The Rocinante ("Roci") is a former MCRN (Martian Congressional Republic Navy)-turned-independent Corvette-class light frigate capable of multiple combat roles. Originally commissioned as the MCRN Tachi, the ship was stationed aboard the flagship of the Martian navy, the MCRN Donnager. It was renamed by James Holden and his crew after they escaped the Donnager aboard the ship, marking the start of its long and decorated career as an independent warship. It has gained fame in the Belt due to it often fighting against oppressors of Belters.

Description

Akin to a narrow, tall building, the ship's construction is layered floor-by-floor from the drive cone and reactor "upwards" to the flight deck and sensor relays. The ship features a storage and engineering deck, machine shop, galley and crew cabins, medical bay, storage deck, crew airlock, command deck and flight deck. Under thrust, g-forces then provide a "downwards" pull amenable to human orientation, simulating gravity.

The Rocinante's normal crew complement was well over a dozen navy personnel and officers, and on many missions the ship would also carry at least six marines. As a Corvette-class frigate, the ship was capable of housing thirty Martian officers and crew during its operation with the MCRN.

The Rocinante is equiped with 6 Nariman Dynamics 40mm Point Defense Cannons and 2 Torpedo launchers, each with a 10-torpedo capacity for a total of 20. In addition to the ship's weapon systems, it carries four reconnaissance drones named "Peart", "Lee", "Howard", and "Lifeson".

Crew

• Captain: James "Jim" Holden

• Executive Officer and Chief Engineer: Naomi Nagata

• Pilot: Alex Kamal

• Mechanic: Amos Burton

History

Originally commissioned as the MCRN Tachi, the Corvette was one of Donnager's original assigned escorts when the McCabe and Valenza were replaced with 4 of the new Morrigan-class patrol destroyer to improve the battleship's area of control. By the time the Donnager picked up the Canterbury survivors, the Tachi was the only escort docked in the Battleship's hangar bay.

Once the Donnager was boarded in a CQB scenario, Captain Yao ordered Lt. Lopez and some MCR Marines to escort Holden and the other survivors to the Tachi, hoping they would escape and testify that the Martians had nothing to do with the Canterbury's destruction. The bay, however, was swarming with enemy boarders. Amos Burton and Lopez were wounded and the Marines were killed, but Alex Kamal, previously an MCRN pilot, took control of the gunship. Using her PDCs, the Tachi blasted her way out of the hangar and made a getaway at full burn before the Donnager was scuttled.

Once away, the Canterbury survivors received a message from the OPA (Outer Planets Alliance) spokesperson Fred Johnson offering a safe harbor, something that would be hard to find elsewhere as anyone flying a stolen Martian warship would be highly suspect. He also instructed them on how to change the Tachi's transponder codes to avoid long-range detection. Alex enthusiastically suggested naming their new ship "Flamin' Alamo" or "Screamin' Firehawk" to which Holden refused, suggesting the name "Rocinante" instead. Amos agreed, saying a woman named "Rocinante", a Spanish "workhorse", had once been good to him. It is later revealed Holden thought indeed of the horse of Don Quixote. With its new name, the Rocinante headed for Tycho Station.

Upon arrival, a brief hostility ensued as it turned out that Johnson planned to commandeer Rocinante for a mission, as he wanted a capable warship in case whatever happened to the Scopuli happened again, but Holden convinced him to hire them to undertake it. Johnson then had the ship disguised as a gas hauler to help them avoid detection and gave the Rocinante's crew their mission; to find Lionel Polanski, one of Fred's operatives from the Scopuli.

Not long after getting underway, the Rocinante is spotted by the MCRN Yangste, which then dispatches the Ambedkar, a Morrigan-class patrol destroyer to intercept. Despite Alex's best efforts, the Martians still attempted to board, which would have meant grave consequences once they recognized the stolen warship. Fortunately, Kenzo Gabriel (who had just been caught sending out a rogue signal) informed the Roci's crew that, being a Martian gunship, there would be secret codewords for when they were working in covert ops and needed to be left alone, which Alex confirmed as he recalled an incident he witnessed while serving in the Martian Navy, which involved an unidentifed ship. Having managed to locate and communicate the codewords to the Ambedkar in time, the MCRN ship was satisfied and promtly left the Rocinante alone.

Arriving at a lone asteroid, the Rocinante encountered a seemingly inactive stealth ship, found to be the Anubis and the Cant's killer, bound for Eros from Phoebe but never arrived. Docking with an umbilical, Holden, Naomi, Amos, Kenzo, and one of the Roci's drones searched the ship and discovered the Protomolecule at work throughout the ship. Finding that Lionel had escaped in a shuttle docked in the Anubis, Holden ordered Alex to destroy the Anubis with a torpedo, which Alex did gladly as the Rocinante now made its way to Eros. Once at Eros, it docked without trouble.

As the Protogen Experiment on Eros occured, and with the ship's crew were all on board along with 6 Eros survivors, The Rocinante escapes from Eros but loses its gas hauler disguise to detach itself from the claws holding it in place. Later, in the Assault on Thoth Station, the Rocinante was released from the OPA Guy Molinari to act as broken off cargo so it could float to the station. As it neared, the station's defending Stealth ship launched missiles at the Guy Molinari but the Rocinante intercepted them and then the two ships engaged in Point Defense Cannon (PDC) fire as they neared each other. The Roci then quickly hugged the habitat ring of the station as protection from the Stealth ship. Eventually, the Roci moved over the habitat ring to attack and destroy both the Stealth ship and an anti-asteroid canon that had destroyed one of the breaching pods.

During the Eros Incident, when Eros moves on its own on a collision coarse with Earth, the Rocinante chased after it and eventually is used to target lock the asteroid for UN missiles to destroy it. The Roci is then forced to consistently increase its speed to match Eros, endangering the crew in the process. Eventually, Joe Miller convinces the crew to slow down and stop its pursuit of the asteroid.