Barkeith

the Barkeith

Duarte's Donnager-class battleship carries a breakaway Martian fleet toward Laconia and vanishes into catastrophe at the system's Ring gate.

Story so far

The Barkeith is a Donnager-class Martian battleship, a floating city run with precision and powerful enough to annihilate smaller ships or damage Medina Station. Under Captain Sauveterre, it waits with Duarte's fleet at Medina while the Free Navy begins commandeering colony traffic and starving the worlds beyond the gates. Its purpose is not Marco's revolution but a separate mission to Laconia, where Duarte's faction hopes to seize alien power.

Paolo Cortázar confirms that the stolen protomolecule sample has arrived and sends plans for disturbing, organic modifications so the Barkeith can dock with an alien artifact. Weapons ports open as the fleet proceeds through the Laconia gate. The crossing is interrupted by an impossible phenomenon that renders the crew and matter perceptually strange before an unknown presence reaches the ship; the Barkeith and its people are lost at the threshold.

Appearance

A Donnager-class Martian battleship, vast as a small city, with precise military decks, weapon ports, PDCs, command couches, and engineering spaces slated for unsettling organic alterations.

Role

The Barkeith is the military spearhead of Duarte's Laconian gamble and the immediate victim of the danger waiting at the gate.

Relationships

Sauveterre — Sauveterre commands the Barkeith with rigorous confidence until the Laconia transit destroys him and the ship.

Winston Duarte — Winston Duarte's breakaway Martian plan sends the Barkeith toward Laconia under cover of the systemwide war.

Laconia — Laconia is the destination the Barkeith attempts to reach through its Ring gate.

Sources — 1 recorded facts, by chapter

Chapter 52

Duarte's Donnager-class battleship carries a breakaway Martian fleet toward Laconia and vanishes into catastrophe at the system's Ring gate.