The Black Valiant

The Black Valiant is a long range expedition vessel owned, run and part constructed by KyuSiik. She is used primarily as a transport and cargo vessel for her crew who rely on her above average range and maneuverability to reach remote locations.

Description
The Black Valiant is a heavily modified vessel, based primarily on the fuselage of the Anya class Koldari shuttle combined with the reactor and propulsion systems from a K-14 light freighter, with many custom modifications. Her basic shape comprises a large, 35m diameter habitation ring suspended radially by three supports to a central cylinder. At the aft is a spherical housing, that contains the main fusion reactor, behind which are connected two blocks of 4 Bussard Ramjets each one having an 8x1.5m Silicon Carbide radiator, which glows orange when in use. At the front of the ship is an enlarged Ion scoop taking the form of a fine wire mesh, this design of ion scoop is reminiscent of earlier designs and is not seen on the majority of production vessels. The bridge is located behind the scoop, in a nacelle that extends a short distance away from the hull. A similar, larger nacelle is located opposite the bridge, housing a secondary habitation module as well as the ship's sensors and communications array. Usually, docked at the rear of the ship between the two engine blocks, can be seen a small shuttle referred to by the crew as "Diddy Val" which is primarily used for ground excursions. Opposite the shuttle, on a short boom are two railgun turrets, each armed with two 128cal rapid-fire railguns.

Propulsion
The Black Valiant's primary propulsion consists of 8 Bussard Ramjets, that provide thrust by collecting hydrogen ions from the surrounding space using an ion scoop. These ions are then fed into a reaction chamber where they undergo a controlled fusion reaction. Due to the highly ionised nature of the exhaust material, a small amount of thrust vectoring can be attained by directing the engine exhaust with superconducting magnets. While each engine has its own ion scoop, the close-packed arrangement means that supplementary scoops must be used to make up for this drop in effeciency. The main scoop is located at the very front of the ship and takes the form of numerous thin wires wound around six long booms spread out into a cone-shaped former. This large and archaic design is used to collect an excess of fuel that is used to supercharge the modified engines to provide extra thrust where it is required.

The majority of the vessel's reaction control comes from 28 peroxide motors located at various locations along the hull of the ship. These are supplimented by 6 pairs of control moment gyroscopes located in pods around the center of mass. Additionally, three pairs of peroxide motors are located on the perimiter of the habitation ring to assist with maintaining a stable angular velocity relative to the rest of the ship.

Due to her large moment of inertia, she lacks the structural integrity to withstand interstellar travel by Boson Cannon and must be docked to a compatible Ferry to facilitate the transfer.