"What do you mean, "We gotta go right now!"?", screamed the first mate through the intercom. "I haven't installed the power couplers for the teleporter and cloak yet. We go now and we'll have power for the ion blaster and laser but that's it - no cloak, no 'porter!"
"Who cares?! - We have to go now!", was the captain's reply. A shudder through the hull and a warning klaxon punctuated his response.
The third crew member, a mantis lept for the weapons room, ready to defend his old ship and new allies from the rebels who had found them.
Laser beams flashed across the cockpit window of the refitted mantis bomber as it slowly at first lifted vertically from the ground. At 10 metres up, she turned a hundred and eighty degrees presenting her stern to the attacking rebel ground troops. The first mate, an engi, pushed the engine power control bar full forward. Blistering heat from the ship's engine exhausts roasted the rebels, each instantly turned to flaming gobs of flesh and fabric. The forest clearing the ship alighted from soon disappeared from view as the spacecraft streaked skyward for the stratosphere and off-planet.
The mantis, disappointed for not getting to shoot somebody got up from his station, heading aft to speak to the captain. "When I defected to you guys, I thought we'd be fighting, not running.", he said.
The captain understood how amazingly tricky it would have had to be for the mantis to steal the ship in order to join the Fed's. A captain himself, the huge insect had had to rig the ships oxygen system to vent anaesthetic gas through the craft while he wore a respirator. Once his crew were unconscious he'd left them at one of the many ubiquitous store beacons then headed for federation space and hailed a fed cruiser with his intentions to defect.
It was only the possibility of seeing mantis tech first-hand for the first time that saved the mantis from a blazing laser reply. The Federation Military Branch loved the craft. Teleporter science was still in its infancy for the humans and here was a reliable, fully operational one. The knowledge gained from that alone was priceless.
Naturally though, once the ship had been fully examined, the notion was to scrap it. Its previous owner, the defecting mantis protested vehemently. Grateful for his donation, the brass elected to let him keep the ship, assigning him a captain and an Engi to keep the ship in modest repair. The craft was repainted from the original mantis red into a military green and the now three-man/being crew named her The Praying Mantis. Their missions were always simple milk runs; delivering dignitaries, transporting military supplies etc. and it was largely up to the crew to keep the Mantis fuelled and armed and running.
One such mission led them to a mining community, delivering vaccines. Their contact met them with an amazing revelation. He was a Fed Intel Handler and the spy he was assigned to had uncovered rebel plans for a huge flagship - a craft so powerful it could turn the tide of the Fed-rebel conflict. Almost the instant he handed the plans over to the human Captain, rebel operatives turned up. It was a real shame as the engi first mate had only just started installing the new power supplies he'd scrounged and now it seemed they were going to be wasted. The energy crystals, once exposed to air had to be resealed during the installation process or they'd die. That was inevitable now. And that door between the sensor room and engine bay was still sticky too…
_______________________________________________________
This is The Praying Mantis. It's a modified Mantis bomber. The crew are a human, an engi and the mantis who brought the ship to the fed's. They've made several modifications to the ship since it was in mantis hands/claws including:
More ergonomic room layout
Level 2 sensors
Custom paint job
Basic cloaking system
Drone system
Cool placement of weapon mounts on the wingtips and sides of the fuselage
They kept the mantis pheromone augmentation which allows the crew to move more quickly. Plus it means less cash spent on coffee.
Weapons are an ion blaster and a Mark 1 burst laser. There are slots for 4 weapons.
Initially there's enough power to charge both weapons but not if you want to charge all systems - damn those reb's for interrupting the power install…
And yes, if you do meet your doom, there are gibs.
______________________________________________________
Installation
Download from https://www.dropbox.com/s/pelkolxsa5fd2 ... Mantis.zip
Unzip the file which includes the ship, some screenshots and this story and play guide.
Use Grognac's Mod manager after putting The Praying Mantis.ftl into the "Mods" directory referred to by the mod manager.
