Emergency escape pod

The emergency escape pod is a common commodity on spaceships for times when there's no other way to get off a ship that is in the process of breaking up.

Overview
Spaceships are required to have a number of lifeboats or shuttles which can provide enough passenger space for all the people on board (the stated capacity of the lifeboat, irrespective of the fact that there may actually be fewer people on board). However, boats and shuttles require a lot of space and require launch preparations. Smaller ships tend to carry escape pods to augment their little complement of boats and shuttles.

Escape pods are more common on military ships due to their size requirements. As they are rather dispersed all over the ship, access may be difficult or local capacity may not be sufficient for personnel present at the time. They are also more vulnerable and prone to being damaged during battle. Therefore, the number of escape pods carried on ships is determined based on the maximum number of personnel carried aboard plus 10% as a safety margin.

Abh
It appears Abh ships carry both lifeboats or shuttles and escape pods with each department themselves providing enough capacity for the whole ship's complement. This is due to the nature of Abh ships serving as homes in peace time and carrying family members, pets and passengers.

Escape pod
This small escape pod is usually located near the outer hull and is laid horizontally to allow upside-down access. It provides room for about (4-5) people and enough air for 24 hours. The inside is furnished and lined up with cushions to ease the stress of acceleration for the occupants. There are about 8 segmented columns each with 4-6 segments. Upon entering the pod is launched via emergency launch buttons placed at various place to allow easy and fast access. Within 1/10 of a second the escape pod's access closes, and the access port on the ship secured while the outside hatch is blown safely out of the launch zone at about 40-60g. The escape pod is launched by presumably 4-8 sets of explosive gunbarrel type of launch tubes on the ship's side. The escape pod's own thrusters fire up within miliseconds of activation. Both systems combined ensure the pods can be launched even in the event of total failure on either side while also maximizing possible launch acceleration. Due to the physiology of the Abh the escape pods have been designed to be capable of an acceleration of about 25 g but the on-board computer can throttle it down to 11 g in the presence of children and human landers. This initial acceleration only lasts for about 3 seconds followed by low acceleration of about 9 or 5g.

Although, visually not designed for planet fall it is likely designed to survive atmospheric entry. It is unclear whether it is capable of landing. Likewise, it does have the power to be used within the atmosphere.

As there's no air resistance in space to impede debris, the damage dealt to an escape pod is virtually the same at any distance. Distance only reduces the amount of debris coming at it. Therefore, modern escape pods aim to achieve velocities that would reduce relative collision velocities to acceptable range with the pod's protection. The on-board computer AI will determine the best possible outcome based on its sensors. For ordinary destruction the expected velocity necessary is 2300 m/s. For a nuclear rated destruction (whether fission, fussion or AM) the expected velocity necessary is 3100 m/s.