Arachnea is a boxy, modified Sorusuub Nestt-class Light Freighter, owned by Adam Shadow. She was purchased in 15 ABY from a broker at CEC shipyards, but not much is known about her history prior to her purchase by the Corellian.
Through some impressive bribery, a droid brain and drug dispersal package was installed on the vessel prior to Shadow taking possession of her. The droid brain activated the drugs to cause the Corellian to pass out, and rerouted the ship to Nar Shaddaa where a group of beings attempted to take over the ship. The group did not count on the intervention of Clicker, an R3 droid that Shadow keeps with him most times. Clicker kept the interlopers at bay, and revived Shadow. Eventually the vessel made it home to Caspia, where she began to serve Shadow as a personal ship.
The droid brain construct has been reprogrammed with a female personality, whom Shadow has named Athena. She has full access to every function of the ship, and serves as a counterpart to Clicker in their interactions with Shadow.
Arachnea has been made an unofficial vessel of Caspia's Naval Intelligence Office, undergoing numerous modifications to make her a more valuable intelligence-gathering asset. She has a command and communications center installed in her starboard-forward hold, and a retractable light repeating blaster installed near the boarding ramp for suppressive fire in the event of a 'quick retreat' from a location. Her transponder undergoes occasional changes performed by NIO technicians to help the ship serve as an effective cover vessel for insertions of Ranger teams, or the activities of Captain Shadow himself.
Recently, the engines and hyperdrive have been heavily upgraded, but her Corellian captain is reluctant to discuss these modifications, nor will he explain where they came from or how he managed to pay for them.