PT-BVRM Pteranodon OXZ

Pteranodon - Mythical bird-precursor, Terran. (Artist's impression). Credit: Xexedi University, dept. of Mythography and pre-History.

A Toothless Flying Terror

This week, a Pteranodon is set to soar out of the hidden heart of Galcop's 'Black Labs', our faceless, voiceless inside informant told your favourite reporter earlier today. The name's meaning, in a now-forgotten Terran language, is 'Toothless Flyer'. Fitting for a standoff missile that purportedly will irradiate but won't kill.

On evidence gathered, Galcop is in the throes of a last bid to survive: economizing on manpower and vehicles, downsizing the arsenal drastically, then licensing all its new assets out to civilian contractors, our Vault Whisperer strongly intimates.

And their darkly innovative PT-BVRM Pteranodon is already third in a line - or suite - of licensable weapons.

But PT is unquestionably the most frightening. It scares the Giles out of us because it will never be seen, detected, or known about by its victims, whose vessels will silently fail, ceasing to respond or function in an instant. That's no warning and no bang, Tuners. Nothing, or very little, on a viewscreen, port, or scanner. Our Black Lab-Rat goes on:

"The PT-BVRM was an inevitable outgrowth of the NPB Neutralizer, in turn a child of a bout of intense brainstorming in the R&D think-tank, spurred by a need to curb the increasing and unnecessary slaughter of entities and vessels on the wrong side of legality in ever more lawless systems like Riedquat, Uszaa, Atriso, and a host of others with similar societal and governmental problems: Locales where Police personnel and outmoded vehicles are being spread ever more thinly. Licensing of Galcop assets has come in the nick of time. We now have an experienced vigilante police force of growing confidence and unheard-of power to prevent the escalation of offences via fully autonomous Rider Drones (SDD) and now the Pteranodon, which extends the enforcement circumference to the System as a whole."

We tell our Black Breather that we've grasped the essentials - not a lot of mystique to the term 'standoff weapon'... So PT houses an NPB Accelerator like those now being fitted in alarmingly greater numbers to the luckier Harvesters' mounts. And the bird's NPB, in split-second sequence, curdles the innards of all ships in its scanner environs (not just the 'primary'), stopping them in their tracks and making them instant towbar-fodder. 'Win-Win', right, nobody dies?

"Fatalities from a direct neutral particle beam's effects are rare, those that have, regrettably, occurred more often down to collateral interior energy-damage and fires, also small explosions inside critical systems; more rarely failure of life-support. The vessel as a whole - its hull - remains largely undamaged, but in need of comprehensive refit to become serviceable again - that's engines, laser weapons, computers, all electronic components."

There's no stopping this one once it gets into its stride: "Our PT-BVRM outwardly resembles the ECM-hardened missile in every respect except size. Pteranodon's a lot bigger. Triple the mass of a conventional missile. It needs to be, in order to comfortably house the Particle Accelerator, state-of-the-art AI guidance systems, and a vastly more powerful drive. It easily attains speeds twice that of the ECM Hardened. It can cross a System in ten minutes."

A picture starts to form of a Harvester 'standing off' near a Station or a Witchpoint marker, targetting, then launching a Ptera, and sauntering off for a snack while far out in the blackness a group of hapless ships become ghosts. On re-seating itself, our gallant commander yawns as the list of the incapacitated skitters greenly down the main display. It's 'mop up' time again. Charming image to lay us down to sleep on, is it not, Tuners?

"So we'll choke on fumes of roasting circuitry, gasp for any breath in a cold system-less dark, or be slowly crisped by 'resultant fires' in the cabin?" we query, for nothing more than confirmation. Do we imagine a short nod from the shadow? Nothing else to add? - The murky smear flickers off the holo. And we're left with only our Tuners.

We suddenly know how we'd prefer to go: In a blaze of defiance under the beam lasers of some honest Jameson.

--Tea Mereso, retained freelance, Xexedi Enquirer - Telling you what you need to know when you need to know it.