Simiyiar-class Light Freighter

The Simiyiar-class is what a light freighter looks like when the people building it expect it to be shot at. Mon Calamari Shipyards turned it out at 26.3 metres with a turreted dual laser cannon - ordinary enough - and then added an ion cannon alongside it, which is not ordinary at all on a civilian hull. A laser trades damage. An ion cannon takes a pursuer's systems offline and lets you leave. For a hauler carrying something it should not be carrying, that is a categorically different option, and it is the reason Rebel cells liked these ships.

The second tell is the backup shield generator. Redundant shielding is a warship habit, rare at this displacement, and it exists because the operators this ship was sold to could not count on reaching a repair yard. Lose the primary array and a Simiyiar does not go bare - the secondary brings shields back and the crew keeps flying. Underneath the armament it remains a working freighter: 150 metric tons of hold, a Class 2 hyperdrive with a Class 15 backup, two months of consumables, and 800 km/h in atmosphere.

The politics are not incidental. Once Dac committed to the Alliance, Mon Calamari Shipyards became the only major shipwright openly backing the Rebellion, and a Mon Cal hull in an Imperial docking bay is a statement whether the captain intends one or not. Flying a Simiyiar through Imperial space means answering questions a Corellian hull would never have prompted.

(Assumption: sources conflict on complement. The class infobox gives 5 passengers and a crew of 2, while the class prose and the Waterspire both give 8 passengers, and the Waterspire lists 1 pilot and 2 gunners. The higher passenger figure is used here as two sources agree on it. Production dates are not recorded.)