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Description
(note: I'm none too happy with how the scan turned out; the pencil shading in the original is somewhat subtle and looks quite nice, IMHO)

(note 2: I've reuploaded it based on a new scanner that better reflects the actual shading of the physical piece.)

As trade increased across the Inner Sphere, so did piracy in a wholly predictable way. The wars of the 3050s and early 3060s strengthened inter-House trade, increasing both profit and risk; the risk specifically increased because the motivation for piracy increased from pure profit on the fringes of society to financially advantageous revenge against ancient enemies of opposed ideologies. The Spheroid reaction to this was by necessity rather ad hoc; military assault DropShip assets were necessarily tied up fighting various campaigns, WarShips were too valuable to waste on anti-piracy duties, and planetary militias tended to lack the range and power to deal with pirate bases. Anti-piracy measures were generally a matter for mercenaries or whatever limited armaments civilian DropShips carried. Only when a particular pirate band became too troublesome to ignore would a dedicated military force come in and crush them, and by then usually hundreds of millions of C-Bills were already lost to damage and theft. This state of affairs was simply an accepted fact of life to the various manufacturers, shipping corporations, and insurance firms of the Inner Sphere, but it was decidedly unacceptable to TME Industries. After several close calls in 3052 against poorly equipped pirates in what should have been well-patrolled space, the Board of Directors ordered the Security Directorate to liase with the Engineering Directorate and develop an escort DropShip to protect Industrialist shipments. As it would be part of the Industries' public face, the BoE also mandated that it be a relatively conventional design that would not raise any suspicion. The Financial Director noted that such a ship could possibly sell well given the universal problem of piracy, and so Project Bodyguard entered development with widespread support.

About two years of experience with Project Starlifter informed TME engineers that aerodynes often posed structural challenges and that the more challenges there were, the more conflicting solutions evolved over time to deal with them. Parts would be analyzed and re-analyzed using different methods based on which stress department lead engineer happened to be in the office that day, causing redo loops and slowing schedules. Project Bodyguard, having priority well beyond simply making a market date, started from the ground up to be as simple as possible: not expecting atmospheric operations to be common, its baseline concept was of a spheroid hull of roughly Union-class mass for purposes of both payload mass and deterrence factor. Being primarily a deterrent, high accelerations were not considered vital and so the chief engineering team set the maximum combat acceleration to four gravities; to save costs, it would be built to civilian structural and propulsive standards. Two-hundred-fifty tons of diatomic hydrogen slurry fuel and five months of life support consumables could support long-duration escort missions, and the two small craft bays and three hundred tons of cargo could share a single flight and hangar deck. The emphasis on dense weapons and fuel meant that the "Bodyguard" was visibly smaller than the Union-class, and its relatively small spherical pressure hull quickly filled up with crew quarters and support equipment, especially after sixty marines were added to the ship's complement to provide a convoy security force against boarders.

Running out of volume for certain engine components and armaments, four boxy outriggers appeared on "Bodyguard's" aft-quarters. Engineers quickly determined that the necessary pipework to connect them couldn't fit inside the primary hull and so angled 'shelves' ended up connecting the outriggers. Finally, the suddenly complex geometry aft of the primary hull's equator made it difficult to place weapons with sufficiently broad coverage in all arcs, so the shelves were extended forward past the nose of the primary hull. Engineers used this additional structure to support gun decks, turrets, and, more curiously, as bulk water storage, relieving some of the volume restrictions inside the pressure hull. By storing the water in relatively thin plastic-lined tanks slightly underneath the outermost hull plating, it could act as emergency anti-spalling shielding and protect against secondary radiation damage due to breaking radiation from the dense armor plate. This saved mass and, more importantly, volume by reducing the amount of conventional polyurethane foam shielding used deeper inside the hull.

With standards set ahead of time using lessons learned from Project Starlifter and an intentionally simplistic design, the "Bodyguard" prototype--provisionally designated Bodyguard Article 001--left final assembly in June 3054, only slightly after Buksyr Article 001 despite engineering beginning two years after the slightly larger aerodyne dropship. After six months of ground testing to validate her accelerated development schedule, Bodyguard Article 001 ignited her engines and easily achieved orbit over Tinker's World without incident. The Security Directorate replenished her in orbit and guided the ship through another two months of weapons shakedown before certifying her ready for shipment escort operations. One short christening ceremony later, TME Bodyguard (TME-ES-01) docked with an outbound Industrialist JumpShip set for a delivery tour of the Sphere. Somewhat presaging what would happen with TME Vanguard of the Storm half a decade later in 3061, the distinctive DropShip and its blatantly obvious armament turned heads. Sales Department personnel were quite happy to admit, when asked, that TME Bodyguard was indeed a TME Industries product. This admission gained additional credit when, at a commonly used navigational star's nadir jump point, a group of emboldened pirates intercepted the collected civilian JumpShips at the point and declared a 'stand and deliver' order--albeit as they advanced, not upon reaching weapons range. Bodyguard scrambled and burned to intercept the squadron of Lightnings supporting an old Trojan-class 'blockade runner.' Bodyguard easily dispatched the Lightnings at range with her Gauss rifles and missiles before they could bring their assault autocannon to bear while easily shrugging off the Trojan's missile bombardment. When the fighters were eliminated, Bodyguard quickly outmaneuvered the Trojan and, once in the pirate's aft arc, reversed the 'stand and deliver' request. The Trojan captain unwisely attempted to maneuver his ship's fusion exhaust into Bodyguard; incensed by this move, Captain Hollister of Bodyguard had the Trojan's engines shot out from under it and ordered a boarding action. After matching vectors and blowing carefully-aimed holes into the Trojan's hull, Bodyguard dispatched her sixty Security Directorate marines on space lines in three waves of twenty. The marines quickly overpowered the remaining pirate crew, taking them all into custody and the Trojan as a prize.

At the next port of call, the pirates were delivered to the authorities and their ship sold at prize court. The slightly battle-damaged Bodyguard made planetfall to become part of an ad hoc TME Industries exhibit showing BattleROMs of the engagement. Visitors noted that Bodyguard acted less like meatshielding and more like a judge bringing the law down on the pirates. The word-of-mouth campaign thus started culminated in the renamed Arbitrator-class being offered for sale in 3056. With a decent acceleration, long endurance, and an impressive arsenal of half a dozen Gauss rifles, half a dozen long-range missile twenty-racks, nine large pulse lasers and eighteen large lasers, the Arbitrator fit easily into the niche of overpowering most retrofit pirate vessels while not posing an excessive threat to dedicated military vessels. Its limited cargo and passenger capability certainly limited its mission to police roles and its sticker price of upwards of three-hundred-fifty million C-bills shocked more than a few customers, but on major trade routes even that one-time cost was negligible compared to the ongoing losses caused by pirates. Arbitrators found themselves bought to fulfill two basic roles: escort, as it was originally designed, and pirate hunter, to which it was also suited by dint of its endurance.

The identical Bodyguard-class served as a staple of Industrialist sales flotillas. Service aboard them was considered a back-handed compliment to a Security trooper's loyalty; conditions aboard the escorts were cramped and life was generally dull, except for the occasional pirate attack. Service aboard TME Bodyguard, on the other hand, was a point of honor. As part of a TME Industries marketing and corporate outreach campaign, Bodyguard would often assist foreign ships--be they Arbitrator-class or not--on search-and-destroy missions. She was always well-maintained and well-repaired, but never repainted beyond a matte anti-corrosion clearcoat so her scars were plainly visible and a matter of pride. She served in this role up until 3067, when the Jihad basically brought anti-piracy efforts to a close as the Industrialists had no desire to risk prolonged contact with the Word of Blake. After 3067 she returned to escort duty. In 3078 her convoy entered a 'navigation hazard' star system in transit through Blakist space and stumbled across a small Word of Blake corvette--the Vincent-class WoBS Blake's Redemption--which was deep in-system. TME Bodyguard detached from her JumpShip in contravention of orders and burned for the Blakists in order to keep them from burning for the JumpShips. Bodyguard harrassed Blake's Redemption with a high-speed raking attack that passed at short range for maximum effect but took heavy damage to her forward quarter from a lucky naval autocannon hit. Leaking fuel and about to be out-accelerated by Blakist fighters, Bodyguard made the best of its velocity advantage and changed course marginally to plummet into the sun at full burn, precluding the possibility of any wreckage or survivors for the Blakists to take any data from. The rest of the Industrialist flotilla escaped without incident and the entire crew of TME Bodyguard were cited posthumously for their bravery and dedication to maintaining TME Industries' operational security.

Description
(note: I'm none too happy with how the scan turned out; the pencil shading in the original is somewhat subtle and looks quite nice, IMHO)

(note 2: I've reuploaded it based on a new scanner that better reflects the actual shading of the physical piece.)

As trade increased across the Inner Sphere, so did piracy in a wholly predictable way. The wars of the 3050s and early 3060s strengthened inter-House trade, increasing both profit and risk; the risk specifically increased because the motivation for piracy increased from pure profit on the fringes of society to financially advantageous revenge against ancient enemies of opposed ideologies. The Spheroid reaction to this was by necessity rather ad hoc; military assault DropShip assets were necessarily tied up fighting various campaigns, WarShips were too valuable to waste on anti-piracy duties, and planetary militias tended to lack the range and power to deal with pirate bases. Anti-piracy measures were generally a matter for mercenaries or whatever limited armaments civilian DropShips carried. Only when a particular pirate band became too troublesome to ignore would a dedicated military force come in and crush them, and by then usually hundreds of millions of C-Bills were already lost to damage and theft. This state of affairs was simply an accepted fact of life to the various manufacturers, shipping corporations, and insurance firms of the Inner Sphere, but it was decidedly unacceptable to TME Industries. After several close calls in 3052 against poorly equipped pirates in what should have been well-patrolled space, the Board of Directors ordered the Security Directorate to liase with the Engineering Directorate and develop an escort DropShip to protect Industrialist shipments. As it would be part of the Industries' public face, the BoE also mandated that it be a relatively conventional design that would not raise any suspicion. The Financial Director noted that such a ship could possibly sell well given the universal problem of piracy, and so Project Bodyguard entered development with widespread support.

About two years of experience with Project Starlifter informed TME engineers that aerodynes often posed structural challenges and that the more challenges there were, the more conflicting solutions evolved over time to deal with them. Parts would be analyzed and re-analyzed using different methods based on which stress department lead engineer happened to be in the office that day, causing redo loops and slowing schedules. Project Bodyguard, having priority well beyond simply making a market date, started from the ground up to be as simple as possible: not expecting atmospheric operations to be common, its baseline concept was of a spheroid hull of roughly Union-class mass for purposes of both payload mass and deterrence factor. Being primarily a deterrent, high accelerations were not considered vital and so the chief engineering team set the maximum combat acceleration to four gravities; to save costs, it would be built to civilian structural and propulsive standards. Two-hundred-fifty tons of diatomic hydrogen slurry fuel and five months of life support consumables could support long-duration escort missions, and the two small craft bays and three hundred tons of cargo could share a single flight and hangar deck. The emphasis on dense weapons and fuel meant that the "Bodyguard" was visibly smaller than the Union-class, and its relatively small spherical pressure hull quickly filled up with crew quarters and support equipment, especially after sixty marines were added to the ship's complement to provide a convoy security force against boarders.

Running out of volume for certain engine components and armaments, four boxy outriggers appeared on "Bodyguard's" aft-quarters. Engineers quickly determined that the necessary pipework to connect them couldn't fit inside the primary hull and so angled 'shelves' ended up connecting the outriggers. Finally, the suddenly complex geometry aft of the primary hull's equator made it difficult to place weapons with sufficiently broad coverage in all arcs, so the shelves were extended forward past the nose of the primary hull. Engineers used this additional structure to support gun decks, turrets, and, more curiously, as bulk water storage, relieving some of the volume restrictions inside the pressure hull. By storing the water in relatively thin plastic-lined tanks slightly underneath the outermost hull plating, it could act as emergency anti-spalling shielding and protect against secondary radiation damage due to breaking radiation from the dense armor plate. This saved mass and, more importantly, volume by reducing the amount of conventional polyurethane foam shielding used deeper inside the hull.

With standards set ahead of time using lessons learned from Project Starlifter and an intentionally simplistic design, the "Bodyguard" prototype--provisionally designated Bodyguard Article 001--left final assembly in June 3054, only slightly after Buksyr Article 001 despite engineering beginning two years after the slightly larger aerodyne dropship. After six months of ground testing to validate her accelerated development schedule, Bodyguard Article 001 ignited her engines and easily achieved orbit over Tinker's World without incident. The Security Directorate replenished her in orbit and guided the ship through another two months of weapons shakedown before certifying her ready for shipment escort operations. One short christening ceremony later, TME Bodyguard (TME-ES-01) docked with an outbound Industrialist JumpShip set for a delivery tour of the Sphere. Somewhat presaging what would happen with TME Vanguard of the Storm half a decade later in 3061, the distinctive DropShip and its blatantly obvious armament turned heads. Sales Department personnel were quite happy to admit, when asked, that TME Bodyguard was indeed a TME Industries product. This admission gained additional credit when, at a commonly used navigational star's nadir jump point, a group of emboldened pirates intercepted the collected civilian JumpShips at the point and declared a 'stand and deliver' order--albeit as they advanced, not upon reaching weapons range. Bodyguard scrambled and burned to intercept the squadron of Lightnings supporting an old Trojan-class 'blockade runner.' Bodyguard easily dispatched the Lightnings at range with her Gauss rifles and missiles before they could bring their assault autocannon to bear while easily shrugging off the Trojan's missile bombardment. When the fighters were eliminated, Bodyguard quickly outmaneuvered the Trojan and, once in the pirate's aft arc, reversed the 'stand and deliver' request. The Trojan captain unwisely attempted to maneuver his ship's fusion exhaust into Bodyguard; incensed by this move, Captain Hollister of Bodyguard had the Trojan's engines shot out from under it and ordered a boarding action. After matching vectors and blowing carefully-aimed holes into the Trojan's hull, Bodyguard dispatched her sixty Security Directorate marines on space lines in three waves of twenty. The marines quickly overpowered the remaining pirate crew, taking them all into custody and the Trojan as a prize.

At the next port of call, the pirates were delivered to the authorities and their ship sold at prize court. The slightly battle-damaged Bodyguard made planetfall to become part of an ad hoc TME Industries exhibit showing BattleROMs of the engagement. Visitors noted that Bodyguard acted less like meatshielding and more like a judge bringing the law down on the pirates. The word-of-mouth campaign thus started culminated in the renamed Arbitrator-class being offered for sale in 3056. With a decent acceleration, long endurance, and an impressive arsenal of half a dozen Gauss rifles, half a dozen long-range missile twenty-racks, nine large pulse lasers and eighteen large lasers, the Arbitrator fit easily into the niche of overpowering most retrofit pirate vessels while not posing an excessive threat to dedicated military vessels. Its limited cargo and passenger capability certainly limited its mission to police roles and its sticker price of upwards of three-hundred-fifty million C-bills shocked more than a few customers, but on major trade routes even that one-time cost was negligible compared to the ongoing losses caused by pirates. Arbitrators found themselves bought to fulfill two basic roles: escort, as it was originally designed, and pirate hunter, to which it was also suited by dint of its endurance.

The identical Bodyguard-class served as a staple of Industrialist sales flotillas. Service aboard them was considered a back-handed compliment to a Security trooper's loyalty; conditions aboard the escorts were cramped and life was generally dull, except for the occasional pirate attack. Service aboard TME Bodyguard, on the other hand, was a point of honor. As part of a TME Industries marketing and corporate outreach campaign, Bodyguard would often assist foreign ships--be they Arbitrator-class or not--on search-and-destroy missions. She was always well-maintained and well-repaired, but never repainted beyond a matte anti-corrosion clearcoat so her scars were plainly visible and a matter of pride. She served in this role up until 3067, when the Jihad basically brought anti-piracy efforts to a close as the Industrialists had no desire to risk prolonged contact with the Word of Blake. After 3067 she returned to escort duty. In 3078 her convoy entered a 'navigation hazard' star system in transit through Blakist space and stumbled across a small Word of Blake corvette--the Vincent-class WoBS Blake's Redemption--which was deep in-system. TME Bodyguard detached from her JumpShip in contravention of orders and burned for the Blakists in order to keep them from burning for the JumpShips. Bodyguard harrassed Blake's Redemption with a high-speed raking attack that passed at short range for maximum effect but took heavy damage to her forward quarter from a lucky naval autocannon hit. Leaking fuel and about to be out-accelerated by Blakist fighters, Bodyguard made the best of its velocity advantage and changed course marginally to plummet into the sun at full burn, precluding the possibility of any wreckage or survivors for the Blakists to take any data from. The rest of the Industrialist flotilla escaped without incident and the entire crew of TME Bodyguard were cited posthumously for their bravery and dedication to maintaining TME Industries' operational security.