Been awhile since I've had the time to read anything for fun, but you know I have to throw my 2 cents into the ring
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I like the way the story is progressing, but this is the most problematic chapter in a while.
So the ex-TCS Bradshaw, a powerful Lexington-class carrier is allowed to patrol the area without knowing what faction it fights for? It would probably be routine to check with the local militia official to see what resources they had in the area (not to mention if they could even afford a monster Lexington carrier). Add in the fact that Confed would know who they sold a Lexington carrier to, and all this makes this section questionable in my opinion.
I agree having Casey go down with the Marines seems to overstep his bounds a bit. Plus patrols usually are only 2 or 3 craft, so your gonna leave this potentially hostile situation up to 1 Piranha or even unguarded while he goes and fiddles with the Marines? You're already leaving Casey's perspective to go with the Marines, so I really can't think of a good reason to put him there.
Just a little note, Big Duke Greco didn't seem the type to bother himself with writing too many 'papers'
Plasma weapons . . . State-of-the-art or top-of-the-line, pick a modifier <G>
I'd be sure as a Marine to try to extract the exact number of potentially hostile crew onboard a ship from someone before I sent people to search it (even if I knew he was lying).
What were Burki's cohorts doing while he was shot down? I can't see a crew who knew they were about to be tried for murder if the Marines searched the ship not doing anything. Maybe mention how the gunning down of Burki sobered them up a little?
P-01's are scaled down versions of capship guns? Damn. There are plasma guns on fighters you could refer to
Zero died?
It doesn't make sense that on a ship with 4 fighter wings that all of them were on stand-down at night. There probably has to be a constant watch out, so I'm guessing that 1 wing pulls a designated 'night watch'. It just seems funny that everyone on a carrier looking for a fight goes to sleep at night and gets ruffled out of bed like they expect everything to happen during the 'daytime' rotation on the ship <G>
Why would Bearcats not be produced because of the BL debacle? Plus, how can you keep a technology running this long (20+ years now) without replacement parts, which wouldn't be around if it wasn't mass produced?
Normal Excalibur models weren't equipped with cloaks, IIRC. It wouldn't be a standard issue everyone looked for.
Why did the Matterhorn need Cairo home defense to assist, it has 4 wings of fighters!
Okay, so noone has the expertise to develop the DRT again and Confed Intel has accounted for all the canisters produced. So where did these bioconvergence canisters come from and why would the TLF have them?
Bank robbers in the 27th century? We don't have many of those anymore right now in the 21st
I have to agree that all these 'goodies' in a very large asset (the Lexington class carrier) that the TLF seem to have just thrown away sounds a bit like a stretch. First of all, this is only a 30 year old carrier design at the time of this writing, a heavy carrier only second place to the Vesuvius. Not something a faction would just throw away. Then you have all the cargo, Skippers, plasma guns, etc. that is wasted. Sounds as though this TLF is just throwing away money and assets, not something a small, mysterious organization would do.
Also on a side note, the PTC made up the entire keel of a 700m vessel and 'parts' are being carried on 700m long carrier that has to have room for crew and fighters? Plus only 6 confed-dreds were manufactured if memory serves me, not really what you'd call a high demand for replacement PTC parts.
I called this chapter 'the most problematic' because while the other errors in previous chapters were just quick fixes, if you decide to correct anything I pointed out, they might involve major rewrites. Sorry.
Other than that, the story as a whole is progressing great in my opinion. As always I look forward to your next chapter.
C-ya