Endeavour-class Escort

The is a mid-weight escort used by the Swords of Sanghelios for escort and patrol missions. While it lacks speed, and a fighter compliment, it's heavy armour and powerful weaponry assure its power. 
==History==
The Endeavour can trace it's origins back to the ADP-class Escort, an older model of Covenant warship used for planetary defence. Once plentiful, the ADP was especially designed to protect worlds from the threat of invasion, an unlikely but still feared prospect, or more commonly it escorted vulnerable vessels in dangerous space. As such, it was heavily armed, and heavily armoured, but slow. Such ships were plentiful, amongst the Covenant's core world, but during the Great War, it was rarely seen, except for when it was positioned to defend forward Covenant positions and fleet installations. 
With the schism, these vessels became part of the forefront of the conflict, defending worlds from attack, or being pressed into assault roles they were unintended for. 
The SOS was unwilling to let these vessels remain constrained by the San 'Shyuum's technocracy, however. They modified their own ADP-classes to form the basis of the Endeavour-class, a tough and wily warrior, designed to protect far larger warships, installations, and even whole planets, with coordinated hails of fire. 
==Design==
The Endeavour-class possesses a heavily armoured, swept back hull, with two forward bulbous sections carrying heavy armaments. Beneath the hull, it has a secondary hull carrying defensive batteries. The entire hull sweeps back, with a long boom covering the engines from attack. 
When it comes to armament, the Endeavour performs excellently. Rather than fixed weaponry, the plasma cannons are mounted as versatile turrets, allowing them to focus fire onto one target. The upper hull is further studded with pulse laser mounts, and point-defence plasma cannon batteries, while the lower hull is host to only point defence cannons. It possesses a massive over abundance of point defence cannons, offsetting it's almost non-existent compliment, and allowing it to protect larger vessels with walls of plasma flak. 
The ship itself is extremely heavily armoured, with layer upon layer of thick nano-laminate armour, hardened shielding, and a robust and flexible frame, allowing it to take as much punishment as it dishes out. The ship also has numerous redundancies, to the power systems, the electronics, and a sophisticated life support system, allowing it to continue functioning, even after catastrophic damage. It's internal bulkheads are three times as thick as a bulkhead on any other ship. The armoured cowling extends over the repulsor engines, and while this throttles their output, it keeps them protected from attack. 
Lastly, the ship is equipped with a precise, and sophisticated sensor system. Called the Augur Sensor Tracking, it uses a variety of acute sensors to accurately track in a 360 sphere around itself. While short ranged, what makes this system legendary is not it's accuracy, but it's ability to share amongst other Endeavour classes in close proximity. Doing this, a squadron can create a networked wall of fire, protecting warships from harm. 
For it's complement, the Endeavour-class suffers. It has a single hangar bay, capable of holding four Phantoms. It can carry a few dozen warriors, enough for hosting boarding parties, or defending the vessel in battle. 
==Role==
As it's name suggests, the Endeavour is an escort. It's designed to protect slower vessels, from attacks by both warships and fighters. Its just as tough, and can keep speed with it's charges. Its also used as a monitor ship, guarding vital planets and installations with accurate fire. Lastly, it is used for short ranged patrol, guarding space lanes, freighters, and planets. It works in conjunction with faster corvettes to track and intercept targets.