UNSC Thunder Child

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The UNSC Thunder Child (UNSC Cruiser C712) was a Halcyon-class Cruiser serving in the UNSC Navy. Informally, it was simply referred to as the Thunder Child or abbreviated as the "Tc". The name is a reference to the HMS Thunder Child, the British Iron Clad that sacrificed itself in H.G Wells’s book ‘The War of the Worlds’ so a civilian ship could escape Martian attack.

The Thunder Child was retrofitted with advanced weaponry and technology in the same maner as the Pillar of Autumn.

History
The ship was constructed over Mars in 2509. Early on in the Human-Covenant War, the Thunder Child participated in the First Battle of Arcadia in February 2531. She along with three other ships, managed to fire on a Covenant ship that was still recharging its shields. Mothballed and due to be scrapped like the remainder of the Halcyon-class cruisers, the Thunder Child was again brought in to active duty. She had undergone a refit in 2550 to serve in the Zeta Doradus System. She was then relocated to the UNSC Inner Colonies in preparation for a counterattack against Covenant Forces.

Power Plant
The Thunder Child was refitted with an improved nuclear fusion engine that featured two smaller reactors around a larger one, which were capable of boosting the overall power output by 300% for a short time if needed. Fusion reactors generate extreme heat which must be removed in order for them to remain active without overheating. The Thunder Child's overhauled reactors were an especially severe case of this. Usually, the excess heat was conducted to a chemical agent which would then vent into space. However, the Thunder Child's upgraded specifications also included an upgraded cooling system, which featured a "laser-induced optical slurry of ions chilled to near-absolute zero", which is far more efficient than the typical method and removed the reliance on expendable chemical temperature-control substances. In essence, the amount of excess heat removed by the new system increased as the reactors' output did. This self-regulating and self-cooling power plant was critical in combat since it virtually eliminated a commander's concerns about overheating and slagging a ship's engines. The Thunder Child's reactor is able to be overloaded by explosives, either grenades or rockets, destroying the vulnerable vent cores. Once these were destroyed, the reactor will began to go critical resulting in a thermonuclear explosion.

Armament
The upgraded Thunder Child received extensive refits, including several to its weapons systems. Eventually, it was host to a very powerful armament; far in excess of the original Halcyon-class ships.

With extra power capacitors and power recycling systems, the Thunder Child can fire three consecutive shots per charge.

The MAC gun fired lighter projectiles compared to most ship grade MACs, but these rounds worked much like Shredder Rounds. Each charge was able to fire 3 rounds.

300 Archer Missile Pods which were arranged in thirty columns and ten rows. Each pod contained 26 individual devices, equaling 7800 missiles.

Four Shiva-class Nuclear Missile, one loaded onto a remote-controlled Longsword interceptor, and three ship-launched..

Forty 50mm MLA Auto-cannons with overlapping fields of fire for point defense against single ships.

Engine Room
The Thunder Child's engine room was a large, three-deck high chamber allowing access to the fusion engine core. Side passages allowed for movement from the bottom deck all the way up to the catwalks on the third. The manifolds into the cores were suspended above the second deck. Controls on the third retracted these manifolds, exposing a vent that led directly into the core. This room is the largest room in the Thunder Child with the exception of the hangar bay.