Deutron Cal was proud of his ship, well it wasn’t really his ship, but still Captain Tarsik could see why. The Prometheus bristled with all of the latest technology, molecular recombiners for food synthesis, quantum teleporters and even a vulcan cannon that the Honshu’s scan had missed. Tarsik had done a good job of keeping his own ship up to date despite her age but this monstrosity was a whole different breed.
IPH had plenty of money to throw around and it showed. When the Honshu was built no one would have ever been so frivolous with space or weight for many of the items he took note of that existed on this ship. Most for no purpose other than to be decorative. The cockpit seats were as plush as one could imagine them with a plethora of settings to adjust to the pilot's body. Embossed plaques with company logos hung above nearly every doorway. Fancy blue lights ran along every corridor, not to provide lighting, but simply to hold together some theme that the designers had thought was necessary. It wasn't.
A rocketship existed to perform a task, not to be the plaything of some art student who'd never set boot off-planet. Impressed as he was by the overall cleanliness and aesthetic of the ship, none of which really mattered, he knew that his old girl was still superior in most respects. Sure, the Prometheus had a few more gizmos but most of them weren't all that vital and everything about the layout of this new ship suggested one thing, she was built with the new mindset that a rocket didn't need to be overly tough if it was sophisticated enough. He knew from personal experience that the Honshu could survive a crash landing. He doubted the same could be said about such a modern craft. Likely any rescue crew would find only bits scattered about the landscape, the idea of a crash never even being given any real thought. "Surely the technology will negate the possibility of a crash." would have been the mantra of the pencil-pushers who'd drawn up her plans.
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In fact only two things truly impressed Tarsik about this new ship, one was her lavish recreation hall that easily put the Honshu's mess to shame and the other was that vulcan cannon. Impressed probably wasn't the right term for it, terrified was probably more accurate. The captain had been rather surprised when Deutron Cal had volunteered information on his ship's tactical capabilities but he supposed that in reality it did no harm to be open about such things. Capable of firing super energetic plasma at temperatures in excess of 10,000 degrees kelvin vulcan cannons were a great deterrent against piracy. They weren't meant to disable ships, they were meant to melt hulls and depressurize compartments or cook everything inside.
Perhaps Cal had shared that little tidbit of information hoping that Tarsik would spread the word that IPH meant business. He had no idea what was up Essa Von Braun’s sleeve but he hoped that it didn’t include the Honshu being at the receiving end of that weapon.