- Intent: A quick, nimble ship for Arette and her entourage, capable of high speed and comedic levels of carnage.
- Image Source: Here
- Canon Link: Light Freighter
- Permissions: N/A - All referenced submissions are open-market and mass-production
- Primary Source: Mynock-Class Light Freighter
- Manufacturer: Arette and company
- Affiliation: Arette
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: Heavily modified M.I. Mynock-Class Light Freighter
- Production: Unique
- Material: Durasteel, Glasteel, Standard Starship Components, Stygium Crystal Array
- Classification: Blockade Runner, Personal Transport
- Length: 30 Meters
- Width: 25 Meters
- Height: 10 Meters
- Armament: Very High
- Defenses: Low
- Deflector Shield Generators
- Standard Hull Plating
- Chaff and Flare Launchers
- Squadron Count: None
- Maneuverability Rating: Extreme
- Speed Rating: Extreme
- Hyperdrive: Class 1.0
- All standard features, plus -
- Multi-Fuel Reactor
- Cockpit Astromech Socket
- M.I. Rotating Comms System
- M.I. Scan Jam Package
- IFF Transponder and Spoofer
- Fully stocked Med-Bay, with complementary Medi-Droid
- Engineering and Repair Bay, with astromech storage dock
- Crew Quarters (6 Rooms), Lounge, and Mess Hall
- Smuggling Compartments / Impromptu Holding Cells
- M.I. Fire Suppression System
- M.I. Hunter-Seeker Fire Control System
- ECSS-01 Environmental Condition Stabilizer System
- Drill Boarding Pod
- Stygium Cloak
- Soul Hunter: The Astral Huntress is a paragon of speed and maneuverability, zipping through void and atmosphere with equal alacrity.
- Blood Reaver: The Huntress hits hard for a ship of her size, thanks to the installation of ludicrously heavy weapons systems.
- Void Stalker: The Huntress pursues her prey in silence. Thanks to the integration of Stygium crystals, the ship can become undetectable to the vast majority of sensors, not to mention vision, at the flip of a switch.
- Glasteel Cannon: The Astral Huntress is a fragile ship with a set of massive guns strapped to her.
- Running Hot: The Astral Huntress has too many systems that drain too much power; she can't run 'em all at once.
- Bump in the Night: Even ghosts are not, always, completely silent. The Huntress can be detected by certain anti-stealth measures.
A warrior needs a ship. How else is she supposed to get to all the good fights in the Galaxy? Arette's old ship did not befit a warrior; it was a stolen, shoddy freighter, barely capable of defending itself and sluggish for its size. Her new ship was stolen, too, admittedly, but at least this time it was stolen in a fight.
Christened the Astral Huntress as soon as the ship's newly conscripted crew had finished cleaning out the previous captain's blood, the ship would soon undergo extensive modification to suit her new captain's tastes.
First came killing power. The Mynock-Class freighter has respectable stock armaments, but Arette was not looking for respectable. She tracked down and stole the biggest guns she could find that linked to the Huntress's fire control systems. Once you'd settled on making your ship as comically aggressive as possible, carving out a chunk of your cargo bay to install a boarding pod launch bay made plenty of sense, too.
Next came speed. Engine tuning and power optimization require regrettably little in the way of piracy and banditry, but they do make it easier in the future. Thinning down the hull plating (for fuel efficiency and velocity) and getting rid of the ship's lighter turrets (to cut down on power drain) were all easy choices.
The trickiest part of the plan was getting her hands on a Stygium Cloak; those tended to be better guarded than admittedly high-powered but open market armaments. And it wasn't like you could just make one, either. Arette managed that, though, too. That she now owed a handful of favors to a certain Eternalist philosopher-cultist was a regrettable but necessary setback.
And, at least to Arette (and the more deranged members of her crew), it was worth it. The Astral Huntress had become a sterling engine of murder, capable of accelerating to extreme speeds with nigh-peerless maneuverability, reigning down hell on whatever unfortunate souls had garnered their ire, and darting away, cloaked and cackling.
...With a few caveats.
First, and most notably, stripping down the defensive systems as far as could be gotten away with in the name of increased speed has left the Huntress somewhat flimsy. While not necessarily defenseless, the Huntress can't exactly take a lot of hits before she needs to retreat, initiate emergency landing, or worse.
There's also the issue of power - even given tuning and power optimization, the addition of a Stygium Cloak strains the limits of the Huntress's reactor. She can't run her two biggest power draws - her weapons systems and her cloak - at the same time. If she's baring her fangs, she's vulnerable, and if she's keeping her mouth shut, she's effectively toothless.
And finally, there's the little, tiny issue of stealth systems not actually being all that impenetrable. Crystal Grav Traps are the first thing most people think of, but there are other ways to track a ship, too. First off, the Astral Huntress is exceedingly easy to track in-atmosphere if you've got the right scanners - atmospheric flight requires constant emissions, and you can use those to tell where the ship's headed. The same trick can be used in void combat, but it's more challenging, since without air resistance, the ship can perform longer maneuvers with shorter thrusts. Plus, unless someone onboard is hiding the ship's presence, the Force is a pretty damn reliable way to track someone.
But ignoring all of the flaws and imperfections, the Astral Huntress is a flawless, perfect killing machine, and Arette couldn't be happier with her.
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