Islien Yards

You’ll Want Us High and Clear

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ICED FIRE-CLASS ANTIMATTER TRANSPORT

Operated by: Extropa Energy, ICC
Type: Antimatter Transport
Construction: Islien Yards, ICC

Length: 1,600 km (overall)
Beam: 3,200 km
Dry mass: 39,200 tons (not including cryocels)

Gravity-well capable: No; not even low-orbit capable.
Atmosphere capable: No.

Personnel: 31

  • Flight Commander
  • 3 x Flight Executive/Administrator
  • 3 x Flight Director
  • 3 x Flight Engineer
  • 3 x Propulsion Engineer
  • 3 x Cargomaster
  • 3 x general technicians
  • 2 x riggers/EVA specialists
  • Thinker-class AI

Drives:

  •  3 x Nucleodyne Thrust Applications 1×1 “Sunheart V” fusion torch

Propellant: Deuterium/helium-3 blend
Cruising (sustainable) thrust: 3.5 standard gravities (3.3 Earth G) at nominal load
Maximum velocity: 0.3 c unloaded, 0.1 c loaded (based on particle shielding)

Drones:

  • 3 x general-purpose maintenance drones
  • 3 x tether-climbing rigger drones

Sensors:

  • 1 x standard navigational sensor suite, Islien Yards

Other Systems:

  • 2 x Islien Yards boosted commercial kinetic barrier system
  • Biogenesis Technologies Mark VII regenerative life support
  • 2 x Bright Shadow EC-780 information furnace data system
  • Islien Yards custom dual vector-control core and associated technologies
  • Systemic Integrated Technologies dual-mode radiator system

Small craft:

  • 1 x Élyn-class microcutter
  • 1 x Adhaïc-class workpod

The standard vehicle for ferrying antimatter from the Cirys bubble at Esilmúr to its various places of use, the Iced Fire-class is a starship designed around one core principle, commonly adhered to when dealing with antimatter:

Don’t get any on you.

The core hull itself is much smaller than the dimensions above suggest; a blunted cylinder a mere 252 m in length, including bunkerage. This houses the entire livable volume of the starship, including a dock for the Élyn-class microcutter at the bow, and a bay housing for the workpod. Rather than the typical stern mounting, the three Sunheart V fusion torches are located in nacelles set off from the hull on radiator pylons amidships, located 120 degrees apart; these nacelles are fully vectorable for maximum maneuverability.

The stern of the core hull instead contains the attachment points and winches for a 1,600 km tether, at whose fully extended end is in turn attached the spinhub. This is a simple unit containing monitoring equipment and a centrifugal ring, to which in turn are mounted eight further attachment points and associated tethers, terminating in heavy couplings. It is to these couplings that antimatter cryocels are mounted during loading, and dismounted upon arrival. In flight, the action of the centrifugal ring maintains appropriate safe distance between the core hull and the cryocels, and between the cryocels themselves, while also ensuring that jettisoned cryocels will move away from the main body of the starship in the event of containment failure.

 

Building Bridges

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“Listen up, girder monkeys! Your job for today is to put the bridge in the Starwing-class courier floatin’ behind us. My job for today is to make sure you do it right.”

“Now, you are asking yourselves why the admins here at Islien have decided in their wisdom to put a bunch of rookies in charge of such an important part of the starship we’re building. That’s because it’s also the dumbest part of the starship. There’s no technical reason you need one at all: All the system primary controls are attached to their systems, and everything’s fly-by-wire. If the system bus and computers are up and running, you can run everything from your ‘lace or your pocketwatch from anywhere inside her, or within a few hundred meters of her hull if it’s a good signal day – and if they’re not working, you’re going to have to get out of your chair and beat brass with the techs’n’mechs anyway. It’s just there so the command conference has a table big enough to sit ’round and won’t all go space-crazy stuck in their cabins.”

“That is also why the plans you are holding are, for those of you who have read ahead, a one-page variant of ‘Conference Room, Microgravity, Type K-Eleven’. Everything in there – the walls, the virtuality couches, the displays, the data pillar, the armatures – is off-the-shelf stock. That’s your job – set ’em up, hook ’em in three-by-three, run the self-tests. The only exceptions are the sailing master’s hand controls. Those, and double-checking your work, are my job.”

“You, check the main lock and axial passage are clear. You go with him, post our warning v-tags. You, get back to the low power room, lock down bridge-compartment power in the off position and bring me the keys. The rest of you – parts inventory. Find what we’re missing before we miss it.”

“Now, snap it up! Rookies you may be, but I still expect you to get this done in one shift.”

– Airin Serannis, girder-monkey-herder, Islien Yards