Belladonna

The ***Belladonna*** was a unique battlecruiser that served as Admiral Arsène Sylvestre's flagship of the Terran Alliance's 13th Fleet. Fast, well-armed, and powerful, it was a unique ship of its own class, though loosely derived from the *Luna* type's design. Bearing close resemblance to the Velian *Eidolon* class and sporting advanced and unique weapons for a ship of this type within the Alliance starfleet, she was an extremely capable warship.

## Design

### Dimensions & Role

At 1,340 metres in length, *Belladonna* exceeded the 'normal' limitations of Alliance battlecruisers: still classed as one thanks to not quite meeting the length requirements for a battleship, she was broadly shaped like a Velian *Eidolon* or a *Styx*-class cruiser. An aggressive boxy hull mated to curves and canards made deflecting beams an almost trivial matter, and the shape also presented the smallest target to an opponent that could still bring all guns to bear.

Like her half-sisters of the *Luna* class, *Belladonna* was designed primarily for aggressive fleet combat: slugging matches with peer capital ships were her primary role as built within a fleet, though this would be supplanted by her use as a flagship. To the latter's end, she also sported a comprehensive sensor and comms package, allowing her to skip the usage of relay ships and provide her orders and tactical data in real time to the rest of the fleet.

### Power & Propulsion

*Belladonna*'s immense power requirements, necessary to sustain her high-output machinery and weapons in battle conditions, were provided for by a single Alenya Se-6b ionization reactor: though not Alliance-designed, the miniaturized Dyson sphere around an artificial star could run the entire ship's subsystems at full capacity (plus 10% overload potential) in Condition Alpha, full battle rig, for over three days straight. Backing up this core power source was a matter/antimatter annihilation reactor: though normally used exclusively to generate power for the particle cannon, allowing it to be supercharged past its normal limitations, it could also run all subsystems at reduced capacity if the main reactor was damaged.

The battlecruiser's forward acceleration was provided by four phased ion drives of Lucaelian manufacture: this gave the ship a maximum acceleration of 46,000 Gs when full thrust was called for, allowing the flagship to reposition and maneuver easily. A series of smaller ion drives allowed for pinpoint maneuvers and fine course corrections: ion jets studded across the ship provided directional maneuvering capacity, allowing the battlecruiser to shift direction with dazzling speed.

### Artillery

Built around her armament, *Belladonna*'s weapon systems were both comprehensive and fairly unique: she was among the few Alliance warships to break from the all-laser trend. Her primary weapon was a massive, double-barreled particle cannon extending most of the ships' length: spinally mounted and fed directly by the reactors, it could accelerate a particle stream to about 92.98 *c*, causing immense amounts of damage if it connected. Several orders of magnitude more powerful than even a *Luna*'s boring laser, it could seriously challenge the defenses of even major Razorbird warships.

*Belladonna*'s heavy guns, aside from her particle accelerator, featured a mix of turrets and forward-fixed cannons: four triple turrets and twenty-four fixed mountings. The four triple turrets were affixed one to each corner on the flanks of the vessel's stern, so that all could concentrate forward or one to any quarter. Both turret and fixed mount featured enhanced laser cannons: aside from their far greater power output (380 megatons vs. 174 megatons) per individual shot, they also boasted a faster recharge rate. The cannons additionally operated using electromagnetic radiation in the blue-violet spectrum: this made the lasers appear a deep bluish-violet, as opposed to the Alliance's standard red.

The secondary battery consisted of a number of 14.5-megaton plasma cannons: mounted in twin turrets and strewn over the hull, they could assist in defending the starship from fighter attack as well as operate alongside the main guns against capital ships. These were backed by over a hundred point-defense railgun mountings: firing explosive shells at an extremely high rate of fire, they could stop a strikefighter in its tracks. If bombs or torpedoes made it past, they would then have to contend with the standard array of 2-ton 'snapper ball' mounts for local interception.

### Protective Systems

Sharp contrast to the battlecruiser designation was made by the degree to which *Belldonna* was protected: aside from her active systems, themselves comprehensive, she could also count on her beam-reflecting hullform and maneuverability to serve her in a fight. Should those fail, however, her hull was plated in a layered sandwich of armour-grade alloyed monocrystalline durasteel and foam ceramics, anywhere from half a metre to over two metres thick. Her dorsal/ventral transparency and all of her 'porthole' windows were made of a transparent steel of new design, itself anywhere from just shy of a metre to three metres thick, and coverable with additional heavy armoured shutters around the bridge section.

### Other Details

#### Bridge Section

*Belladonna*'s bridge section was specifically designed with the comfort of the light-sensitive Admiral Sylvestre in mind: accordingly, the spacious bridge - unusual for an Alliance ship in its proximity to the external hull - was kept dark, with dark grey durasteel alloy walls and dimmed lighting. Holographic displays and 'hardlight' panels were red, as opposed to the standard Alliance blue, and crew pits were used in contrast to normal practice so as to give the greatest amount floor space possible.

## Service History

The first warship to be designed by then-Vice Admiral Sylvestre as part of his 'New Model' programme, *Belladonna* was designed, laid down, and built at Trafalgar Shipyard's No.4 Stardock over New Alessandria, commissioning on 6 December 2500. Still under construction when the first Iktharan 'test of Alliance abilities' began, Captain Pepper Fadington was appointed to command the incomplete battlecruiser and her assembling crew. Her shrewd handling of the manpower available had the battlecruiser commission six months ahead of schedule; she was immediately enrolled in Vice Admiral Sylvestre's 66th Mobile Force as its flagship, assisting then-Admiral Altantsetseg's 16th Fleet (Battlefleet Val Royeux) against the Iktharans. It would be shortly after that she would be first 'blooded', fighting a detachment of Iktharan raiders and destroying it at Kotys IV before linking up with Altantsetseg's main force in time for the Battle of Alring.

A pivotal fleet engagement, the battle of Alring cemented *Belladonna*'s status as a well-designed and well-commanded warship: pitting the approximately 26,000 Alliance starships of Admiral Altantsetseg's 16th Fleet vs. the 29,000 Iktharan ships of the 11th Battle Group, the 68-hour-engagement resulted in the destruction of over half the Iktharan force for the loss of less than a tenth of Altantsetseg's fleet, largely due to the Iktharan fleet being broken up after chasing the 66th Mobile Force - the admiral's vanguard - through an asteroid belt and defeated in detail as they passed through piecemeal. The following battle of Vilnitz - chasing down the surviving Iktharan elements and bringing them to battle - saw *Belladonna* as flagship of the whole force throughout the engagement, Altantsetseg unable to keep up with her slower carriers and battleships.

As a result of the conflict, Vice-Admiral Sylvestre was promoted to full Admiral and reassigned to the 13th Fleet, Battlefleet New Daucourt; *Belladonna* would follow as his continued flagship.