UDS-24-02A Ala

The **UDS-24-02A Ala** (Latin for "wing", plural form: *alae*) is an ancient autonomous support unit utilized by the CAST.

## Technical and Design History

Unlike most armaments used by the Caseal, the Ala is not an Extension. Rather it is a support craft controlled by an early form of the Caseal.

It consists of a spear-like main body, with four shield-like partitions, each armed with a higgs particle gun and 10 light hardlight guns. These partitions are also used to dock with Hyur mecha or the EDS-12-28 Centurion in modern times.

While primarily a support unit, it can be considered to be a multi-role corvette. Its slipspace drive allows the Ala to work as a scout unit, as well as a slipspace booster for squads of extensions. It boasts a wide arsenal of light weapons allowing to provide covering fire and screen against enemy fighters and missiles. It can also carry additional weapon design seeds and material for repairs of units using programmable titanium/hardlight composites. This is all possible due to the Ala's skeletal, disposable structure, needing no space to accommodate even the more human-like Caseal.

## Equipment and Design Features

* **Wave Force Armor:** A defensive shield system that manipulates dark matter containment fields to deflect and distort hostile attacks. The ones mounted on Ala are utilized to mostly deflect.
* **Object Control Grid:** A short-range teleportation grid extending about 1 kilometer. Specially equipped devices, like extensions, can teleport within or in between the local grids. This allows other extensions in the same system to rapidly redeploy to help one another, or deploy payloads near-instantaneously.

## Fixed Armaments

* **40x** **Light Hardlight Gun:** An advanced form of laser gun that uses a delayed reaction to convert laser to hardlight while it is being fired. Thus, while the projectiles are low on mass, even when sheathing dark matter, the shots have high durability and possess near-lightspeed velocity, giving them high striking power.
* **4x Higgs Particle Gun:** A medium-range low-power mass manipulator weapon. Due to high-strain, these weapons have a long cooldown time to ensure structural integrity. When docked with mecha extensions, it can use them to further increase the range and output of the weapon.
* **1x Alkahest Spear:** The origin of the "A" in the design seed's model number. At the tip of the craft is a point made of a substance described as the 'universal solvent'. It can pierce any material and many forms of shielding. Believed to be native to slipspace, it is contained by a quantum field and is unable to be replicated in the material universe. The spears cannot be removed, considered a fundamental part of the design seed. Due the rarity of the material, newly constructed Ala seeds do not have this weapon, though they retain the same model number. Excavated seeds are used sparingly, and great care is used to recover the spear if the craft is crippled.

## Optional Armaments

* **40 x** **“Twilight” Multi-Function Missile Launcher:** A rack of 3 large missiles, a set of 10 of these can be stored in place of a mecha extension. Their main payload is a spray of hard light to soften up a target, before collapsing in a dark matter reaction that tries to drag the target with it. The missiles are highly maneuverable and able to be remotely controlled by the pilot. Their hard light projectors can also be used to make hardlight barriers to protect the craft or others.