"Clearly downed by an attack from a superior vessel, the ship's interior is a charred mess of burnt metal and debris. It feels like it could fall apart at any moment. The craft shudders as I head into the cockpit where its black box projects footage of the ship's purpose and final moments: a diplomatic vessel attacked by a vigilante warrior race. Wars have been started by less. This craft is likely sorely missed by its people..." |
The Shield of the Ankoku is an Ankoku diplomatic starship encountered by the Loranche hero-turned-explorer Somarinoa which crash landed on the planet Nodershan Kone during the two years of the Final Daughter KS3's failed cryosleep chamber. Most of its original crew died in the crash or were killed by their pursuers. A solitary survivor however repaired the less-damaged Hyper Son FI1 that was also in the area and fled the planet.
It was eventually repaired and added to Somarinoa's growing fleet of ships.
History[]
Discovery[]
In 3418, the Loranche Somarinoa arrived on the planet Nodershan Kone to investigate a weak distress signal, leading him to the area of the Hyper Son FI1. However a week-long steam storm forced the explorer back into his own ship, the Final Daughter KS3 and he eventually entered his cryo-sleep chamber with his pet gekdog, Bark. However, the original owner of the Final Daughter turned out to have used black market parts in the installation and so the chamber was faulty. Instead of resting for an extra few days, Somarinoa instead was stuck in stasis for two whole years.
During this period of time, the Shield of Ankoku was shot down by a vigilante warrior race that had been in a tenuous heated dispute and prolonged cold war with the Ankoku and chased the Shield down, shooting it out of the sky above Nodershan Kone. The crew found no nearby settlements on their crash course but did pick up two ships around a distress beacon and correctly deduced that at least one of them would be inhabited. With this in mind they attempted to steer the landing to that same area and succeeded in doing so, but found themselves unable to properly slow their descent to a safe speed and the crash severely damaged the ship and killed most of its crew at the same time. In fact, only three members of this ship's crew survived the crash, but only one of these three recovered from their daze in time to flee the ship and hide in a nearby cave as the warrior race landed to check on the situation. The other two crewmembers were then kidnapped and taken away as hostages and the warriors left, leaving the single Ankoku stranded.
With the warriors leaving him behind, he spent his time exploring the other two vessels to see if there were salvageable parts to repair his own vessel. However he discovered that the Hyper Son was less damaged than his own vessel and decided to abandon the Shield of the Ankoku and return home in the Hyper Son instead. When he inspected the Final Daughter though he found Somarinoa and his pet in stasis and, having seen the danger wrought by the steam storms by this point, felt guilty over dismantling this ship so instead took some parts from his own vessel to repair the Hyper Son and mined for the rest. After a couple of months the ship was able to take off and return to space, where the Ankoku diplomat took off to presumably return home.
However, he had not returned to Nodershan Kone by the time that Somarinoa had awoke in 3420 and it is not known what this individual's fate may have ultimately been as Somarinoa repaired the Shield of the Ankoku and claimed it as his own vessel.