Tamerlane

The Tamerlane is an Eriel-class dreadnought, one of only seventeen ever constructed by the Red Star foundries at Hermonassa and Lasaia. Serial number SDN-04391, manufactured at Red Star Foundries, Lasaia, date ISD 15387.11.12. The ship is described as expensive and over-designed. She is more than a dozen miles long from pointed forecastle to arrowhead stern, with an armored dorsal hull, spires, geometric holds, and organic engine clusters -- five great cones of fusion engines hanging beneath, giving the impression of a dark castle wrought of steel. Black conning towers and spires hang from her underside. The hull is adamant -- deep gray like charcoal, ridged with fibrous texture, each hull segment a single molecule thousands of feet long. Her dorsal armor is heavy and glossy black in sunlight, with weapon clusters concealed beneath hatches outlined in gold. Beneath that armor hang bays, fuel tanks, and crew decks arranged like an inverse city. The ship runs at one-and-a-half standard gees of artificial gravity, kept heavy to maintain bone mass and fitness among the crew. At full warp she can cross the Sagittarius Arm in twelve years. An internal tramway system connects the vessel's many sections.

A scale model assembled by Lorian depicts the Tamerlane as black as night and gold accented, with concave sides narrowing to a sharp prow, a flat body above, hanging towers and clustered halls on lower decks descending from the ventral hull, widening aft with the convex arc of engines as crossguard.

The Tamerlane carries more than ninety thousand personnel, including more than fifteen thousand regular crew, seventy-five thousand legionnaires in cryonic fugue, five thousand aquilarii with Sparrowhawk and Peregrine fighters, Ibis troop carriers, and Shrike boarding craft, and more than one thousand Irchtani in cryogenic cubicula near the dorsal hull. Five hundred aquilarii launch tubes run down either side of the ship, oriented toward the rear. Sparrowhawk fighters, including those of Sphinx Flight, are housed in launching tubes along the equator. The ship carries the Ascalon, a Challis-class interceptor, in a rear launch bay.

Armament includes more than five thousand individual gun emplacements in the hull to defend against boarders, plus dorsal plasma cannons, magnetic grapnel, missile bays, high energy laser and maser arrays, an arsenal of atomics and antilithium bombs, and mile-long mass drivers powerful enough to shatter a large asteroid with a single shot. The bridge lies far forward on the ventral side near the nose, shielded above by dorsal armor and beneath by the primary weapons cluster. It features a holography well with a captain's chair, crash couches backed up against a rail, a captain's platform, an officers' pit, a catwalk, and a false window the size of the full fore wall that simulates a porthole view through a forest of gun emplacements and shield projectors. A ready room stands just off the bridge, and a conference room with a holography projection well is located down the hall.

A hydroponic garden section is maintained by human gardeners and bees, supplying vegetables, fruit, herbs, and fish. Hadrian keeps a private spot beneath hanging basil plants in this section. An equatorial beltway runs around the ship beneath the overhang of the dorsal plate, providing access between the barracks and the launch tubes, with great arched buttresses supporting the structure overhead. The dorsal hull includes an observation dome installed by the ship's architect for crew well-being, which can be sealed under armor.

Additional internal facilities include an officers' mess, an exercise area, a medica section, a holography booth, cubiculum chambers with fugue creches holding twenty berths apiece, a cargo bay, a landing bay, a conference chamber monitored by security cameras, and a receiving platform bay with a static field in the open hatch, gantries, catwalks, and service arms rising toward arched bulkhead supports.

Hadrian's suite includes an upper level with books, film reels, storage crystals, Tavrosi carpets, a sideboard with a hidden recording suite, a dining area, sleeping chambers, and a private bath. A loft ringed with bookshelves overlooks the lounge. A holograph plate dominates one wall. A concealed lift connects to the officer's mess four decks down.

Dreadnoughts such as the Tamerlane are noted as capable of keeping pace with Extrasolarian ships. Despite her vast size, the Demiurge is described as vaster by far.

The Tamerlane was never built to land. After crash-landing on Eue, she lay broken and split in two. The Cielcin had previously docked her in a channel cut into a rift valley in Dharan-Tun's surface ice, where the superstructure sheared under twice the gravity and the lower levels buckled. Cabins were ransacked, corridors defaced with graffiti, some fugue pods smashed or emptied or containing remains. The hydroponic section was damaged and filled with rotten plant matter and algae. On Eue, the hull collapsed under its own weight, struts stretching and decks failing, with limited emergency power -- lifts dead and most doors inoperable.

The Tamerlane was gifted to Hadrian by the Emperor in lieu of a planetary fief upon Hadrian's knighting. She served as Hadrian's home for many decades.

During a Cielcin attack, the Tamerlane deploys two hundred aquilarii fighters in ten wings, fires antimatter mines, and executes a full-thrust burn that causes the Cielcin boarding craft to overshoot by thousands of miles. The Tamerlane subsequently remains in orbit around the Cielcin worldship during a boarding action. A few Cielcin ships breach the Tamerlane's defenses and board it, but Crim's security forces contain and isolate them. The Tamerlane shells the planetoid end of the Cielcin worldship on Hadrian's instruction.

Following the triumph at Forum, the Inquisition impounds the ship, purging its data banks and plugging its computers into Inquisition hardware for a daimon sweep. A Chantry frigate docks at the ventral locks. After the Colosseum attack, Siran brings the injured Hadrian back to the Tamerlane for treatment in the medica bay. The Emperor orders Hadrian to take his ship and leave Forum immediately.

The Tamerlane relocates to orbit around Colchis. Over the following years, soldiers are slowly decanted from frozen sleep, with roughly five hundred troops at a time rotating through six-month shore leave on Thessa while the remainder sleep in fugue. A secondary crew under Commander Halford holds the ship. By the final months at Colchis, most crew are in fugue.

The Tamerlane travels from Colchis around the galactic core at full warp for nearly fifty years to reach a nameless dwarf star system. She settles into stable orbit above Annica and launches light-probes, polar shuttles, and Sparrowhawk fighters from Sphinx Flight for a full surface survey. Corvo is subsequently assigned to take the Tamerlane into orbit to reinforce Hauptmann's fleet in defense of Ondu Station. The Tamerlane returns with the Imperial fleet and participates in the attack that drives Dharan-Tun from the system.

The Tamerlane is placed in mothballs during Hadrian's confinement at Nessus, with crew on ice and most Red Company technical and support staff stripped and reassigned. She is reactivated and departs Nessus orbit. When Hadrian goes missing on Padmurak, Valka calls Corvo and twenty soldiers down from the Tamerlane. The Cielcin capture the ship in an operation arranged by Iovan. Navigator Adric White is aboard when the ship is taken. Syriani uses the Tamerlane's ship records and Adric White's interrogated testimony to compile the Emperor's Centaurine tour itinerary. Adric White's severed head is produced at the Dhar-Iagon banquet.

The Cielcin dock the Tamerlane in a channel cut into a rift valley in Dharan-Tun's surface ice. The superstructure shears under twice the gravity, and the lower levels buckle. The Cielcin and Extrasolarian allies ransack the ship -- cabins are worked over, corridors defaced with graffiti, some fugue pods smashed, emptied, or containing remains. The hydroponic section is damaged and filled with rotten plant matter and algae. The transponder remains active, allowing Valka to ping it and locate the Cielcin ship. The Ascalon, a Challis-class interceptor mistaken by the Cielcin for a shuttle, is overlooked in a rear launch bay.

Four Cielcin lifters carry the Tamerlane to Eue on repulsors, where she clips and shatters ancient Enar pillars before crash-landing among the columns. Ninety thousand crew are held in cold storage; the Elusha thaws at least half. Broken and grounded, split in two with massive fires and black smoke, the Tamerlane fires all remaining weapons from the ground as covering fire during the escape. Corvo coordinates terawatt laser fire from the bridge. The hull collapses under its own weight, struts stretching and decks failing, with limited emergency power -- lifts dead and most doors inoperable. After the Ascalon escapes, Corvo destroys a Cielcin gunship and remains aboard alone. Valka later tracks the Tamerlane's telegraph signal.

Equipment stenciled as property of the ISV Tamerlane is found at camp modules on Annica, evidence of the earlier survey expedition.

Captain Corvo commands the Tamerlane and remains aboard alone after the Ascalon escapes from Eue. Commander Durand serves as first officer. Commander Roderick Halford serves as night captain. Lorian serves as an officer and later assembles a scale model of the ship. Aristedes serves as tactical officer. Navigator Adric White is captured with the ship and executed by the Cielcin. Lieutenant Pherrine serves as a bridge officer. Crim commands the ship's security forces. Doctor Okoyo operates the medica bay. Siran serves aboard. Varro is among those who return to the ship during the Padmurak mission. Pallino's companion Elara is aboard. Core crew includes Norman soldiers from Pharos, centuries from the 437th Centaurine, compatriots from Emesh, and Irchtani crew members. Total complement exceeds ninety thousand.