Jane Turner
Volunteer Moderator
A few days ago I became aware of an extraordinary tale of cool thinking and creative problem solving. The first I heard of it was when CMDR Dragon's Claw contacted me through my ship's intercom and explained that he had fallen asleep while flying and woken up to find that his Vulture had 88% hull but no drives. He was at a loss as to how this could have come about. What sort of pilot would start an attack and not finish the job. The truth of what happened emerged slowly over the next few hours.
Communism Interstellar pilots had been intervening in a long running war which was at stalemate. A wing of comrades was operating in the system of Kulis, assisting the local communist party in the throwing off capitalist shackles. We have had several hard weeks of fighting alongside our allies and partners of the Border Coalition,* (the Mercs of Mikunn, Sacra Occulus and the Winged Hussars), defending ourselves against incursions from Galactic Powers intent grabbing territories and several of our pilots are suffering from battle fatigue.
CMDR Dragon's Claw had accumulated Cr 1.3 million when he announced to the rest of his wingmates, CMDRs Scheteve, Redford and myself that he needed a short break. He requested that we escort him to the edge of the combat zone to make sure that he was not followed by any enemy craft. He then applied full throttle, ensure that he wasn't headed on a crash course for the nearby planet or its moons, and slipped off into the black, assuring us that he would only need 30 minutes or so.
It soon became clear that Dragon's Claw had succumbed to space fatigue, for when I left two hours later to take part in peace talks, he had not resumed voice comms, though his wing beacon was still shining clearly. CMDRs Schteve and Redford began to fear for Dragon's Claw, or more specifically his fuel situation. The thought of him huddled up in the cramped seat of his Vulture, oblivious to the cold and lonely destruction that he faced affected them nearly as much of the thought of the wasted combat bonds. They calculated that the Vulture's inadequate fuel tank was probably good for another hour of flight, given that by now DC had been off comms for 4 hours and had been in the war zone for a couple of hours prior to that. They concluded that even if they could call in the Fuel Rats on DC's behalf, it might be already be too late, bearing in mind how late it was in galactic time (2am)
They conducted experiments with their own vessels turning on and off different modules to examine the effect on fuel consumption and concluded that if they could disable his drives, there was every chance that when he awoke, if DC had the presence of mind to reboot his drives, he should have enough fuel to get him and his combat bonds to safety. So this is exactly what CMDR Redford did and why DC awoke to find 12% of his hull missing, 100% of his drives, but was still in possession of enough fuel to get his bonds into the bonds office in time to influence the War.
*The Border Coalition: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=241385
Communism Interstellar pilots had been intervening in a long running war which was at stalemate. A wing of comrades was operating in the system of Kulis, assisting the local communist party in the throwing off capitalist shackles. We have had several hard weeks of fighting alongside our allies and partners of the Border Coalition,* (the Mercs of Mikunn, Sacra Occulus and the Winged Hussars), defending ourselves against incursions from Galactic Powers intent grabbing territories and several of our pilots are suffering from battle fatigue.
CMDR Dragon's Claw had accumulated Cr 1.3 million when he announced to the rest of his wingmates, CMDRs Scheteve, Redford and myself that he needed a short break. He requested that we escort him to the edge of the combat zone to make sure that he was not followed by any enemy craft. He then applied full throttle, ensure that he wasn't headed on a crash course for the nearby planet or its moons, and slipped off into the black, assuring us that he would only need 30 minutes or so.
It soon became clear that Dragon's Claw had succumbed to space fatigue, for when I left two hours later to take part in peace talks, he had not resumed voice comms, though his wing beacon was still shining clearly. CMDRs Schteve and Redford began to fear for Dragon's Claw, or more specifically his fuel situation. The thought of him huddled up in the cramped seat of his Vulture, oblivious to the cold and lonely destruction that he faced affected them nearly as much of the thought of the wasted combat bonds. They calculated that the Vulture's inadequate fuel tank was probably good for another hour of flight, given that by now DC had been off comms for 4 hours and had been in the war zone for a couple of hours prior to that. They concluded that even if they could call in the Fuel Rats on DC's behalf, it might be already be too late, bearing in mind how late it was in galactic time (2am)
They conducted experiments with their own vessels turning on and off different modules to examine the effect on fuel consumption and concluded that if they could disable his drives, there was every chance that when he awoke, if DC had the presence of mind to reboot his drives, he should have enough fuel to get him and his combat bonds to safety. So this is exactly what CMDR Redford did and why DC awoke to find 12% of his hull missing, 100% of his drives, but was still in possession of enough fuel to get his bonds into the bonds office in time to influence the War.
*The Border Coalition: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=241385
