The Flying Dutchman, officially, never existed. It was constructed by the handful of Earth government agencies who were aware of extraterrestrial intelligence before the official First Contact in 1999. Although others of its class (the Armstrong class, Earth's first home-built warships) were built after First Contact, the Flying Dutchman was finished and launched well before, partly as a reaction to the events of Neo-Worcester.

After First Contact, the Flying Dutchman- which had never been commissioned- was unofficially decommissioned by Earth and sent to the Salusian scrapyards. There it was rescued from dismantling by an enterprising group of Earthers, including some former crewmen from the Dutchman. In 2000 the Flying Dutchman became the home ship of Reuben's Raiders, a small mercenary/pirate outfit registered in Salusia with letters of marque against Zardon and Kilrathi ships.

Reuben's Raiders gained a reputation in three years of independent operation- a reputation that inspired respect among the law-abiding citizens of the Galactica and contempt among the hardened criminal element. Although always operating on the border of legality, the Raiders were very careful with their captives, killing only in self-defense and leaving non-Zardon ships untouched.

By 2003, however, the Flying Dutchman was beginning to show its age and origins. Its technology was primitive in the extreme by Galactica standards, except for weapons. Its hull and armor were weak, and three years' worth of active operations had left her badly patched and weary. Worse, she had attracted the attention of the Zardon Imperial Navy, and only luck had kept the old Earth-built ship from disaster.

Reuben's Raiders (Reuben himself having died a year before) decided that, without additional funds or ships, their days as independent operators were over. Options were slim; no Salusian or Corellian noble would hire them for local defense because of the pursuing Zardons, and the Hutts' offers would leave the ship's company as debt-slaves for life. Only one choice remained; merger with a larger force.

The CFMF took the Dutchman sight unseen, expecting a well-armed, battle-ready ship to add to their numbers. What they got took many and repeated visits to shipyards to modernize and update. After the Zardon Civil War ended, the Dutchman finally went into dock for the complete reconstruction she needed. She was not the -very- beginning of the Freespacer tradition of rebuilding ships keel-up to keep them in service, but she was the one that cemented that tradition.

After the reconstruction (and, indeed, like every other Freespacer ship that gets rebuilt) the Flying Dutchman was an entirely different ship. Although she outlasted her class counterparts by centuries thanks to regular rebuildings, she was not really of them in any respect, outgunning, outrunning, and out-just-about-everything-ing any of her sister ships. Partly for this, but mostly to spite her legendary namesake, she gained a reputation as the CFMF's 'good-luck ship,' the ship that escaped disasters in the same way the fleet's designated 'bad-luck ship', the CFF-28 Dreadnought, invited them. Be it superior reengineering or superior 'fighting spirit,' CFMF-009 had a lower casualty rate percentage per engagement than any other ship in the fleet.

Although the CFMF controlled the Dutchman's assignments and assigned crew, she never passed out of ownership of the descendants of Reuben's Raiders, and thus was never decommissioned. She served with honor and bravery throughout her career (as did virtually all other Freespacer ships) and, when she went down at Wilderness Station in 2388, a Reuben held her command, riding her into the fire. The ship name, along with all the names of other ships lost at Wilderness, has been officially retired from use by the CFMF; there will never be another Flying Dutchman, at least not a Freespacer one.

One final note is in order. Where the original Flying Dutchman is a ghost-legend of ill omen, a new Flying Dutchman story has begun associating the ship with good fortune instead. Spacers in Enigma Sector, especially in the general region of Wilderness and MacLeod Stations, have begun to report a ghost ship that resembles an ancient Armstrong-class cruiser, chasing away pirates or rescuing disabled or just plain lost spaceships. These stories must be taken, as all spacer-bar whoppers are, with more than a grain of salt.

****

Redneck

The Outer Rim has similar legends about several ships, including the Queen of Ranroon and WDF Enterprise NX-01.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/