Cosmic Flipper Tours has had a subsidiary for a little while now dedicated to… solving problems, shall we say. Ironwing Industries will accept any problem you are currently having and… make it go away.

Central to this is the namesake ship, the Ironwing, a finely (if not highly) tuned Fer-de-Lance.

The Ironwing is exceptionally fast and, despite being classed as a medium-sized ship, exceptionally manoeuvrable. Her main defence is a near-as-makes-no-difference 1,000 megajoule shield generator, backed up by an automated point defence system.

On board, she has an array of scanners, including those dedicated to kill warrants and wake interrogation, and sensors that can resolve targets from over 11 kilometres away.

But what about her punch?

After some experimentation, Commander Altsain settled upon two medium multicannon in the nose, two beam lasers in the cheeks, and a huge quad-firing multicannon underneath, which has been nicknamed Ol’ Painless.

The Ironwing was dispatched to LP 128-32 to aid in the community goal there, providing a shield against pirates for all the hard-working miners travelling to the system. There was plenty of work for Commander Altsain at the nav point, as pirates flocked to the system in the hope of getting an easy score.

Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that a certain type of pirate was being attracted – new or desperate commanders turning up in their Sidewinders, Adders and other less-than-optimal craft, ready to try their luck. The occasional Python or Anaconda might show, but always piloted by rich kids whose daddies had bought them the latest toy without teaching them how to use it.

One pass from the Ironwing was always sufficient for them to revise their ideas. Such a waste.

With the Ironwing jumping in at irregular intervals, word started to get around that LP 128-32 was not the healthiest place for a pirate to be, so Commander Altsain felt safe enough to undertake a call of duty.

Yuri Grom, one of the leading lights of the galaxy and a deeply unpleasant person, had rallied his minions and was pushing hard into Federation territory. The call went up from the Federal Liberal Command to stop him – and the battleground was to be LHS 336. The target? Grom’s commercial shipping.

Commander Altsain had never engaged in commerce raiding before, but was keen to don the mantle of duty, and was soon jumping towards LHS 336. Upon arrival, the Ironwing sat above the ecliptic in supercruise, and waited.

It was not long until the first Grom-aligned ship, a Type-6 transport, jumped in-system and started to make its way to the local station.

The Ironwing pounced.

Commander Altsain found it interesting to see interdiction from the other side and, upon returning to normal space, the Type-6 was destroyed almost before the frame shift drive could cool down. Job done, the Ironwing departed in supercruise before the space fuzz could show up.

Commander Altsain found this a lot of fun. So did it again. Commander Altsain did it a lot of times.

It was not overly long before the Ironwing became the target of bounty hunters, and it was when the space fuzz deployed Anacondas at both the star and stations, in the hope of trapping the Ironwing between them, that Commander Altsain decided to leave the system and return to the safe space of Rhea.

Upon arrival, the Ironwing was feted as the ship of a hero and Commander Altsain received a promotion from the office of Felicia Winters herself (been told that will be showing up in the mail on Thursday morning). On top of that, the Pilots Federation elevated Commander Altsain’s combat rank to Master!

For now, it is back to LP 128-32 for the Ironwing, to protect more miners, but it seems clear that commerce raiding will be a big part of its future.