Outbound Light

Vessel Profile
Type	JumpShip
Class	Merchant

The Merchant-class JumpShip Outbound Light was a ComStar Explorer Corps vessel that chanced across the Clan system of Huntress, precipitating the beginning of Operation Revival—the Clan invasion of the Inner Sphere.

History

The ComStar Explorer Corps was founded in 2959 by Primus Adrienne Sims. Its mission was to survey the Deep Periphery around the Inner Sphere to identify any potential threat to ComStar's technological superiority from beyond the Periphery, most notably discovering what happened to the Exodus Fleet. The Corps sent hundreds of missions in every direction since its formation, (re-)discovering numerous abandoned worlds and bases as well as isolated colonies. The corps failed, however, in their mission to uncover the fate of the Exodus Fleet until the Outbound Light "fulfilled" this mission in a rather disastrous way.

Under the command of one Precentor Vincet Dupont the Outbound Light departed from Bone-Norman in June 3046 on a standard three-year exploratory survey carrying two DropShips, the Union-class Knox and the Buccaneer-class Golden Hind. It was manned by a crew of 46, with a standard seven-person Explorer Corps survey team. After a relatively uneventful survey, the Outbound Light jumped into what they thought was an unknown G7V star system on 27 September 3048. Unfortunately, it was the Clan Smoke Jaguar capital of Huntress.

Captured by the Clan

Before they could escape, the Explorer Corps vessels were impounded by fighters from the Smoke Jaguar Comitatus-class vessel High Guard. The crews were arrested and subjected to chemical interrogation. The vessels presented Smoke Jaguar Khan Leo Showers with an opportunity to break the deadlock in the Great Debate in favor of the Crusader faction, also suggesting that the Inner Sphere might be on the verge of discovering the location of the Clan homeworlds. In the subsequent weeks, Leo Showers had the crew of the Outbound Light interrogated to assemble a picture of the current state of the Inner Sphere. When Khan Showers finally announced the capture of the ComStar vessel, he selectively presented the most damning evidence, such as the growing power of the Federated Commonwealth and the rediscovery of much Star League technology that had been lost over two centuries of near-constant warfare, and was able to convince the rest of the Clans that they themselves faced imminent invasion from the "barbarians" of the Inner Sphere. The result was a Grand Council vote in favor of invasion, with only Clan Wolf voting against. Khan Leo Showers took advantage of pro-Crusader sentiment, and was elected ilKhan of the Grand Council. Preparations to invade the Inner Sphere, dubbed Operation Revival, began immediately.

Aftermath

The fate of the crew of the Outbound Light and its DropShips is unknown. Initial ComStar reports from the early days of the Clan invasion indicated that the crew and ships had been returned to ComStar, supplying vital intel on the Clan way of life, though with their memories and databanks of the route taken to Huntress wiped, but such reports turned out to be false. Only the seven member survey team was returned to ComStar; the other members of the expedition were not returned and no information about them has become available. The members of the survey team all exhibited heavy psychological scarring after their time with the Smoke Jaguars.

According to Explorer Corps doctrine at that time, the crew did not file a predetermined route along which it would travel, allowing the crew the freedom to change their route should any promising leads develop. While this allowed them to stumble upon Huntress, it also made it virtually impossible for ComStar to discover the route the Outbound Light took and locate the Clan Homeworlds.

Bibliography

• Explorer Corps (sourcebook)
• Jade Falcon Sourcebook
• Wolf Clan Sourcebook
• The Clans: Warriors of Kerensky