War Wagon

Calling the War Wagon a ship flatters it. It is a warehouse that the Fleet talked into having an engine, and the engine has regretted the conversation ever since. The hold swallows cargo on a scale that embarrasses proper haulers, and that hold is the entire ship — everything else is the minimum framework needed to keep the load from drifting off and the minimum thrust needed to move the whole resentful mass from one parking orbit to the next, slowly, with the dignity of a glacier. There is armor, technically. There are no guns, and nobody pretends the two plates will matter once someone decides the War Wagon is worth the trouble of shooting. The Fleet doesn't sortie it. The Fleet parks it: at a forward depot, behind the line, full to the bulkheads, and waits for the day the supplies are needed more than the wagon is safe. Quartermasters love it. Captains avoid it. Both are correct.