The Rebellion's transports proved to be a vital tool in the Galactic Civil War against the Empire. Any army without food, amunition, and other supplies cannot fight; these transports got war matériel to the Alliance's soldiers. The Alliance used a number of different transport ships to keep its army ready for combat.
    Often the Alliance got transports by converting old passenger liners, small freighters, and other elderly ships most companies would have considered "useless": to the Alliance, those outdated ships were as precious as the X-wing fighters!
    Transports normally worked in convoys, and their most visible effort was the evacuation of Echo Base on the planet of Hoth. With only a pair of X-wings and a few supressing shots from the planetary- based ion cannon, thses lightly armed cargo ships blasted past the Imperial blockade and saved the Rebel Alliance's main computers and core equipment and men.
    The vehicles used on Hoth were Gallofree Yards Medium Transports. With a cargo capacity of 19,000 metric tons, these vessels can haul an immense amount of equipment, considering that they are only ninety meters long.
    The Gallofree transport's outer hull is little more than a thick shell; the interior is open. Modular cargo pods speed loading and unloading procedures. When the ship is full, an invisible magnetic shield locks the cargo modules in place and keeps the vacuum of space out. Typical cargoes include medicine, food, fuel, spare parts, weapons and raw materials. A few of these vessels were converted for fuel tanker duty for long-range Rebel fighter missions. These transports can also be adapted for passenger or troop transport duty by adding sealed passenger pods.
    The command crew of seven (including one gunner) operates from a small, cramped pod mounted above the ship's rounded hull. The transport's deflector-shield generator is part of the pod, so the pod is not as exposed as it first appears to be.
    These ships have hyperdrives for rapid transit to different systems as well as standard sublight ion drives. They also have repulsorlift drive units for landing directly on a planet. Retractable landing gear and a loading ramp are on the underside of the vessel.
    The Gallofree transports are not combat vessels and make every effort to avoid enemy ships. They rely on sensitive sensors to detect incoming vessels; advanced countermeasure systems hide them from probing enemy scans. They have minimal armament, typically consisting of four twin laser cannons, but it is not uncommon to find that a transports weapons have been stripped and installed on combat starships. In these cases, the transports must rely on starfighters for protection.