Oh FTL, why must you play with my heart so.

[RestoreTheDay]

I was almost out of fuel, not a lot of money either, half the hull gone but lots of upgrades and super weapons
I opt go backwards when I see a distress signal to the west, even though the fleet is nearby, and it makes me one click away from them. But the booty may well be worth it in the end.
Damnation! it's a stranded ship asking for fuel when i wasted my last cell going to meet them.
Being half-toast and stranded myself, I wait, and of course a rebel charges in - a rebel in which my sensors detect 'large quantities' of fuel.I'm captain of an engi ship but with mark 3 laser+fire beam, 4 mantis crew (2 of them still in training), and a new zoltan as weaponmaster who needs some target practice.
So i just order him to ride the ion canon to his hearts content, disabling those 3 layers of shields and do some fire damage/porting over, once their initial boarding party has gone back in shame.
The fight is run of the mill, a few scares, but they have lots of life and i have an awsome defense2 drone+engine upgrade+shields, so i'm not risking much. I light it all on fire and end up with a fat loot of.... 2 fuels oh well, enough to go back to my previous place, except now it's in rebel territory again.
Same deal, light some stuff on fire, it's a bit long and my weaponmaster is an officer before long, so now I switch to laser3 to put down their weapons and since i want to take it intact, port over 2 mantis to their weapon room to give them some practice.
(8:03:27 PM) V: so, the two rebels in the room trying to repair my damage take them on (the infirmary being on fire), and it all goes ok, except the weapons were left in auto-fire mode from the ion canon and my laser keeps firing into the room!!!
5 laser shots, no shield, no evade.... That salvo nearly killed all occupiers, and sure did a number on their hull.

Summary: I have 2 of my 4 mantis at literally 5-10 health, 1 rebel in infirmary busy repairing it, inside a ship that's got one hull point left, fire everywhere slowly taking stations down (and that's one hull point each if they get red), 2 rebels almost dead in the room with my men, whom my lvl 1 teleport just ported them making it 3 full ticks before the next use. All of that with 1 fuel left, half hull gone, 2 jumps from the sector 7 exit beacon.

[RestoreTheDay]

I stop the autofire (D'oh) and unpause. Pretty instantly the humans die from my mantis, and now begins the longest wait in the history of FTL. Tick after tick, my cooldown slowly goes through the seconds, the mantis are nervously waiting, not even daring to attack a doorway in case it would cause the whole ship to explode, fire burning down everywhere around them...


And then the teleport lights up. I pause to order the teleport, and I kid you not, AS the mantis were disappearing from the ship, the engine finally gives in, and the rebel ship explodes :O
Like those explosion scenes, with the guys coolly walking away from it all without a glance back, except in this case the cool guy's sunglasses have 1000 facets to them and by walking I mean being disintegrated away.

I'm still not doing great, but I do have my weapons and drones, full upgrades etc. Mantises didn't get to fight much but are burnt from all the laser friendly fire, and I patch them up real good at the next stop (this jump took me to empty space where 'zoltan space is darn beautiful when nothing is shooting at you'). I use my last fuel cell to get to the exit beacon, and there....
Pirate ship pursuing a civilian! And what a shabby excuse for a pirate ship it is, too. Smallest mantis design, no infirmary, 2 human crew. It's like taking candy from a toddler. They propose to bribe me with drone parts (I guess they did not detect my recovery arm, nor my great need for the fuel they're not offering) and a bit of scrap, almost insulting for this sector. I respectfully decline the offer and port over my 2 death-defying mantises to dispatch swiftly of this space scum. They both ding their second star upon killing the pirates, I make 2 fuel in the process allowing me to reach the loyalist fleet and its sweet, sweet rewards. Not only that, but the zoltan engineer offers to fix up my hull entirely as a thank you!

Summary: still the same kickass upgrades, and a good bit of new scrap, enough fuel to get me to the boss, a fully repaired hull, 4 expert mantis brawlers, my weapons guy now an expert too and liking his pre-igniter/autoloader combo, and I'm ready to jump to meet my Admiral ! What a difference 10 minutes make...