"Sparky, fire up the hyperdrive and take us to these coordinates. I'll brief you en route."

While somewhat fazed by the lack of a proper briefing, Sparky, a career military pilot with half a decade of experience under his belt, was well accustomed to obeying instructions. A pull of a lever brought the spacecraft up to relativity-ignoring, causality-breaking, physically-meaningless velocities as space-time was bent to the will of the hyperdrive.

Sparky turned around to face his CO.

"And… we're en route. Where exactly are we going, Chief?"

"A pulsar. I can't believe I'm finally going to get to see one up close."

Sparky, suddenly lost, sheepishly raised his hand. Betty nodded for him to speak.

"I know it was on the civil service exam… but what's a pulsar?"

Betty and X-5 both sighed. X-5, drawing on the data stored within his yellow chassis' hard drives, began to speak.

"A pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star, an extremely dense dead star consisting of neutrons, which possesses a ridiculously strong magnetic field. The rapid rotation of the powerful magnetic field generates strong electric currents, which produce beams of radiation emanating from the magnetic poles. Because the magnetic poles are not necessarily aligned with the rotational poles of the neutron star, the beam of radiation sweeps in a circle across the sky. To a distant observer, the neutron star is observed to "pulse" rapidly as its beam sweeps across the observer. The radiation environment of a pulsar is extremely hostile, not only because of the radiation beams, but because the surface of a neutron star is so hot that it glows the color of x-ray."

Noticing that he had lost Sparky at the last point, X-5 reiterated.

"Hot items, like radiators and red giant stars, glow red. Even hotter stars and molten metal glow yellow, white, or ultraviolet. Neutron stars are hot enough to glow x-ray."

Sparky nodded, and asked another question.

"Uhh… Chief? Why are we going to a pulsar?"

"Three hours ago, a mining installation orbiting a pulsar in the Large Magellanic Cloud suffered a catastrophic annihilation reactor failure. In about one hour the pulsar will rise above the horizon of the unshielded mining station - and fry every single sophont inside."

A puzzled look came over Sparky's face.

"Evacuating the station sounds like a job for the mining company's tug, not the Galactic Guardians, Chief."

Betty smiled, and nodded.

"True. But this particular station, which produces prodigious quantities of heavy elements, including fissile isotopes and superheavy elements, is of strategic importance to a friendly, galaxy-loving star-nation of V!room. These V!room are in the middle of a war against an unfriendly, xenophobic star-nation of V!room."

Sparky leapt into the air.

"So we suspect foul play, then!"

Betty nodded.

"Actually, foul play is already afoot. The loss of the station's annie-plant happened just after the unfortunate loss of their tug, and a probe dropped in to investigate picked up a conveniently positioned freighter inbound to the station to 'provide assistance'. Oh, and the station's communications are being jammed."

Betty turned to her entire crew (one green-skinned alien and one robot).

"Our job is to aid our allies in this skirmish, and demonstrate the resolve and ability of the galactic community to rend aid and assistance to its allies."

"Limited to single patrol vessels and fireteam-sized units." X-5 sarcastically added.

Betty put her game face back on, and motioned to the screen.

"Put the system map and station schematics on-screen, X-5. We've got five minutes before we pop in-system. I also want some fabber time for a little surprise for our 'friends'."

END

Factoid Time with Atomic Betty!

Betty Barrett, clad in her pink-and-white BDU, walked into frame, standing out brilliantly against the pastel blue unanimated backdrop.

"Hi, kids! I'm Atomic Betty!

As you know, I work with aliens all the time, and I've learned a lot about different alien civilizations.

Our scientists here on Earth, on the other hand, haven't been so lucky. Despite years of searching the skies with everything from giant radio telescopes to gravitational wave detectors, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, better known as SETI, has yet to come up with a single confirmed alien transmission.

Obviously, the real reason they aren't picking up anything is because us Galactic Guardians have faster-than-light communication technology, and our brave scientists here on Earth don't.

Plus, the Galaxy is a big place. Alien megastructures can get lost pretty easily among the billions of stars.

Don't ask me why Aerospace Defense hasn't picked up my space cruiser, though. It's a secret."

Sparky's shrill voice rang out from off-screen.

"The trick is to shape the shields into a perfectly square box! Reflects 100% of the radar energy away from the receiver every single time!"

Betty turned to her left, and harshly shushed her subordinate.

"Okay, okay, sheesh…"

Betty turned back to the camera, and continued her presentation.

"As I was saying, SETI hasn't turned up anything yet. But astronomers have heard some pretty weird stuff over the years, mostly from natural phenomena.

For instance, in 1967, astronomers Jocelyn Bell and Antony Hewish picked up a perfectly regular pulsating radio signal from deep space. While reasonably certain of the natural origins of the signal, the astronomers briefly entertained the speculation that the signal might be an alien beacon, and as such jokingly named the radio source "Little Green Men-1" or LGM-1.

The radio source was soon identified as a pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star, by other scientists in the field. Today, LGM-1 goes by the much less interesting name of PSR B1919+21, and shares the sky with a multitude of other identified pulsars.

The pulsating radio signals from pulsars are extremely regular – nearly as regular as the ticks from an atomic clock, the most accurate timekeeping instruments available to mankind. Furthermore, each pulsar "pulses" at its own particular rate, allowing individual pulsars to be identified by their pulsation rate.

As such, the Golden Records carried on the Voyager probes – currently zipping through interstellar space – contain a map of 14 pulsars and our sun's position relative to them.

Don't hold your breath for aliens to find the probes, though. At the speed they're going, the probes would take 70,000 years to reach the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, and they're aimed nowhere near it.

Well, that's all for today, kids. Let's get back to my mission!