Privateer ship: Bottoms Up

The Scarab is a unique privateer design that is rapidly growing in popularity in the Colonial Territories, as well as with bounty hunters, mercenary firms and even Inter-System Police. It was originally designed by Vector Nine Engineering- a subsidiary of Conudyne- to fill an oft-overlooked niche of prison transport for the Indie System law enforcement market, but was retooled before release to fill other roles as well. The end result is a capable privateer vessel that can disable or destroy most pirate marauders, but also has passenger, prisoner, and cargo transport capabilities that make it a very valuable vessel for the adaptable crew. Obviously, Fringe Space ideology of pirate-hunting is generally summary execution of captured pirates- they have engaged in rape, murder, torture and a long list of horrors in their pursuit of plunder, after all. In Colonial space, however, such “judge, jury and executioner” tactics are frowned upon at best. Moreso, when dealing with enemy shipping interdiction such tactics would brand the privateers pirates themselves for the butchery of civilian freighter or military transport crews. Thus, the sixteen-prisoner brig in the bow proves to be quite valuable for privateers engaged in such operations. Further expanding the capabilities of the Scarab is a single-fighter interceptor drop bay. This ventral hatch allows a light interceptor or fighter to be deployed as a force multiplier during engagements. Alternate configurations replace this with a second sixteen-prisoner brig at no additional cost.
Weapons on the Scarab are potent, if limited in number. Two quad light APPC turrets with turret tracking accelerator hardware not only provide significant directional firepower, but also act as point-defense weapons against fighters and incoming missiles. Two spinal mount medium APPCs and two spinal mount medium AP lancers give solid forward punch without requiring a tremendous amount of reactor power. Lastly, an omnidirectional disruptor pulse bank acts as a final defensive measure against any vessels attempting to board.