A Just Chat Parody
_There are strange things seen on the open seas
By the folks who chat online.
The ocean trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night over at old Cape Just Chat
When debate sank an enemy. _
(With Apologies to Robert W. Service)
There we were, station-keeping off of Cape JC. Yeah, that's what we called it. A hellish place. Full of ships, all bent on war. Now this was a few years ago, see. I know what they say nowadays. "JC ain't what it used to be!" "JC's gone downhill!" "JC's s'damned quiet nowadays!"
Now I ain't saying they're right. But I am saying that I remember days back when Flame and Firepower ruled the day. Everybody had their cause, and they'd defend it to the death.
So anyway, there were a lot o' ships out there on the high seas, back then. Light destroyers - well, those lightweights were mostly trolls. A few of the heavier tonnage vessels, frigates and cruisers and the like - well, they had more in the way of defensive arguments. And I mean that in the most original way. We fought with guns, and the guns shot our arguments. We'd pick and choose our words, our tactics. Sometimes we found a chink in the armor; sometimes they found us.
So that's how you learned to pick your fights. And if you didn't learn that soon, well, there's Davy Jones's locker, plenty o' room for everybody. No crowding, now.
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A few of the younger guys were askin' about my greatest fight. Well, I never had any of those. Brutal, that place was. All we had was fights. Never anything great about 'em. Mixed it up with a Yang-class battlecruiser, when I was young and stupid, and cracked skulls with a Welch-class dreadnought. Man, it took me a week to glue my ship back together.
Most of what we did back then was troll-scouting. No, not trolling. Trolling was what we was scoutin' against. Rotten things, trolls. And when they mixed it up with fireships...well. You had yourselves the fixings for a flame war.
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"Captain, radar contact, two miles," my radar man called out. "Contact designated Sierra-Fifty-Seven. Closing on Sierra Thirty-One, it's on an intercept course."
"Troll," my first officer commented.
"I think you're right," I confirmed, looking at the radar plot. "Crowded, today. Siggy," I asked my signals officer, "Have you got a confirmation on Sierra Thirty-One's class?"
"No, sir," she replied. "They're running silent right now. Just maintaining steerage."
"Conn, this is Lookout," the comm box squalked next to me. "Someone's opened fire!"
"Confirmed," Radar called out. "Sierra Thirty One's changing course, heading towards Fifty Seven!"
"Damn," I swore. "He's taking the bait. Sound general quarters!"
All over the ship, the gong started pounding. The klaxon started wailing. Lord, how I hated that klaxon. Scares the daylights out of any old seagoing man - 'cause she's saying that before the day's out, someone's going to get hurt.
"Captain!" SigInt screamed. "Fifty-One's a momma! Yang class, she just lit off every targeting radar she owns, and a few she's got no right having!"
You know that feeling when you got to clench your guts? Yeah, to stop 'em hitting the floor. That feeling. Well, I had one of them feelings. All I had was a Guapo-class cruiser. A good ship, fast and maneuverable, but there's just "no replacement for cubic displacement", to steal a line from an airplane company. When some ships are just plain bigger than you are, there's not a lot you can do. "Plot me an intercept course," I shouted. "Ahead full!"
"Captain, you can't do that," the first officer hollered over the pandemonium. "She's bigger than three of us put together!"
"We're out here to defend the peace," I snapped back. Oh, back when I was young and foolish. Toeing off against a Yang. "Send out the call, we're going to need reinforcements!"
My cruiser started rumbling, the thousands of high horses in her tail pushing us past thirty knots. "Targeting solution?"
"Out of range, Captain!" Guns Officer replied.
"Incoming!" yelled Radar.
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Brutal. An overused word. Yang ships are famous for their point defense. They can shred a good argument shell line by line, then return a high-caliber debate point with pinpoint accuracy. You go into battle underestimating a Yang, and you're toast, real fast. You learn to duck a lot. Ever made a twenty thousand ton warship duck?
It's a refined skill. Not easy, but it can be done.
But we got in range, and hauled off with our best shots. Some got through, most didn't. We took a fearful beating. Back in those days we weren't afraid to tangle with bigger ships. Thing was, we could dish it out, but before the '04 refit, we just didn't have the armor plating to handle the return fire.
Wild times, that. At the end of the skirmish, a Prefect-class battleship and a Stark-class heavy-cruiser had joined in. Weapons wise there's not a lot of difference between the two - it's the Prefect's extra foot of class B armor plating that puts it in a heavier class.
Think of it. Shells firing through the air, little flameships darting in from time to time with a fantastic flamethrower broadside. It was amazing - sometimes those baby boats had huge batteries of napalm cannons. They couldn't hurt the fleet ships, but a lot of the little coastal boats got badly burned in these engagements.
The oceans were burning by the end of it, and the Yang had held off the three of us. Don't know how she didn't sink - we three were throwing all kinds of arguments, counterpoints, asides, and broadsides at her. That captain must have been some kind of fanatic.
But like all warships, all good debaters run out of ammunition. The flame-ships were still trying to cook themselves or us, but then they never run out of flame feed. And we retired to Port Brawl - we had egos to patch up and magazines to stock up on.
Those were the days, kid. Those were the days.
_There are strange things seen on the open seas
By the folks who chat online.
The ocean trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night over at old Cape Just Chat
When debate sank an enemy. _
ElGuapo7 2005" at the bottom, or just link here. I'd like to get the Chronicles traffic up.