"The Saint Elisa might not be the pettiest, or the fastest, or the strongest, but for many space travellers, it’s a sign of hope when it’s all gone wrong."
―Merchant Captain Oskar Petrelli
One of the most important fleet auxiliaries used by the UNSC, the Saint Elisa-class Cutter is a specialised ship used for supporting roles. The ship is designed for a variety of missions, such as disaster relief, anti-piracy, anti-terrorism, vessel interception and inspection and distress response. The ship is designed to have extremely high endurance, being capable of travelling far from known ports to respond to distress signals, performing in-atmosphere relief missions and going toe-to-toe with pirate or Insurrectionist combat vessels. To this end, it is extremely fast and possesses the firepower to ward off pirates and enemies. The Saint Elisa carries one platoon-sized contingent of Marines for boarding, search and seizure missions and four Pelicans for ferrying them. For chasing down faster ships, the Saint Elisa can also be equipped with broadsword fighters, which can quickly chase down and disable or destroy enemy vessels.
