Jack of Harts

The F-101 Fury used an innovative laser system that many thought would revolutionize the weapons industry. Instead of installing multiple laser arrays like other fighters, they deployed a ring of laser emitters around the nose of the craft using a single power source. That gave them a wide firing arc, and the ability to fire multiple low-powered shots at once. This could generate an impressive light show that was effective for point defense purposes, but it was of little use when dealing damage to enemy starfighters. Later designs simply installed multiple laser arrays, but the F-2 Star Fury kept the ring-array lasers through their upgrade plans and into retirement. When the Texas Rangers eventually pulled the Star Furies out of retirement, they installed far more powerful modern generators and a capacitor system capable of powering a focused maximum firepower attack from the entire array at once. Their targets found that quiet impressive, for a few seconds…

The F-101 Fury was one of the most advanced fighters of its day. Then the Peloran made Contact and it became obsolete overnight. Texas upgraded it with gravtech, and it became the F-2 Star Fury, the first of America’s newest generation of starfighters. It retired in time, as newer technologies made their way into new starfighter designs. The Texas Rangers eventually found those abandoned fighters and scooped them up for their own use with a refit program that would carry them into the next century. Most of the updates were fairly minor, including newer scanners and improvements to the ring laser surrounding the nose. Others were more fundamental, like the complete replacement of the old missile systems with brand new racks and expanded ammunition bunkerage that allowed for far more versatility. The Rangers gave a new lease on life to an aging design.

The Abilene-class starships that carry Texas Rangers across the stars are different from those that once sailed the void. The crew quarters that once served 150 tightly-packed crew and scientists have been reduced to a handful of single-occupancy quarters for the cybernetic crew and their assigned Ranger. The remaining space primarily houses holding cells and storage for relief supplies, weapons, armor, and other equipment. An Abilene carries enough supplies for a Ranger to outfit a posse of any conceivable size, or to bring relief to a community leveled by a natural disaster. Rangers are often the first to arrive after such incidents, making a well-provisioned Abilene a welcome sight wherever disasters occur throughout known space.