Page 44 - Click on page above to goto the next page. -- First Seen: 2009-12-07

This is a preview of: Phoebus Krumm

The Transcript For This Page

One Panel (splash page)

PANEL ONE

The ship, in her entirety, a three (gun) decker recently modified
for powered flight. By Napoleonic War standards, she is a frigate of
42 guns and also carries carronades and swivel guns on her uppermost
(non-gun) decks.

There is the faint glow of the #-field all around her.

Add to the fundamental description of a starsailing vessel, three
retrofitted conical nacelles, each inset into the hull, pointy end up,
half of its diameter and spaced evenly around it. One can be seen
clearly at the moment, another is partially visible.

The cones are elongated, about the same shape as the paper cones
they used to put cotton candy on, and truncated where they meet the
underside of the transom-like rim of the ship, They stretch down to
what would be the lower end of the bucket, becoming more prominent as
they do. The last quarter of their length, they are sliced at about a
45 degree angle, exposing an oval field of bright tachyon generating
cells.

Holder (probably unseen, from the maindeck): 'Very well, sir, she's a
prize, taken in a skirmish with the Aolian Imperium-Conglomerate.
Called _Hoatzin_, after an Earth bird with claws on its wings.'

Krumm (also unseen): 'Hoatzin.'

Holder: 'Yes, sir, the ornithohistorians who name Monopolitan ships
say it chewed cud and smelled like manure. Given her experimental
thrusters, the Ceo decided she deserved a new name: _Resplendent
Quetzal_, a bird from about the same place, that looked -- and smelled
-- better.'