An Unusual Ship for an Unusual Princess
In 2395, Commander Krhael of the Imperial Romulan Starship Lorica, a Warbird-class destroyer, fell on hard times. Drowning in gambling debts and falling rapidly out of favor with his contacts in the Romulan Senate, he decided that the only way out was to defect from the Empire to one of its neighboring powers - preferably the United Federation of Planets.
Though a poor gambler, Krhael was a canny strategist and a meticulous planner. He put off his creditors, promising them that his next mission to the Federation border would be marked by such grand prizes that he could pay them off and retire a wealthy man besides. Then he carefully gathered a crew of disenfranchised Romulan star sailors, most of them younger than the fleet average, and carefully groomed them for defection.
The one stumbling block to the unfortunate commander's plan was his ship's centurion, Amvor, who discovered the plan as the vessel was crossing the Federation Neutral Zone - and murdered Krhael in cold blood for his treason. Krhael's crew, their complicity in the defection attempt apparent, expected to be dragged back to Romulus in irons and made examples of by the Senate.
What fate had in store for them instead was much worse. Amvor, as it happened, was even more dissipated and corrupt than Commander Krhael had been. Now that the Lorica was over the border, Amvor had no intention of turning her around. Instead, he planned to make the ship and its crew his own personal mercenary fleet, selling their services for cash, most of which went into his own pocket. The crew had their freedom from Romulus, but it came at a terrible price.
A succession of "captains" followed, each worse than the last. The crew dwindled, lost to desertion, death in battle, and Amvor's vicious temper. Between indifference, lack of appropriate spare parts, lack of anywhere to settle for a proper refit, and Amvor's exceptional stinginess, the Lorica fell into disreputable disrepair. In 2404, the surviving crew members found themselves living the nightmare of being retained as personal servitors by the younger of the two daughters of Gamilon Emperor Desslok, the Princess Xenia.
Under Xenia, they languished, neglected (more so than usual), for nearly a year, and then abruptly found themselves swept into a nascent civil war in which Xenia, with the help of her confederates (including Commandant Borjik of Gamilon Imperial Intelligence and Captain Dorlak of the Imperial Navy's flagship, the mighty Destiny's Fist), attempted to secure the succession to the Imperial throne for herself. Unfortunately, her plan was discovered before it could come to fruition, and her highly-placed co-conspirators killed, by a small group of patriots led by her siblings, the disgraced Prince Garon and the Crown Princess, Amanda.
With her confederates gone and her escape route blocked, Xenia and the Lorica were forced to engage Garon's command, the K'tayyl-class destroyer Vengeance. The battle was vicious, but short, and when Vengeance emerged victorious, Amanda Dessler killed her rebellious sister and took the Lorica as a prize of war.
Impressed by the Romulan survivors' fighting spirit (and professing a special fondness for the old Warbird destroyer class), Princess Amanda offered them a remarkable deal. By swearing their personal allegiance to her, they escaped the endless cycle of their pointless mercenary existence, securing themselves a privileged legal status as the personal guards of the Crown Princess (and likely, one day, the Empress). This unprecedented maneuver sent shock waves through the Gamilon military community, which had been at least half of the Princess's intention in making the offer to begin with.
The battered Lorica was overhauled, all but gutted, and refitted with the most modern Gamilon, Federation and (stolen) Romulan equipment that could be found, then recommissioned as a Gamilon Crown Starship, answerable not to the Gamilon High Command but only to the Princess Amanda herself. Today she prowls the spacelanes, proud in her modified Gamilon livery (the white of the Gamilon fleet superimposed on the traditional Romulan ventral bird). Her modern Gamilon warp engines and weapons set her apart visually from all others of her kind, and it is becoming well known that, where the Lorica flies, enemies of the Crown should beware.
NAME/MODEL#: Warbird class, Type G variant (unique)
DESIGNER/MANUFACTURER: Gamilon Imperial Shipyard, after Romulus Orbital Construction Base #39
COMBAT DESIGNATION: Destroyer
CREW: 30
POWER SYSTEM: GIS XII matter-antimatter annihilation reactor
GIS Model 74 thermofusion reactor and energy converter
PROPULSION SYSTEM: Corellian Engineering Corporation Highline-class tandem impulse drive system
SPEED RATING: 65 MGLT
FLIGHT CONTROL SYSTEM: GIS Modular Unified reaction control system
MANEUVERABILITY RATING: 40 DPF
NAVIGATION: ExoSalusia Industries 33-340K astrogation computer system
FTL: GIS XII Cochrane space distortion drive (warp drive)
CEC 7677.302c motivator drive unit (hyperdrive)
WARP SPEED RATING (CRUISE): Warp Factor 9
WARP SPEED RATING (MAX): Warp Factor 14
HYPERDRIVE FACTOR: .75
WEAPONS: Four GIS Armory Division Mark IV heavy turbolasers
Two WDF Armory G-650 strip-collimated phaser arrays
Two WDF Armory Mark VII photon torpedo launchers
One Romulan Imperial Weapons Laboratory heavy plasma weapon
SHIELDS/ARMOR: GIS Model 12 projective deflector shield array (rated at 1700 SDB)
Duranium/tritanium alloy hull (rated at 1400 RU)
SPECIAL SYSTEMS: Romulan Imperial Weapons Laboratory Type 19-A cloaking device