Kent-Boreus KB404

Kent-Boreus is an interworld shipping company in Roselight. Not one of the more luxurious providers, KB is generally more cargo-oriented, with its few passenger routes having longer transit times and more spartan accommodations than their competitors. Nevertheless, they find their niche in high-volume cargo transportation between Rosa's Children, shuttling heavy payloads between growing worlds.

Their flagship vehicle is the KB404 hauler, the classic midsize cargo vehicle of the fleet. Similar in form to standard castle tenders, the KB404 is nevertheless much larger. Traditionally air-launched from exceedingly large rigid airships, the ubiquitous KB404 was one of the first to be adapted to use with the Orus Skywheel. Significant structural reinforcement has taken a bite out of its payload margin, but the reduction in fuel mass more than accounts for the extra material. Over time, many have been refit with smaller propellant tanks to accommodate greater cargo volume.

The KB404 flight profile begins with either a propulsive ascent from an aerial launch platform, or a momentum exchange from the Orus Skywheel. Either case sends the vehicle on a ballistic interworld trajectory, on the order of 5 to 10 days for most routes. Small course corrections and traffic avoidance maneuvers are made as necessary while the crew and cargo coast in microgravity towards their destination. Upon arrival, four actuated body flaps guide the vehicle along its simple, high-drag entry and descent profile. Below around 5 kilometers, the aerostat envelope is deployed by a series of pyrotechnics and rapidly inflated with lifting gas from a decomposition reaction. Once in stable drift, the hauler is retrieved by aerial tugs and refit for its next flight.

Though nominally crewed by up to eight flight officers, the pool of qualified pilots for Skywheel flights is much smaller. Smaller crews find themselves living in greater luxury, in exchange for extremely strenuous g-loading during launch.

Roselight would acquire an aging KB404 shortly before the Drenna Statute and ASMC's de facto implementation of martial law on Orus. This vehicle would be instrumental to the survival of Roselight's revolution in the following months, allowing a small group of insurgents to penetrate the transportation blockade en route to irid'An.

And now for a bonus image of Noira in the observation deck...

I also recently painted this scene of a similar vehicle departing irid'An, with Orus looming in the background. While this smaller craft is likely a ship tender, it still provides a decent concept of what the KB404 might look like in flight.