Arcadian Asp

Arcadian Asp
Vessel Profile
Type	WarShip
Class	Fredasa

History

As of 3059 the Fredasa-class corvette Arcadian Asp was serving as the CSA Arcadian Asp within the Clan Star Adder touman. One of two Fredasa-class ships to be in service with the Star Adders at this time—the other being the CSA Vicious Fang—the Arcadian Asp was one of the five ships that made up a ready reserve Star. Following the absorption of former Clan Smoke Jaguar holdings the Arcadian Asp had been returned to full service by 3067 under the orders of the Star Adder Naval Adjutant, Star Admiral Tobias McKenna.

Wars of Reaving

3072

When the Khans of Clan Steel Viper and the Star Adders resolved to make an opportunistic strike against the last Clan Snow Raven convoy to try and leave the Homeworlds during the Wars of Reaving, the Exodus Crusader was one of the Star Adder WarShips directly involved. The Star Adders assigned a Star of naval vessels to the strike; the lead ship was the Black Lion-class battlecruiser CSA Admiral William S. Preston, accompanied by the York-class destroyer CSA Exodus Crusader, the Lola III-class destroyers CSA Hagar and CSA Warlock and the Arcadian Asp. Overall command of the Star Adder and Steel Viper forces was given to Star Commodore Terrence Moffat, who brought three Steel Viper WarShips with him; the Steel Viper flagship, the Leviathan Prime-class battleship CSV Perigard Zalman, and two escort vessels, the Essex-class destroyer CSV Martial Legacy and the Potemkin-class cruiser CSV Serpentes.

The Snow Raven convoy consisted of the Hellgate Battle Star—a Star of four WarShips captured from Clan Goliath Scorpion by the Snow Ravens: the Potemkin-class CSR Enceladus and CSR Prometheus, the Lola III-class CSR Sagitta, and the Congress-class frigate CRS Garlon—and no less than one hundred and nine JumpShips all traveling slowly away from Hellgate. Anticipating that the Snow Ravens would move via the Snow Raven guidepost at Ghent, the Steel Vipers arranged to seize or destroy the convoy there.

On 29 July 3072, the Steel Viper force jumped into the Ghent system, arriving in the middle of the vast Snow Raven convoy, and Commodore Moffat issued his Trial of Possession bid to Star Admiral Anta McKenna, claiming all of the ships at his disposal as his bid. Admiral McKenna accepted the Viper bid as-was and declared all of her forces in defense. What Admiral McKenna hadn't realized was that Star Adder Star vessels were waiting to join the Steel Vipers; skirting the boundaries of honor, Moffat neglected to inform McKenna of the additional forces and only communicated their presence less than a minute before the Steel Viper vessels began firing on the Ravens.

Moffat didn't limit his targets to the four Raven WarShips defending the convoy and their attached escorts; instead, he had the Perigard Zalman open fire on whatever targets were in range, with the first Raven ships destroyed being fifteen JumpShips. The Martial Legacy proceeded to work in tandem with the Serpentes against the Ravens, first targeting and destroying the Sagitta, which had still been carrying the damage inflicted on it from the Trial of Possession in which the Ravens had acquired the Hellgate Battle Star from the Scorpions. In response, the Enceladus managed to inflict some damage on the Serpentes before the Perigard Zalman blocked both the Serpentes and the Martial Legacy from fire from the heavier Raven ships.

Despite the best efforts of the Ravens, the battle was effectively a foregone conclusion once the Star Adder forces jumped in. The Ravens still managed to cripple the Serpentes when the Garlon intercepted the Serpentes as it attempted to close on a group of JumpShips. The Prometheus was destroyed quickly by the Star Adders, the Warlock and the William S. Preston destroying the Prometheus on their first pass; her sister vessel Enceladus then worked with several Raven DropShips to gut the Admiral William S. Preston before being destroyed in turn by the Arcadian Asp, and the Perigard Zalman accounted for the Garlon. None of the Raven aerospace or combat DropShip forces answered Moffat's single call to surrender, instead fighting until they had all been destroyed.

Moffat's actions secured the Steel Vipers and the Star Adders a total of fifty Raven JumpShips and almost eighty full DropShips of cargo as isorla; at least sixteen Raven JumpShips managed to escape, although only thirteen were eventually reclaimed by the Ravens. The Serpentes was scuttled, although the Vipers claimed the Garlon as salvage; the Star Adders tagged the various other Raven hulks and marked their courses with a view to later stripping the hulks for matériel. The Star Adders and Steel Vipers then spaced any Raven civilians considered unnecessary before moving their booty back to their holdings.

3073

In late 3073, the Star Adders found themselves in increasing need of both the orbital facilities and resources available from the world of Priori - particularly the abundant foodstuffs. Khan Stanislov N'Buta dispatched a force consisting of Gamma, Mu and Sigma Galaxies under the overall command of Star Adder Loremaster Fletcher Daniels to capture the system. N'Buta also dispatched several WarShips as escorts, including the Arcadian Asp, the Vincent Mk. 42-class corvette CSA Pegasus and the recently reactivated Samarkand-class carrier CSA Yorktown.

When the Adder task force arrived in the Priori system in late November it discovered a sizeable defensive force assembled in the system ready to oppose them; in addition to three vessels missing from the Star Adder naval reserve and now flying under Clan Burrock colors, the former Clan Smoke Jaguar Black Lion-class battlecruiser CSJ Streaking Mist was in the system as well. The Burrock forces waited for the Star Adders to approach before engaging in battle near Priori's second moon, Opal. The senior Star Adder naval officer was Star Admiral Lilith Paik, and opposing her was Burrock Star Admiral Kirc Van Houten; Van Houten began by using Opal to anchor his position and maneuver his smaller fleet into a superior position, targeting the combined firepower of the ships under his command at the Pegasus while throwing his aerospace fighters forward to attack the Star Adder DropShips. Paik responded to this opening by launching three Stars of fighters tasked with attacking the Streaking Mist, forcing the battlecruiser to begin withdrawing; the Streaking Mist attempted to use the Arcadian Asp as cover, the Arcadian Asp having been crippled by damage, but Paik was determined to try and capture the Streaking Mist and dispatched the Yorktown in hot pursuit. The Yorktown launched a number of small craft with marine boarding parties aboard in an attempt to board the Streaking Mist, but the ship managed to reach a safe jump point and promptly jumped, the hyperspace wake leaving a number of the Yorktown's small craft floating as twisted and mangled debris behind the Streaking Mist.

With the Streaking Mist gone the remaining Burrock ships attempted to retreat; Van Houten's gamble with the fighters had inflicted damage on the Star Adder DropShips, with half of Mu Galaxy destroyed along with their transport vessels, but the gamble had left the fighters out of position to cover the Burrock WarShips, who were pressed hard by the Adders until they reached the protective umbrella offered by the orbital shipyard's defenses and the small SDS network based on Priori. While the Adder craft pulled back to long range and sniped at the various batteries, the Burrocks continued to retreat away until they reached a pirate point and jumped, leaving Priori to its fate. The resulting war on the ground would take almost a year to resolve, with the Star Adders finally gaining complete control of the world in October 3074.

Jaguar

Perhaps the most significant figure from the Dark Caste to escape the purging of the Society and their allies during the Wars of Reaving was the figure known as Jaguar. An extensive Star Adder Watch operation spent several years tracking down elements of the Dark Caste to have survived the Wars, and after the capture of a number of bandits from Jaguar's group looting a former Smoke Jaguar cache on Huntress the Watch was able to trace Jaguar down to the Deep Periphery system known as Ghent. The Watch successfully captured Jaguar's WarShip, the battered Black Lion-class battlecruiser CSJ Streaking Mist, and moved it away from the Ghent system, trapping Jaguar there; several weeks later, Kappa Galaxy arrived, escorted by the Arcadian Asp and the Vicious Fang, determined to kill Jaguar.

Elements of Kappa Galaxy tracked Jaguar down and killed him in an underground complex on a volcanic island on the largely uninhabited world; retrieving the body of the infamous bandit as proof of his death, Kappa Galaxy ensured that any other Dark Caste resources hidden at the Jaguar's last hideout were unsalvageable by having both the Arcadian Asp and the Vicious Fang bombard the entire island from orbit.

The Arcadian Asp was still in service as of 3085, and the Arcadian Asp and her sister ship Vicious Fang were two of only thirteen WarShips still active in the Star Adder touman at the time.

Notes

• The Wars of Reaving indicates that when the Arcadian Asp fought in the Priori system in 3073 Clan Burrock had mustered three vessels taken from the Star Adder naval reserve as a part of their defense, but doesn't name the vessels in question.The Wars of Reaving further indicates that at its height Clan Burrock mustered seven WarShips, and that two of the vessels missing from the Star Adder naval reserve designated MSKC-2 were a Riga-class destroyer and a Kimagure-class pursuit cruiser.

• Of the seven vessels within the Burrock WarShip fleet, two were captured vessels from Clan Cloud Cobra, one was a suborned Star Adder WarShip, the Lola III-class CSA Yodan, and the other four ships comprised one Riga-class vessel, the CBS Hetherington, one Kimagure, the CBS Admiral Russell Nga, and two Mako-class corvettes, the CBS Ingrid Bucharev and the CBS Stone Crab. Of these vessels, the Ingrid Bucharev is noted as having suffered an irreparable breach of its helium seals in the Tanis system in July 3072, confining it to that system, and the Hetherington is noted as having been destroyed in the Salonika system in late July 3072 in battle with forces from Clan Diamond Shark.

• This combination of ships and events makes it likely, but not certain, that the three Burrock vessels faced in the Priori system in 3073 by the Arcadian Asp were the Yodan (renamed the Rebirth by Clan Burrock), the Admiral Russell Nga and the Stone Crab, but this has not been confirmed yet by a canon source.

Bibliography

• Field Manual: Crusader Clans
• Field Manual: Updates
• The Wars of Reaving