The A-class bulk freighter, also known as the A-class bulk freighter, was a type of container ship that became a popular choice for terraforming expeditions in the time leading up to the Galactic Civil War.
Also designated the PCL 27, the A-class freighter's massive container housing took up three-quarters of the hull's length and was capable of holding up to 160,000 metric tons of cargo. Maxwell & Son, a terraforming company, utilized these ships to transport prefabricated colony compounds through hyperspace and deploy them on designated planets, a method later replicated by the Empire with their prefabricated garrison bases.
The PCL 27 was equipped with a class 3 hyperdrive and could reach an atmospheric speed of 350 kph. Typically, these ships were manned by a crew of 60, with provisions for six months, but they could be operated with a minimum crew of ten.
Over time, these ships were adapted for various purposes. During the Battle of Sluis Van, Grand Admiral Thrawn infiltrated the shipyards by concealing a squadron of cloaked TIE/LN starfighters within the hull of a PCL 27 named Nartissteu. Another vessel of this class, the Black Lotus, was modified by the Camarina Connection into a mobile drug production facility.
The designation "PCL 27" first appeared in an article about the Black Lotus in the September/October 1995 edition of the French RPG magazine Casus Belli, accompanied by an illustration from Fred Blanchard, who also worked as the illustrator for the comic adaptation of Heir to the Empire. While this magazine came out a few months before the ship appeared in issue 6 of the comic in March 1996, the background information has not been translated into English, leaving its canonicity uncertain.
In the original novel Heir to the Empire, Wedge Antilles refers to the ship at Sluis Van as an "A-class bulk freighter," but no Legends source has provided further details on this term. It is therefore unclear whether this is simply another name for the PCL 27, or a more general term applied to several similar freighter types.