Jack of Harts

The Republic of Texas Navy was willing to accept escort and patrol duty as a way to get into space, but they wanted to do so much more than that. The Space Force could keep its short-duration flag-planting missions. The Navy wanted to do long-term space exploration. They managed to get some assignments to do that, but their deep space cruisers turned out to not be deep space enough for truly extended missions to the stars beyond Dallas. They built a number of improvements into them over the years, and designed entire new classes of ships devoted to the mission of exploration. The Abilene-class long-range exploration cruiser was the pinnacle of that effort. Brought into service in 2183, the Abilenes sported the fastest hyperdrive of the time, the largest fuel bunkers compared to their size, the best crew quarters for long-term deployments, and the most advanced scientific equipment for a ship of exploration. They also had docking mounts for six fighters, or the small exploration and landing craft the Navy was building for exactly this kind of scouting mission. The Abilenes quickly became the Texas Navy’s flagship class of exploration cruisers, and they had spread throughout the frontier of explored space when the Peloran made Contact.