Eurynasir

The Eurynasir is a Jaddian free trader lighter-class vessel captained by Demetri Arello, originally out of Jadd. She is approximately forty meters in length and built in a catamaran configuration: two swollen hull runners form each flank, running slightly fore and aft of the central body, which arches out of the water between them. An alumglass dome described as "like a hooded eye" sits between the runners, and a slim conning spire rises at the rear between heavy air fins that double as rudders when the ship rests on water. The entire hull is composite adamant and high-impact ceramics with pieces of alumglass and exposed titanium, dark as space throughout. Hairline fractures in the ceramic are caulked or welded in places, evidence of age and hard use. A peeling mural of two cupped hands near the forward hull carries flowing Jaddian script spelling the ship's name.

The Eurynasir operates on water as well as in space, and her lower hull is caked in Delian ocean salt when approaching port. Warming fusion lifters at the rear produce smoke during preflight. Her interior includes a hold containing wooden crates and steel drums, a ship's infirmary behind sealed glass, a low common room with an ellipsoid metal table and benches welded to the deck, and a forward bridge set in the alumglass dome on an outthrust steel finger. She carries suppression field generators for interstellar travel, as well as salvaged Imperial Legion-issue cryogenic fugue crèches recovered from a crashed destroyer on one of the moons of Bellos. Her crew of seven includes Demetri, his wife Juno, helmsman Bassem, the homunculus Saltus, a ship's doctor named Sarric, and an unnamed pair of twins. Her route from Delos to Teukros passes through Obatala and Siena, a journey of thirteen real-time years.

The Eurynasir's fate is one of betrayal: rather than completing the voyage to Teukros, her crew abandons ship mid-journey — taking the shuttles and leaving the passengers in cryogenic suspension — and disappears. The empty vessel arrives in the system of Emesh rather than Teukros, and dock workers at Borosevo's waterfront reclamation depot log it as arriving without crew. The ship's name does not appear in the starport's flight records, suggesting the Eurynasir bypassed normal port registration. The hull was subsequently moved up-well for refitting. Whether the abandonment was planned or precipitated by some disaster in the outer lanes remains unclear, though the Veil's dangers — pirates, Extrasolarians, and Cielcin — make such fates common for vessels traveling the frontier trade routes.