Leros

S.S. Leros is the name of a notorious pirate ship which operated in the unincorporated regions near Joint Space that were largely out of Foundation control. Leros was a heavily-modified Bounty-class Fast-Attack Stealth Ship left over from the Kamian Succession Wars, most likely purchased illegally on the black market after the war's end. The ship was active in the late Sixth Age and the Age of the Dragon. Its final fate is unknown.

Leros was captained by the dread-pirate Taylor, a mysterious an enigmatic figure. The ship was feared for its diminutive size but heavy degree of fire-power.

Ships Systems

Power Generator

The ship is most likely using a modified version of the Higgs-Nathan Reactor for primary power, augmented by a nuclear reactor. The nuclear reactor is a solid zircon-fuel design using a graphite-moderator.

The Higgs-Nathan reactor is linked to the N-space drive as well as the FTL drive, allowing those systems to operate partially off of plasma. The ship has three standard buffers, but the reactor produces enough power to run most systems directly (called "direct-drive" mode in Foundation parlance).

A factory-stanadard Bounty had a large main buffer and two identical smaller buffers for sheilds and weapons, but the Leros has been modified to use three of the smaller size. Each system (shields, main power, weapons) is linked to all three buffers, allowing the crew to dynamically respond to power allocations as needed. Most systems are not recomended to run in direct-drive mode, but can be in an emergency.

Life Support

Leros uses a living organism (called affectionally "Mel" by the crew) that augments its otherwise standard life support system. Mel is an approximately 800-pound fungus suspended in in a bio-gel. It can strip oxygen from C02 as well as absorbing and filtering out most harmful gasses. Mel chemically fixes and compounds it cannot use and excretes them as waste. Mel is capable of providing all of the crew's oxygen and air filtration needs.

The ship also has a very standard-style life support system as well as extensive thermal controls, which are tied in to its stealth systems.

Shields

Being based on the Bounty design, Leros has very robust shields for it's size. Most standard-issue Bounties did not have projection shields, but Leros has been fitted with these. The ship is most likely using tri-band shield generators either based, or copied directly from the Light Hawk Wings designed for the Saratoga (Note: Leros in fact posses many systems thought only to be found on the Saratoga: see "possible black ship" below).

Weapons

For her size, Leros is one of the most heavily armed ships in space.

Possible Black Ship

It is considered by most to be highly probable that the Leros is of Foundation origin and is operating freely with the full knowledge of the Blind Consul as a black ship:

• While most formal accounts list the ship as an M-203-F Bounty-class, he design has more in common with the Viper-class FASSs. No one has ever gotten a clear enough scan of the Leros to determine it's exact length, so the model is un-clear.

• Leros posses many technologies from Gudersnipe School, including Light Hawk shield emitters, Bladeth armor, and a Cloaking device. That these technologies could have been obtained illegally is not far-fetched (the Kamians even famously stole a protoype cloak at one point), or even just backwards-engineered copies has been considered.

• The mysterious captain seems to be an expert at lying just low enough to keep the Crimson Blade from sending a task force after her.