Eta-IV Piranha Attack Ship

Based on a rejected design for the Eta-2 Actis, this little ship is a successor to Darth Vader’s Eta-3 Assassin. She starts out looking like a Delta-7 Aethersprite, the only difference being the forked front end. That is her cruising mode, with only two guns exposed. At the touch of a button, however, the Piranha bares its teeth. Panels on the hull move toward each other on each side, revealing six more guns for a grand total of eight! At the same time, the wing panels open out, helping the ship “keep its cool” in the heat of battle. The solar panels collect energy to power the Piranha’s water-fueled engines. The water is in a tank on the rear of the ship. It’s sent into the first stage of the engines, where contaminants are filtered out, leaving only hydrogen and oxygen. The treated water is then sent to the second stage, where an electrical zap is applied in a process called electrolysis. This separates the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen ones. The hydrogen is burned as fuel, and the oxygen is hyper-pressurized and rerouted into the cockpit capsule via two vents in the bulkhead behind the seat. The pressurization of the oxygen effectively turns the ship into a mobile hyperbaric chamber, allowing Vader to function without his armor.