Changes
04 Nov 2018Gatimũ Kamau
CMDR’s Log, 3304.11.3, Sol Calendar; So, we’re no longer explorer/traders. I lament the change in the direction of our lives, but the universe, for better or ill, is what it is. And my wife and I are part of the Federal Navy. There’s no going back now.
After our return to Sol, my wife got frocked to cadet with the rank to become official within the coming days. I was promoted to Warrant Officer, and it was made clear, in no uncertain terms, that we will be allowed to retain our mobility and “freedom” aboard our ship as long as we understand that we’re now operating under the umbrella of QRF/recon.
The days of getting by on data transport is now over. Combat is now our “bread and butter” as goes the saying on Earth. Goddess keep us.
With this new role, we tearfully said goodbye to the Pride of Afrika. She was no longer enough for what we now have to do. Since we still loved her design, maneuverability and versatility we were lucky that Lakon had recently developed more…tactical variants of the vessel. So to a Crusader we went. Her hardier shields and hull have already served us well as we’ve gotten into two or three scuffles since the change and she’s handled herself very well.
I outfitted her with a duel fighter bay, heavy weapons, countermeasures and additional shield banks for better versatility in a fight. And she now, to use a boxing term, hits quite a bit above her weight class. This came at the cost however of a reduced fuel capacity (making long jaunts a bit of a pain) and pushing her 6A powerplant to the absolute limit. In point-of-fact, in our last fight, she suffered from a minigun malfunction and a beam laser malfunction. It felt as though the power distributer couldn’t keep up and the ship’s own guns wanted to tear themselves apart. I may have to see the engineer to get them synergized. We initially named her The Pride of Afrika (MK 2) in honor of our old Chieftain, but my wife said that “With the way she keeps fighting against us, maybe we should call her Defiant.”
I laughed, but she had a point…