Slave I is the unique starship of the infamous bounty hunter Boba Fett.
Slave I was originally a Firespray Class patrol and attack ship designed for law enforcement and interdiction duty by Kuat Systems Engineering. The ship was heavily modified by both Jango and Boba Fett in an effort to keep it up to date. Its features include numerous hidden weapons, a dedicated sensor masking and tracking system, six interior prisoner cages (including one capable of holding Force-users), reinforced armor plating and powerful shield generators. It is 21 meters long and has a cargo capacity of 40 metric tons.
Slave I carries a vast amount of weaponry, much of it concealed within the hull of the ship. The known weapons loadout includes:
The ship also includes dummy proton torpedoes mounted with homing beacons and S-thread trackers. By tagging a ship with one of these dummy beacons, Fett can use his contraband HoloNet transceiver to track ships through hyperspace. In other words, once they have found you, it is almost impossible to dodge the Fetts.
Slave I has an illegal sensor masking and jamming system that allows it to slip through sensor grids undetected. The hull is magnetically polarized and acts like an antenna for all electronic signals and pulses within range of the ship. These magnetically attracted pulses of power tend to jam and scramble enemy sensor scans, reading them as some sort of ion storm rather than as a starship. This system, thought to be an Imperial Navy military secret, was somehow acquired by Fett and has given him a decisive advantage on many hunts. On top of this Slave I's particle vapor trail has been dampened to make the ship nearly untraceable. He can use this system to sneak onto worlds undetected, much to the dismay of his targets and planetary law-enforcement agents.
All of this advanced weaponry comes at a price though, the Slave I is a relatively slow ship. The ship uses powerful Kuat Engineering Systems F-31 drive engines and four Kuat X-F-16 power generators, these take up a lot of space and give Slave I it’s unusual profile where it lands on it’s “back” and looks like it’s flying standing up. Even with these massive engines the ship can only maintain a top sublight speed of 70 MGLT, making it about as fast as an Alliance Y-Wing fighter. This means that someone in an X-Wing, A-Wing, or TIE Fighter could outrun Boba Fett easily. Fortunately for him, the ship’s advanced sensors and weapons are usually able to prevent that from happening.
Slave I’s speed problems do not apply to it’s advanced hyperdrive. By using the tracking torpedoes and extrapolating his target’s destination, Fett is usually able to arrive there before his target even does and get the drop on them.
After Boba Fett’s apparent death in the Sarlacc Pit, Slave I was captured by Rebel Alliance forces and held in impound on the planet Grakouine. As the Alliance became the New Republic, the importance of the ship was forgotten and Fett was able to re-purchase the ship by using a variety of fronts and dummy corporations. As he was refitting the vessel, he used a sleek replacement ship that he dubbed the Slave II.
At some point between 10 and 19 years after the Battle of Yavin, Slave I was destroyed. During his final face-off with Han Solo 20 years after they first met, Boba Fett was using a ship known as Slave IV
Sources:
http://galactic-voyage.com/Misc-Ships-Slave%20I.htm
http://www.starwars4u.co.uk/slave.htm
http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/slavei/eu.html
TIE Fighter technical manual