Quistillian Aerial Navy

The pride of the Ministry of the Interior on the sleepy world of Quistil (world) is the Quistillian Aerial Navy. They currently maintain a small elite force of hand picked volunteers. They crew an modest aerial navy of eight Quietus class Air Galleons. These are state of the art TL–3 airborne fighting craft.

Four huge hot air balloon envelopes tethered together by a frail wicker lattice, and cargo netting. Each balloon has a compact alcohol fueled burners and two hours of distilled fuel. A separate, tiny steam engine cranks a large, broad bladed cloth propeller in languid revolutions. The galleon is armed with a single black iron, muzzle loaded cannonade which can fire 1kg cannisters of grapeshot. Lateral sails unfurl by lanyards to take advantage of favorable winds. An officer, an NCO and two ratings of sky command crew the vessel. Their payload is either a single scout glider, with a light frame and fabric wing. The hand glider pilot is armed with a distinctive curved saber and a crude lead pipe bomb/grenade with a manually lit fuse. Or a team of four paratroopers with silk parachutes, who are trained to emplace a small explosive charge and are each armed with a combat knife and a smooth bore, single shot, muzzle-loading pistol. They are trained to insert at dawn or dusk and prefer to operate in low light conditions. They are trained to perform their demolition work blindfolded and are masters of escape and evasion. For recovery, when possible, ropes are dropped from their vessel at the preordained exfiltration site.