be found in Piceous Cobble rocks, Crystalline fragments and others.

Cmdr HW

System: Bleae Thua TT-I C29-2 Body: 3 Co-ordinates: -25.6180 / 159.5510

Located the smouldering wreckage of an SRV with a number of canisters around it. Commencing Search & Rescue operations. Requesting additional resources.

Cmdr Highwaywarrior

May 2nd 3303. Day

System: Gria Eork XU-V D3_13 Body:9

Earth-Like World discovered

Orbital Period: 886.2 days Distance from Star: 980.6ls Star Class:F