The Queen's Ransom

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[color=#FF0000]The Queen's Ransom

This ship has quite the history, having a custom of changing her name whenever her current Captain, traditionally eccentric and flamboyant, decides that it's a good idea. She changes her name with a frequency that rivals how often Bretonians fall asleep whenever introduced to Libertonian sporting events such as baseball.

Her original name, when built fifty years ago, was Bruce, but was instantly changed by her first Captain, Brian Locksley, who believed that flying a ship with a man's name was embarassing. For several years she was Guinevere, until Locksley's wife went an eloped with younger man, making the vain, womanising, Captain mighty irritated at flying a ship named for an adultress. Henceforth, she was named Loyalty, and saw more than enough conflict over several years against the Mollys, until she was eventually captured, her crew dying as they bravely fought to the last man.

Her captor, Gerry McGuinness, named her Banbha, after a goddess from Irish mythology. She was only in his possession for six weeks before the Molly crew, not fully trained in her operation, and flying under the influence of narcotics and alcohol, managed to blow an engine and her auxiliary power in the mine field outside of Graves Station. The GS&M defence party monitoring the sector, instead of attacking or boarding the vessel, placed bets on how long it would take for the occupants to starve or run out of oxygen, one clever individual suggesting that the winner got to keep the ship. It just so happened that an astute sensor operator, David Whitby, correctly determined that there was, in fact, a leak on board the Banbha and that the crew would die within minutes.

Whitby took the ship, and not having license to operate her as a military vessel, and used her as a miner, now named Maggie. A few months later, he realised that the Bretonian Armed Forces had, finally catching up with their paperwork, decided to reclaim their ship. Trying to evade them, he and his gambling buddies, now under his command, attempted to rename her again, this time Lucky Lady, and repaint her as they set off to join the IMG.

They were quickly apprehended and arrested, the Lucky Lady impounded as evidence, paint still wet on her hull. She was eventually restored to her original colours, and named Reckless by her new, brutish, Captain Charlie Morgan, who proceeded to viciously kick eight shades of excrement out of the Corsairs in Omega 3 at her helm, spitting curses all the while. In honour of this, he changed her name to Elizabeth, the name of the Queen of England of the time when the Spanish Armada was defeated off her shores. He retired several years after, being of advancing age.

Her next Captain was Elizabeth Jameson, who, not liking having a ship with her own name, found herself renaming the vessel several times whenever it took her fancy, be it from combat inspiration, reading a book, or even from the order of her superiors. The only reason they didn't dismiss her for this trait was her popularity amongst the common folk, thanks to her widely regarded heroism. The ship's names in this long, glorious period included Thunderbolt, Charger, Righteous Endeavour, Erect (This was ordered to be changed), Lioness and various others.

After service under Captain Jameson, who became a famed philanthropist, the gunboat, now Vanguard, was due to be decommissioned. Fate hade other plans though, as Kusari attacked Bretonia. An economist and eccentric military hotshot, Andrew Stuart, didn't want to see her go to waste. She would now raid and harry the monetary lifeblood of Kusari's military machine.

She became the Queen's Ransom.

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