The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

With powerful shields, protective armour and effective weapons, taking out a defensive installation or enemy craft in space is not a trivial undertaking. For those like The Broken who have limited structural capacity, the sabotage ship is a dangerous and powerful tool. Stripping a ship bare, and filling it with explosives and cybel containers, and either a remote pilot, or a skeletal crew who have nothing to lose, sabotage ships are frequently used to gain access to restricted cybel gates, or as leverage in negotiations for resources, people and craft.

We previously shared the Interstellar Hydrogen Harvester, in the form of a film-based harvesting device. That is far from the only way interstellar hydrogen is harvested, and the above craft shows an alternate method in which hexagonal magnetic fields are used to trap interstellar resources. While this is more energy intensive than the film-based harvesting of the other IHH craft, it has the advantage in that debris does not risk damaging the harvester, passing harmlessly through the rings. The downside is that the energy required to operate the craft dramatically reduces its potential yield.

As mentioned before, a handful of IHH ships can massively extend the practical range and viable capacity of an evacuation fleet, and are therefore extremely valuable to all of mankind. Countless fleets have been destroyed in combat over the smallest rumour of IHH possession.

In a lot of Maelstrom's Edge fiction we discuss small craft, tunnelhuggers, and similar. These craft can breathe air and operate in space, so are generally a bit more streamlined than larger ships. The craft above is capable of transporting 8 people for a considerable length of time, and is heavily armed with solid mass weapons that can operate in atmosphere or in vacuum.