Items · SpaceShips · Combat
Parasite Fighter
The smallest of the Kel’Regar combat vessels, the Parasite-Fighter is an impossibly agile and quick fighter craft, though it lacks the damage output and staying power of more conventional vessels.
Codex introduction
With huge, tearing mandibles, clearly distinct body segments, and brilliant neon yellow and blue chitin-armor, the Parasite Fighter resembles nothing quite so much as an enormous Terran wasp.
Grown in a significantly sized Womb of Creation, the Parasite Fighter is one of the few pieces of Kel’Regar technology to rely on a cybernetic interface with ‘conventional’ technology. Specifically, a specially prepared fusion engine is placed in the Womb before the embryo, which is then grown through and around the engine, the link-ups with the engine coded into the genetics of the Parasite Fighter - This process takes approximately two months in a Womb, however, as many, many Wombs can be operated at once, output numbers similar to a manufacturing line may be reached.
While the Parasite Fighter does not contain a Thoronic core, and is thus unable to reach superluminal velocities, it is designed to ‘burrow’ into the skin of larger Kel’Regar vessels, only to launch from them later, much as more conventional vessels might launch small fighter ships. Bearing only a small fraction of the mass of conventional fighters, the Parasite Fighter is able to accelerate at rates that are between double and quintuple other ships of similar size, and its inherent flexibility affords it patterns of movement that other pilots can dream of. However, this incredible agility comes at a steep price - Chitin, no matter how thick, is no comparison to a solid chunk of cermet armor, and swatting the Parasite Fighter is much like swatting the wasp it resembles. It only takes a tiny bit to kill one. The newest generations have added the ability to generate an extremely weak electromagnetic shield, dissipating laser fire slightly, and scrambling the electronics of incoming missiles, making them far easier to avoid, but this is only a small step in overcoming the fragility of these beasts.
So too, is the Parasite Fighter comparatively underarmed for space combat, as it is unable to mount the large lasers, graviton beams(AKA: Gravy Guns) and missile / torpedo systems that many other fighters may carry. Instead, it bears twin, organically composited rail-guns, capable of driving semi-metallic slugs into foes at incredible velocity for a primary weapon. It is also capable, at very short range, of using its primary drive as a weapon, twisting about and delivering a vicious stream of fusing plasma much as a wasp might sting its target. It is, however, against the massive ships that the Parasite Fighter truly comes into its own. While other fighters must, generally, be content with making strafing runs against them, darting in and out of the hail of fire, only a Parasite Fighter may fly straight in, a nigh-unstrikable target, and land upon the enemy dreadnought, where it begins to apply its massive, fullerine reinforced mandibles and heavy plasma stinger as tools to carve its way into the decks of the dreadnought, tearing apart the enemy ships with astonishing alacrity.
Traditionally, the crew of a Parasite Fighter is a single female, equipped with a bio-communication implant. It is with the female inside that the Parasite Fighter is at its most agile and vicious, directed by her vastly superior mind. However, if necessary, the Parasite Fighter can be launched without crew, and it possesses enough of a local intelligence to identify between Kel’Regar and not-Kel’Regar forces, and to fight. Unmanned Parasite Fighters are far easier to kill, however, the beasts are completely without fear, and will engage even the most daunting of targets with massive swarm targets, until one side or the other is destroyed.
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- Kel'Regar Technology Siren no Orakio
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Species relying on organic technology will have different strategies as well - and this swarming creature is a prime example of it.
A neat piece of technology, though if the mandibles are Fullerine reinforced, why could not the rest of the critter?
Well - it would be heavy then I guess.
Also, it's small, thus the armor thin, thus no reason of making any. If the maximu armor it can carry still cannot stop an ordinary shot, why carry any armor at all?
I like the idea of using the primary drive as a weapon- I can imagine a swarm of these sort of falling off into super high speeds from a command ship and making a coordinated series of sharp L-shaped turns at the hull (flying towards the enemy's hull and then turning abruptly away so that they flash it with plasma) of the enemy ship in a series, thus blasting a certain section repeatedly with jets of plasma to burst open the shell.
I like this idea and could be used in a number of settings. The idea of sticking the fusion generator into the womb got me interested in the sci-fi aspect and the writing flair brought me home.
Kel'Regar stuff is always a good read. This is no exception. I enjoyed the physical description of the Parasite Fighter, the yellow and blue chitin-armor paints a neat picture in my mind. I don't do much Sci-Fi but I'm likely to recall this is I end up doing an insect plot for a different type of game. Good work.