New Avalon Starship Sales Office
One credit check later, the sellers are convinced that these potential buyers are legitimate, and you are now “Mr. Karvonen” and “Mr. Wymp” etc, as you are taken out to inspect the Montauk. it is sitting at a drydock, under a protective cover. A very large protective cover, looking like a giant white tent, as the ship is near the size of a 747.
The hull is a streamlined wedge shape, with the main section being three decks high. The cargo bay is two decks high, and runs through the center of the ship, opening in large doors in the center in the back. The top deck has all the staterooms, the bridge, the fantail galley/dining area/lounge, and other areas the ship is normally operated from. It's the only part of the ship with artificial gravity- it is still a new technology and very expensive, so it tends to be used only where needed.
The Montauk is equipped with two airlocks, one to the top hatch, and one to the side hatch. The cargo bay can be depressurized for use as a very, very large airlock. The side hatch and top hatches have extendable stairways. The rear cargo doors have an extendable ramp- when delivering cargo to shore, the ship is typically backed against a dock and the ramp lowered.
They go inside through the side hatch, which has an extendable stairway.
The side hatch is the ship's main airlock. The top hatch is a secondary airlock, it has no adjacent storage for tools, equipment and spacesuits. The ship comes with its standard tool kit, but spacesuits are not included. Professional space crew get very personal about their space suits.
In the bulbous nose area forward of the cargo bay is all of the ship's main engineering equipment, except for the maneuver engines which are on either side of the cargo area, embedded in the wings. Life support, sensors, fusion power plant, computer, all here. It's all controlled from the bridge above.
The ship has four "equipment bays" built into the hull. Often, they are customized by the owners. The Navy pulled the equipment from them, so they are empty. Most of it, at least.
One has the ship's Decoy and Countermeasures Launcher, which would ordinarily contain twenty four devices that are ejected, usually in groups, to confuse sensors. Naturally the countermeasures themselves are gone. The launcher is here.
Your guides point out equipment and features, like the Auxilliary Surface Power unit, which propels the ship when it is on water, and the batteries, so some power can be maintained if the fusion power plant is off line. And, of course, something recently installed:
"Chair lift, also can be used as a light elevator, because the ship was being prepped for civilian use, and without it you don't meet general accessibility standards for people unable to climb stairs". A recent addition- the Montauk never needed it in military service.
The tour rises up through the two levels of engineering. On the second floor, there is a little open space, with a large window overlooking the cargo bay. There are two "cold berths", hibernation capsules directly under the ship's medical station. "Cold Sleep" is generally not used on a ship of this type. The only passengers who ever use it are people making long, long runs on a budget, and not concerned with the "recovery time". Colonists, for example. But the capsules are present on many ships as a way of keeping people alive who need urgent medical attention not available on the ship.
On the main deck, the stairs lead to a hallway, bridge one way, quarters the other, escape pods to either side. There is a picture of the old crew still up on the wall- apparently the decommissioning team did not feel up to removing it. They are posing with some kind of small robotic submersible and wearing diving equipment. Oddly, the faces are all blurry in the picture.