Ships

Carrack Light Cruiser

Carrack light cruisers are small combat cruisers that had been part of the Imperial Navy since the earliest days of the New Order. The Carrack’s excellent design made it competitive even against newer ships, and the Imperial Navy was slow to retire these durable and capable craft.

At 350 meters long, Carracks are considered light cruisers, but they are quite heavily armed. The standard Imperial weapon configuration includes ten heavy turbolasers, twenty ion cannons, and five tractor-beam projectors. This weaponry gives the Carrack sufficient firepower to engage most Rebel capital starships. The carrack can also be refitted with twenty laser cannons to replace the ion cannons, making the ship an excellent antistarfighter cruiser.

A major drawback of the Carrack is that it has no hangar bay. Instead, small external racks carry a mere five TIE fighters for courier or recon duty. The Carrack must rely on other ships or planetary bases for TIE fighter support. However, the ship has powerful sublight engines that give it the speed of a X-wing fighter, making it one of the fastest cruisers in the Imperial fleet.

Carrack cruisers feature an unusual compartmentalization system, giving the ship great resistance to hull damage. The system takes up a high percentage of the interior space but also increases crew survival rates; on many occasions, Imperial rescue crews found crewmen alive inside drifting wreckage. The Carrack’s biggest weakness is insufficient armor plating around the power generators. A direct hit just aft of a Carrack’s midline has a good chance of disabling the vessel.

Original Imperial protocols called for the Carrack to be a support cruiser, usually assigned to sector patrol in pacified Imperial sectors. Carracks were also assigned as rearguard vessels for fleet actions. Older Carracks were used as private transports for planetary governors, sector Moffs, and other dignitaries.

The decline of the Empire after the death of Emperor Palpatine forced Imperial commanders to place more and more of the vessels into frontline duty, where larger New Republic cruisers constantly bested them.

The Carrack cruiser Dominant was the main Imperial warship at Bakura. At the time of the encounter with the Ssi-ruuk, the ship was nearly a decade old and had served in a number of engagements against pirate and Rebel bases. It was reassigned to Bakura, under the command of Captain Pter Thanas, to assist Imperial Governor Nereus. The ship played a key role in the defense against the Ssi-ruuvi invasion force, but Thanas turned on his Rebel "allies" as soon as the Ssi-ruuk had retreated, and the Dominant’s guns destroyed the Alliance fighter cruiser-carrier Flurry. Thanas eventually surrendered the Dominant to the Alliance and defected. He was soon appointed commander of the Dominant in its new role as flagship of the newly created Bakuran Alliance system defense force.

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