MA Starbee
Spaceships of the Terran Minarchy
(Art source unknown)
Starship Index: S45 Sparrow MIG 107J Supermarine T2 Starfire Fantôme H300
MA Starbee
Force Reconnaissance Aerospace Fighter — FRAF
Michael Holloway and Anthony Tyler were two men who owned a smalltime civilian space shuttle manufacturing company. MA or Michael & Anthony, specialized in offering, cheap, often jerry-rigged solutions for people with modest budgets. Their families worked as beekeepers in their spare time, many years the income they’d made from selling high-quality Luna honey sponsoring one or another of their bold projects.
However, a few years before Pirate Lord Mahimm’s invasion of Earth, the duo had a close call with Death. On one of their long-range colony flights, because Anthony and Michael personally delivered the ships they made, they were nearly intercepted and captured by a pirate raid ship. Fast as a predator on the prowl, the clan starcraft would’ve overtaken and snatched our intrepid Terrans, yet the highly modified shuttle they piloted came with a number of integrated engineering solutions colonists asked for.
Reinforced hull, an extra engine made of combined small plasma drives to save money and resources, and wings so well designed, the craft literally swam inside all but the most unforgiving atmospheres out there. The armed shuttle was a gunship adjacent vessel, sporting a 40mil, long-range railgun cannon, in addition to her three laser-firing point defense turrets. More, the colonists had scrounged enough credits for a wide sensor array, capable of detecting possible dangers from longer ranges than usual.
Not only did Anthony and Michael fend the pirate raid ship off, a much bigger craft, stealthy and capable of pillaging isolated colonies, they nearly destroyed it! Though the shuttle craft was heavily damaged, due to the fact that her creators were not combat pilots and had no battlefield experience, nevertheless, they still overcame the deadly ordeal.
When the duo landed and delivered a banged up spacecraft to their customers, no one complained. The latter, because they were so proud of their engineering achievement they were bristling with pride, and the former, because their tactical doctrine of ad-hoc colonial defense was a resounding success, proved in battle. Of course, the two spent time on Garden colony, soaking in the battlefield experience of rugged colonists, as they not just repaired the shuttle, but outfitted it with more upgrades, free of charge.
Going back to Luna colony, they immediately pulled their entire community, called every friend they had, asking for capital investment. Indeed, during their stay on Garden Prime, Anthony accumulated a ton of combat holos and scan-data packs, every single one taken in combat against slavers and pirate clans ships. Colonists usually fought them off using jerry-rigged to heaven and back civilian transport or cargo ships, armored shuttles, starfighters nowhere to be seen.
Their friends being presented with a grand idea, everyone pulled what funds they had, investing in the MA company’s newest initiative – developing and building a scout starfighter. With a fuselage of seventeen meters long, five wide, and a wingspan of fifteen meters, their starfighter was comparable with craft of the same class. Of course, the new ship had to be just as affordable as it was sturdy, employing repurposed, discarded components or second hand parts. The Starbee would fit the brutally efficient colonial doctrine to a tee; see the enemy from afar, hit and destroy it with overwhelming cannon firepower, buzz away and... do it all over again.
Though Michael and Anthony did not cut any corners, the two made sure to utilize every single one of their usual jerry-rigging tricks to save cost. They had a swarm of friends and family to help and following one ginormous brainstorming session after each design hurdle they faced, a new solution was found. In the end, the major money savers were the Starbee’s engine assembly, her specialized sensor array, and beam deflector generator. What the duo did not skimp on were the Starbee’s built from high-grade megasteel alloy wings and fuselage. The exact thing which helped that colonist shuttle fly so well in atmo, evade being hit, and save lots of fuel.
Discovering that BMW was producing efficient, cheap missile engines of all calibers, the two designers purchased a lot of these in bulk. These required some tweaking, but smaller ones were repurposed as maneuvering thrusters, and seven of the heavier engines made the main engine assembly. Parts were cheap to find or manufacture, more, in the field, colonists could simply disassemble a missile or rocket and fix their starfighter with ease.
The Starbee’s main defense was speed and range of engagement, though neither Michael nor Anthony believed their ship invulnerable. Instead of the addition of costly and power-hungry energy shields, Michael proposed they utilize a beam deflector instead. This one was built by the Studebaker company, and intended for one of their armored personnel carriers. It was already mass-produced, they only need modify and jerry-rig it to fit inside their Starbee.
Capable of outright deflecting dissipated by range particle-beams and soaking most of their intensity from up close, the deflector’s only drawback was its high heat generation. This prompted the engineering duo to fit their Starbee with a novel heatsink, much bigger than what other tiny scout fighters were usually being outfitted with.
Once more, they looked for and found a manufacturer, the GMC cargo starship division, which had a large number of these already on stock. Collecting dust in their storage areas were heatsinks intended to be fitted onto a fleet of small transport ships, the construction of which had experienced an unfortunate and catastrophic delay. Anthony cut a deal with GMC, who were all too happy to have the things off their hands and for a good price nonetheless.
Contracting a Japanese electronics specialist working for Nikon’s holo-optics division, Michael Holloway was able to secure a novel, cheap sensor array for the Starbee. Though Nikon did not design their mostly based on high-focus holo-optics sensor array for scout ships but ground reconnaissance vehicles instead, once again, the duo jerry-rigged their way forward.
When they learned about their client’s Starbee program, Japanese engineers were beyond impressed with such intrepidness and frugality. Nikon board of directors was petitioned pretty much by their entire top staff and they immediately sent their electronics specialist, Hirō Onoda, to help Anthony and Michael with whatever handmade, ingenious modifications they needed aid with.
To fit into the colonists’ rugged tactical doctrine, the Starbee needed a railgun. Preferably one usually fitted on small starships and capable of accurate, long-range fire. Discovering the railgun project of Italian engineer Leo Rinaldi, discontinued due to his death from old age, Anthony and Michael purchased the incomplete prototype, paying the elderly widow her husband’s patent fee.
Employing their mastery of jerry-rigging, the two repurposed parts taken from high-end rotary gunpowder guns, successfully finished Rinaldi’s Musketeer project, bringing his 55mil long-bore railgun to life.
Yet, right at the finish line, their first three prototypes nearly built, MA was out of capital. Unrelenting, the two engineers kept working as they ate a few spoonfuls of honey per day, sold their personal vehicles and family heirlooms. Michael and Anthony, even with them being supremely frugal, had already spent the capital which their friends and family gave them, and were too proud to ask for more.
Secretly, Nikon staff pooled their savings after Onoda shared everything and, in a gesture of good will, the board of directors purchased one of the unfinished prototypes. News being delivered to them in secret, GMC and Studebaker bought the second, and BMW got the third. Stunned by all of this effort to help them, Anthony and Michael, joined by Onoda, managed to successfully complete all three prototypes circa 1968, guns and all, in time for their planned trials. It was as if Humanity’s collective heart felt doom approached, that they rather give all of their savings, sell their homes and live inside the factory, but forge yet another starship.
Came Lord Mahimm’s armada and Earth of then fielded the first operational model of the MA Starbee; US Starfleet Command and Japan’s Space Defense Navy, having one full squadron each. Considered top secret, these starfighters were piloted by top fliers, specialists in aerospace combat. On par with the grand combat performance of the S45 Sparrow, the MA Starbee quickly racked a kill count most impressive. Enemy pilots often became aghast when their fellow wingmen became instantly slagged with but one, accurate railgun round. Their horror grew, when it became quickly and painfully obvious that said accuracy came not delivered by active sensor pings, but ghostly, invisible optic scans.
Originally intended to fit tanks and APCs, now the digital eyes and ears of the Starbee, Nikon’s holo-optics saved innumerable lives. True, like many other starfighters, the F6, T2, and the S45 among many others, the Starbee was not manufactured in sufficient numbers to have had a notable effect during that massacre, yet many survived and hundreds of enemies were vanquished, only because she flew into battle.
Out of all ships which participated in the battle for Earth, only three MA Starbees survived. Miraculously, they were the tree first prototypes which Anthony and Michael, helped by Hirō Onoda, managed to build with their own hands. One rests in the Japanese Space Naval museum in Sasebo. The second in BMW’s historical starcraft museum in Bremen, Germany. The third in Colorado Springs, upon a postmen inside the US Hall Of Futures Saved, where representatives of both Studebaker and GMC take turns offering free tours for schoolchildren and alien visitors of the Star Blood.
In modern day, the MA Starbee, much alike its main competitor, the S45 Sparrow, is the premier scout fighter for the Terran Minarchy’s Colonial Navy. Manufactured in bulk, the ship can be found, her landing struts resting upon the floor-plating of many a carrier, a starbase, or planetary runway. However, just like the S45, and any other spacecraft in existence, the venerable Starbee too has her deficiencies.
Though powerful, accurate, and capable of long-range fire, the Musketeer 55mil cannon has limited ammunition capacity because of its size. Starbee pilots need to land or dock with a support craft in the field to reload, which was made infinitely easy and quick in later models.
The Starbee’s elaborate wing design, bestowing the ship with a massive advantage in aeronautic combat, their ailerons oftentimes suffer irreversible damage during combat. This vulnerability was partially addressed by installing additional armor-plating, but one could add only so much weight before fuel consumption and performance suffers, therefore nullifying the advantages of said wings.
Defense wise, Starbees are quite sturdy and often emerge from beam duels with little to no damage. However, enemy forces learned that to shoot them down, they need as many missiles as they can carry. Though some jerry-rig a multi-pod and fit it with chaffs, Starbee pilots deploy a throng of sensor ghosts, trying to spoof missile guidance does not always work.
Though undeniably efficient, the overly large heatsink, which perfectly dissipates nearly all heat the Starbee systems and cannon emit, drags the ship in atmospheric flight. Its mass slows the ship even in space, requiring the otherwise marvelous engine assembly spend more energy to maneuver.
Pilots and commanders have their preferences when scout fighters are concerned. Deficiencies or no, the MA Starbee is a proven design which the now highly profitable MA company continues to modernize. Such is the dread that pilots of enemy SSFs and bombers feel when the presence of MA Starbees was made know, that they often waste fuel performing random erratic maneuvers. Their vain hope—that the Starbee’s railgun round with their name on it would miss...
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I love this backstory.
Viba La Starbee!!