The Best Is Yet To Come - 4: Spring Cleaning
07 Jun 2023CrazyGolm
Spring Cleaning – April 3309A white Cobra with orange details approached Jameson Memorial. It was a marvellous little ship, with a jump range of over 35LY, yet still with the internal space for SRV bays, and the armour and armaments to stand up for itself. Its pilot was fond of it, its passenger only slightly less so.
The little Cobra zipped into Jameson Memorial, and swiftly (though somewhat bumpily!) touched down on its allocated landing pad.
From it disembarked CMDR CrazyGolm, who somehow looked purposeful even though he had an opaque helmet on, and his friend CMDR Clixer, who was somewhat more questioning.
“Golm, remind me why we’re here.”
“I’ve got something stored here. It’s about time I give it a new lease of life.”
Golm had been refitting a number of his ships for the Thargoid War (to varying success). He had an idea for his next project, but he had to dig it up first (not literally).
Golm and Clixer made their way deeper into the station, until he reached the shipyard’s storage hangars.
He tapped his InSight wristpad against Hangar 2’s ID scanner, and the door opened to reveal a large silhouette. The hangar bay’s floodlights flickered on to reveal an Anaconda – and its name-plate.
“The Isengard...”
This was it. The Isengard, designation 54URON. Dusty old ‘Conda.
The Isengard had been outfitted for mining back in 3306 or so, but Golm hadn’t done much mining in a long time. He had, over the years, A-rated the ship, however because of its limited use, it had been moved between storage locations.
The two friends got to work, removing the old mining equipment and weaponry, and the old modules from the vessel. The modules were so massive that they needed to use robotic cranes to safely remove them, but remove them they did. In their place they installed extensive hull reinforcements, a universal limpet controller, and more gauss cannons than was sensible.
At first, Golm wanted to store the old modules as he was a bit sentimental, however he realized he would run out of storage space. In the end he sold most of them.
After its makeover, the Isengard was rebranded the Pizza Oven, even with a new callsign. Given that it would be used to defend humanity against the Thargoid invasion, Golm thought its name was funny.
Golm and Clixer made their way to the Anaconda’s bridge. As with the rest of the ship, it had gathered a layer of dust, however the onboard systems rebooted without trouble. Aboard a ship of this size, the cockpit was indeed a bridge, with numerous antiquated-looking computer stations dotting the room. In the olden days, the Anaconda-class may have needed upwards of half a dozen crew on the bridge alone, however with modern Pilots’ Federation’s command suites, full ship controls were ceded to one helm and three crew seats (via an interesting cable management system that looked suspiciously like it was jury-rigged). Nonetheless, it was fascinating to see the centuries-old design of the Anaconda, first made by RimLiner Galactic, still in use.
“Right, start it up.”
“Start it up?” Clixer asked. He hadn’t expected a test flight just yet.
“Yeah, start it up. Let’s take it for a spin.”
Slowly, the large pad lifted the Anaconda from the hangar up to the docking bay above. Then the Pizza Oven’s engines fired, and it began to fly.
The Pizza Oven’s adventures were just beginning.