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Badger Engineering has earned itself a fine reputation as one of the most inventive and industrious of the many small outfits catering for the shipbuilding trade. Based in England, Earth, Badger started by manufacturing electronic packs which were modular units designed as plugin replacements for damaged or obsolete circuitry. Before long they were providing complete kits to update or modify existing craft, and had started to undertake the repair and renovation of the hulls themselves. As interest in outofproduction ships grew, they found themselves increasingly involved in the restoration of obsolete or rare models and this now accounts for over half their business.

With their considerable experience in this field and the obvious demand for unusual private ships, the next step for them was to produce and market their own. Their close associations with the Terran Trade Authority, a major client, resulted in thw opportunity to purchase the last twenty of Consolidated's SCF 28 freighters, which were due to be replaced.

As a freighter the SCF 28 had been overtaken by new techniques in transport and shipping, but was economical to run and had ample hullspace for Badger's purpose. In addition it possessed one other valuable attribute in that it was a famous ship.

During the invasion of Proxima the Terran Defence Force had used SCF 28s as personnel carriers and the sturdy little ships became a familiar sight as they scurried to and fro ferrying supplies and reinforcements in and wounded men out, often under heavy fire. Their moment of glory came when a strong Proximan counterattack cut off our forward command base in the battle for Kelorth, the Proximan capital. Two groups of SCFs went in, the first as a decoy and the second to evacuate the staff. The operation succeeded but twenty two of the thirty ships were destroyed.

Badger Engineering renovated and completely refitted the hulls, with updated engines and their own electronic packs. The interior fittings were then made to the individual customer's specifications, and the Skymaster 28 was an instant success so much so that Badger received enough orders to justify manufacturing completely new ships from the original plans.

Although eighteen were produced in this way the licence fee paid to Consolidated for the manufacturing rights made the Skymaster an expensive craft, and Badger began to look elsewhere for a successor. They found it in the SSF 21D Cutlass, one of the best known ships of the early days of the war, and manufacturing rights were bought outright from the Defence Authority. Five replicas of this famous ship have been produced and the order books are full, but it is a different machine from the Skymaster 28. The latter is slower and more sedate but is still in demand because of its low running costs and large cabin area.