This is the backstory for a ship I'll be posting some visuals of shortly. Having issues getting this to submit as one post, so be sure to check out the ship itself in my next post. I tried to weave this story into existing lore. The Origin of the Thunderstrike: The Sunrider Insident In 2711, there was a secretive UEE exploration mission in which a Carrack class ship called the Sunrider was looking to learn more about the Vanduul, who had been hostile in all encounters previously. The Sunrider dropped out of Quantum in the Orion system, severely damaged, long-range comms down, and under hot pursuit by a small Vanduul fleet. The Sunrider's crew was running from the Vanduul after stealing some very valuable cargo that could give humanity an advantage in a war against the Vanduul. The Captain ordered his crew to load the cargo onto the small Pisces snub ship, the Daybreak, and launch to head to the nearby city on Armitage. The Daybreak escaped to the planet mere moments before the Vanduul fleet emerged from Quantum after the Sunrider. The Captain activated the self-destruct sequence on his ship and turned the limping Carrack into the pursuing fleet, determined to take down the biggest ship he could with him. The Daybreak arrived at the only major city on Armitage, knowing that the Vanduul would discover they had left and be pursuing them quickly. They relayed their mission and importance of getting their cargo back to the core worlds of the empire to the local Governor, General Larissa Madison, a tough and highly intelligent Marine General with more combat experience than all of the crew combined. She gave them permission to land and transfer their cargo to the fastest ship available, an MSR called Lead Balloon, to make their escape, and immediately began to plan the city's defense against the inevitable Vanduul assault. Before the newly prepped escape vessel could depart, however, the Vanduul fleet appeared in orbit over the city and began to descend upon it. General Madison had many defenses prepared for her city since the Vanduul presence became known in the region and was able to train the numerous large caliber defense turrets on the descending capitol ships while her fighter squadrons and smaller caliber defenses held their own against the fighters during the assault. Seeing they were unprepared for the strength of the defenses, the Vanduul fleet retreated to orbit after an impromptu bombing run on the hangars at the city spaceport by a pair of Vanduul Voids. As the Vanduul retreated, General Madison took account of the situation. Both sides had sustained heavy losses, the Vanduul losing about a third of their fleet, but also taking a third of her fighting ships down and damaging several large chunks of the city, including the spaceport where most of their ships were stored. She immediately made arrangements to create external landing fields to ensure the ships in the air could land, and the ships inside could be brought out to launch when the Vanduul pushed back down. Unfortunately, this meant revealing their fighting force to the enemy, and she still had to get the survivors of the Sunrider and their cargo off-world. She assigned her lead engineer, Commander James Altbaum, to help with the problem. "We need to strike fast and bring the thunder if we're going to break through that blockade above us," she said. "We don't have anything that can do that, and the MSR can't dodge every bullet that fleet throws at it." She asked Altbaum to build a ship from the scraps of the disabled or destroyed ships from the hangar bombing. The scraps of the ships were moved to the small shipyard in the Industrial Quarter that was mostly covered, mostly empty, and mostly undamaged from the attack. Commander Altbaum had three main requirements to make a ship that would fit the bill: it had to be fast enough to keep up with fighters that could pursue the MSR, it had to be tough enough to take some hits and keep on going, and it had to hit hard enough to demand the attention of the blockade forces that would otherwise want to attack it's ward. After pulling scrap from a couple of Infernos, some Harbingers, an Eclipse, and a Redeemer, he created their blockade-busting ship. The ship was completed in less than four days, using every available asset to help bring it to fruition as fast as possible. While the ship was being built, General Madison was preparing for the next attack. She coordinated a rendezvous point several QT jumps away where the Lead Balloon would meet with a UEE rescue fleet and be escorted back while the remainder of the fleet came to assist the colony. The Vanduul were sending small squadrons of fighters to probe the defenses and locate the gun emplacements. Madison knew they had to have the new ship finished and the Lead Balloon ready when the final assault came. Their window would come when the chaos of the fighting was distracting the enemy, and the blockade would be weakened by sending ships to the city. It would be their best chance to get the cargo out. She prepared herself and her people to fight to the death to accomplish this mission and emphasized that everyone was expendable to make it happen. The cargo from the Sunrider was too important to lose and was worth more than their lives. A lesser leader would not have commanded the respect of their people to have them commit so heavily to a mission they knew so little about. When Altbaum finished the ship, that was designed for the sole purpose of getting the Lead Balloon through the blockade with no intention of surviving the task, she asked him what it would be called. "Well, all good ships must have a name, so it seems fitting this one would be Kamikaze." Altbaum replied. As the intent was for the Kamikaze to be a one-way trip, the crew consisted solely of volunteers, and Altbaum was the volunteer engineer to try to keep the ship going as long as possible. The preparations were finished none too soon, as only a few hours after the Kamikaze was finished, the attack finally came. Half the remaining Vanduul ships descended upon the city. Large ships started lobbing rounds towards the large gun emplacements, and fighters were intercepting the city defenders. After the defenders and attackers were fully engaged for several minutes, General Madison gave the order to launch. The Kamikaze and the Lead Balloon launched along with a second MSR guarded by a Corsair. They turned to the sky and burned out of the atmosphere as fast as they could, splitting away from each other to divide the attention of orbiting forces. The Kamikaze launched the S9 torpedoes from the Eclipse and took out a Capitol ship and damaged another, finishing it off with the S7 gattlings from the Infernos on it's first pass. The turrets held off the fighters while the pilot blasted the midsized ships with the four front guns. The dual S3 shields from the Redeemer held up to the battering, and the Kamikaze's presence in the battle certainly drew the attention from the Lead Balloon. The second distraction flight was destroyed quickly, and the division it created in the fleet was quickly collapsing as the Lead Balloon started spooling and calibrating its quantum drive. The Kamikaze turned and held off the wave of ships until the Lead Balloon jumped. The Lead Balloon, the survivors of the Sunrider, and the valuable cargo they carried arrived at the rendezvous point minutes before being met by the rescue fleet. The fleet broke off a large contingent of defenders to transport them to their final destination, and the remainder of the fleet continued on to help the colony. When the rescue fleet arrived, they were shocked at how few enemies remained and fought them off with ease. In the aftermath, they found the wreckage of the Kamikaze with a single, unconscious survivor on board. General Madison was taken off-world for debriefing along with the survivor she identified as Commander Altbaum and the wreckage of the Kamikaze.