The ESA Starbus

The ESA Starbus is a little 200 ton trading vessel from my Known Space setting.

The ESA Starbus sans modules.
For more details see the PDF here

The Starbus is modular with two 50 ton modules which can be type P (Passenger), type C (Cargo), type L (Long Haul) or type K (Low Berth).

Adventure Hooks

• An engineer told us that Azania Lines runs a Starbus in LL configuration giving it 8 weeks extra in warp, that's 16 parsecs travel. Why? What the hell are they taking where? This one is worth keeping an eye on.

• Sergei Veretski, a Starbus pilot, finally lost it last trip, attacking the blasted autopilot with an axe and smashing the Avionics computer to bits. The AI was using a voice/personality based on Jason Pellegrino, a noted Belgian comic actor of the 22nd century and maybe the endless fart gags got too much for poor old Sergei. But after his death Pellegrino was found to have a collection of rather dubious books and to have been involved in the occult, and the raving and gibbering Sergei did mention something about having a spell cast on him and was found to have lined his pilots helmet with tinfoil. Something weird is going on here, but Aquila Spaceways want their ship back out earning money right now and there isn't time to investigate on the ground.

• The Ekaterina has always been a popular ship with the rich and fast living student party set travelling back and forth between Aquila and the university world of Fargen. There are some scandalous parties on that ship, it's a favourite of the gossip columnists, but something happened on the last trip, something people aren't talking about. One of the Stewardbots has gone missing, and the owners, Aquila Spaceways, have had the autodoc replaced.

• Nice ship the Starbus, very comfortable (for the passengers), very reliable, and sadly very vulnerable to pirates as some poor SOBs have found out on a trip to Kanaloa. There are ransom demands from the Free Akrotiri Front or people start getting thrown out of the airlock. It's parked on an asteroid in the outer orbit of the system gas giant and guarded by a gunboat, but there might be a way to get in through a cargo hatch if you can persuade the AI chip to play ball. It's modeled on some late twentieth century British celebrity called Alan Sugar, will that help?