A Guided Tour of the Hangar
07 Feb 2024Quillmonkey
Quillmonkey hears on the galactic grapevine that Faulcon deLacy are planning on releasing their first Whatt and Pritney ship in 600 years, he can't help but think back to the days of GalCop and his role in their downfall. So, to make room for the new Python Mk 2, it's time for a stock taking. Here, for you, is a selected tour around the darkened hangar bays of Quillmonkey's past:
NAME ECCO the Explorer
SHIP IDENT SQU-1D
TYPE Dolphin
ROLE Fleet Carrier Explorer
JUMP RANGE 57.24 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 24
SHIP HULL VALUE 1,067,903 Cr
VALUE 17,768,106 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Ecco is a solitary craft. She breathes in the inky darkness of space, slicing through the void. She is beautiful. Sleek lines that blur the imagination, smoked glass that reflects your soul. She is cold as carrion. She will give no sign, no smile and yet you can tell she is never happier than when she dips and dives between coronal mass ejections and breaches amongst plasma storms. She is Ecco and she surfs the stars.
NAME Fairlight
SHIP IDENT QU-1LL
TYPE Asp Explorer
ROLE Bubble Bus
JUMP RANGE 70.09 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 20
SHIP HULL VALUE 6,136,672 Cr
VALUE 46,738,979 Cr
DESCRIPTION
This is Fairlight. It is the ship that Quillmonkey achieved his elite status in. It will be the ship in which they finally bury him, deep within a star. When it goes, many secrets go with it.
It is a craft that has been around as long as time. And time is something Quillmonkey knows a lot about. It flew at the cleansing of Achenar and its moral compass is as chaotic now as it ever was.
It creaks, it grumbles and the aches are deep in its superstructure but it is still Quillmonkey's true ship. When he has a decision to make, it is always Fairlight he turns to for guidance, to ensure he does no evil or good.
NAME Exquisite Denial
SHIP IDENT QU-1Z
TYPE Python
ROLE War Effort
JUMP RANGE 25.66 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 8
SHIP HULL VALUE 53,932,682 Cr
VALUE 175,165,818 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Exquisite Denial is a vessel that has had many lives. Quillmonkey purchased her second-hand from a dodgy Eurybian dealer who claimed the stains would rub out. Since then it has been a science vessel, station rescue ship, a passenger transporter, a diamond pirate and now, in it's latest guise of midnight black, an anti-thargoid assault ship. Replacing convenience with steel and alloy reinforcements has meant some major adjustments to the interior design, and the loss of the coffee machine. But when its modified shards are charged, there is no denying Exquisite Denial's pedigree.
NAME The Solace Of Silence
SHIP IDENT QU-1ET
TYPE Krait Phantom
ROLE Deep Black Explorer
JUMP RANGE 68.01 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 8
SHIP HULL VALUE 30,438,198 Cr
VALUE 97,822,973 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Solace, as this ship is known, has been many places and seen many things. Ghosts of the black still haunt its holds and when you engage maglocks, you can feel the beat of the galaxy pulsing through the hull beneath your feet.
Solace has taken Quillmonkey to the limits of awe and wonder; to the ever open eye of Sagittarius, to the dark peaks of rogue systems high above the astral plane and to the lonely whispering mysteries of long dead stars. It knows many secrets and will take them beyond the ship graveyard.
NAME Difference Of Opinion
SHIP IDENT QU-1T
TYPE Fer-de-Lance
ROLE Combat
JUMP RANGE 17.01 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 0
SHIP HULL VALUE 51,126,484 Cr
VALUE 132,127,818 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Difference is a ship with no identity problem. It knows who it is, it knows its role out there between the stars and it doesn't give a shit. It is the only ship Quillmonkey will spend hard cash on; tweaking, polishing, painting, buffing the scorch marks from the canopy. Because this ship demands to look its best and when an argument begins out there, there is no better.
When Difference drifts silently through the sparkling ice at a hazardous extraction site, the star should feel honoured to glint off its curved bodywork. As Difference aligns itself with the vulnerable underbelly of your craft, never have the audacity to put it in the shadows. When Difference's four plasma accelerators purr in exaltation, you should spend those last few seconds in praise that it is your bounty that will be redeemed.
NAME Not Suitable 4 Miners
SHIP IDENT QU-1FF
TYPE Federal Corvette
ROLE Multi Map Mining
JUMP RANGE 21.96 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 384
SHIP HULL VALUE 160,711,456 Cr
VALUE 390,856,092 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Some say this ship is not suitable for miners. Quillmonkey disagrees. In fact, sit him down at any starport bar and he'll look deep into your eyes, crack his knuckles and tell you that while it can only carry 384 tonnes of mineral in its cargo racks, that is quite enough for any sane pilot to blast. He'll smile a lopsided smile and tell you how it beats the cutter hands down. Not only can the size 8 distributor deplete a rock on 2.5 pips in 10 seconds but it'll leave you 2 pips to engines, giving you a higher speed between rocks than the cutter, even with the hatch down.
He'll wink as he takes a long draw of the beer you bought him before he continues to tell you that the corvette is more manoeuvrable than the cutter, less prone to drifting and will deploy 13 collector limpets. 1 more than the cutter. Finally, he'll say, as he replaces his battered aviator sunglasses. The corvette can take the whole range of mining tools with better convergence than the cutter.
So, you got to ask yourself, what is unsuitable about that?
NAME Eccentric Philosophy
SHIP IDENT QU-1Z
TYPE Python
ROLE Manic Miner
JUMP RANGE 28.57 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 130
SHIP HULL VALUE 53,932,682 Cr
VALUE 146,257,400 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Eccentric by name, eccentric by nature. This ship is one-of-a-kind. If it doesn't like where you are going it will refuse to go there. FSD Charging? Not if Eccentric has anything to say about it. While it is not a cantankerous ship, it is old, stubborn and averse to change. It comes from the Tionisla shipyard back when the old worlds were new. It has visited stars that are no longer on the Pilot's Federation charts and it still grumbles about 'bloody thargoid tech' whenever you initiate the 'new-fangled' FSD drive.
It gets Quillmonkey where he needs to be and makes sure he knows all about it.
NAME Tactical Profit Margin
SHIP IDENT QU-4FF
TYPE Imperial Cutter
ROLE Fatboy Trader
JUMP RANGE 38.33 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 720
SHIP HULL VALUE 195,472,193 Cr
VALUE 567,629,009 Cr
DESCRIPTION
TPM is not Quillmonkey's favoured ship. Sure, when the discount basement offers you a deal you can't turn down or a CG needs a couple-thousand tonnes of prime delivery, he'll dust her down and power her up. But he won't enjoy it. She's a big girl and not for turning. All that said, she does the job. Fully loaded with 720t in her fat belly she can still do a jump run from Tewanta to Sumeru without pausing for breath. She only stops for the unfortunate pirates who pull her from supercruise in their pathetic anacondas and fer-de-lances. She stops and dares them to imagine they'll ever penetrate TPM's shields. Yes, she stops for them. Long enough to scoop up the dust they leave behind.
NAME A Phlogiston Dream
SHIP IDENT QU-1NS
TYPE Cobra Mk III
ROLE Zipper
JUMP RANGE 44.94 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 0
SHIP HULL VALUE 181,108 Cr
VALUE 10,562,693 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Phlogiston is the untraceable element that enables combustion. In the days before money and science, Quillmonkey would use this ship to help pirates burn brightly against the stars. Recent developments have rendered dreams outdated and Quillmonkey now has many other ways to do the job quicker, more efficiently and more sustainably. Yet there is something about the old Cobra model that will have a place in the deepest, most psychopathic part of Quillmonkey's heart.
NAME Sanguine Arbitration
SHIP IDENT QU-3RY
TYPE Imperial Courier
ROLE Settlement Sniper
JUMP RANGE 29.73 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 6
SHIP HULL VALUE 2,215,370 Cr
VALUE 11,855,143 Cr
DESCRIPTION
Sometimes you just need a ship you can really throw around. One that has the style and looks to grace even the most high-tech tourist paradise settlements and blow it to particles. One with the versatility to handle almost any takedown. One that has the speed and agility to set down mere inches from the control centres of even the most heavily defended military installations. It is the ship that Quillmonkey relies on whenever the need arises to indiscriminately shoot the faces off guards, administrators, researchers, farmers and scientists alike.
Sanguine will take him there, clear the area and offer him a range of murder suits with which to do the job.
Quillmonkey does not believe in good and evil but when there is evil to be done, Sanguine is very very good.
NAME Bleak Expectations
SHIP IDENT QU-1RK
TYPE Type-10 Defender
ROLE Static Light Show
JUMP RANGE 5.35 Ly
CARGO CAPACITY 72
SHIP HULL VALUE 73,761,831 Cr
VALUE 419,665,047 Cr
DESCRIPTION
When all around is darkness, the starlight almost falls into this lumbering hulk of a ship. At first it appears that no one is home, a ghostship adrift against the pale rocks of the ring. A quick scan will reveal 30t of gold in the cargo bay. An easy target, surely. You hail the vessel and receive no reply. You set out your ultimatum. 10-seconds to drop the gold or else. Static is your only response. You count down and still the ship hangs, dead to the night.
Only when you open fire on Bleak Expectations do you realise your mistake. Nine turreted lasers snap onto your ship, melting your shields before you can react. It's then you notice the fighter slide out from the rocks, swinging in to attack your vulnerable hull and in the cockpit, the wide-eyed, beaming smile of Quillmonkey.