Barque

The Barque is a distinctively Gretarian class of ship with a wide-bodied hull that bulges noticeably down the middle, with a set of four nacelles mounted above and below the center of the ship on short, highly angled struts. While most Barques operate as cargo ships, they're much larger that the ordinary cargo vessel and are capable of high warp sprints without much compromise to their overall endurance. Combined with their hardier construction, a Barque is often capable of escaping from an ambush with minimal damage and then outrunning its attacker to the nearest point of refuge.

However, escape is never a guarantee. More than 20 Barques have been lost to Yrillian and Sydraxian piracy since 2310. Safety has noticeably increased since the fall of the Red Hierarchy and the Sydraxian Spring, but a sad result of the carnage is that a fair number of Gretarian captains have elected to mount basic defensive weaponry on their ships - or, in the case of the more squeamish, 'scientific' equipment that can easily be re-purposed in combat.

Many Gretarian Barques carry official Letters of Marque, placing them in the closest thing Gretaria has to a fleet. These ships carry out response missions of all types, and they often undergo further modification to enhance things like shipboard medical capacity and tractor beam strength. A set of Marqued Barques have undergone a much more extensive modification (funded directly by the Parliament of Doges) into the Rover-class, a type of vessel that serves as a dedicated scout ship and surveyor - and, according to some, an adept spy ship.