Gunboat Pack

Gunboat Pack

It didn't take long for the Roiders to start putting out new ship types. Their gunboats were a big surprise when they first hit us, but we're getting used to them now.

They hide out in the deserted parts of the Belt, lost in the rocks and junk of centuries-old ruins. With so much crap floating around, we can't always get a good fix on them, even when we have a pretty good clue where they are. And they hunt in packs. Nasty critters.

For the Belters, the good news is that their gunboats pack the punch of a ship four times their mass. And they only need a crew of four to operate and about six months to build. But of course, there are no miracles in ship design -- to do that, they had to sacrifice endurance and comfort. And armor. Yeah, they're a nuisance and there are a lot of them -- more every month -- but if they don't get off the first shot, they're going to have a very bad day.

-- Commander Wilhelmina "Ace" Sarnow, lecture at the Martian Naval Academy after achieving her fifth gunboat kill; 8 January 2522