Bladder ship

The bladder ship is a classification of Covenant auxiliary support ship.

Design details
Described as looking like an overstuffed or pregnant cigar with a large megaphone at the front, bladder ships are used to replenish the ammunition used for starship plasma weaponry. To do this, they have a large collection cone that sucks up a specific type of gas within a planet's atmosphere, which is then compressed and stored within a liquefied form for shipment. The cone is composed of eight flexible poles, with flexible webbing that connects it together. When not in use, it is retracted into the ship's bow. ONI analysts suspect that they are also equipment freighters that carry spare parts and raw materials for their fleet.

Bladder ships are unable to activate their energy shields when the cone is extended, which renders vessels vulnerable to infiltration or attack. To defend themselves, these ships have several hangars for space fighters such as s and Seraphs.

Fleet of Inexorable Obedience
In March 2526, the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience led by Fleetmaster Nizat 'Kvarosee was travelling with a flotilla of logistics vessels containing equipment freighters, s, and three bladder ships. After destroying the human colony of Etalan, the logistics vessels were left in relative safety in orbit as the rest of the fleet continued to Biko. The logistics fleet's three bladder ships collected gas from Etalan's atmosphere to manufacture plasma for the rest of the fleet.

Colonel Marmon Crowther of Task Force Yama caught wind of the logistics fleet at Etalan, sending the, two escort prowlers, and the twelve Spartan-IIs of Blue, Green, and Gold Teams to destroy these key vessels while the primary fleet was distracted at Biko. On March 22, 2526, the three UNSC warships arrived at Etalan and began to stealthily observe the logistics fleet, attempting to identify the purpose of each class of vessel and which should be their primary targets. Dr. Catherine Halsey quickly realized the importance of the bladder ships. Four days later, on March 26, the Spartans launched their attack. While Gold and Green Teams attacked the equipment freighters, Blue Team used captured Banshees to get close to the bladder ships. As the ships were still retracting their collection cones, their shields were still down. This allowed John-117, Frederic-104, and Kelly-087 to get close enough to arm HAVOK tactical nuclear weapons and destroy each of the three bladder ships.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Silent Storm