The Flying House, Part 1

The Flying House was mentioned numerous times in Rome's Revolution and was Rei and Rome's primary residence for their long journey from Tabit to Deucado as they towed Rei's Ark II toward its new home world. It played a pivotal role during most of the book and comes to the end of its useful life at the end of that when it is taken away by the Vuduri.

I thought I'd give you a few details about the craft since not everything was spelled out in the book. The Flying House was one of the Vuduri space tugs converted into living quarters. The interior was rebuilt to make it like a small apartment, reminiscent of a mobile home.

The Vuduri space tug was patterned after the Space Shuttle both in dimensions as well as general appearance. Here is a picture:

It is about 150 feet in length with a wingspan of maybe 70 feet. It is powered by oversized plasma thrusters and PPT drive generators. The stock version has a huge cargo bay. The cockpit is designed with its own airlock so that the entire cargo section can be exposed to space. There is a side airlock for space excursions where you don't want to evacuate the cargo section.

After Rei and Rome proved their usefulness to the Overmind at Tabit, it decided to give them one of the tugs since they were going to leave the tugs behind anyway. The Vuduri begin a build-out to convert the tug into the Flying House. When they were done, it still had a cockpit, side airlock and rear cargo ramp but that's it. The rest is almost unrecognizable from its original configuration.

Tomorrow, the layout.