[img float=right]http://i.imgur.com/CkKwZws.jpg?1[/img]Valetta Shipyard

The orbital manufactory of the Maltese stood as a proud testament to the strength and power of the Maltese nation. Outcast to the fringes of Sirius and with little to no resources readily available to them, the survivors of the Hispania had eked out a living of their own and turned the harsh, acidic world below into a virtual paradise.

It was here, that the MNS Sicily was now moored; the aft service scaffold of the installation regularly served as the station's maintenance and repair yards, while the fore scaffold nearest the primary control tower manufactured many of the Tridente gunships belonging to the Nacione- all the while within the station's confines and service hatches, crews worked around the clock to construct both Borderworlds and Conquistador line strikecraft to serve both foreign and Maltese interests.

The Sicily was a well renowned vessel- earning numerous victories against Malta's enemies throughout the sigmas under the Cross' banner over the years, serving only a small handful of other groups prior. It was ironic then that a vessel which had earned the old order such renown, would soon be reborn to do the same within a newer order, albeit with far more armament and firepower at its disposal with which to do so. Four days prior the vessel had moored to the station; its crew on extended shore-leave and most of the crew compartments depressurized so as to avoid risk of injury or damage in the event of accidental hull-breach during construction work. The removal of the vessel's singularity-core and backup pair of nuclear reactors were the most recent major changes- as a plethora of umbilical cables and wires ran from the service module to the vessel. These cables were arrayed in nearly every direction like vines draping off of an ancient ruin, with some simply freely dangling into space, only connected to the station as they awaited their housing aboard the vessel to provide power, coolant, or some other resource that could be directly provided by the station.

Callahan looked on from his office within the secondary command tower nearest the aft scaffold. Hundreds of meters above him was what would be the first of many of his major contributions to Amalfi. He had spent his life with spaceships- first within Bretonia nearly three decades prior, then briefly with the Rogues and then with Tarxien merely three years ago. They were his home, as much as they were his work; the drone of life-support units and the hum of engines firing and idling, separated by several thousand tonnes of plating and conduit were sounds that kept the unadjusted awake at night, or simply acted as a source of headaches and migraines. To Harry however, nothing was more soothing; the eerie creaking of a vessel conning into a nearby mooring fixture, the brief feeling of vertigo as a ship began to accelerate before it's inertial dampeners could engage in full, or the sudden increased pull of gravity as artificial-grav systems worked with planetary mass to produce two or more Gees for a brief time upon planetary reentry - all of it was familiar, and all of it made a vessel feel like home to the middle-aged Cambridge drop-out.

The Sicily represented not only Amalfi's significant investment in a vessel design that had only briefly graced Maltese airspace with its presence, but it also represented the Union's faith in Callahan. Upon the Union's formation following the shattering of the Cross, many were unsure of what to do with Callahan: he was the last named heir to the Armando family fortune, but the Armando family was considered by and large to be traitors to the lesser-sung heroes of the old Cross that made up the bulk of Amalfi, and many were vocally opposed to the inclusion of any bearing his title - weak as his claim was to it following Olmos's death. Paulo and Desdemona Varela - now the literal twin heads of the Directorate and the political Union respectively - had to finally step in and grant him clemency, allowing his actions to speak for themselves instead of being judged based on the actions of his predecessors. He was grateful for this, but he still needed to prove his ability as both an individual helping head the organization, but also in his own right as a shipwright and an engineer, that he would be a worthy addition to the ranks of Amalfi.

The Misericorde-class would be that proof. A gift from allies of the old order, the vessel's schematics had been granted to the organization not long before the fall of the Cross. Inquisitor Espinosa, the agent heading the effort to help these old allies had carried the designs on her person following her flight from Maltese territory. An old grudge that was soon to become a threat to both her and her dependent's safety led her to put an end to the life of the Cross' soon to be named leader, Mario Olmos- an event that served as the final nail that shattered the foundation of the Cross, and brought its people to splinter from one another. Though the designs were not of his making, the improvements he had made and put forth were informed by his work with the Mosquitoes - the original designers of the class -, would help avoid many of the roadblocks that the Fenice D'Oro had faced following its launch. These improvements would prove instrumental in bringing the true capabilities of the ship-class to fruition.

A Misericorde was first and foremost one thing: a modification of the RM Storta-class hull; outfitted with an expanded ventral-mounted hangar bay. Secondary to that were numerous improvements to the vessel's gun-placement and loadout, through an overall expansion of available energy reserves, power lines, and targeting systems. The final major addition was something that Harry held likely in the highest regard of them all: a massive sensor array configured and outfitted to give the vessel the advantage in early-warning and detection above all other vessels of her size and class. This would allow the ship an edge in swiftness merged with sensor capacity that was unparalleled in all of Sirius, and allow the Sicily and any that followed this conversion process to know of an enemy, and attack or evade an enemy far in advance to that of any other ship of her size and tonnage.

Above him he could see the progress the dockworkers had already made: Much of the aft-section of the ship was torn apart- with armor panels and components scattered throughout the scaffolding. Phase 0 of the process was simply making the ship ready for the new components and additions to the hull- a process that was at this point nearly completed. Following this, Phase 1 would consist of the installation of much of the paneling and superstructure that would serve as the framework for the rest of the additions. The Polymers, Alloys and scrap that would be necessary for this portion would form the backbone of the rest of the project - in some cases quite literally.

Harry glanced at the datapad in his hand. He had just a few days prior sent out word of his requisitions to Amalfi's confirmed allies and friends throughout Sirius - some moreso than others - for the materials. Yet, despite the short timespan, many of them were already arriving with the materials in their bays, requesting docking access to offload the supplies that would breathe new life into the ship. One was even perched on a mooring arm at that moment as he stood there; a Pilgrim-liner - offloading the last of its cargo then completing pre-flight checks with the control tower and disembarking- likely bound for its original port-of-call to acquire another load of whatever resource it had just dropped off. Callahan looked on for a few moments, briefly smirking to himself at the scrambling outsiders eager to serve at Malta's whim, before turning back away from the window and retreating back into the confines of the station - the crews above him still idly toiling away at the behemoth half of a vessel that was now the Sicily.

Phases 1&2

Any capital vessel is an immense investment of resources and expert personnel- regardless of size. Though some might claim to be the sole contributor or architect of a warship, the realities of ship construction requires hundreds or thousands of hands to work in unison and parity to change a basic digital blueprint, into a floating fortress.

Callahan was reminded of this simple tenet of construction as he oversaw the manifest list in his hand; a plethora of names from wildly different backgrounds and places within Sirius had all touched upon the cargo that was in the process of being unloaded above him. Not only the Junkers - the regular suppliers of resources to Malta, but members of Rheinland's Imperialist movement the Unioners, pilots from the Natio Octavarium- the Tau's resurgent nomadic micro-state, and even staff from the National Council; a group that some more tribalistically-minded thought a rival to the Amalfi Union had pitched in to the aid of the Sicily. All were united in their support of Amalfi, and it was with a slight touch of pride that Harry looked on to the construction work underway before him.

Phase 1 was largely the simple construction process of the exterior pressure-hull and armoring; with the multitudes of alloys, polymers and panels delivered being lanced to a super-alloy superstructure skeleton. Hull panels were then lanced into place around the frame, providing the exterior 'shell' that extended from the ventral exterior of the ship, all the way back to the engine-pods. For many of the trusses between the exterior and interior bulkheads, and a number of the armor plates - the salvage recovered from Bering were slotted in alongside Valetta's own freshly-made panels and newly delivered ones to form a powerful defense from both the rigors of battle, and the radiation and gravitational stresses of deep space; within and without a heliosphere. To supplement the absorption of incoming high energy particles - both natural and artificial, the final step of the first phase of construction was a simple, Beryllium Alloy sheen coating applied to the outward-facing panels, nearly fully protecting the crew inside from all but the most constant sustained barrage of Beta and Gamma particles.

Phase 2 delved into the significantly more complex step of the ship's propulsion systems. Maltese RM-2A Storta Destroyers use a series of engine 'pods' - not dissimilar to that of the twin nacelles used on the Tridente-class escort - as a primary propulsion method. Secondary thrusters dotted along the hull in sequences allow for the vessel's swift maneuverability. In practice: each nacelle is its own self-contained fusion-torch array; magnetically bottling high-temperature plasma in doughnut-shaped chambers stacked along the length of the 'pod', and funneling the resulting exhaust into a single, central vent down the center to achieve massive amounts of thrust. In most warships, the fusion-drives and propulsion systems are largely some of the most undesirable and dangerous jobs onboard- with the fusion technologies at play requiring near constant maintenance and monitoring to function. Maltese innovations however had led to the entire system be miniaturized, stacked, and compartmentalized into the tube-shaped nacelles just aft of the power-plant compartment, encased in armor plates and held together by the ship's frame, with the only inputs being fuel and control for thrust-vectoring at the exhaust-end of the 'pod'. Should any single chamber fail or take damage, all of the others are still capable of firing and functioning independently, with each nacelle wired into a series of computers that track the resulting thrust of the whole array, and counteracting any imbalances automatically with no need for input from the onboard staff for normal functions.

While the typical RM-1 and RM-2A Storta employ a battery of five of these drive nacelles, the significant increase in overall mass by the Misericorde's hangar bay and sensor dish necessitate another pair of them be mounted onto the sides of the aft-recovery and storage hangar directly below the main drive array.



[p3d]irush+wireonxray+spin[/p3d]

Phase 3

"Begin log, May 8th, 825 AS
Shipwright Harry Callahan addressing the heads of the families of the Union:

The Maltese Singularity Cores are technologically some of the most advanced, yet simple pieces of innovation to come out of the collective human consciousness in the past two hundred years - the Maltese's ascension past the bonds of our own humanity not withstanding. The experimental cores are part of a concerted effort by Maltese innovators to begin to overhaul the aged Maltese capital-ship line - the cores being slowly phased-into service over the course of the past decade into a handful of Storta's, dubbed the RM-2A pattern. These devices act as a smaller, more powerful counterpart to conventional fusion generators that trade operational parameters of space and fuel requirements, for the necessity for a larger number technologically-minded personnel, and constant, vigilant maintenance.

In a nutshell, singularities are entities that pop into existence everywhere in the universe constantly, however nearly all of them lack the mass required to sustain said singularity for much more than a few picoseconds at a time. This generation process can be simulated and singularities generated semi on-demand using exceedingly precise conditions in enormous particle-colliders, such as one located on Corsica, and are exceptionally difficult to stabilize to the point of usefulness. These singularities once generated, are siphoned off from the collider's interior using powerful grav-field generators, and placed into a large spherical 'shell' with a mirrored interior. The rest of the shell is comprised of a dizzlingly complex array innumerable sensors, graviton generators, EM-emitters, and Beryllium sheeting, all of which work in conjunction with one another to both protect the singularity from the outside environment and keep it permanently anchored to the absolute center of the shell, but also to protect any nearby crew compartments from irradiation.

Power generation via the singularity relies on the simple principal that they are not in fact static objects, and instead have immense inherent rotational energy. This means that the singularity is actually not a singularity after all; instead, it is classified as a Ring-Singularity, or alternatively a "Ringularity" - a point in spacetime with 0 surface area and still infinite mass that has a microscopic ring-shape, rather than that an infinitesimally small point, like a singularity. Harnessing this rotational energy from an object the size of the head of a needle rotating millions of times a second relies on the use of a small zone of space-time that surrounds the black-hole known as the Ergosphere; a warped zone just outside of the event-horizon "drags" local spacetime as the Singularity spins, alongside anything within it. Via the use of powerful EM-waves fired towards the Ergosphere from all directions, a process known as Superradiant Scattering begins, wherein the EM waves are continuously refracted between the ergosphere and the interior of the protective shell. As the EM-waves pass through the Ergosphere, the kinetic energy of the Ring-Singularity's spin is then imparted onto the waves, amplifying them immensely and transitioning some of the inherent energy of a spinning black-hole onto the waves. Some of the EM-waves do fall into the singularity, but the losses of energy involved are minor compared to what can be harvested via this method, and are easily off-set by adjustments to EM-absorption rates. Periodically (as in several times a second), the now super-charged EM-waves are harvested using transitional panels on the inside of the shell, and are then bussed off to the outside of the shell for transfer to the core's nearby power transformers, which convert the power siphoned off into usable energy that can be applied to ship power lines.



Stabilization of the whole process for extended periods of time however requires more grav-field generators than the 'shell' alone can provide. As such, a series of rotating concentric Graviton-Generator rings not only maintain the singularity in place, but also suspend the entire shell assembly hovering inside of the vessel's interior. The rings rotate and spin to constantly adjust and apply gravitational waves to microscopic points of space-time near the Ring-Singularity to nudge it in certain directions so as to prevent it from holding in place in space-time while the rest of its parent ship moves around it. This incredibly complex process requires constant maintenance not only from an on-board science-team, but also from a massive nearby server cluster specifically dedicated to the maintenance of the core alone.

Overall, the entire system - while marginally more maintenance-intensive - can produce far more energy than a standard fusion power plant of equivalent mass, while taking significantly less space internally. Fusion reactors - when damaged or when their containment fails -, must either vent their contained fusion-plasma into space via emergency venting, or breach the core-wall itself, rapidly expanding through the generator into the rest of the nearby compartments and possibly gutting its entire parent vessel. Upon failure for the Singularity Core however, damage is extremely limited- as the singularity lacks the mass or artificial graviton-wavefront to sustain itself, it would merely blink out of existence with minimal damage to even the containment system, much less the rest of the ship. This does however mean that the core would lack its own singularity, and would need to be sent back to Corsica to have another generated and stabilized. In such an instance, reserve power cells and a standard pair of small fusion backup generators are capable of sustaining an RM-2A Storta fror some time, easily long enough to return to Maltese space for maintenance.

Despite the overall advantages however, the entire Singularity-Core system is not without drawbacks. While the massive computational array that maintains the core's systems is one of the most complex systems deployed on Maltese warships, it is not perfect. Should the system not maintain a constant up-to-date connection with the vessel's mainframe, and therefore not be able to calculate the vessel's maneuvers into the constant adjustments made to the singularity's graviton-wave input: the singularity could instead be flung into one of the walls of the 'shell' and then fizzle out of existence due to a lack of available absorption-mass. Instances of such occurrences to the RM-2A Storta-class are limited, with 2 recorded since the core's first implementation years prior.

The Singularity Core as it applies to the Misericorde-class is an exceptional fit for the project- as the added compartments and power requirements are easily met by the core's capabilities; with the Galaxia sensor array alone nearly requiring enough power to run a Tridente-class escort. Furthermore, the increased mass and size of the Misericorde class causes the vessel to have a slower turning-radius, and overall more sluggish maneuverability than its un-modified counterpart. This turns out to be a benefit to the Singularity-Core system, as the slower, more predictable maneuvers performed by the larger vessel actually reduce overall computational load on the graviton-wavefront system, leading to a decrease in the chance for over-corrections by the servers and thus: a reduced chance of core failures.

While I understand that many of Malta's military experts - including signore Varela - are exceedingly dubious about the implementation of such experimental technology onto front-line vessels, I do believe the benefits of such retrofits far outweigh the dangers. These cores are smaller, safer, and far more capable than fusion-generators in terms of overall output- with the added benefit of vessels equipped with them not requiring anywhere near as much reaction-mass as those that don't. While at present this scenario is entirely infeasible due to the rate at which these cores can be manufactured; implementation of the Singularity-Cores for the whole of Malta's naval might would likely reduce its overall fuel-consumption by more than half, drastically reducing the need for hydrogen-skimming from Mallorca and fuel acquisitions from other sources such as the Sigma's trade routes.

These cores are a quantum-leap in ship construction and particle sciences, and the benefits of their application to the Sicily are immense. I've been informed by my logistics officer that the core is due to be delivered within the next few hours. That being the case, we're set to have it installed into the hull first thing tomorrow."

Phase 3.5
Valetta Shipyard, 10:44am

Paulo gazed down through the observation window overlooking the Sicily's refits. In his hand he held Harry's log, still occasionally glancing down at the technical jargon the Bretonian had written- not fully comprehending it but not truly caring. Callahan knew what he was talking about, and despite the elder Varela's outward impressions towards the gentleman - the old man trusted him. Not simply based on his character though - no he had seen enough of Harry's ruthless efficiency and stoic curiosity in effect to know never to trust him at his word- he was too much of a snake for that. What he could trust however, was Harry's sense of self-preservation. Careful planning had spun the narrative to make him believe that his life was on the line should Sicily go wrong or fail to meet expectations- but even through the veil of the deception, there was truth to it. Failure had little place in Maltese society, especially those that failed to live up to their word.

Paulo spun around, facing away from the window and turning to speak to the entourage assembled behind him. A pair of guards escorted a small, hooded figure forward from the door, sitting them down on a chair positioned a few meters from where Paulo stood before walking out of the room and leaving the two of them alone on the observation deck. Varela approached, undoing the knot on the bag that obscured the individual's head, and pulling it off and tossing it aside.

"Forgive the deception at the docks and this uncomfortable little number " He started, gesturing towards the bag on the floor
"I couldn't have you being seen walking around free on the station before we've had a chance to chat."

Silvery-white locks draped around the individual's head down below her shoulders; a pair of piercing emerald eyes bore into Paulo as he stepped back to give her some room. She reached up with cuffed hands to remove the tape that the boarding-team had placed over her lips not 20 minutes prior on the far side of the station before she was rushed here. Once removed, she tossed the tape aside onto the ground, and fidgeted with her hair for a few moments before addressing the man before her.

" Y'know last time I was on this station- I basically ran the place. That wasn't really the kind of welcome I was expecting given that old title."

"Unfortunately it was necessary. You're technically still wanted for murder by a few of Olmos' old associates, miss Espinosa."

She rolled her eyes in response while standing and stepping forward to look out the window as Varela stepped aside. She looked down at the tangled mess of conduit, paneling, and scaffolding that was the Sicily down below. The spherical Singularity Core was attached via crane positioned midship, above its future housing by a few meters. A trio of workers in EVA suits walked along the exterior hull just fore of the core's housing, one of which carrying a control apparatus to operate a second crane that was simultaneously guiding the first of the backup fusion-generators into place.

"I see my contribution to Amalfi goes well.. is Callahan down below with the rest of the grunts getting her ready?"

"He's overseeing the power-plant installations in-person. We're leaving nothing to chance here. This project is his contribution as well, and the entirety of the Union's heads are basing both your and his future within the Union on its success."

Paulo extended a hand out to her shoulder, and slowly tugged her to the side so she faced him directly.

"People had doubts about him. A lot more people have much more than doubts for you, and I couldn't just talk them into letting you back to Malta with just this. I need a more significant demonstration of your loyalties, something more significant than just handing over a flashdrive you had laying around. "

He punctuated the sentence by producing from his pocket a small datapad, and entering a command. Moments later, Espinosa's cuffs unlocked themselves, and she set about fully removing them and handing them back to Paulo.

"The situation wasn't quite so simple as that I'll have you know. But fine, what're you wanting me to do then?"

"There's a small group that's resurfaced in the Taus - someone I want you to work with, closely and act as our eyes and ears for a time. The 'Natio Octavarium' - formerly the Vagrant Raiders. So far they seem eager to stay close to Malta but they now bear some affiliations with Crayter as well. I'm not about to force them to polarize, but when push comes to shove- we don't know which of the two sides they'll fall back on. The Patricians want you to--"

She casually raised a hand, interjecting: "You want me to make sure that under pressure, should it come to it: they'll choose Malta over the colonials. You don't need to spell it out; you seem to forget I did this kind of thing for a few decades longer than you have."

Paulo couldn't argue, so just simply nodded in response. He offered her a separate datapad- one armed with all of the information she would need for her assignment already imprinted on it, and gestured for the door. He had just placed his hand on the door's control panel when she grabbed him by the wrist to stop him, and looked him dead in the eyes.

" I need something from you. You know exactly why I did what I did to Olmos; I told you in confidence months before the Cross fractured what exactly Olmos would do if he ever got the unquestioned power of Tarxien's leadership. You supported me then, and I get that Amalfi has changed the circumstances a bit, but I need that same support now: Regardless of outcome for both this job, and the Sicily project: I need to make sure that she is left out of it - that she won't be subjected to the results of my actions. Guarantee me this, and Amalfi has more of my loyalty than the Cross ever did."

There was a sharp calmness to her words. They weren't barked or hissed- they were stoic and quiet, but with a tone of severity he'd only ever heard from her before in that same encounter she'd just mentioned. He knew he didn't have to question her loyalty, but others within Amalfi did, and would continue to so long as they were left in the dark as to what she was referring to.

"Times and our specific political compositions have changed, but the friends you have on Malta are still the same. She'll be fine as long as Desdemona and I continue to draw in the Orange."

She released his hand and took a step back. Her gaze lingered on his for only a moment before she walked out, datapad in hand- the sound of her heavy boots meeting the ground at a pace wrought with purpose being the only response he got as she stormed her way back to her transport's mooring dock.



Some time later, the Sicily's Singularity Core had found purchase in its housing, and the massive protective plating surrounding it was being bolted into place. Further fore on the hull, the backup fusion generator was partially installed, and had a handful of engineers and dockworkers walking EVA milled around it; running cables and conduit wires to and from it and multiple ports in the surrounding bulkheads. Callahan stepped into the airlock in Valetta's service housing embedded in the side of the shipyard scaffold, his head held high as the last of the work for the day was being completed behind him as the exterior door sealed and air began to flood the chamber. Not much longer now, the night-shift staff would be arriving to relieve him and the rest of his teams of their posts, and finish the installation of the second backup generator as well as some of the final touches to the exterior pressure hull. Soon enough, he thought, he'd be able to start pressurizing the ship again and begin importing some lighter supplies, so as to furnish the new sections for crew habitation and begin racking the vessel's compliment of support fighters.

Something was off. He was supposed to receive word by now from the engineering chief that the generator's cycling test had completed successfully. Had something gone wrong? Was there not enough reaction-medium in the tokomak's prefire-chamber to complete the required test prior to finishing the installation? He had no idea, the chief was a competent enough man to handle the job, and everything seemed to check out when he started heading back to the station. Why hadn't he received word yet?

As if to provide an answer to his pondering, the station shuddered- the entire compartment Harry was in rocked, sending Harry to the floor-- and then briefly off it again as the station's A-grav systems briefly shorted out. Sharp, loud impact noises - almost like bullet impacts - panged from the exterior-facing bulkhead of the airlock, as well as the exterior door. A few seconds later, the station's klaxon kicked in, interrupted only a few times by flickering power and sparks from damaged components in the room's control panels flickering out in all directions. He'd managed to get the interior-door open, leading into the station's confines itself when he finally got a look at what had happened through a now-scratched window:

Outside, the scorched panels, scattered debris, and cloud of rapidly cooling heated plasma told him everything he needed to know: the fusion-generator test wasn't under-fueled, it had way too much H3 pumped into the chamber. He couldn't be certain, but in the moment, that was the only solution he could conjure. Dromedary shuttles launched from the nearby fighter-bays scrambled into action, seeking out survivors and shooting down or retrieving pieces of debris that had raked the interior of the scaffold mere moments before. Frustrated beyond belief, Harry donned his EVA helmet once more, replacing his oxygen canister and rushing out of the damaged airlock, into the now-crippled vessel.

"Red Alert, Red Alert! Critical malfunction on Sicily in Scaffold D, all hands on-deck for emergency S&R and repairs" Blared over the communicators station-wide.

Phase 4

It was a day unlike any other. Callahan had spent the better part of the morning in his quarters on Valetta- casually reading a number of news reports and his personal mailbox as he prepped for the day ahead. He donned his dress uniform- a side-button blue jacket with a single wide light-blue stripe proceeding down his shoulder to his hip- with the Amalfi logo taking the spotlight presented proudly on the arms. Medals and other ceremonial trappings were already affixed to the jacket the night before by an attendant of his, and took a few moments to get into place and properly displayed. 6:49a flashed up on his datapad's display as he was finishing dressing. He took one final look in the mirrored section of his external window, adjusting portions of it here and there and headed out the door, up towards the scaffolding section. There awaited the product of the past few months of his and many other's hard work.


The vessel was fast-tracked through the retrofit process- the final two phases of her construction were compressed with double the crews called in to perform the installations. Phase 4 was likely the simplest of them all- or at least half of it was anyway. The first of the jobs that needed be done was the interior; the additional constructions for the vessel added on 23 more interior rooms and compartments- each of which needed to be furnished and made ready for habitation. General consumer goods produced on Malta largely covered the furnishings- ergonomic seating for crew stations, interior pressure paneling for the different compartments walling, floors, and ceilings, as well as the multitude of door and window console panels that ran them. Counterfeit software - generously provided during Phase 3 by the benefactors of the project - were largely re-tooled by Amalfi IT technicians to perform basic user-level system functions, all the while the local crew lounges and officer quarters were furnished by some of the finest leather in the sector- graciously and unknowingly provided by one of Malta's enemies thanks to the intermediaries contracted for the project.

The far more difficult portion of Phase 4 was the Galacticus sensor array that had to be custom-fitted to the hull- the main mounting point for which was lanced directly to the spinal portion of the ship's skeletal structure. Though it required a high degree of careful engineering and precision, the device was manufactured from scratch thanks to the blueprints provided by the 75th - albeit with great difficulty due to the complexity of the design. The vast array expanded upon the standard cruiser-worthy sensors through a not-so-simple process known as "adding more of everything." Sirian sensors largely rely on EM tracking, heat emissions seeking, and both active and passive LIDAR pings, depending on the situation; all of which require carefully tuned lasers and advanced scientific optronics to operate. The whole assembly was affixed with a small secondary shield-generator to a massive rotating Tungsten-Carbide framework. The array - in conjunction with a smaller standard secondary array further back on the hull - provided the Misericorde-class with an unparalleled detection radius for a vessel of cruiser-displacement, and was matched in sensor capability by only the most well equipped Battleships in all of Sirius. Though the Singularity-Core affixed aft needed to operate at nearly twice a RM-2A's capability to power the entire ship, the tactical advantages offered by early detection for the vessel was one believed to be far more than worth it.

The standard Storta's conning bridge was located mid-ship, just above the ship's drop-hangar, and just fore of the CIC. The requirements of the Galacticus-Array demanded the conning-bridge be moved further forward on the Misericorde, so as to better keep the myriad of computer-systems needed to process the sensor's output near the vessel's center of mass.


[img float=right]https://i.imgur.com/NSuvy2l.png?1[/img]The whole process had taken months, but the retrofit was near completion. Crew assignments were being handed out, and the first of the vessel's crew were arriving to man the myriad stations aboard. In the new, expanded hangar bay, most of the deck crew and flight staff were arrayed in full dress on the deck; standing between the freshly stocked fighter racks on both the port and starboard sides of the bay. Callahan's Dromedary, having just landed in the aft section of the fighter storage bay, powered down while the man himself stepped down from the wheeled-out stairway. All hands stood in attention, save a number of guards and aides that took the walk with him, all the while a vast swathe of both press and Union members were situated at the far fore of the hangar bay. The long-walk from the stern of the bay to the podium on the stage situated prow-ward was nerve-wracking, even for someone as used to public-appearances as Harry was. The road to this moment was a long and grueling one, but against the beliefs of multiple Amalfi Union members, and even much of his own staff in the Directorate, he and his subordinates had finished the project on schedule and just under-budget.


The throng of people began to find their seats, all of which were situated between the holo-energy fields on either side of the ship, giving the whole group a view of the space surrounding the moored prototype. A pair of repair-ships flying in formation drifted when Callahan met with his immediate superiors- Paulo and Desdemona Varela. He, a longtime veteran of the Maltese Navy and the head of the Directorate itself, and she- Donna of the Varela family and direct head of the assembled Patricians of the Amalfi Union, both shook Harry's hand and offered congratulations as he made his way to the stage and shuffled through a number of index cards in his hand. One of the Union's Public Affairs officials was already situated at the podium, reading aloud an introduction for the project and welcoming the arrayed crowd.


The crowed applauded- multitudes of disparate families and soldiers of Malta cheering him on as he walked to the podium and got situated, looking over them all.


Harry paused, and nodded in the direction of one of the nearby attendants who then silently punched a signal into his wrist-communicator.
The pause persisted for a few moments more, and an anxious silence filled the hangar bay only briefly. The distant hum of the main engines and the reactor core working in tandem picked up in pace and intensity. The scaffolds visible outside through the holo-fields began to recede- moving aft of the vessel- the drive hum picked up again, even louder now. Several members of the assembled press took notice and began attempting to get pictures of either the retreating shipyard in the bay's entrances, or just of Callahan himself, who was busy smirking to himself at the podium.

The drive was noticeable to all present now- and what was underway became readily apparent: the ship that many thought would never finish construction, much less fly- was now conning its own way out of the scaffold at a fraction of its total impulse capability. It listed forward lazily and slowly, relying largely on maneuvering thrusters rather than full aggressive burns from the main drive.

Callahan raised his voice to re-grab the assembled audience's attention once again, continuing with an overwhelming sense of satisfaction and relief in his voice.


Just as the crowd began to applause and cheer before him, the windows of the fighter-control bunker embedded into the bulkhead behind him flashed to life- a series of hologram emitters began to emanate rays of light into the air directly above the stage, The image shown was a projection of the exterior hull of the ship, a nearby Dromedary was providing a video feed of a fly-by from fore to aft of the hull. Just above the port hangar entrance was emblazoned on the plating the Lancia's new designation for all to see.