|Sicily Rising| - Part 2

[Sciamach]

[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.

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[ sci·am·ach ]
/sīˈamək/

A simple, angry man casually working his way through life on a personal quest to acquire copious amounts of street cred.