TFL/Wren

The Big Bear Constructions *Wren* is a standard design of a Starship, initially designed to be a light logistics freighter for the Confederated Stars of Ursa Starfleet. CSUSF wouldn't own or operate the freighters, but would subsidize their purchase and operation and have a fleet of fast freighters they could draft to support military operations. A change in politics caused the program to be discontinued, but Big Bear continues to produce the design and *Wrens* have carved out a mildly viable economic niche in moving high priority, medium freight over short distances without a crazy markup. The design is also fairly easy to maintain and modify, and is a popular craft for pirates, smugglers, and blockade runners who adjust it to their particular circumstances.

## Layout

*Wrens* are winged and streamlined for atmospheric entry. The main hull is a 200 yard long, flattened cylinder that acts as a lifting body. The cylinder is about 40 yards wide and 15 yards tall. Narrow delta wings extend from the back half the craft. The three ADM "Dart-15" engines and associated Necklin Rods are mounted on struts at the rear of the craft to the rear of the engine and extend forward. The struts are radially symmetrical with a 120 degree spacing. The lower two struts are mounted on pivots, and swing up to be flush with line of the wings, making the engines into huge wingtip pods. The atmospheric maneuver flaps are on the back of those two struts, while the third strut has the rudder and ailerons.

*Wrens* have a 2 part habitat space. The crew habitat of 6 cabins, ward room, and exercise space is mounted on starboard forward hull, while the passenger habitat of 8 cabins, dining room, and exercise space is mounted adjacent to on the port side. When the ship is spinning, both habitats extend out from the sides of the ship on 100 yard pressurized tethers, providing 0.44 G of felt gravity with an acceptable spin rate of 2 RPM, or up to 0.95 G at 3 RPM. Each habitat is a straight hallway, with cabins on each side and the wardroom or dining room and exercise space on each end. The habitats are mounted on on gymbals and rotate to align the floors in the direction of current gravity - the floors are perpendicular to the length of the ship under engine acceleration. It takes about 30 minutes to prepare the habitats to spin or reel in the tethers, and the ship cannot safely uses its engines while in the spin configuration.

The command deck on a *Wren* is in the center of the main hull, just behind the habitat deck. It does not spin. There are 6 multi-function command deck stations facing outward in a circle around the command station; two additional stations and a large common viewing display are in the front of the ship. (This is basically the layout of the original Star Trek Enterprise). The command deck is heavily radiation shielded and has a cramped bunkroom space for 20 people beside it to provide 3-4 days of shelter against extreme radiation.

The back third of a *Wren* is divided into four cargo bays. The lower port and lower starboard bays have large cargo doors beneath the wings; the upper bays have door at the rear of the ship and need to be accessed from loading ramps from the ground. There are also internal doors between each bay. Each bay is roughly 75 yards long, 13 yards wide, and 6 yards tall and can stow 120 Advanced Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit (ATEU) shipping containers or 5,400 cubic yards of mixed cargo, though *Wrens* tend to be mass limited well before they are volume limited. The ship's six Bresling 1 GW "Torchlight" compact fusion reactors are between the cargo holds and the command deck, a somewhat controversial decision because it makes the command deck and emergency radiation shelter a bit warmer than is comfortable.

A *Wren* has stowage tanks for 1,200 tons of hyper-hydrogen on the outside of the cargo holds but still inside the aerodynamic hull. Another 300 tons of hyper-water or compressed hyper-hydrogen can be stored in tanks in the wings; the engines can use hyper-water to make atmospheric landings or take-offs up to 2.25 G.

Anti-meteor point defense is provided by 10 turrets with Solar Ray "Defender-M11r3" 100 kJ lasers; 6 are mounted around the middle of the cylinder and the other 4 around the nose.

*Wrens* have modest amounts of "stealth" features built into the hull. If the engines aren't firing, the reactors can be throttled to sustenance levels sufficient to power the passive sensors, life support, and basic internal power. Doing so cuts the I-R and radar signature to 1/10,000th of the active operation signature, instead of the normal 1/500th.

### Wren Systems Table

The starship has a winged, streamlined hull with stealth and spin gravity.

### Statistics

Piloting (Aerospace, High Performance Spacecraft, Hyperspace)