The Radchaai have three classes of military ships: Justice, Sword, and Mercy. Ships are named after their class and a patron god. All Radchaai warships are capable of generating their own gates, a form of hyperspace travel. The Notai also had ships but only the Gem class is mentioned in the series.
A graphic depicting the various ships of the Radch, with their crews.
Justices
Justices, or troop carriers, are the largest of the Radchaai ships. They have sixteen decks: Command, Administrative, Medical, Hydroponics, Engineering, Central Access, and ten decade decks. The decades are named after the ship's god, Amaat, and then each of the eight halves of the emanations. Troop carriers rarely move and typically orbit a location during annexations.
The captain of a Justice is called a Hundred Captain. Each decade on a Justice has a Decade Commander and twenty Lieutenants. Each officer may command up to five units of ancillaries and each unit has twenty segments.
Swords
Swords are the next largest class of Radchaai ship. They typically have a captain and five decade officers. The decades on a Sword-class ship are named after the ship's god, Amaat, Etrepa, Bo, and Esk. The captain commands the twenty-segment decade unit named after the ship's god. All other decades have ten segments, which may be ancillaries or human soldiers.
Mercies
Mercy-class ships are the smallest with only a captain and three decade officers. The decades are named after the ship's god, Amaat, Etrepa, and Bo. As with Swords, a Mercy's captain commands a twenty-segment unit and all other officers command ten-segment units.
Gems
Gems are a class of Notai ship. Like Radchaai ships, they could also make their own gates and ancillaries. Their ancillaries were made from convicted criminals before Anaander Mianaai conquered the Notai. Some Notai ships escaped and the stereotype of a "grief-crazed" ships still appear in modern Radchaai entertainment. These entertainments often give fictional Notai ships long and unusual names.
Trivia
- Some military ships look down on station AIs and Swords often think they are better than other classes of ships [1].