Pirate One

“*Nothing could make the new ship anything more than a big, ugly, ungainly freighter, but anyone attacking* this *scow would find that it had very nasty teeth.*”

## Origins

It was mass produced by Master System for use as transport freighter.

## Technical

It is large, lumbering, and slow, but it can hold massive quantities of supplies and looks identical to almost all Master System freighters currently in use. It originally had only four guns, but was outfitted to have an advanced weapons array as well as a self destruct mechanism.(self destruct ref?)

## In the series

### *Pirates of the Thunder*

Low on murylium after initiating modifications to the *Thunder* and needing more to finish them, the Pirates of the Thunder sought more murylium in the Free Booter Outpost of Halinachi. They left empty handed, but they managed to acquire knowledge of many Master System transport routes. They staked one such route out, and though they found a freighter it only held a few hundred human SPF agents.

After six more days of waiting they found a freighter full to the brim with murylium, enough to finish the modifications and supply the *Thunder* for whole decade afterward. Star Eagle launched eight automated fighters and *Lightning* to capture it, although the freighter managed to put out a distress signal for almost thirty seconds before surrendering.

Safely away, refining the stolen murylium, and waiting for a response from Savaphoong, Star Eagle went to work on the stolen freighter. Lacking the capacity to reprogram the Pilot’s core, he had to “section” it. This was the computer equivalent of a lobotomy, in which self-awareness of was sectioned off and isolated so that it could neither function alone nor control any ship’s functions, leaving the ship basically a mindless slave awaiting orders.

The ship itself was badly damaged, with all but one of its engines destroyed. Using the lone undamaged unit, they replicated and reconstructed the other engines with transmuters and then replaced them. The weapons system and power plant were completely redesigned however. Using schematics from the *Lightning*, they added an advanced weapons array with extra munitions held within the freighter’s large interior. The ship itself would still be slow and ungainly, but it would be an extremely well defended tanker, which they dubbed the *Pirate One*.

After being asked for murylium by Savaphoong, the Pirate One moved in to a desolate system and left five hundred kilos of murylium and two fighters behind, then left to monitor the area. After the *Kaotan* came, took the murylium, and had a short conversation with those onboard the *Thunder*, they left with Raven to talk to the remaining Free Booters. After six ships elected to join the Pirates of the Thunder, they all moved in to board the *Thunder*, along with the *Pirate One* and *Lightning* as well.

#### The Vulture of Janipur

After the Council of Captains agreed to scope out of ring on Janipur, the *Pirate One* was sent to test the orbital security there. Using fake identification, it punched into the system, was challenged and passed by an automated satellite relay station, refueled, then punched back to the *Thunder*, its tamper seals and passwords untouched.

After this successful test, the *Pirate One* punched into the system one more, only this time piloted and holding the automated fighter which would bring Vulture down to Janipur. Once more its fake identification was cleared by the automated satellite, and once more it refueled, but this time it dispatched the automated fighter down to Janipur, without being detected by Master System’s monitoring satellite, before punching back out of the system and back to the *Thunder*.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 *Pirates of the Thunder*, ch. 7
2. ↑ *Pirates of the Thunder*, ch. 8
3. ↑ *Pirates of the Thunder*, ch. 9