A rapid response ship is a type of long-range, fast multi-role spacecraft. It is designed to respond as quickly as practicable to a wide range of security or humanitarian crises. It has some combat capability, but is relatively poorly defended and would be outmatched by most warships of similar power output and mass.
The Allied Worlds modified a pair of surplus rapid response ships of the Buraq class to produce the survey ships Marco Polo and Zheng He.