Mustatir

Filling a more varied role of a strike fighter, the Mustatur is an example of the Dune Serpent's commitment to their tactical creed, placing stealth and surprise attacks at the top of their list of capabilities. Despite being made as part of an unofficial upgrade program it has been adopted among the Legion as a wholesale replacement for the standard Talaria.

## **History**

Learned from the hard-fought wars of the Great Crusade, Azus and his Legion fought many foes defending and expanding the Imperium. While their usual tactics of quick decisive blows to the enemy were effective, they quickly learned that they had to be ready to adapt to any situation. Through this doctrine the Talaria that had bolstered their armouries from the distant Solar Segmentum, was found lacking. While the craft was swift and highly manoeuvrable, it lacked in versatility that the Dune Serpents sorely needed. To this end, several Techmarines set about repurposing their stock of the aircraft to better suit the demands of their particular type of warfare giving it the honorary title of 'Mustatir' as they built it into a whole new beast.

The rebuilt aircraft, while mostly resembling the profile of it's base design, showed great changes to both it's internal and external structure. Covered in cameleoline coating, weapons pylons and countermeasure launchers, it looked almost completely different, save for the large weapon under the pilot's compartment. Though the turret was done away with and replaced with a fixed weapon mount, the avenger bolt cannon that took the laser destroyer array's place was just as formidable, and would prove as such too.

They were initially deployed into the field against an unnamed xenos force that was assaulting over their world's desert planes. All but baffling the alien air defence tanks in their cadre, the Mustatir squadrons wreaked havoc amongst their forces as decoys and jammers blinded and confused them, before the droning boom of avenger cannons tore their formation to shreds from all angles.

It was soon after this victory and a string of others that the Mustatir was formally adopted by the Dune Serpents, as the design spread ever-outwards from conclave to conclave. Though local members of the Mechanicum were incensed by the alterations made to the Talaria, they too were forced to see the worth of such adaptation when faced against the full scale of the xenos threat, and as such were begrudgingly silenced.

## **Design**

Fitting a more broad role of 'strike fighter' as opposed to the specific niche of 'air superiority fighter', the Mustatir gains a lot more tactical flexibility in return for a decrease in manoeuvrability and air-to-air firepower.

The main advantage of the fighter, while outfitted with a variety of weaponry, comes from the trait all Dune Serpents are known for, stealth. The outer layer of cameleoline coating the aircraft's hull acts as both a visual and augur-defeating measure, hiding it almost completely. Coupled with the avenger bolt cannon replacing the laser destroyer array and the pylons on the wings, a degree of the speed and agility of the Talaria's design has been retained, but the number of plasma thrusters have had to be reduced significantly to accommodate such weaponry. Overall the refit has made the aircraft more in line with a stealth fighter, able to sneak it's way in through enemy defences to strike at a target before disappearing again in a puff of countermeasure smoke.

### **Armament**

While certain elements of the Mustatir's weaponry remain the same, the major differences can definitely be seen in it's ability to destroy an array of targets. With the Avenger Bolt Cannon as well as numerous air-to-ground missiles and small bombs the craft can saturate areas with cluster munitions and shoot enemies from the sky with ease, weaving between return fire with ease. ***Listed below are weapons that have either been changed from the base Talaria design, or new weaponry that can be mounted. All base Talaria munitions can still be mounted.***

Bolt Weaponry

* Avenger Bolt Cannon

Missiles, Rockets and Bombs

* 2 Internal Bays
* 2 External Pylons
	+ Air-to-ground:
		- Hellstrike Missile
		- Hellfury Missile
	+ Miscellaneous Munitions:
		- Djinn Decoy/Jamming Missile

As the main armament for the fighter, the Avenger Bolt Cannon replaces the laser destroyer array previously mounted on the underside of the cockpit, turning in anti-tank capability for the more versatile weapons system that can be used for both anti-infantry and anti-tank combat. With the combined weight and bulk of the weapons system it cannot be mounted on a turret like the original laser destroyer array, and has to instead be fixed in place. While this does limit the aircraft's cone of attack the rate of fire, ammunition calibre and variable warheads allow it to put several dozen rounds onto a target compared to the 3 or 4 lascannon shots of the laser destroyer array.

To allow the weapon to have the widest range of effect as possible against enemy troops it s fitted with an autoloader system that allows for up to 3 different ammunition types. Loading the gun up with various types of ammunition as necessary depending on the scenario, the Dune Serpents have maintained a certain standard for the weapon's load out. The normal ammunition loads for the Mustatir are as follows; Airburst Nervebane Rounds for use against infantry, Haywire Rounds for use against heavy infantry and vehicular targets, and the standard Explosive Bolt Rounds for use against a variety of targets. With all 3 of these in the aircraft's arsenal, it can successfully attack and deter any number of foes it faces.

While the main armament of the aircraft may seem to be solely the arena of the Avenger Bolt Cannon, the missile bays of the Mustatir can hold just as much as it's erstwhile predecessor, the Talaria. While one of the missile bays have been repurposed into ammunition storage for the main cannon, the two that remain can be just as easily packed with extensive munitions of various sizes and purposes. Hellstrike and Hellfury missiles are a staple of a Dune Serpents Pilot's loadout for anti-tank and anti-infantry strikes respectively.

While the arsenal of missiles available to the aircraft is vast, there is a specific variant that has been purposefully-built by the Dune Serpent Techmarine Claves that has taken their particular style of guerilla warfare to the skies. Dubbed the 'Djinn' missile, it was created by the Dune Serpents to act as both as either a decoy or a jammer against battlefield augurs, fooling or blinding them into uselessness. The tactical avenues opened up by such a versatile weapon is indicative of the Dune Serpents themselves, building a weapon that allows for distractions and feint manoeuvres, giving them the upper hand. Through the proper application of this weapon many fortresses have been broken open and armies thrown into disarray as they lose communication with one another.

To complement both the missile and the aircraft itself a mounting pylon was created that, while restricted in it's payload weight, can be fully detached once all it's ordnance has been launched. Used in conjunction with the Djinn, a Mustatir can mount several missiles and launch a full-scale decoy air attack to distract the enemy from long range, before detaching it's pylons and slipping away unnoticed by enemy augurs.

### **Defensive Systems**

With further adjustments to the Talaria, the Dune Serpents were able to augment the fighter to suit their needs much more than the Martian design could. To maximise the effectiveness of the craft as an ambush predator, an additional outer layer of composite plating has been added that in conjunction with the onboard cogitators, acts as a form of active camouflage. This ancient technology has been adapted by the Dune Serpents into cameleoline plating to obscure the craft in multiple visual spectrum. Able to display a rough approximation of the environment around it the craft's stealth isn't completely effective, especially when employed while at a standstill. While not foolproof when used in conjunction with it's speed and manoeuvrability during flight it leaves the craft as little more than a visual smear that is significantly harder to spot.

At the same time the same crystalline structures of the plating are angled in such a way that augur and auspex beams have a high chance of reflecting off of the craft entirely or giving false returns instead. These bouncing beams scatter in such a way that fools most sensors, sometimes appearing as an augur ghost as the system struggles to understand the readings it is receiving.

While the cameleoline plating appears to be a more specialised upgrade, the fundamentals of air combat have not been ignored with the variant either. Supplementing the already reasonable number of decoy and chaff launchers on the Talaria, the Mustatir adds 2 more of these pods onto the aircraft. Placed on the underside of the engine intakes , this pair of pods is filled with a variety of both electronic and physical decoys and chaff to fool any aircraft of munition lucky enough to have engaged it in the first place.

These features of the Mustatir have been very specific design choices, both from the Dune Serpents themselves and the necessity of their war in the Galactic East, with the harsh back and forth fighting of the front proving to be an extremely volatile and unpredictable place.

## **Notable Mustatir**

***Sword's Edge*** – Commander Akhmanad Basir