Mission profile

A Sheridan delivers one full Special Forces regiment, its insertion craft and a supporting strike wing. The carrier approaches under strict emission control, launches its teams and remains available for support and extraction without becoming the center of the operation.

This arrangement creates an unusually close command relationship. The ship's captain controls the vessel and naval support; the embarked regimental commander controls the ground mission. Training emphasizes joint planning long before either element deploys.

“A carrier does not make the regiment invisible. It gives nine hundred people the time, position and support required to behave as though they were.”

Hull and complement

The faceted hull contains no conventional exposed flight deck. Dropships and strike craft operate from a deep internal hangar behind concealed doors, protecting the carrier's signature between launch and recovery windows.

The Umbral suite

The Umbral stealth suite combines hull geometry, radiation-absorbent coatings, adaptive optical plating, carefully vectored micro-thrust and a large cryogenic thermal reservoir. Instead of continuously radiating waste heat, a Sheridan stores it during final approach and vents only when the tactical situation permits.

No component makes the ship literally invisible. The effect depends upon many systems working together and a crew willing to accept slow course changes, restricted power use and long periods without active shields. Sheridan doctrine therefore treats stealth as a ship-wide practice rather than a switch on the engineering console.

The same discipline applies to the embarked regiment. Hermes dropships are cold-launched and remain passive until they are clear of the carrier, reducing the chance that a single bright drive plume will reveal the formation.

Defensive armament

Eight Mark XII naval rail batteries give the class sufficient firepower to break contact with an unexpected opponent, while a TALON close-range defense network and four Mark II deflector arrays protect the ship when concealment has failed.

The fit is deliberately restrained for a hull of this size. A Sheridan is not intended to trade fire with a conventional fleet carrier. Its best defense is to complete the mission without offering the enemy a target.

The seven hulls

Seven Sheridan hulls have been laid down. Six are commissioned, while the final carrier is completing construction near Mars. Public assignments are listed only where CONSTRACOM has authorized disclosure.

Phoenix Dawn stands outside the class's virtue-based naming convention and carries the 407th Special Forces Regiment. Resolute, commanded during construction by Captain Martina Relova, is assigned to the 406th Special Forces Regiment.

Registry assessment

The Sheridan-class gives the Confederation a form of reach that a battle fleet cannot provide. Where a Bastion demonstrates presence, a Sheridan avoids it. Its purpose is not to dominate a visible battlespace but to place a complete regiment exactly where it is required before an opponent understands that the Navy has arrived.

That capability depends upon equal measures of engineering and restraint. The class is proof that the largest system on a stealth ship is not the thermal reservoir or the adaptive hull. It is the discipline shared by every person aboard.