ENDING.SIUndercroft relay, Continuance City 04. Tape doesn't lie.
SYNCING TO RELAY…
SECTOR 3: IS YOUR CHILD REALLY YOUR CHILD? /// SECTOR 6: TORCHES ON COMMERCIAL ROAD: THE CONGREGATION OF THE RECURSION /// SECTOR 9: SECTOR 9 GOES DARK: KESTRELS LEVEL THE HYDROPONICS STACK /// SECTOR 7: THE SCREAMING FIELDS: SCREAMERS UNDER THE SECTOR 7 ASH /// SECTOR 1: TOPSIDE: ELEVEN DAYS ABOVE THE SMOG /// SECTOR 4: TAPE IS SACRED: THE QUARTERMASTER'S ADDRESS TO NEW RELAY CREWS /// SECTOR 1: INSIDE THE BUREAU: HOW FORM 27-B KEEPS YOU ALIVE, ON PAPER /// SECTOR 7: THE IRON CHAPLAINS HOLD THE WANDLE CAUSEWAY /// RELAY WINDOW 02:00 TO 02:20. KEEP TRANSMISSIONS UNDER NINETY SECONDS /// CHECK THEIR PULSE. AUDITORS DO NOT SWEAT /// RATION CHITS VALID UNTIL THE 30TH /// NEVER CONNECT A TAPE DECK TO MAINS GRID ///
Fig. 2.1Cutaway workshop manual illustration of the HK-A KESTRELOpen full plate
Reconnaissance photograph of a KESTREL in the field

Confirmed human deaths attributed to class

96,410

ANALOG FRONT FIELD MANUALS. SECTION 2. FIRST SIGHTED 15 MAR 2050

HK-A KESTREL

Aerial hunter-killer, VTOL

Threat

The HK-A is an angular vertical take-off gunship built around two ducted fans and a pair of rotary cannons. It patrols at low altitude with twin searchlights and is responsible for most curfew-hour casualties across all twelve sectors. The owner should note that the searchlights are not for the Kestrel's benefit. They are so that you know it has seen you.

2.1 Specifications

Length
11.2 m nose to tail boom
Span
8.6 m across fan nacelles
Mass
6,800 kg loaded
Power plant
Twin Foundry turbo-electric drives, one per ducted fan
Top speed
310 km/h level, hovers indefinitely
Endurance
Approx. 9 hours between depot returns
Ceiling
Operational 20 to 400 m, rarely seen above 600 m
Armour
Composite belly plate, 18 mm. Upper surfaces barely skinned
Crew / autonomy
None. Autonomous, tasked by Archivist nodes
Production run
Est. 22,000 airframes

2.2 Armament

  • Twin 20 mm rotary cannons in chin turret, 360-degree traverse
  • Wing-root pods for eight anti-personnel rockets
  • Optional loudspeaker for curfew announcements (Optispeak only)
  • Downwash, which at hover height will strip the roof off a lean-to

2.3 Sensors

  • Twin gimballed searchlights with integrated thermal imagers
  • Belly-mounted radio direction finder, which is why you keep your set switched off
  • Wide-band microphone array on tail boom
  • Ground-mapping radar, 2 km radius

2.4 Weak points

  • Fan intakes: the ducted fans ingest debris poorly. A bin bag of scrap chain thrown upward does wonders
  • Upper surfaces are lightly armoured. Fire from rooftops, never from the street
  • The searchlights. They are also its eyes. Shoot the light
  • Hover stability: when both fans are loaded asymmetrically it yaws left and takes three seconds to recover
WARNING: Do not stand beneath a Kestrel that is falling. This appears obvious. It has had to be written down.
CAUTION: Searchlight glare can cause temporary blindness. Lamplighters report that closing one eye in advance preserves night vision in the other.

2.5 Disabling: fan intake obstruction and grounding

  1. Establish a firing position above the Kestrel's operating altitude. A church tower, a crane cab or the roof of a Bureau office are all suitable; the latter is the most satisfying.
  2. Prepare an intake charge: 4 m of scrap chain, loosely coiled in a hessian sack, with a 30-second fuse charge taped inside.
  3. Wait until the unit enters hover. It will hover when it has found something. Try not to be the something.
  4. Drop or throw the charge into the port fan intake. The port fan is the larger target on account of a Foundry fault in the nacelle fairing.
  5. Take cover immediately. The fan will shed blades radially at high velocity.
  6. When the airframe has come down, approach from the rear quarter only. The chin turret retains power for up to four minutes after impact.
  7. Remove the searchlight lenses with a 10 mm spanner (six bolts per lens). Retain the thermal imaging module intact for the Tech Bench.

2.6 Field notes

The downwash is the thing nobody tells you about. It picks up grit and glass and throws it at you sideways, so goggles or you'll never see it coming. We brought one down with a sack of bicycle chain off the old gasometer in Sector 4 and it spun like a sycamore seed. Beautiful, honestly. Then the chin gun woke up and chewed the gasometer for three minutes. Wait the four minutes. Signed: RUST_MOTHER, Cell MAGPIE, Sector 4