Breath Weapon

Breath Weapon (TT08-11), previously designated as Broken Wind (TT08), is an Oafan battleship. Breath Weapon served as the flagship of the Tagon's Toughs mercenary company from the end of Book 14: Broken Wind to the end of Book 20: Sergeant in Motion.

Ship Features
While the design has never been given a name, the U.N.S. military has designated ships of the same class as Breath-class vessels.

Breath Weapon is rated as a S9 ship on the Planet Mercenary classification table, "9" being the highest existing threat rate for a ship, relative to size. Breath Weapon is just over five hundred meters long. Her power output is comparable to an U.N.S. carrier and her hull is extremely durable, thanks to the heavy use of P.T.U. alloys. Unlike Oafan corvettes, Breath Weapon is not equipped with a Long Gun.

Breath Weapon carries a squadron of ovoid-shaped gunboats in a ring of docking slips located amidships. Like their mothership, the gunboats have P.T.U. hulls. After two of the original gunboats were lost in battle, the Toughs created replacements with a conventional hull. Although less resistant than the originals, the new boats were fitted with upgraded systems, making them otherwise superior in combat.

Breath Weapon and her gunboats were later fitted with teraguns in order to combat the Pa'anuri.



Origins
Breath Weapon was built by the Oafans at least ten million years ago. Her original name was Hear And Hearken To The War-Cries Which Now Descend From The Furious Throat Of The Sky, For They Are A Precipitation Of Blades and her artificial intelligence was named Ufuimaele. When the Oafans retreated to Eina-Afa to hide from the Pa'anuri, Hear and Hearken To the War-Cries was put in mothballs and stationed inside Eina-Afa's spindle with thousands of other warships while her A.I. was uploaded to the station's infosphere.

Service with Tagon's Toughs
Ten million years later, when the Tagon's Toughs informed T'kkkuts-Afa, Eina-Afa's A.I., that she did not have to hide from the Pa'anuri any more, T'kkkuts-Afa decided to join the small mercenary company. She adopted the name Iafa ("Little Wind") and downloaded herself inside the mindframe of Hear And Hearken To The War-Cries. Iafa rechristened the ship Broken Wind, the translation of his former name T'kkkuts-Afa. Broken Wind subsequently became the flagship of the Tagon's Toughs' squadron, under the command of Captain Kaff Tagon.

Broken Wind accompanied Cindercone to the Sol System to deliver ten thousand Oafan hulls to the U.N.S. Broken Wind later travelled inside Cindercone 's hold to the Celeschul System to bring the Sanctum Adroit's depot back to its home system. When Cindercone was ambushed by a fleet of pirate ships, Broken Wind raced outside of their hypernet jamming zone to call Chinook for help. Broken Wind lost two gunboats during the engagement. The destroyed gunboats were later replaced with a modified design.

Broken Wind and Cindercone recovered the F'Sherl-Ganni Archive from one of the habitats of the destroyed buuthandi for Petey.

Broken Wind and Cindercone were contracted by the Neofans to escort a research expedition to Uli-Oa, a damaged Oafan world forge. Broken Wind deployed a four-layer Very Dangerous Array around Uli-Oa to defend the artifact against would-be thieves. During this mission, a rogue faction of Esspererin soldiers led by Wing Marshall Takka Besti managed to board the Toughs' ships by using teraport cages and launched an assault against the crew in order to seize control of the ships. Captain Tagon sacrificed his life by detonating a ship-to-ship warhead aboard Broken Wind to destroy the Esspererin teraport cage and the boarders. Iafa was forced to immerse Broken Wind inside Uli-Oa's ocean in order to dissipate the massive amount of heat generated by the warhead explosion.

During the next four months, Broken Wind was placed under Captain Alexia Murtaugh's command, her name was changed to Breath Weapon when Yaeyoefui discovered that her previous name could be read as a flatulence pun and her interior structure had to be completely gutted and replaced because of the damage caused by Tagon's warhead. By the time Captain Tagon was restored from his Laz-5 backup, Breath Weapon was operational once again.

During an investigative mission for Urtheep Industries, Breath Weapon was refused access to the Sol System after the Penultimate Admiralty declared a ban on all ships that might be armed with a Long Gun.

During a relief operation in the Uuple System, Breath Weapon was incorrectly identified by the Uuplechan Patriot Armada as a sack-hull freighter. When Chinook lost control of herself after Maxim 39 's destruction, Petey teraported Breath Weapon to Eina-Afa, hoping that Iafa's knowledge of the station's infosphere would help them find a way to neutralize Chinook. After creating a copy of himself inside Eina-Afa's network, Iafa allowed Chinook to kill him with a precision Long Gun shot against his mindframe in an effort to avoid collateral victims. Ambassador Bala-Amin decided to evacuate the entire U.N.S. embassy, building and personnel included, aboard Breath Weapon to escape Eina-Afa. Although Breath Weapon was able to clear Eina-Afa's TAD, she was immediately captured by Shoemaker-Levy, a Carbon-class battleplate.

Return of the Oafans
 

The crew of Shoemaker-Levy repaired Breath Weapon 's damage in one of their internal dry docks but they also used the opportunity to study Breath Weapon 's ancient Oafan systems, although they failed to discover any new technology. After their digital consciousnesses were freed from Eina-Afa's infosphere by Iafa and Putzho, the ancient Oafans tracked down the Shoemaker-Levy' s battle group and demanded the return of Breath Weapon as the ship's rightful owners. Breath Weapon and her crew were freed by the UNS and the ship was reclaimed by Ufumaele ("Ufu"), Breath Weapon's original Oafan A.I. Despite the change in ownership, the Oafans allowed the Tagon's Toughs to continue to use Breath Weapon and contracted them to "save the galaxy".    

Investigation of the Pa'anuri warship
Breath Weapon deployed to the Xuvoth System to board a Pa'anuri warship and gather intelligence. Upon arrival, Breath Weapon deployed her gunboat squadron and joined a coalition fleet in the fight against the Pa'anuri warship. Captain Ellen Foxworthy and a team of fragsuit infantry deployed aboard Breath Weapon 's Gunboat 5, renamed Heavy Breathing, to reach the surface of the Pa'anuri warship. Breath Weapon supplied targeting information to Lota, allowing Lota to open holes inside the Pa'anuri ship's massive hull with her Long Gun and allowing the Toughs access to the ship's interior.

Epilogue
Following the resolution of the conflict with the Pa'anuri, Breath Weapon was eventually reclaimed by the Oafans.

Etymology
In Oafan tongue, the name "Broken Wind" comes from T'kkkuts-Afa. Afa has plenty of meanings in the Oafan language, but the original meaning is "wind". It is considered a mystical force in Oafan mythology, synonymous with "unmoved mover" and "god". T'kkkuts is a string of sounds that is painful for Oafans to voice, and is considered an obscenity. The tone evokes anger, with the word generally specifying injury, damage, and violation of self. The term could be interpreted as "Angry God", but "Broken Wind" was taken as a closer translation.

When the librarian learned the name of the ship, it was discovered to be a breach of cross cultural etiquette. "Wind" was considered too simple of a translation of "Afa", "T'kkkuts" implied more violence than 'broken', and "breaking wind" has a rather crude meaning in Galstandard West. With this, the ship was renamed "Breath Weapon".

When the ship was reclaimed by Ufumaele, she revealed that its original name was Hear And Hearken To The War-Cries Which Now Descend From The Furious Throat Of The Sky, For They Are A Precipitation Of Blades -- but added that Breath Weapon would do for short, as "your mythological dragons have sufficiently furious throats."