Minnow

The Minnow was a small hyperspace capable starship encountered by the Colorado approximately ten years ago. The vessel was adrift and her crew was incapacitated and dying.

Discovery by The Colorado
The Colorado encountered a small hyperdrive capable starship in deep space. Upon dropping out of warp to investigate they discovered the crew was still alive but in bad shape. Benjamin Stinel beamed aboard the Minnow with an away team consisting of engineer Chaz Billith, pilot Sandra Little, medic Dr. Marissa Pallin, as well as Jarrid Pallin, Chico Alvarez , and Jeff Cartwright to render assistance.

Marissa immediately began to triage the injured crew, and those who she deemed could be moved safely were transferred to the Colorado's medical bay.

The ship was structurally sound but her hyperdrive engines, subspace communications, and inertial dampening systems were beyond repair. The away team began examining the ship to determine the cause of the accident when a call came in from The Colorado that one of the rescued crew members had fled the sickbay and was on the ship. Shortly afterwards an explosion ripped through the engineering section of the Colorado. The away team watched in horror as the ship's engine core went critical and breached.

All hands were lost.

Voyage to Galiese
Over the next several days the away team reviewed their options. Chaz delivered the bad news that calling for help would be impossible. The subspace radio was irreparable and the sub-light set was never designed for long range communication. They wouldn't be able to send a signal powerful enough to reach the nearest system. Rescue was unlikely because the Colorado had been incommunicado on an undocumented smuggling run when they stopped to render aid.

Fortunately the ship appeared to have been designed with long range sub-light travel in mind. The ship was capable of sustained acceleration and there were several planetary systems within their reach, including Galiese. Most of those systems were uninhabited, however. Eventually the castaways decided to go for broke and set course directly to Galiese, knowing the system was heavily traveled and hoping they might be discovered on the way.

Chaz determined they could safely reach fifty percent of light speed and still have enough fuel to decelerate when they arrived, but due to the lack of inertial dampening the burn would take more than two months to get them to speed. Galiese was just over five light years away which meant a ten year journey. It was briefly argued that they use the remaining fuel to accelerate to a higher percentage of light speed, counting on the increased relativistic time dilation effect to reduce their apparent journey time. It was decided in the end that the risk that they might not be detected upon arrival at Galiese was too great. In that eventuality they would completely miss their target and drift forever. Not only that, but the remaining fuel would only have reduced their travel time by six months.

The vessel's useless hyperdrive engines were jettisoned to reduce the ship's mass before they began their journey.

Christening
The group of castaways named their vessel the SS Minnow at Jarrid Pallin's suggestion. The ship was named for the boat in the Earth TV program Gilligan's Island. The name seemed appropriate.

Description of the ship
The Minnow is a small vessel with about six decks of habitable space. The upper decks consist of the control room, a common area, and crew quarters while the lower three decks are cargo space and the engine compartment.

Most modern hyperspace vessels are designed without taking acceleration into account, given the state of modern inertial dampening systems. The Minnow appears to have been retrofitted with hyperdrive engines later in its service life and was designed with sub-light acceleration in mind, possibly for interplanetary travel rather than instersteller travel. The ship is designed to accelerate "up" through its axis rather than forward, allowing the artificial gravity systems to be turned off to save power. Constant acceleration or deceleration through this axis simulates gravity. Inertial dampening systems can be tuned to provide a comfortable gravity environment during sustained periods of acceleration, however these systems were damaged along with the hyperdrive and were inoperable. During the Minnow's travel to Galiese the crew experienced the equivalent of two gravities both during acceleration and deceleration. The gravity plating was reversed to reduce the full affect of the acceleration.

Six crew compartments were available on deck three with a small common kitchen and living area on deck two. The castaways grew quite close during their time on the ship and lived together as an extended family.

Arrival at Galiese and Rescue by the Vextis
A short period into their deceleration phase the Minnow's distress signal was picked up by the Vextis' communication Officer Rah Serlwah. The Vextis, temporarily under the command of LaeAnne Moraenian, embarked on a rescue mission. The Vextis was able to match speed with the Minnow and beamed the castaways aboard. Chaz Billith remained aboard with a small team of engineers and pilots from the Vextis to pilot the craft home.