"BONE HARD BABY"
09 Apr 2022Goldgunner1
We had our hands full. Full of arseholes. Pirate formations swarmed around our fleet carriers, out in the black 1000’s of light years from home. What the f*** were they doing here. They had us pinned and we were forced to fly our stately homes in close formation to intersect firing lanes and make it hard for the heavier sloops and the odd destroyer class ship to close within range. That close formation was the only thing keeping us alive. Not the only thing.
The beautiful Flag Carrier: Victory class, SKC SARCOPHAGUS and the advanced strategic acumen of the Flag Admiral of the Black Conclave was making us a b**** to overpower. His was the only carrier I had ever seen painted with that rarest of paints, Midnight Black. It must have cost Admiral Physionater a fortune to do it. Rumour had it he was loaded though and so I assumed he felt no pain shelling out for the upgrade. He led the convoy, the Bomanian Admiral directing fire, target to target and rolling the Sarcophagus slowly port to starboard to make it less likely that an energy weapon from the pirates would strike a lucky blow. She, like all our carriers, was loaded with tritium for the journey and supplies to relieve the stations burning in the quadrant that the weeds had most recently invaded. A rich prize for the scum of the universe. We were nearly 3000 light years out and this attack had come as a total surprise. Whizzing about her, like an enraged firefly, was the heavily upgraded Anaconda of Commander Clower. Slashing, long range, phase shifting beams punching holes in shields to soften up the opposition.
Commander Henzler was swearing lightly on the captain’s channel as his carrier, the SKC NEPHILIM, fired salvo after salvo at the swarming pirate fighters and the heavier consorts. The great carrier still showing the pocket vacuum seals where the long-range fuel pods and external spares bindings were fitted to allow the Conclave to explore in the deep black. She was a beautiful sight as her close-range beams slashed out actinically in the black. SKC SPLINT, resplendent beside her rolled the other way and belted any ship that approached either of them. With a huge load of medicinal tea, grown and cultivated after the formula of old earth tea she was a very valuable hold to raid. Commander Ricza was having none of it and with his usual tactical poise he was directing fire in mass storms of beams and lasers into ship after enemy ship. Every now and again a detonation marked the end of one of them.
Guarding the rear; again, was me, Goldgunner. SKC BONE MACHINE. A brawler of a carrier; belligerent hardnosed, armed to the teeth and crewed by veterans of the space lanes, only a few microns short of pirates themselves. They disliked being set upon. They took it all very personally and reacted with massed barrages of cannon fire and weighty broadsides. Commander Bullfrog, Commander Blacktooth, Commander Wish and Commander Sixx were flying for her. Flying their best available ships alongside her and adding their considerable weight of firepower to the mix.
All in all, a phenomenal sight. Reminding me of that line from an ancient pict, “I’ve seen C-beams glittering off Tanhauser Gate”.
“Where had I seen that?” I thought to himself as another wave of ships zoomed in to attack.
These pirate ships: unregistered but with a distinct vapour contrail and a softly luminous “C” on their hulls were well led, insistent and powerful. It wasn’t going well. The carrier convoy was holding its own but if the destroyers could get into close quarters; through our shield envelopes; their torpedoes would be unstoppable and it would all be over.
Suddenly, on the Z axis low, the clouds and lightning that marked a jump gate.
The prow of a ship, an arrowhead, a sharp point of menace with lights on her name plates.
I knew it was Commander Prime. Who else would name their carrier “BONE HARD”. That man had a mental setting that seemed stuck on “limitless irreverence”. We loved him for it.
What good timing. What an ace time to arrive.
“Prime to Squadron and Flag,” came the upbeat radio squawk, “howzit bros”. His implied laugh clear in his tones and his delivery. In my mind’s eye I could see the Admiral’s eyes roll upward at the same time as his sense of humour overcame his command functions and painted a smile on his face. Prime was gloriously irrepressible and a breath of fresh air wherever he went.
The SKC BONE HARD slid out of the roiling clouds of lighting-shot-bruise and gas at a stately pace. She was fully in view now and s*** was about to get real.
God, I was envious.
It was one of the new ones. New to our fleet and new to the space lanes too. It was a Valiant Class Heavy. The newest carrier to be released into the marketplace for militaries and factions across the Milky Way. The young man was the latest member of the Black Conclave to be elevated to junior Admiral and to receive permission from the flag to bring his own carrier into the fleet.
But what a machine.
She was as ugly as sin and as beautiful as a dancer.
The chassis was recognizably that of the older Fleet Carrier model that had been released several years before and which the older members of the Conclave were using to get this relief convoy home, but she was built for combat. She looked the part. Bilaterally flattened and blunt with a narrower top silhouette than the older models, she was fatter and slightly shorter than the standard carriers. The Bone Hard was a study in pugilism. She was built for fighting and she was locked, cocked and loaded for unpleasantness.
The prow and forequarters of the new Fleet Combat Carrier was arrowhead shaped with a large, underslung nacelle that managed the sensory functions of her advanced nav system. There was talk that that thing had an effective close range defensive envelope of more than 20kms and a long-range capability of several hundred thousand kilometres. Perched on the top of the arrowhead was one of the powerful, rapid fire, quad-class-four railguns that made being in the proximity of the carrier such a dangerous place for enemy pilots and incoming missiles. Emplaced on her upper surface were, not the civilian landing pads we were so used to, but powerful long range particle cannons in an octo-barrel multicannon arrangement. As though that weren’t deterrent enough; single barrel, long range mass drivers completed the dorsal line up. These were the type of armaments that would give other ships a serious headache. Ventrally she had a shaped and sleek keel, not the “automatic weapon magazine” style keel we saw on the standard fleet carrier. The left and right edge of the keel were studded with more of those close-range rail guns and their depleted adamantium, caseless, super dense slugs were terrifying at short range. Right at the front of that sleek keel were the tell-tale divots that marked the exit cones of twin, matched torpedo launchers. Class 8 torpedoes. A two hundred thousand klick range and a punch like a prizefighter.
In seconds, the fight was over.
SKC BONE HARD and her quipping, fun seeking commander sailed right into the thick of the battle and punched the dance card of several close order fighters with controlled and measured bursts from rail guns and octobarrels. The surviving ships immediately swung away, panicked and their jinking movements, so controlled before, lost some of their coherence. As they turned to run, the armoured launch bay doors of BONE HARD opened on the port side, the sensational motion mirrored to starboard. All thirty six of those bays unmasked. As they did, they smoothly exposed the trireme stacked launch tubes within. As each tube equalised vacuum, fighters spat out into the black. I could hear the pilots on the fighter command channel and they were f***ing awesome.
First out were “Slap ‘em Silly”; “S*** Kicker” and “Six Gun Sally”. Wing command resided in the hands of “SGS” if my read of the comms was correct. They were followed by an equally imaginatively named set of fighters. Launching in three shot bursts from the sides of the ship they raced into near space. A triple-tap. Thirty-six upgraded and very unfriendly Eagle STS fighters tore after the enemy. Cobras, Mambas, Eagles and Couriers died all around us. Wreckage tumbling all around the carriers attracting the fire of point defence to prevent any sort of damage. I saw a fighter or two from Commander Prime’s fleet wink out on the main tactical display on my command deck. I could hear Prime swearing as they died and watched the particle cannons and mass drivers that his gun deck-controlled target seeking, then locking. Locking and going green. Locking and firing. That precision driven by Prime’s desire for revenge.
It was like throwing hammers at chihuahuas.
The destroyers, trying to close with us were vaporised and the sloops shattered. One salvo, game over. The remnant retreated and fled. Not an orderly force anymore but a shattered ragtag group of leftovers. The great carriers slowed their roll, and I heard the RTB go out over the flight comms for the fighters, their contrails wreathing BONE MACHINE in sparkling ions, like a carnival parade or a first day celebration at the changing of the years.
“Yo, Commanders,” came the comm squawk, “We kicked their arse”.
The Bomanian was quicker than any of us, “Thanks are due to you and the crew of BONE HARD Commander Prime, we are all sorry for your losses today” he said rather stiffly, “lets try to end this run without losing anyone else”.
You could hear the crew on all the carriers cheering even against the klaxons and the static.