Starlit Hypatia
The Starlit Hypatia is an Astrean civil heavy interstellar freight hauler. It is one part of a two-part starship, along with the fast-attack interceptor, the Aquaria Viper.
As a heavy freighter, the Starlit Hypatia's official role is transporting raw materials to Astrea, and usually returning with loads of valuable Astrean art.
However this primarily serves as a cover for secretive special extraction operations organized by the Astrean Defence Force. Once out of public view on long-haul transport missions, the Aquaria Viper detaches, carries out a mission, then returns and reattaches with the main body and continues the cargo run. Because the Aquaria Viper is completely disguised within the nose section of the Starlit Hypatia, and never actually docks at Astrea, no connection is ever made between whatever mission the Aquaria Viper carries out and Astrea.
Overview
The ship is best understood by imagining it as a very tall, very thin building - like a skyscraper, or a tower - with the primary drive section being at the "bottom", and the crew section in the nose at the "top".
This is due to the fact that all "gravity" on the ship is provided by acceleration. When the engines are on and the ship is accelerating at 1 g, "gravity" points from the nose toward the engines. When the engines are off, everything is weightless.
Primary drive section
The "bottom"/rear section of the ship is the primary drive section. It contains the main fusion reactor and the massive primary sublight thrusters. These thrusters are capable of producing enormous force, but because the Starlit Hypatia carries so much mass in cargo, this does not translate to enormous acceleration. In fact, they can't even quite manage two-and-a-half 'g's when fully loaded with cargo.
Unlike the often much larger freight or passenger vessels flown by other worldstates, the Starlit Hypatia is designed for almost entirely autonomous operation. The reactor is self-sustaining, and the engines require almost no maintenance.
Cargo section
"Above" the primary drive section is the kilometre-long cargo section. When fully unloaded, the cargo section is mostly empty space, consisting only of one central 15 m diameter tube running "up" along its entire length, surrounded in a hexagonal pattern by six smaller, 5 m diameter, tubes in parallel, with regularly spaced connecting braces for extra strength. The central tube is the main lift shaft, used for travelling between the crew areas and secondary drive section at the "top" and the main drive section at the "bottom", and for cargo inspections. The six surrounding secondary shafts can also be used, but they have only ladders, no lifts. The main shaft and six secondary shafts all have limited flexibility, to allow for minor imperfections in turning manoeuvres without tearing the ship in two.
Cargo is loaded into standard pods that nestle within the secondary shafts along the long cargo section. There is theoretically no limit on the size of cargo that could be carried, because the cargo could "stick out" past the sides of the ship into space, but there are practical limits based on how much bending stress the cargo can take.
Secondary drive section
"Above" the cargo section is the secondary drive section. This section contains the primary jump bubble generator. (The Aquaria Viper has a second, much smaller jump bubble generator, useful only for itself when detached.) It also sports a set of secondary thrusters, to assist in turning manoeuvres.
Crew section
And finally, at the very "top" of the Starlit Hypatia, in its nose section, is the crew section. This is where all of the flight and command operations are carried out from, but also where the crew lives and spends almost all of their time in flight. Because the ship is largely autonomous, the crew almost never has to leave the crew section during normal flight.
The crew areas for most long-haul star freighters are usually surprisingly comfortable and elegant, if a little cramped, and usually provides a full range of facilities for comfort for long journeys. This is because most long-haul freighters will also carry paying passengers, for a little extra cash. But this is not the case for the Starlit Hypatia, because so much space is taken up by camouflaging for the Aquaria Viper. The remaining living space - which is really all within the Aquaria Viper - is enormously limited, and quite cramped. Of course, the crew doesn't mind - as soldiers, they are generally trained and inclined to live in fairly rough, spartan conditions. And the only passengers the Starlit Hypatia ever carries are Astreans that have been rescued, and they're usually too grateful at being rescued to care about the cramped accommodations.
Specifications
The Starlit Hypatia is an Astrean registered heavy freight superluminal transport. It's official Astrean registration is ASF/H-242.
- Length
- 1.8 km
- Crew
- 2 (nominal - can be handled by 1)
- Passengers
- 2 (comfortably)
- 6 (maximum)
- Maximum acceleration
- 12.6 g (empty)
- 2.4 g (fully loaded)
- Maximum cargo
- 10 Mt
- Minimum turn radius
- 15 km
Maximum cargo capacity assumes cargo that does not require any special environmental conditions. If cargo requires an atmosphere or extra facilities for providing heat or radiation shielding, the mass of the atmosphere and equipment must also be factored in. Starlit Hypatia's primary cargo is usually raw minerals, so it can usually carry close to maximum capacity.
The Starlit Hypatia is designed for almost entirely autonomous operation, which enables keeping the crew requirements very small. In fact, with the flight plan programmed into the computer, the ship can fly itself, and even perform jumps. Manual flight control is only required in areas where automatic flight control is illegal - usually only in space near ports of call, where there is a lot of traffic or great risk of disaster if a mistake is made. (It is also often necessary to perform manual manoeuvres as part of missions, keep any record of the manoeuvre left out of the computer's memory.)
The ship is incapable of planetary landings, and would not survive any in-atmosphere manoeuvring, or manoeuvring within a gravity well any greater than a few fractions of a g. This is generally not a problem, though. Most of its cargo is raw minerals mined from asteroids, and Astrea itself is a space colony. In practice, it never needs to "land", or even dock anywhere. Smaller cargo lifters carry the cargo to/from Starlit Hypatia, and the crew is transported by shuttle.
Aquaria Viper
The main crew section of most long-haul large freighter starships is detachable. In the event of an emergency with the cargo or a failure of the main engines, the crew section can detach and fly away under its own power. Some even have jump capability.
The Starlit Hypatia is no exception, but unlike most transports, the detachable crew section is not merely an emergency escape vessel, but a starship in its own right: the Aquaria Viper.
When nestled within the nose of the Starlit Hypatia, the Aquaria Viper is unrecognizable. This is by design; it allows a crew of special operations agents to travel freely in what appears to be a harmless civilian freighter (the Starlit Hypatia), yet still secretly have a high-agility, high-speed ship (the Aquaria Viper) for their missions.
To carry out a mission, they simply leave a public area in the Starlit Hypatia as if they are going to perform a perfectly normal cargo run, then as soon as they are out of sight, detach the Aquaria Viper and use that for their mission. Once the mission is complete, they return reattach to the Starlit Hypatia and continue their cargo run as if nothing happened. The Aquaria Viper never docks anywhere, so even if the mysterious ship is being hunted, no one can connect it to the Starlit Hypatia, its crew, or any of the places it travels to – particularly Astrea.
Crew
The current Captain of the Starlit Hypatia is Threnody. This is, of course, a cover for her true role as a special operative for the Astrean Defence Force, specializing in emergency extractions (in other words, rescues of Astreans who are abducted or held captive by genetically-inferior barbarian outworlders). However, though it may only be a cover, Threnody is a fully-licensed star frieghter Captain in the Galactic Union of Worldstates, with impeccable credentials. Only a very small number of Astreans are aware of her true, secret role, but no non-Astreans have any clue.
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Zenith is nominally the First Officer. This, too, is only a cover. But like Threnody, Zenith is fully, legally licensed as a star freighter First Officer.
Both pursue their cover jobs diligently when in view of others, but somewhat haphazardly when out of public sight. Zenith in particular takes a lackadaisical approach to her job. Because she usually handles piloting duties, she is responsible for most of the many dents and dings on both the Starlit Hypatia and Aquaria Viper.
