CMDR's Log - Personal - Holiday 3309 - Subnote: Project Narwhal
26 Dec 2023Ryan "No0delZ" Franklin
Over the holiday I met up with Elton Collins in person. He invited me to [REDACTED]
station to catch up and discuss The Inquisition.We covered some of the minor discoveries, and shared our mutual difficulties in finding any solid leads in undermining Universal Cartographics and Sirius Corporation's stranglehold on Pilot travel through the galaxy.
A couple hours into the discussion Elton suggested I come take a look at a side project his group had been working on. "Something to help pay the bills" he said. What followed was completely unexpected for a group focused on cartography.
I stared at the absolute behemoth of a ship resting in the hanger in front of me. My eyebrows uncontrollably shot up in absolute awe.
"What the hell do you call this thing, Elton?" I asked, turning to face my compatriot.
Elton let out a chuckle and rubbed his chin as we stood in front of the ship.
"Well, I call it "The Leviathan," but it's a prototype we're working on for Saud Kruger. They're calling it the Narwhal."
The absolute unit of a ship was unmistakably a modified Beluga Liner, with more than a few significant modifications. Firstly, it was heavily armored and had fewer hardpoints, but those changes were minor compared to what commanded the attention of my eyes. At the front of the vessel was the largest weapon I had ever seen attached to a ship. The weapon was wide at its base, thinning out somewhat at the end and wrapped in passive heatsinks.
Elton continued, "It's something, isn't it? The first Class 9 railgun available outside of the military. Measuring at nearly 80 meters in length, and capable of punching a hole in just about anything we've tested it on."
We stepped onto the hangar's moving walkway, which took us along the ship's length for a better view.
"The actual weapon isn't that long of course, much of its initial length is taken by power and cooling components... and of course it had to be long to keep the massive amount of heat generated away from the ship."
Elton stopped the walkway a little over halfway along the railgun's length and pointed to a specific spot on the Narwhal's "tusk."
"That's actually where the gun starts. Even at that distance every shot takes the Grade A, G5 engineered shields down about 10%, fully depletes the weapon's distributor... and don't even get me started on the module damage. It has a painfully long cooldown and reload time as well."
"... It's a deathtrap." I told him. My eyes were still scrutinizing every exposed component.
"Aye it is. Definitely not a ship to be caught flying without a full wing of support."
"So, what is it for?"
Elton was now loosely gripping and leaning onto the railing a bit.
"They haven't told us. They claim it's a concept piece, but we have a feeling it's built for a purpose. Whatever it is, I would hate to be on the receiving end. Any ship or even planetary settlement hit with that thing is going to end up as space dust or a sizeable crater. Regardless of size." He too now stared at the destructive marvel of engineering present before us.
"So, how much does the ammunition cost?" I asked him.
He gestured back to the walkway and started it up once more.
"... In the millions. Per shot."
The whole event got me wondering just what Elton was caught up in. I always knew him to be into stellar cartography. This revelation changed things.
I couldn't shake the feeling that this was some sort of warning. Knowing Elton, he was subtly letting me know just who I was doing business with and what I had become involved in.