Scorpion fast boat (D18)

Scorpion fast boats are large, faster-than-light travelling ships typically employed as handy haul freighters, budget spaceliners or packet boats. They are built off the design of an older Leonis missile boat and are rugged, straight flying vessels that have proven extremely reliable, with a long service life. Between 60 and 70 metres in length depending on configuration, the fast boat has an angular appearance owing to its easily fabricated and assembled hull.

The flight deck and cabin sit right above the nose, it is 'open top' which is to say the deck is covered by a 'glass house' canopy and offers good all round visibility. The canards and the hull then stretch back cleanly to the wings. Flight control surfaces are mostly rectangular, as are the wings and lift and manuevring is entrusted to its powerful main engines. The ship is simple on a whole and most models didn't offer much beyond standard, as such it is easy to maintain without owner or accredited servicing.

Internal configurations vary but typically there is the crewed area at the front of the ship, with sensor and navigational equipment, a long but low corridor along the spine of the vessel to where the engines, FTL drive, fuel tanks, wireless station (an area marked by a raised section of the hull) are. That all then goes back for a long amount of the ship's length. While it can be flown by a single pilot, it was designed with a crew of five in mind and has a small galley, toilet/shower and cramped bunks directly behind the flight deck.

Between these two areas variants can have a cabin or cargo hold with underslung supports and connections for shipping containers to be carried. Range is huge and acceleration impressive to this day; because of this the ship was used by Scorpia at one point for patrol and customs duties (only recently being retired for newer designs). A savvy garage can uprate a fast boat easily and its known for its ease of modification. Most early civilian models came with a top mounted gun and an enhanced sensor suite; as it was marketed as a 'prospecting vessel' to Tauron interests.

Dirty Dancer
Farren Hespera 's fast boat, the Dirty Dancer is a heavily modified variant of the type. It is armed and its hull has been haphazardly protected with bolt on armour plates. Its wings have heavy rocket launchers slung underneath, the nose has a pair of heavy guns in it and even a few 'torpedo tubes' are carried. Smaller engines are fixed under the canards to improve thrust marginally and turning noticeably. Internally the Dancer has been fully rewired, 'tricked out' and its living space smartenned so that it can undertake long journeys. Its midsection now has a passenger cabin, auxillary fuel tanks and a 'shop' which carries spares and materials that allow it to effect certain repairs and maintenance tasks underway. It is expected to shoulder and carry cargo containers on its hull and is regularly contracted as a packet boat by a few border 'Red Line' outposts and communities. Farren is the pilot aboard and manages the craft on her own. She is not usually alone aboard though as most of her runs involve a couple of passengers.