Notes : The Cardassians use these useful craft as general purpose cargo carriers. It is a modular design, with a power system and warp and impulse engines in a stern section and the crew quarters, computer systems and bridge in the bow section. Between the two is anything from one to five cargo sections, each of which carries six storage pods. The standard pod is capable of carrying normal cargo items, but pods designed for bulk ores, liquids, and frozen items are also available.

Although most cargo vessels are unarmed, the Cardassians chose to equip this ship with a light disrupter cannon in order to defend against low intensity threats such as mercenaries and raiders. The ship has only light shielding and no armour of any kind.

To date the most notable achievement of the cargo ship has been the capture of a Klingon bird of prey by the Groumall, under the command of Gul Dukat. Dukat, with the assistant of Major Kira of the Bajoran militia, mounted a system five disrupter cannon on his ship and waited for the Klingons to attempt to steal his cargo before firing on them. He beamed on board the Klingon ship while its shields where down, and used its own transporters to beam the Klingons onto his own ship, which he subsequently destroyed.1

The cargo ship is now out of production, and although many were destroyed during the war over two hundred remain in service and it is likely to be a common sight until well into the next century.

The Groumall class freighter employed by Team Mugato was registered as being destroyed during the Dominion war.  Though heavily damaged it was recovered by an independent salvage team and ultimately purchased by Starfleet.  The vessel was reconfigured for the team's use; cargo pods were designed to act as hangars, expanded crew quarters, science labs and holodecks.  Her defence systems, structural integrity field and armament were also upgraded.  Her warp drive has been made more robust but her speed is little better than the standard Groumall freighter.  The bridge has been completely refitted to act as mission control as well as the ship's central command center.

Numerous components of the Centipede were salvaged from other Starfleet vessels scheduled for decommissioning for one reason or another, or components originally meant for vessels under construction.  An astrometrics lab was included for two reasons; the first that it's capabilities made it ideal for mission direction, the second because Commander Mohotra felt it prudent in case some strange event threw the Centipede thousands of light years away from Federation space.  While unlikely, it had happened twice before.

Crew quarters are not as luxurious as those of an Intrepid or Galaxy class vessel but all officers and senior non-coms do have their own, and they are equipped with replicators.  The ship is equipped with two holodecks, primarily for mission training.  A large gymnasium is on board for recreation and can be reconfigured for a variety of uses.