Black Venom

Revision as of 15:50, 28 December 2014 by DerangedShadow (talk | contribs) (→‎Operation KLONDIKE: disambiguation redirect)
Black Venom
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassLola III

History

Star League

The Lola III-class destroyer Black Venom was a WarShip that had served within the black water navy of the Star League Defense Force at the height of the Star League era. The Black Venom 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 Black Venom 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 Black Venom became a serving vessel within one of the nascent Clan toumans.[1]

Operation KLONDIKE

The Black Venom was one of the vessels assigned to the touman of Clan Widowmaker ahead of Operation KLONDIKE, the Clan campaign to conquer the Pentagon Worlds. When Operation KLONDIKE began forces from Clans Burrock, Fire Mandrill, Goliath Scorpion and Widowmaker were tasked with conquest of the Dagda system, and it was Clan Widowmaker who bid for the right to conduct the naval action to secure the system nadir jump point. The naval force assembled for this task was commanded by the Widowmaker Star Captain Cyril Herling and the Black Venom was the WarShip assigned to Herling's naval force.[1]

Hering's plan for securing the jump point called for the Black Venom to jump in close to the spacefarer enclave at the nadir jump point and then maneuvre quickly to point-blank range in order to intimidate the local population and discourage spacefarer ships from trying to flee. However once the plan was put into effect, the Black Venom apparently actually provoked the opposite reaction - as the Black Venom rapidly closed on the enclave it caused a number of JumpShips to make attempts to flee. The Black Venom fired on and destroyed on such JumpShip but was unable to target other fleeing vessels because the various lines of sight were blocked by other spacefarer vessels. One such JumpShip attempted to jump but was within the minimum safe distance, and the ship's KF-Drive was promptly shut down by the onboard safety systems.[1]

Two more fleeing spacefarer JumpShips apparently attempted to initiate a simultaneous jump, rumoured to be the only way that two JumpShips could jump safely within the same KF bubble; with the safety systems aboard both ships disengaged to allow the attempt, the resulting massively powerful energy wave generated by the attempt swept through dozens of nearby ships, including the Black Venom. The results were catastrophic for the ships involved; the resulting chain reaction generated a massive EM pulse and inflicted damage on nearby vessels; the magnitude of the EM pulse was such that when other vessels in the system picked it up, the most likely source of the EMP was considered to have been some form of large thermonuclear weapon. The Clan support ships that arrived at the nadir point two hours after the pulse discovered only damaged and destroyed vessels; the support ships spent a week rescuing survivors from the various floating wrecks, and the cleanup operation to render the nadir jump point useable took months.[1]

Notes

it is not known if Black Venom was the name of this vessel while it was in service with the Star League or if it was renamed by Clan Widowmaker.

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Historical: Operation Klondike, p. 46, "Dagda"

Bibliography