Ross 248

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Similar to Luyten 68-28, Ross 248 was an uninhabitable system approximately 10.3 light years from Terra that served as a Fleet Yard for the Hegemony Armed Forces, Star League Defense Forces, Com Guards and finally the Word of Blake Militia.

Owner History

Overview

Orbiting a red dwarf star, the Ross 248 Fleet Yards was a sizable and virtually impregnable space station buried within a five-kilometer diameter metallic asteroid. Located outside the system's small proximity limit, JumpShips and WarShips could arrive conveniently close to the facility. Setup by the Terran Hegemony and the Star League, much like the Luyten Yards, Ross 248's location would be a carefully kept secret.[1]

The Ross 248 system is also notable for Terrelibre, the home of one of the ten successful "slowboat" colonies. Launched in 2091 by a private group eager to flee oppression on Terra a decade prior to the discovery of the KF drive, the mission planners assumed that government-backed interstellar colonization would occur in the next generation and deliberately selected Ross 248 in the belief an uninhabitable system would be ignored by such efforts. Setting up home on a couple of Terra-sized rocky planets outside Ross 248's empty life zone, the Terrelibrans' space-orientated culture remained untouched until the Terran Hegemony decided to search for any slowboat colonies in the 2330s. Producing capable spacers who desired to remain aloof from the universe, the Terrelibrans would be the perfect support staff for the secret fleet base.

Falling into ComStar hands in the wake of the Amaris Coup, the Blessed Order would use Ross 248 as one of the two bases for its hidden fleet of WarShips, becoming the home port for the Com Guard's Second WarShip fleet. As part of Operation Odysseus, the WoBS Blake's Redemption and Deliverance raided this system and attacked the ships of the Second Fleet. They inflicted a lot of damage on the ComStar vessels, but were seriously damaged themselves.[2] While keeping its location hidden for security purposes, as part of the Order's efforts toward openness in the wake of the Schism it did reveal the existence of the facility immediately prior to 3062.[1][3]

Taken by the Word during the Jihad, the Blakists allowed the Terrelibrans to maintain their autonomy in exchange for continued staffing of the Fleet Yards, the local population. After the Luyten Debacle, Stone's Coalition would take no chances in eliminating the Ross 248 Fleet Station, jumping an unmanned JumpShip into the heart of the facility and triggering a chain reaction with the KF cores of the docked Blakist JumpShips and WarShips. Causing a kiloton-scale explosion, the conventional troops that followed encountered little resistance from surface gun emplacements.[1]

In the wake of the Jihad, the Republic of the Sphere would lay claim to the system and the remains of the Fleet Yards, the Terrelibrans happy to cede the wreckage to Devlin Stone, with a thorough investigation confirmed no lurking Blakists in hiding. With the Republic revealing the system's location after the Jihad, the local population were content to return to the existence they had known for centuries, maintaining minimal contact with the Inner Sphere in general while producing JumpShips at an amazing rate for the Republic's relocation programs.[1]

Com Guard Second Fleet

In 3062 the Second Fleet based the following vessels at Ross 248:[3]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 Interstellar Players 3: Interstellar Expeditions, p. 25 "Ross 248/Terrelibre"
  2. ↑ Field Manual: Free Worlds League, p. 116, These ships are listed as a Vincent and an Essex class, but no information is given as to which ship is which type.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Field Manual: ComStar, p. 44 "The Com Guards - The WarShip Fleet"

Bibliography

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