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Energy Cannon (66 damage, fire time 2.0 s).
The Sentinel
has the dubious distinction of being the smallest manned
craft currently serving in any Hiigaran fleet. Microships
were developed by Somtaaw engineers to function purely as
remote drone craft, like the Swarmer attack drone or the
Leech breaching pod; the Sentinel was originally intended as
an advanced mobile sensor platform. Unfortunately, as more
and more design features were added to the Sentinel's specs,
it quickly outpaced the control capability of even the most
advanced AI. The final breaking point came when energy
scientists came up with a compact force-field generator and
added it to the Sentinel's systems. Flight AI's were unable
to cope with the distortions created by the polarized
gravity fields, and this finally had tragic results during a
live test, when drone Sentinels created a full strength
field and slipped out of position, slicing a Dervish frigate
in half with a loss of all hands.
The Sentinel
project would have been cancelled at this point if not for
the efforts of a certain Aart ne Somtaaw, a rather
vertically challenged junior member of the engineering team.
After installing a rudimentary cockpit into the prototype
and donning the lightest vacc suit he could find, Aart put
the Sentinel through a punishing set of trials, using all
the Sentinel's advanced systems and proving that powerful
guns, long range sensors and a field generator could all
function in one very small craft.
As a reward,
Aart was put in charge of assembling the first Sentinel
Squadron. Dubbed the War Dwarves by the rest of the fleet,
these small pilots have one of the most dangerous and
unglamorous jobs in the fleet: standing guard in tiny cans
of plasteel, keeping an eye out for incoming threats and
protecting thousands of their Kiith mates aboard the larger
ships of the fleet.
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