CMS Crozier

The CMS Crozier was a worn-out Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces transport shuttle, one of the craft deployed with the SCAF fleet to the ice planet Tau Volantis and later left abandoned in the flotilla there. Two centuries after it was grounded, Ellie Langford's team recovered it aboard the CMS Terra Nova, and after Isaac Clarke repaired it, the shuttle carried the survivors toward the planet before tearing itself apart in the descent.

History#

The Crozier was a shuttle used by the crew of the CMS Terra Nova during the expedition to Tau Volantis in 2311. Together with its twin it was instrumental in setting up SCAF operations on the planet after the initial landing. Its first crew, Lieutenant Commander Busby and Lieutenant Metcalfe, were among the first to witness the Markers dotting the frozen surface of the world, and the residual effects of the artifacts were severe enough that the crew had to be hospitalized.

Restaffed, the Crozier was put back to work alongside the CMS Franklin, shuttling cargo to and from the planet. This included live specimens for storage aboard the Terra Nova, to the dismay of the ship's operations crew, and various artifacts, the Markers above all. With no precedent for handling alien relics, the Crozier's cargo wound up shoved into the Terra Nova's holds. The shuttle was notorious for its poor mechanical state, and after being grounded again and again for repairs it was finally set to be decommissioned. Although it had been parked in the Terra Nova's shuttle bay in preparation, the Scenario Five contingency halted its dismantling, and it was left where it stood.

Recovery and repair#

In 2514, when Ellie Langford and the others, operating from the CMS Roanoke, located the Crozier aboard the Terra Nova, they found that it needed to be repaired before it could carry them down to the surface. Isaac Clarke crossed to the Terra Nova aboard the Skip, a small single-seat craft that moved him between ships of the flotilla, and made his way aft to where the shuttle was held. There he built a remote relay and fixed it to the shuttle's hull to transport the craft back to the Roanoke for repairs, fueled the shuttle, and disengaged the fuel nozzle. As the nozzle came free, the launch sequence was triggered early and the repair hangar burst into flames. Isaac had to clear obstructions and a surge of Necromorphs with a military turret, and as the shuttle launched he was torn from the Terra Nova and forced to fly back to a safe stretch of the mass driver.

Before he could return to the Roanoke, Isaac met the team at another derelict, the CMS Greely, to salvage a port engine for the Crozier. He then tracked down a series of derelict satellites and stripped their relays to build a safe flight-path module for the shuttle, after which it was ready to launch.

Destruction#

After launching from the Roanoke, Isaac piloted the Crozier along the chosen flight path down toward the planet. Halfway through the descent the shuttle encountered mines as it fell through the atmosphere. Isaac realized they would miss their window and called for a new entry vector, but before he could take it the Crozier was struck by more debris and the hull was ruptured, pulling Locke out to her death. The shuttle continued to break apart as warnings sounded for oxygen and engine failure. Isaac reset all three tanks and put out a cabin fire, but Mark Rosen was then killed when broken paneling sliced through his head. Flying nearly blind through the volatile ice peaks, Isaac could do nothing more, and the ship split in half, separating Ellie and the others from him as it broke away behind.

Design#

The Crozier was flat-bottomed, with two large fins on its port and starboard sides for maneuvering, and it came to a dull point at the front, wider than but otherwise reminiscent of an old space shuttle. Its paneling ran back toward the stern, ending at three large engines mounted off the rear. It had an outer airlock that could be worked by Kinesis and an inner hatch. Inside, the cabin held three oxygen injectors in the rear and a full array of seats: a main flight chair to the left, an operator's seat to its right, a navigator's chair behind those, and others for the rest of the crew. The flight computer sat in its own compartment built into the front of the hull outside the cabin, secured behind a cranked hatch. For both offense and defense the shuttle carried a large gun emplacement on its top side, which fired heavy rounds at incoming mines during the run to the planet.