Second Coming

History

The McKenna-class battleship Second Coming was a Star League Defense Force WarShip that survived the Hegemony Campaign to liberate Terra from the forces of Stefan Amaris, and subsequently followed General Aleksandr Kerensky on the Exodus.

Operation KLONDIKE

When the Pentagon Civil War erupted, the Second Coming was one of the WarShips which followed Nicholas Kerensky to Strana Mechty. After Nicholas founded the Clans the Second Coming was deployed on Operation KLONDIKE, Nicholas' plan to conquer the Pentagon worlds.

The Second Coming was one of the WarShips deployed by saKhan Rafe Kardaan of Clan Cloud Cobra, the officer commanding the naval operations in the Babylon system, to secure the naval cache in that system. Kardaan led the operation on the naval cache himself; the Cloud Cobra team already inserted into the cache began the action by managing to cut the power to a number of vessels, while also broadcasting jamming signals from two ships and cutting adrift a number of other, heavily populated vessels.

Kardaan's naval forces jumped into two pirate points near the cache and intercepted a number of fleeing DropShips as they moved towards the cache itself. Ground troops from all four Clans involved in the operation deployed as zero-g marines to secure the various ships, but while the bulk of the troops secured their targets, the Clan Coyote forces were distracted by their desire for conquest and glory and ended up becoming mired in running firefights as they insisted on challenging every enemy spacefarer they met. As those aboard the cached ships were all seasoned spacefarers vastly more experienced at living and moving within a zero-g environment they stalled the Coyote forces on eight different ships and began bringing weapon turrets back online.

Kaardan acted quickly when he saw the weapon systems beginning to come online, and had the Second Coming destroy the reactivated turrets with a number of accurate shots. He then led a boarding action personally, relying on the combination of his own experience with naval vessels and the threat of overwhelming firepower from the WarShips to carry the day... a combination that proved effective in securing the cache.

During the Clans ground offensive on Babylon, the Second Coming would remain in orbit. After volcanic eruptions and a massive earthquake struck during the Cloud Cobras conquest of the Shoshi'i Islands, Khan Windham Khatib immediately ordered his forces to assist with search and rescue operations and disaster relief, with the worst medical cases and injuries transported up to the Second Coming for treatment. Khatib's decision would save tens of thousands of lives as well as winning Clan Cloud Cobra the loyalty of many of the island inhabitants.

Clan Invasion

The Second Coming would remain in service with the Cloud Cobras as the CCS Second Coming; by 3061, the Second Coming was one of four WarShips assigned to Delta Galaxy, serving alongside the Vincent Mk. 42-class corvettes CCS Trump and CCS Hertzog's Staff and the Fredasa-class corvette CCS Perdition's Flame. The Second Coming was still listed as being in service with the Cloud Cobras as at 3067.

Wars of Reaving

During the Wars of Reaving the Second Coming was part of a failed Cloud Cobra military action in the Tanis system in 3073. Attempting to steal a march on forces from Clan Star Adder, Cloud Cobra Khan Steiner led Delta and Epsilon Galaxies into the Tanis system with the Second Coming and three other Cloud Cobra WarShips, the Cataclysm, Consequence and True Sight, intending to secure the planet Stacha and claim the advanced Society technology believed to be there.

The Cloud Cobra naval forces found themselves facing an active Olympus defense station and the Prinz Eugen, a Texas-class battleship that the Society had recommissioned. The Second Coming took the brunt of the damage when the Olympus station launched a capital missile barrage, and the Second Coming deliberately moved to block the other Cloud Cobra WarShips from the station's line of sight while rolling to engage the station with it's own broadsides. As the Second Coming battled the station, the Cataclysm, Consequence and True Sight were responsible for engaging the Prinz Eugen, clearing the system of Bandit Caste AeroSpace Fighters and ultimately destroying the Prinz Eugen.

The Second Coming suffered a cracked K-F Drive and was left on partial power only after the naval engagement, leaving it out of the fight; the remaining DropShips aboard the Second Coming were launched to support the Cloud Cobra ground assault, but with the failure of the Cloud Cobra campaign to capture the worlds, the Second Coming was subsequently seized by Tanite marines and marines from the Society, salvaged and partially repaired over Alexandra.

In late 3074 the two Cloud Cobra WarShips, CCS Hell Fury and CCS Brimstone were assigned along with several stars of boarding craft and AeroSpace Fighters as part of a grudging contribution from the Cloud Cobras to the military task force being assembled by Clan Star Adder at Dagda for a strike on Tanis. Operating under the command of Adder SaKhan Hannibal Banacek, Brimstone and Hell Fury joined the task force when it jumped into the Tanis system on the 17th of December, with the Hell Fury engaging the defending Ingrid Bucharev and Second Coming alongside the Divine Conquest and Stellar Serpent. The Hell Fury and the two Star Adder WarShips evidently easily dispatched the Mako-class Ingrid Bucharev and the partially-functional Second Coming, allowing the Star Adder Gamma, Delta and Epsilon Galaxies to secure uncontested landing zones on Stacha.

Bibliography

• Field Manual: Updates
• Field Manual: Warden Clans
• Historical: Operation Klondike