Thermal Lance

Ice fields worth harvesting at scale tend to be far from Fleet supply lines — deep frontier, contested space, places where shorter-range harvesters don't bother going. The Thermal Lance was built for that deployment. The fuel-efficient drive pushes the armored hull deep into territory that shorter-range harvesters avoid, and the dual thermal extractors work the ice while the autocannon keeps watch. The cargo hold is tight because the engineering committee prioritized fuel capacity and hull integrity over storage. Fleet ice operations run convoys for a reason — the Thermal Lance finds the field and cracks the ice. Someone else hauls it home.