Stinger

The Stinger is a close-range attack craft of the Apiata Allhive, developed after making friendly contact with the United Federation of Planets. It features four 'wing' nacelles in an X pattern and a small aft pair of wing nacelles that form a low-intensity warp field, shifting the effective mass of the ship as it moves in different directions, the aft wings allow the stinger to make impressive sharp turns and tumbles without needing much larger and heavier maneuvering thrusters that would increase the size and targeting profile of the ship.

Making use of the same heavy-duty EPS conduits that supply the warp nacelles, each wing also bears a forward-facing pulse phaser cannon, with the lower wings also bearing an aft-facing cannon. A new variation on the familiar phaser beam weapon, the pulse phaser takes some inspiration from the rapid-firing disruptors employed by the Allhive's cardassian enemies. The extreme high-intensity pulses manage to combine the disruptor's rate of fire with the phaser's antishield properties, at the cost of having slightly less range than either. Rather than a long-ranged torpedo system to make up for the pulse phaser's limitations, the apiata decided to double down on the stinger's role as a close ranged attacker and outfit it with the same micro-missile launchers as the old swarmer, though with a considerably expanded magazine thanks to the stinger's larger size. While the micro-missile warheads are individually weaker than a typical photon torpedo's, the rate of fire enabled by their small size and low launch energy requirements gives them a potentially higher damage output. Another emergent benefit of the stinger's rain of rapid fire weapons is counter-evasion; with so many projectiles, even low-powered ones, filling the area, the chances of the enemy completely evading a salvo are minimal. The usual tactic of the stinger is to make multiple-high speed strafing runs with its forward pulse phasers and missile launchers, covering its retreat from each with its aft phasers and relying on its own agility and shielding to protect it from return fire. In the rare event that the enemy proves able to outrun the strafing passes, they adopt a different tactic; corral the enemy into the path of the much longer ranged beam phasers and plasma cannons of the accompanying queenship.

Besides the weapons and wing nacelles, the largest energy consumer aboard the stinger by far is the "compound eye" deflector array sheltered by the frontal hood. Just like the warp engines, this array consists of many smaller, semi-autonomous field projectors that each surround the stinger with weak - but overlapping - shield layers that can collectively stand up to remarkable punishment. The array is placed as far as possible from any weapon hardpoints, both to keep the enemy fire from damaging too many combat systems at once, and as a token gesture to avoid placing too many oversized EPS conduits right on top of each other.

The last major system, the sensor and subspace communication arrays, are mounted on an elongated tower that runs along the aft dorsal spine. In contrast to the power and compact elegance of the rest of the ship, the sensor tower is a bulky, inefficient construction. While apiata shield and propulsion technologies are second to none, their sensors are somewhat lacking compared to those of their overall technological peers.

The stinger's warp core and its many-layered cooling and containment systems occupy nearly a fourth of the main hull's volume. The energy output of this engine is such that the core itself is not safe to approach while active; a four meter thick mass of coolant gel and radiation-absorbing panels separates the core itself from the engineers who regulate its output. Consequently, the stinger's core-ejection sequence was designed to exploit the surrounding liquid medium; a hydraulic pump sends the offending warp core out into space amidst a volcano-like sprat of superheated gel from between the thrusters. Even with this dramatic core-ejection system, however, every worker who serves aboard the stinger is grimly aware of just how thin the hull plating is, and how large and overcharged its warp core and EPS conduits. Should the stinger's nimble evasive maneuvers and potent shield array both fail, the hull is likely to consume itself in a chain reaction of plasma fires and antimatter explosions when enemy fire falls upon its thin, flimsy plating.

The specificity of the stinger's role as a short-ranged warship and queenship escort allowed the engineers to cut considerable corners with its design. There are no cargo or shuttle bays aboard the stinger, and only a single, small transporter room. The ship's underbelly is actually made up of escape pods, which also serve as the crew's quarters. Conditions in these quarters would seem dungeon-like to most sophonts, but to the eusocial apiata they are no worse than the spartan accommodations aboard other races' combat frigates. The lack of recreational facilites, however - and more importantly, the lack of any queens among the ship's crew - are a liability to crew morale on long missions, but the stinger is not meant for long missions without a queenship. Indeed, it lacks the fuel or food stores for such a mission in the first place. Like the swarmer that preceded it, the stinger is carefully designed to fit inside of a queenship's expansive warp bubble, and the sensor tower serves as a sturdy and highly magnetized target for the queenship's tractor beam tethers. On long missions, the stingers are resupplied from the queenship's large cargo bays, and their crews typically spend their off-hours in the queenship's worker relaxation sphere. While the larger size of the swarmer means that each queenship can only tow two of them in its warp bubble (as opposed to three old-model swarmers), the sheer power of the stinger is more than enough to make up for it. The queenships are being modified to be able to tow a third stinger in their warp bubbles.