Screaming Phoenix

Age

9

Type

Starfighter

Faction

Pirate

Owner

Starwing

Overview

The Screaming Phoenix is a custom built ship, made from scrap and salvage, engineered by Starwing himself to be incredibly fast and manueverable. It’s a starfighter built on his vision of being a hero in the stars. Most of the ship is dedicated:

• Fuel
• Weapons
• Main Drive

It’s basically a rocket and a gun with a fuel tank strapped on. The frame has been optimized, built just tough enough. It can endure about as many G’s as its pilot (who himself was built to take those g’s). In combat, the idea is to fly too fast and hard for the standard PDC to keep up, then use the rail gun to take out the enemy.

Visually, the drive cone takes up most of the ship, the body is narrow and aerodynamic. Sleek. A pair of folding wings come out the sides. They’re swing-wings, able to move in and out: inboard for space flight and outwards for atmospheric manuevering. The ship comes to a narrow front.

Typical Uses/Mission

While the Screaming Phoenix was built to be a starfighter, it is most often used for milk runs around the system, light smuggling, racing, occasional support, and rarely combat. The fact of the matter is, the other Rec Runners don’t want to find out how well it’ll do in combat. They rather keep Starwing alive, so his high-risk missions are always missions he can run away on.

Features

Custom Crash Couch

Star’s pilot seat is designed around a motorcycle layout. The pilot lays forward over the controls, it emulates a natural flying position. Controls to the left or right allow for flying the ship. A spherical display around the cockpit allows the pilot to have a full 360 degree view of space. This unique design makes it almost impossible for others to fly the ship. It’s not optimal for human bodies to endure G-forces either, but Star’s body was built with this type of flight in mind.

Supports for his arms and legs hold him to the seat during intense manuevers.

There is a second seat of the same design behind his, it’s configured for engineering and radio systems, though he rarely has a copilot.

Neural Interface & AI System

The ship features a neural interface, allowing Star to control the ship’s systems as if they were an extension of his own body. He’s augmented this with an AI that helps sharpen his responses. It’s not an advanced AI, just a basic predictive assistant, but he hopes to have a more advanced AI some day.

Crew Amenities

Interior spaces are more cramped, owing to Starwing’s own small height. He’s built it to accomodate someone his own size. There is a bunk room with room for 4 at most. A simple bathroom and a compact kitchen round out the crew experience. The bunks fold into the walls to make it into a common room.

There is essentially 1 room per floor, so the ship is organized: Cockpit, Kitchen, Bunk, Machine Shop. Ladders and a lift connect the levels.

Machine Shop / Hold

Starwing wouldn’t go into space without a machine shop for tinkering. He’s built half of the ship using its own workshop. This space has all the tools he need to make repairs, fabricate, or tear down anything he finds. The same space holds raw materials, replacement parts, food, consumables, and any cargo he’s hauling.

Armament

Rail Gun

Running the length of the ship is a railgun. The design is long. Starwing has built a longer barrel with more room for magnetic accelerators. His rounds fly faster and hit harder. Slimmer ammo pierces thicker armor easier, especially when it’s fired faster.

Point Defense Turrets

These are considerably smaller than a standard PDC. They won’t pierce a warship’s armor. They’re still dangerous to freighters and unarmored ships. They’re designed to be hidden, compact, and most effective against enemy torpedoes.

Fletchett Launcher

This is a brilliant idea. When Star is being pursued, a set of dispensers in the back of the ship can disperse armor-piercing shards in his wake. A pursuing ship will run hard into them. The fletchetts themselves are made of tungsten, meant to be fired at such close range that the pursuer can’t dodge them.

Countermeasure Pod

The last light-weight defense is a system that dispenses various countermeasures. It has compact nuclear explosives designed to generate high intensity radiation to flood out sensors, EMPs to disrupt ships’ systems, lasers and jammers to interfere with both radar and comms systems.

History

The Phoenix has been Star’s dream-ship for years. When he was a kid, still in-line to be an enslaved actor, he had a ship with a somewhat similar design. It was known simply was 42 and had the same motorcycle style seat for flying it. That one though, was only a prop for a show. This one however, is real.

By the time Star was 15, he knew enough engineering and had enough experience with salvaging to start on his own ship. It was also very essential that he get his own ship: he kept trying to modify the runner pods to do his own bidding. Adding radiators, altering their drives, tweaking and tuning them. It was decided he needed something new to tinker on, just for him. They let him reserve their scraps and junk, sorting through it, giving him prime parts.

In a few years, Starwing had gone from nothing but ruins and rubble to his just reward: a working starfighter. It follows him around on every mission, tucked in a hold or strapped to another ship’s exterior. It’s gone with him eveywhere - even if he had to just follow the mothership to their haul (not that he’d ever argue against more flying time).

Crew

Starwing

Starwing is a compulsive tinkerer and explorer. He likes to dig into the nooks and crannies of ships, loves learning how they work and knowing what makes things tick. Deep inside, he dreams of being some sort of space-faring hero, even if his odds aren't great.