Rim-Atlantis SpacelaneYou realize quickly, that there's no point in staying. Even if you ship wouldn't be targetted and rescue did come, the convoy is already half destroyed. The shattered wrecks of the destroyers and convoy escorts will not offer any protection further on your journey, and whatever you do, you can offer no solace to those trapped in the desintegrating colony vessels.
You order the drive spun up. Lights dim and a soft hum vibrates through the ship as you plan your destination. There's no time to plot a specific course, and even if you had the time, you don't have a starchart of this area. You will have to rely on the automated safety systems to keep you from straying into harms way.
Meanwhile, the battle continues. A pirate ship burns directly towards the remaining destroyer, it's comically oversized engine projecting a pilar of glowing plasma thrice as long as the ship itself. The ships point defense systems open fire, filling the void with hundreds of tungsten shards. But it's too late. The nimble pirate ship deftly evades the danger, then dissappears from view, obscured by the destroyer's bulk. For a moment, you think the point defense might have been succesfull.
But then a flower of hot plasma blooms from the warships side, tearing the ship in two. A direct hit to the reactor has breached the schip's fusion core. No escape pods detach, and even if they did, it would not matter. Even as away from the combat as you're, the ship still gives radiation warnings. Guess you don't have to worry about that recurring lifesupport problem anymore.
A short, monotone buzzer disturb the solitude of the destroyer's demise. With the drive fully spooled up, the ship is ready to jump into the unknown. Sure, an enterpreneurial pirate could easily follow you, but they have more lucrative opportunities to attend to. In order to be certain though, you order a further 10 jumps, in case you're being followed. Jump 1-6 are uneventfull. Desolate systems consisting of a star and assortment of dusty rocks.
The seventh system is different though. A red dwarf, orbited by a single rocky planet. What is more unusual, is that while you were recharging the drive, you picked a radio signal. It is clearly structured but the ship's sensors appear unable to decypher it. It seems to be originating from the planet.
Ox-Class Support Vessel "Minotauress"
The Ox class vessel is an orbital vessel, designed to spend it's 100 year lifetime in space without ever landing on a planet. One can clearly see that it was fabricated using modular components, a measure which both lowered cost and increased the versatility of the design. From the front to the back, there's a communication array, crew quarters, cargo (separated in 4 parts which surround the FTL drive), the fabrication modules, the fusion reactor, with it's massive radiators, and then the sublightspeed engine.
System Status
Communication Array
This array includes various sensors (optical, radio, radiation), a weak communication laser, and an FTL communication device. The laser is utilized for direct ship to ship contact at close range, for other situations, radio transmissions are used. The FTL system has a transmission rate of less than 1 kb/s, it is thus rarely used for anything but text communication.
Crew quarters
The crew quarters provide housing and long term life-support for about 40 people, including g-force support if the ship undergoes significant acceleration. If the ship is stationary, the entire assembly can be spun up to simulate artificial gravity via the deployment of tethered habitation pods, which also allows for a total of 200 people to be stationed on the ship. (40 in each of the 4 pods, and another 40 in the main hull).
Cargo
Cargo is stored in 4 long bays, which surround and protect the FTL drive with their bulk. All the cargo is stored in sealed crates, magnetically attached to the walls. Depending on configuration, these crates should remain stable at up to 10 g. If deemed nessecairy, the cargo pods can be removed or opened in their entirety.
Cargo pods are usually kept unpressurized, and cargo is moved via an internal crane or through crew in power suits.
Fabrication Module
In essence, a small modular factory. The factory can, given enough time and resources, build everything you want. With proper software, it can even design new parts to amplify it's capabilities. Most of the construction is automated and executed by robotic components and advanced 3D printers, but for the most complex equipment, a small nanotech construction unit is provided. However, these nanobots are a limited supply, as they, by design, can not build other nanobots.
For safety reasons, the factory can not be operated while the ship is under thrust.
Fusion Reactor
The ship's fusion reactor is comparatively tiny, and works by keeping a small amount of plasma contained at high pressure and high temperature. Unlike the large reactors that can be found on stations and cities, these reactors are absolutely capable of blowing up the ship they're installed on. They are the only thing that can feasibly power the Fling drive however, and thus are ubiquitous amongst ships.
In the event of any destabilization to the reactor it can be dumped allowing the hot core to safely dissipate into space. Emergency power supplies can operate the ship for a few days until rescue can arrive and the core restarted. This particular ship includes large solar panels that can be deployed to provide power when the ship is in orbit.
Engine
The ship has 2 engines. It's main drive is a large Ion engine, capable of accelerating the ship at up to 0.1 g at very high efficiency. Propellant consumption is low, and should not be often replaced.
The other engine is the Auxiliary Fusion torch. This system utilizes the ships reactor to provide a great force upon the vessel by blasting a massive fusion flame behind the vessel, at a great fuel cost. Consumes a high amount of power, and allows acceleration up to 30 G. Neither the ship nor the crew will survive that.
Cargo [220/800]
Basic Resources : 150
Complex Resources : 50
Advanced Components : 20
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Topic: The Last Frontier : Suggestion Game (Read 4137 times)