Drama!
I did not realise the channel name had changed so dutifully joined #fuelrats this morning. A commander entered, "Help?" he said. His name, the Irish Gaelic moniker "Cumhaill" was familiar to me.
"Fionn?" I asked.
"Beornfrith!"
The commander in question and I belong to the same player group, you may remember us as the group who instigated a combat CG at Volungu. Anyway, he was 350ish light years away so off I trotted. Unfortunately, my Python
Glædheort only has a jump range of 15ly and as I was busy mission running my cargo hold was full, dropping that even further. I reached the system, however, and instructed Fionn to log in.
...I could not see him. Instancing issues!
In and out of SC I jumped, enabling and disabling nav-lock. I dropped in on his beacon a total of eight times but could not see him at all.
Commanders Anuranium and Kerenn stepped in to offer an extra bit of help but with Fionn's oxygen supply down to around 3 minutes things were getting a bit tight.
Eventually, my fellow Fuel Rats arrived in the system. We all (including the rescuee) completely restarted Elite and sent text to each other upon signing in; Anuranium's idea to try to ensure that we would all be in the right instance.
And now, the moment came: We had to tell Fionn to enter the game. His wing beacon appeared and three hungry rats descended upon it. We all arrived in the same instance and proceeded to throw limpet after limpet at our rescuee, engorging his Asp with fuel. I accidentally boosted but managed to duck underneath Fionn's Asp; I was momentarily unable to breathe as a result of doing so as I realise I would likely have crushed him to death had I not avoided him in time.
With the refuel complete, Fionn informed us that he had less than a minute of oxygen remaining. 49 seconds in fact!
Anuranium and Kerenn are insisting that this is my rescue and that I have claimed a record for "Cutting it most fine" rescue but I very much think of it as a group effort, so will not be submitting this to Surly Badger for my personal tally. I honestly think this should be written down as an example of great team work helping another pilot out.
The rescue took place in: PRAEA EUQ SY-S B3-3
Kerenn took a group photo and I hope he is able to post it but here's a less interesting photo:
View attachment 48141
EDIT: I did get a video of the final rescue but I am in the process of setting up a new laptop and do not have any editing software installed as of yet.
