The Fuel Rat Diaries

• Rat characters are based on actual Fuel Rats but the names have been altered/warped/merged/changed
• I might at one point give the impression that we report back after every jump. We don’t. Only the important things.

Part One: Ratling

03/12/3307

It’s so calming farming these HGE’s. The stillness of space as the stars glisten like tiny crystals in the blackness, the soft purr of limpets as they ballet dance to and fro from the cargo hatch, the sickening thud as you boost off and ram a large, unseen hulk of twisted spaceship that totally rips the shields away from your hull. I had opted for the lightest, thinnest hull for my Krait Phantom, the Waves of Hanajima (or Hanachan as I affectionately call her) and any more nasty knocks could end in certain disaster, so I spent the rest of the shift waiting for the shields to recharge and it got me thinking…

I’ve got a LOT of ships I want to engineer. I’m not poor, I’ve made a decent living so far (mind you running a dolphin which was in the bottom one percent of all the cruise liners out there wasn’t a high point), yet I’ve nowhere near enough for one of them fleet carriers either. Not that I want one. A vessel for show offs and commanders who cheat the system out of disgusting amounts of profit. Not for me. No way. Some commanders even have more than one! It makes my stomach turn!

I need to do something rewarding. Something I can do that breaks down the mind numbing monotony of gathering all those precious mats. Something that breaks the cycle of endless grind whether it be satisfying those ludicrous engineers’ requirements or ranking up with one of the major factions. My thoughts wandered back to 3301 when I first heard about the Fuel Rats. I idolized them! Selflessly travelling the length and breadth of the galaxy delivering fuel, preserving exploration data, saving lives (well, saving an embarrassing Remlock ride of regret at least).

You could join them! The inner voice softly yet piercingly whispered in my head. You can be a Rat too!

“Shields online!” bellowed the COVAS. I had hardly noticed – my head being filled with dreams of rescuing stranded pilots in far flung locations, or even rescuing rookie’s intrepidly making their way out of the Pilots’ Federation District for the first time. Me…a Fuel Rat! I mean, my Phantom needs a bit of engineering (I’ve got plenty of mats) and it really needs a friendly new paint job (it currently looks like it’s been pulled out of a thargoid’s arse) but that shouldn’t take too long.

---

“We don’t have leaders here,” she announced.

“Oh!” I replied, slightly taken aback. She laughed at the frown that must have etched itself across my brow.

“You’ll see. You have a copy of our Standard Operating Procedures?” (I nodded) “Well, it’s all in there. C’mon, I’ll show you to your bunk for now, and maybe introduce you to some of the others later. Most of them are out around the Bubble either waiting for a Ratsignal or just going about their normal business.”

We took an elevator down to the lower floors which contained the dormitories and she showed me to my room. She explained that these days most of the rooms remained empty for months but a rat would always have his own little place to sleep here if ever they wanted it. Then she left, shouting over her shoulder that I was free to wander around should I choose and that someone might come and get me to show me around in the morning.

I was tired after the long trek here. Endless strings of multiple jumps
and scooping can really take it out of you. The room’s window looked out across the station. I stood there and watched the stars slowly encircling and waited until Fuelum A3 gracefully swung past and, once it had disappeared out of view, went to sort out my things. I had managed to get a copy of their Standard Operating Procedures before I came and have spent the rest of the day trying to avidly read it. But it’s an awful lot to take in so I’ll just observe for a while before asking to begin formal training. See if I can get a feel for how things work around here. I could go back and sleep on Hanachan but I think I’ll stay with the Mischief for a few days at least.

03/14/3307

   It’s morning. And I’m about to have a good look around but I have to remark on the extraordinary thing that happened last night. I was rudely awoken in the middle of the night by a constant knocking on my window. I sat up and there was a figure in a flight suit, fully helmeted and floating in the cold vacuum of space just metres from my bunk. They had also been hogtied! They had somehow managed to maneuver themselves to be able to bang their head on the window in order to get my attention. I thought I must have been dreaming. The figure began to panic a little and seemed to bang on the window more earnestly. I frowned at them for a while before remembering myself and rushing out to find someone. Nobody was around. I went into the main common room and it was empty, apart from boxes and boxes of candy bars and bins overflowing with candy bar wrappers so I made my way to reception. Another woman sat there, nonchalantly reading a magazine. I hurriedly told her what I found and if I should set off an alarm or something and she just laughed. 

   “Just go to the airlock at the bottom level. He’ll make his own way there.”

   “You sure?” I replied

   “Yeah. This happens here a lot. You’re one of the new ratlings aren’t you?” I nodded. “Just go get him. No need to rush though, he’ll have plenty of oxygen left.”

   Incredulously I made my way as quickly as I dared to the airlock and, sure enough, the figure was there waiting for someone to thump the pressurization button, so thump it I did. As soon as the door opened I rushed in and untied him asking him if he was okay. I was more than a little shocked to hear him laughing as he pulled off his helmet. He stood up, looked me straight in the eye and asked if I was a ratling. I said that this was my first night and he smiled.

   “Beginner’s tip,” he quipped, “be careful who you upset. Some of us rats have tempers.” before grinning widely and sauntering off down the corridor.

   I made my way back to my little room and flopped back into my bunk, rather bemused. I slept quite well after that and I’m looking forward to what the day will bring, although not without a little trepidation. No one has come for me thus far so I’m probably going to have to introduce myself.

3/15/3307

   “Hey! You’re up!” he exclaimed, holding out his hand. I smiled back nervously and grasped it. He shook it and patted me on the back as he did so. “Name’s Tobias, welcome to the Mischief!”

   “Homborger.” I replied. “Commander Homborger”

   “Nice to meet you Hamburger, I’ll show you around.”

   “Homborger, not Hamburger.” I expect this. It happens almost every time.

   “Oh! I do apologise, here, have a snickers.”

He tossed me one of the small candy bars. I examined it curiously.

   “It’s how we get paid.” he grinned.

I removed the brown wrapper to reveal a lumpy, brown chocolate bar. I eyed it suspiciously before giving it a sniff.

   “Go on, you’ll love it. You’re not going to get along too well here if you can’t eat snickers.”

   “Never heard of these before.” I muttered as I bit into the thing.

   The taste that filled my mouth was the most sumptuous and exquisite sensation that I had ever felt. I hungrily devoured it and stared back at Tobias, shocked. He threw his head back and laughed.

   “Ancient snack from Sol.”, he explained, “One of the Originals discovered a cargo hold full on an ancient wreck out in the void somewhere. They were still good too, after well over a thousand years! They don’t make snacks like that anymore. Loved the taste so much we hired a company to make them just for us!”

   “But surely the rest of the Bubble, at least, must have…”

   “Nah! They’re just for us. We give them to clients sometimes but you can generally only consume snickers if you’re a Rat.”

   “Oh.”

   “And if you do something silly then you don’t get snickers.”

   “Something silly?”

   “Oh…I dunno.” Tobias waved his arm vaguely, “Like calling jumps before the client has been prepped or something.”

   I guessed I’d find out all the things that qualified as “silly” as I went along. I finished the bar. To my surprise it completely satisfied my hunger for breakfast that had been growing exponentially since I had awoken. Tobias grinned again. The lines on his face seemed to indicate he did this a lot.

   “C’mon Homburge I’ll…”

   “Homborger”

   “…oh yes, Homborger, sorry, I’ll show you around.”

   He led me first towards what I thought was the bar. On the counter was an enormous stuffed rat. It had a sort of surprised and horrified look on its face as it if had been murdered by a bananna. It was wearing a hat. Not just any hat, but an old, battered, smelly, threadbare, mouldy hat that looked like it had been run over repeatedly at an SRV Bucky Ball race.

   Tobias caught me staring at it.

   “Ah! Now, this,” he explained, gesturing at the stuffed rat, “is the ‘Stuffy’”

   “The ‘Stuffy’, ok, and the…er…hat?”

   “If you act as the dispatch, that is the co-ordinator who dispatches the rats to the clients and helps the client prepare to be refuelled, then you have to wear the Hat.”

   “I see, so you have to have training for dispatch?”

   “Yes.” he agreed, “You’ll need to have quite a bit of experience before you can be considered for the Hat. It’s the most demanding job we do.”

   “I see. So how…?”

   I was interrupted by a loud series of squeaks erupting from speakers hung around the common room.

   “Ratsignal!” he shouted, “Quick, stick with me. You can watch what happens!”

   Tobias grabbed the Hat from the Stuffy and plonked it on his head. He then raced around to the other side of the counter and switched on the dual screened console that was on the other side. Both screens flickered into life.

   “These are basically the same as the big ones up there,” he explained.

   I turned to look, some of the people had stopped what they were doing and were watching the information on the big screens. There were a few less of them it seemed. Presumably because they were hurrying to their ships.

   “Ah! Here we go…look” he tapped the screens to get my attention.

   I looked. On the left screen the word ‘Ratsignal’ had appeared in bright, highlighted lettering, followed by a commander’s name, their location and the case number.

   “You’ll notice it’s not a Code Red, you have read the SOP right?”

   “Yes!” Of course I’d remember this, “It’s where a commander has totally run out of fuel and is surviving on emergency oxygen.”

   Tobias grinned again, “Correct! Although it can still become a Code Red if their fuel is so low it runs out while we’re on our way. How do we try to prevent this?” he continued, furiously tapping on the keyboard.

   I watched what he was doing. It seemed obvious.

   “You’re ‘prepping’ the client? Telling them to turn everything off except life support.”

   “Exactly!”

   Almost as soon as Tobias had finished prepping the first jump call came through, followed by another. Both rats were sent on their way, it would only take them a couple of jumps even though the client was over a hundred light years away. It took just a few more minutes of instructions and statuses being relayed back and forth and the client had been refulled.

  “My word that was quick! Are they all like this?”

   Tobias made a face. “Sometimes, but you’d be surprised at the variety of situations we get, some cases are on the other side of the galaxy of course but even closer ones can take quite a while depending on circumstances. It’s difficult to explain without you having experienced it all.”

   “Do I need to go on a rescue?”

   “You can if you want, you could even call jumps if you feel you’re confident enough although,” he added gravely, “I would highly recommend a training session or two followed by a drill before you do that.”

   Needless to say I was in no way confident enough to call jumps!

   “Where can I get training?”

   Tobias pulled up a list of available trainers. A few dozen names filled the screen.

   “Here, I can send it over to your ship if you want, as well as the necessary software to communicate from your ship whenever you want to chat with us, just watch rescues take place or even call jumps yourself.” He punched some more keys into the consol. “There. Now I would recommend for today just to watch the procedure to familiarise yourself with how we operate and then try and contact a trainer. Sound good?”

   “Sure! Thanks Tobias!”

   I shook his hand once more and spent the rest of the day watching as all the rescues unfolded. Cheering with the others whenever a code red was saved. The variety of situations was made almost immediately apparent. A client caught within the exclusion zone of a gas giant, requiring a Rat to perform a daring manoeuvre to get within limpet range. Another was falling toward a  huge, barren high gravity world. That one was particularly close, the Rat in question having to continually boost his thrusters toward the surface. He managed to catch up with the client and refuel them eventually. The client managed to jump away before they hit the surface, the Rat had been going too fast however and only managed to miss crashing by a few dozen metres before pulling up and managing to escape. All sorts of dramas and dangers presented themselves to the Rats that required a lot of quick thinking and bravery to overcome and, awesomely, not a single client was lost that day.

   I began to walk back to my ship, my head buzzing. Just as I left I heard some yelling and a scuffle. I turned around only to see Tobias getting dragged backwards out from the common by another of the Rats holding the scruff of his suit. He was in a sitting position, his arse sliding along the polished floor. The other Rat looked utterly furious, he had a “Kick Me” sign stuck on his back. Tobias caught my eye, grinned at me yet again and waved. He was going to get thrown out of the airlock again. Well, I decided to let someone else get him back in.

As soon as I got back to Hanachan I contacted one of the trainers. Their name is “Nube”, and they’ve agreed to put me through a training run on the morning of 4/10/3307, almost three weeks from now! It’s going to be a long wait – most of the Rats have other jobs, and have limited time in which to Rat. The service they provide is free, and they have to live on something. So while I’m waiting I’m going to head out into the black. I will keep monitoring the Rescue Channel while I’m away and, hopefully, I can make a really good impression on my test once I get back.

4/09/3307

I tend to refrain from making diary entries when I’m out in the Black. I prefer to summarise my thoughts when I’ve returned to the Bubble, reason being that I think up some pretty crazy things out there and it’s just better all round if there isn’t a record of it. It does weird things to my head, the Black.

   Anyway, it was a nice trip. Furthest I’ve been away from home so far. V1357 Cygni is about eight thousand light years away and it’s not visited by many commanders so I thought it would be a good chance to bag some first discoveries. I was not wrong! Some stunning systems out there if anyone is prepared to look. Highlights were a system with two earth-like worlds, a system with three water worlds and a system with beautiful binary ammonia worlds. I made about seventy five million credits with all the information. Well worth it. Once I had had my fill of the back hole Cygni X-1 (or had it had its fill of me) and started my way back I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment. The Black was beckoning me further in. It was hard to resist, harder than it’s ever been. Sometime soon I’m going to have to give in and just go. Leave everything behind. Hanachan isn’t really equipped as I would like for extended exploration but I have an Anaconda in storage and while I’m with the Fuel Rats I shall be gradually equipping and engineering her until she’s ready. Then I shall say my farewells and depart. For good.

   But enough about that. That’s for the future. I really should be concentrating on my training run tomorrow. I’m nervous but also quite excited! I’ve been monitoring the Rescue Channel for weeks and I’m pretty sure I know enough to do really well. Although it’s hard to be sure, I know.

4/10/3307

Well, it seems I have an awful lot to learn! That training run could definitely have gone better. Mind you, it was almost a total disaster so it could have been an awful lot worse. Maybe I was distracted by all the cheering and fuss that exploded on the RatChat IRC channel almost as soon as I accessed it this morning. The top rat, a Commander called Raveethiath (I mean honestly – what sort of a commander name is that? It’s like they had three names and slammed them all together!) has just rescued client number ten thousand! That’s incredible.

   Ten.

   Thousand.

   I couldn’t even dream of ever rescuing that many. They’ve been hard at it since the fuel rats were formed but even so…well, all I can say is they are one of the true Fuel Rat heroes! I however didn’t realise what all the fuss was about and completely forgot to congratulate them. I feel so damn guilty. Raveethiath is one of the most famous Rats of all time, almost as much as the great Surly Badger himself! I was far too preoccupied with my imminent training and, sure enough, a private message from Nube popped up on my feed. I accessed it and a friendly voice burst in on my ship speakers.

   “I’m ready whenever you are.”

   “Sure! Thanks Nube.”

   “I just have to ask what jump range your ship has, what system you are currently in, and if you could turn your wing beacon on please?”

   I turned on my wing beacon, informing my instructor of everything they wished to know.

   “Very good!” he continued, “I just need to find ourselves a Damsel.”

   A few moments later another voice cut in on the channel

   “Hello Commander Homburger, this is…

   “Hom…borger.” I corrected, calmly.

   “Oh, yes, so it is! Sorry. Commander Venomous here, I’m going to be your Damsel in Distress for this training session.”

   “Thank you!”

   “Right, I’ll hand over to Nube, he’ll prepare you while I get my ship ready.”

   Nube’s voice came buzzing over the private channel once more.

   “Right, I am going to act as the Hat for this session. I want you to treat this like a genuine rescue. Remember, clear instructions to the dispatcher as we progress through the process.”

   “Understood.” Nube must have heard the nervousness in my voice,  

“Don’t worry, this is just to assess where you are and to see how ready you are for the drill, we can sort out the debrief training another time, it’s just a rescue today – nothing can really go wrong.”

   Never a more ominous statement had ever been uttered.

   Within the next few moments the “emergency” Ratsignal popped up on my screen.

   “RATSIGNAL! CMDR Venomous. SYSTEM: Hedetet. It was a system not more than three jumps away, Nube, now the “Hat” prepped the “client” and I called jumps.

   My hands were shaking violently as I reported all my updates. It was a struggle to both fly and report to the Hat at the same time. Jump, scoop fuel, fly a safe distance from the star, rinse, report, repeat. Soon I was connected to the client and Nube had got him to turn on his beacon. It had only been three jumps and the client was ready by the time I had jumped into the system. All systems off (apart from life support of course), his location shining like a tiny bright blue star on my scanner. Only…it was behind the system’s main star.

   That threw me. It threw me so much I lost control of Hanachan and almost crashed through the exclusion zone. I panicked, waving the flight stick in all directions, grossly overcompensating for my mistakes, the ship must have looked like it was being flown by a squirrel. Somehow I managed to get things back under control until I had my client’s beacon centred in my cross hairs and was cautiously flying towards it. I slowed down gradually, just like flying toward a station and dropped out of supercruise when I was slow and close enough. I was a bit far away still so I flew towards the “stricken” vessel until my limpets were in range and I fired them.

   They only took a short time to refuel the ship and I announced “Fuel Positive” into the IRC rescue channel comms just as I had read in the SOP.

   That was it! I had done it. I breathed out a huge sigh of relief. That could have gone far better, but the “client” had been saved.

   “How did I do?” I asked guardedly into the channel.    There was a pause, a little bit too long to be reassuring.

   “Not bad.” came the reply. Not good either, I thought. “What was all that by the main star?”

   “Sorry, client was behind it when I arrived I…I panicked a little, lost control.” I gazed absentmindedly at Venoumous’ ship, a Viper MkIII, just hanging there in space. He still hadn’t turned any of his systems back on.

   “Oh, we thought so, that does happen.” I relaxed a little at this. “Your reporting was bang on there Homburger!” I ignored it this time, “Just a couple of things…” he paused, presumably while he was checking his notes. “If the client is behind the main star when you arrive, just fly straight ‘up’ for a second or two before orientating yourself toward the beacon.”

   “Got it.”

   “And have you heard of wingman navlock?”

   “Yes!” I almost punched myself in the head, “of course! Sorry!”

   “That’s right, make sure it’s engaged and then you can supercruise at full speed towards the client, no need to slow down.”

   “Understood.”

   “And that’s it, not bad at all really. Just remember those few things and I reckon you’re ready for a drill.”

   I was quite taken aback. Relief flooded through me like a shot of onionhead.

   “Thanks Nube!”

   “No problem, Homburger!” I sighed inwardly, “Remember that you’ll need to contact one of the Overseers to arrange a drill.”

   I thanked him again, and eager to head back to Fuelum to begin my quest to find an Overseer, I turned to the left in order to bring up the navigation panel. Only as I moved, I caught the flight stick with my hand and accidentally pressed the boost button.

   How I missed Venomous’ Viper I’ll never know. I think both of us instinctively moved our flight sticks in opposite directions so our ships merely grazed each other. His shields were still offline, had I hit him directly…

   I don’t want to dwell on that incident anymore. I’ve spent the day berating myself mercilessly about it and it’s done now. Nobody was actually killed. I got a bit of a dressing down but that was perfectly understandable. I should have deployed my landing gear as soon as I had dropped out of supercruise – that would have prevented a boost, but Venomous also admitted he should have spotted my mistake and told me to deploy my landing gear himself. I’ll never forget again!

4/14/3307

Back at Wollheim again, it’s evening and I’m sitting in my bunk. Everything here is as I left it, and a few more of the little rooms are occupied than last time I was here. No one has knocked on my window yet, I’m presuming things are rather calm in the common room. Have had a better nose around today than when I was last here. This was not because I actually intended to have a nose around it was because I was searching for someone.

   I arrived first thing this morning with the intention of finding an Overseer. I’m pretty sure I’m ready for my drill, and if I’m not there’s only one safe way to find out. I walked into the common room, was greeted and hugged by many of the Rats that were there, including Tobias. I then cleared my throat and announced in a slightly shaky voice if there were any Overseers free who could do my drill.

   There was a sudden strong gust of air followed by a whoosh and there were a few less Rats than there had been a moment before. 

   “What did I say?” I announced, scratching my head.

   “Overseer’s are rare and elusive!” a reply volunteered itself from the remainder, “You will need to go on a quest!”

   “Quest?”

   “Just search, you may find one, you may not.” announced another, with a snigger.

   “Where?”

   “Oh, just in this complex somewhere. Well, one of them might be.” said a rather more sincere voice. It was Tobias. He patted my back reassuringly, “I suggest seeing if you can head some of them off at the concourse, and if you can’t then have a good look around here to see if there’s one who’s secreted themselves where they think you won’t find them.”

   I hurried off, leaving the sniggering and barely contained guffaws behind. I ran to the concourse lift and thumped the call panel. The door opened immediately and I jumped inside. It seemed to take an eternity to travel all the way up to the concourse and when it finally did I hurried to the hanger lifts.

“Is everyone in Wollheim in on this?” I muttered to myself as I made my way back.

   Did I really want a drill that badly? Were the Overseers testing my resolve? Or were they just having a damn good laugh at a poor ratling’s expense? Probably the latter, I decided. 

   I began a systematic search of the complex. I checked behind the reception desk. No-one. I checked the bunk rooms, all of them, even in the little wardrobes. Nobody. I checked the offices, ops rooms, meeting rooms, simulation rooms, the IRC server rooms. Still nobody. I checked the kitchens (how many snickers?), thinking if a rat would hide anywhere – it would be here. There were a few milling around, pretending not to be pinching any of the snickers, one was even stuffing his flight suit full as nonchalantly as he could, but no Overseers.

   I gave up for the time being and thought I’d think it through. Would it be better to try again tomorrow? No, I’d search everywhere just to make sure first. I needed to use the bathroom anyway. I headed to the nearest one, found a urinal and was just about to go when I heard a sneeze and a large bang from one of the lockers. I slowly turned to look. One of the locker doors had swung open, and a Rat had wedged himself inside. It was an Overseer. I could tell because he wore a badge with the % sign on his cap. He smiled warmly at me and began to speak with a heavy Deutschlander accent.

   “Well, you found me, Commander Homborger” he held out his hand, “Commander Fortunate Velcro.” I took it, and shook it slowly, my facial expression not unlike that of the Stuffed Rat itself. Did he just get my name right first time? “I understand you need someone to oversee your drill?”

   “Um…yes please?” was all I could answer. Velcro had a reputation as being one of the stricter Overseers.

   “Just one thing though,” he added, matter of factly, “You have a ‘KICK ME’ sign stuck to your back.”

21/04/3307

I’ve just come back from my drill. I don’t quite know what to do with myself. It’s been one hell of an evening. 

   Didn’t sleep a wink last night and I spent most of the day following the rescue channel, asking advice on what sort of an assessor Velcro is, and reading and re-reading the SOP. The drill wasn’t until 19.30 UTC this evening and so I had all day to worry about it, then sure enough, dead on 19.30 Velcro’s voice piped up on my IRC.

   “Welcome Homborger, your Drill is about to begin. Your damsel today will be MicroTwit and BeeTea will be acting as your dispatcher. During this drill you will be faced with a simulation of a regular case along with some mistakes our clients commonly make. Please activate your wing beacon for the duration of this exercise (we do not normally do this for rescues)”

   This was it. Fortunately the rescue part went off without a hitch. The “client” had to be re-prepped and was operating his IRC on a private server which made it difficult to wing up. I recognized both these and reported them to dispatch so BeeTea could instruct the client. MicroTwit was flying a Cobra MkIII, I fired my limpets and once I reported the Fuel Positive status the rescue itself was over. The problems, however, began with the debrief.

   I asked the “client” how they managed to get themselves into this situation. They explained that they had looked for a station but had ended up in an uninhabited system. I went on about fuel scoops, about the best ones and where to get them, how they worked, what colours you could get them in. I then explained about fuel stars and the different types, which were safer to fuel from than others, how scooping itself worked and the speed of the refuelling compared to the proximity of the star and about the heat gain, about brown dwarfs and why they couldn’t be used for fuel, about boosting the FSD from white dwarfs and neutron stars and how risky that was. I even went on about how beautiful black holes were if they had never flown near one before. I instructed how to filter the ship’s GalMap to filter for fuel stars and got the client to do it. I then asked if he could then tell me the nearest fuel star and, sure enough, he told me. I also noticed that that system had an economy so I further instructed the client that there should be a station there where they could refuel.

   After that I asked if the client was good to go. 

   All I got in return was an, “Er…I guess.”

   And then the drill was over.

   And then Fortunate Velcro asked how I thought I did.

   “Well, I thought the rescue itself went fine.” I began, cautiously.

   “Very good, and what about the debrief?”

   Something about the way Velcro said it made my heart race.

   “I…er…I think it was fine.”

   There was a pause, followed by a deep breath.

   “The client was only looking for a station to refuel their ship.” The penny dropped, my heart sank like a stone. Velcro continued, “Going on and on about scooping like you did was a little unnecessary.”

   I almost cried. I had totally, utterly blown it. Would I have to go through the indignity of searching for an Overseer to arrange another drill in a few days time?

   “I’m sorry,” I croaked, “It was my first debrief.”

   “Well, It’s not too bad, at least you let the client know where a station could be found, in a roundabout way.”

   I nodded, even though Velcro couldn’t see, I had no words to add.

   “You’ll just have to see how the other Rats debrief when you go on rescues.”

   The significance of that statement eluded me. I was feeling far too sorry for myself.

   “Any questions?” he asked.

   “No, that’s all.” I replied.

   “Very well, before I forget, we have to do one more thing.”

   “One…more…thing?” maybe we’d need to arrange a date for another drill.

   “The tail attachment.”

   I couldn’t believe my ears!

   “You mean, I actually get my tail?”

   “If you want it.” I could almost hear him grinning!

   “Yes please!” I exclaimed, and I think I even squeaked with excitement.

   “Then congratulations…you passed!”

   I flew back to Wollheim and heard the announcement over the coriolis pa that I had just been given my tail. As I walked into the common room there was cheering and several of the Mischief ran over to give me a hug.

I am a Fuel Rat at last!