Korat (Individual Liberator-class WarShip)

(Redirected from CSJ Korat)
Korat
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassLiberator
Previous classesAvatar

History[edit]

Star League[edit]

The Avatar-class heavy cruiser Korat was a WarShip serving within the black water navy of the Star League Defense Force at the height of the Star League era. The Korat survived the chaos and destruction of the Amaris Civil War and the Hegemony Campaign and was one of the WarShips to follow General Aleksandr Kerensky on the Exodus into the Deep Periphery. When General Kerensky's efforts to found a society for the Star League in Exile failed after his death and the Pentagon Worlds degenerated into internecine warfare the Korat was one of the vessels to accompany the forces loyal to Nicholas Kerensky on the withdrawal to Strana Mechty; after the founding of the Clans by Nicholas the Korat became a serving vessel within one of the nascent Clan toumans.[1]

Operation KLONDIKE[edit]

The Korat was one of the vessels assigned to the naval group commanded by the Khan of Clan Snow Raven, the former SLDF Admiral Stephen McKenna, for the pacification of the spacefarer communities and their naval forces in the Circe system during Operation KLONDIKE. Alongside the Black Lion-class battlecruiser Thunderbolt the Korat was deployed against the spacefarer community known as Outpost One, a conglomeration of JumpShips, DropShips and WarShips built around what had been the nadir recharge station of the Circe system, which the spacefarers had established eighteen years previously and relocated far afield from its original location, and which now contained tens of thousands of spacefarers.[1]

Initially, the visible defenders of Outpost One consisted of a pair of WarShips, a Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser and a McKenna-class battlecruiser. The Korat and the Thunderbolt initially jumped in close enough to Outpost One that the WarShips were already in engagement range, and both the Sovetskii Soyuz and McKenna moved to intercept the Clan ships; while the Korat and the Thunderbolt had well-trained crews and theoretically were superior to the spacefarer WarShips, none of the crews had any experience of actual naval combat. As a result, the combat between the four ships was far more even than it might have appeared; the Korat and the Thunderbolt destroyed both opposing WarShips, but the length of the engagement gave the spacefarers time to jump away a trio of JumpShips in an attempt to evacuate Outpost One. More critically, the battle and evacuation revealed the existence of a Potemkin-class cruiser which had been docked with Outpost One and which escaped with the lion's share of the population of the colony. Despite this the Clans still captured dozens of assorted JumpShips and DropShips as well as thousands of spacefarers.[1]

The Clan Era[edit]

All six Avatar-class vessels to have accompanied General Kerensky on the Exodus survived the Pentagon Civil War and the establishment of the Clans, and some years after the Clan conquest of the Pentagon Worlds the Korat and the other five Avatar-class cruisers were subject to an extensive refurbishment and upgrade program that saw them become a new class of cruiser named the Liberator class.[2]

Destruction[edit]

The Korat was serving as the CSJ Korat within the Clan Smoke Jaguar touman under the command of Star Commodore Clarinda Stiles when it was destroyed in the Huntress system by naval assets from Task Force Serpent in 3060.[3] Prior to her destruction the Korat had been serving as the flagship of the Smoke Jaguar's Delta Galaxy, also known as the Cloud Rangers.[4]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 Historical: Operation Klondike, p. 44, "Circe Outposts"
  2. Technical Readout: 3057 Revised, p. 152, "Liberator"
  3. Shadows of War (novel), p. 76
  4. Shadows of War (novel), p. 37-38

Bibliography[edit]