Converting the Vespucci to a Merchant Marine vessel
11 Apr 2016Kaloonzu
After logging more than 30,000 lightyears of travel, My beloved Bruckley, a fully upgraded and combat-reinforced Asp Explorer, had finally reached the same point in life that my Skipjack had reached half a year prior - inferiority for the task at hand. With the completion of its stint in dry dock, the restored TPS Pheralabour (an apt anagram for Pearl Harbor, given its previous role in discovering hostile Federation forces en route to Eranin 30 years hence) was finally ready to enter my service. But the presence of such a combat capable ship meant that my Asp no longer had a place in my roster.At least, not as a dedicated hunter-killer combat vessel.
What the Bruckley can still do, and do far better than most ships of her size, jump - nay, leap - hundreds of lightyears into the black without innumerable stops and refueling needs. She can also take one hell of a beating. This makes her an apt candidate for ship conversion to a merchant marine vessel, designed to quietly and quickly haul moderate amounts of goods through blockades and across borders, often skipping the border worlds completely. It also means gutting the vessel that has been my home for 6 months.
The first to go were her reinforced patrol grade bulkheads and plating, which would no longer be needed that would now favor fleeing over fighting. Next, a major downgrade of her protective energy shields, exchanging top of the line police emitters for fast charging, lower output, and lighter units, that also wouldn't support three booster modules, so one of those had to go. Again, fleeing over fighting. Finally, her interdictor, long range sensors, and chin-mounted chain guns were removed, to save on power and weight. With all the power hogs gone, a reactor half as big as her old heart was installed, further reducing her weight.
But all of this meant she could do two things she hadn't been envisioned to do since rolling off the line in one of Sirius Corp's assembly lines in 39 Tauri: move monetized goods. Stripped of her combat innards, and left with just adequate defense screens and weaponry, two additional cargo racks were installed. Her jump range, unloaded on the pad, exceeds 30 lightyears; fully loaded, 25 on the money, and growing every time she expends some fuel.
And she can still go and see places, and take it down for posterity: it simply wasn't feasible to remove the computers that handled astro- and cartographical data from her astrogation scanners.
It will be a privilege to fly the bird that put me on the map as a credible trader and competent bounty hunter.