Lair of Mighty Wyrms

The Lair of Mighty Wyrms
Vessel Profile
Type	WarShip
Class	Tatsumaki

History

The DCS The Lair of Mighty Wyrms was a Tatsumaki-class destroyer, commissioned by the DCMS and built and trialled in secret in the Dieron system. By late 3058 it was stationed in the Luthien system, laired in hiding near the gas-giant Gilgamesh to avoid detection.

The Lair of Mighty Wyrms was damaged during Operation Bulldog, but Clan Nova Cat technicians were able to repair it. By 3067 The Lair of Mighty Wyrms was the only Tatsumaki-class ship left in service to the Combine, as her sister ship, the DCS Dragon's Last Tear, had been destroyed by Clan Ghost Bear forces in the Alshain system during the attack that launched the First Dominion/Combine War.

The Lair of Mighty Wyrms served as one of two command vessels within Task Force CRONUS, the predominantly-Clan naval force responsible for capturing the Titan Yards in 3078 as a part of the allied coalition efforts to liberate Terra from the Word of Blake. By 3079 the Lair of Mighty Wyrms had been redeployed to the New Samarkand system, protecting the Combine's temporary capital world alongside the Kyushu-class frigate DCS Draconis Rift.

Second Combine-Dominion War

The Lair of Mighty Wyrms was destroyed during the Second Combine-Dominion War. The Draconis Combine had become aware that the planet Rasalhague was only protected by the Nightlord-class battleship Ursa Major; Coordinator Hohiro Kurita acted on this information by dispatching a large part of the Combine WarShip fleet to attempt to kill the Ursa Major. The first ship to enter the Rasalhague system was the Kyushu-class frigate DCS Draconis Rift. Arriving near the fifth planet in the system on the 29th of April 3100 before burning towards Rasalhague's moon Sigurd, the Draconis Rift was detected and pursued by the Ursa Major. An hour after the pursuit began the Ursa Major was surprised by by Inazuma-class corvette DCS Winds of Heaven, the Kyushu-class DCS Dieron Star and the Lair of Mighty Wyrms which jumped in directly ahead of the Ursa Major.

The Ursa Major attempted to retreat back towards Rasalhague to join the Sixth Valkyrie Cluster which had launched from the surface of the planet. Intercepted by the Winds of Heaven, the Ursa Major exchanged fire for ten minutes with the much lighter Combine WarShip until the Winds of Heaven retreated having suffered almost catastrophic damage from the Ghost Bear battleship. The Winds of Heaven had succeeded in delaying the Ursa Major long enough for the other three Combine WarShips to engage her. The resulting battle was savage; the Lair of Mighty Wyrms was heavily damaged before the Dieron Star was subjected to a brutal broadside that cracked her structure and detonated the ammunition magazines, causing the crew to begin abandoning ship at 1827 hours. The Ursa Major's killing strike on the Dieron Star left it open to heavy fire from the Draconis Rift, and the Draconis Rift succeeded in crippling the Ursa Major's engines. The Lair of Mighty Wyrms and Draconis Rift continued to battle the Ursa Major as the Ghost Bear battleship span towards Rasalhague, increasingly out of control. At 1843 hours a final strike from the Draconis Rift caused the Ursa Major to explode, the centrifugal forces involved in her death-spin preventing the battleship from launching escape pods and distributing debris from the explosion across the Rasalhague system.

The Dieron Star made a close pass to Rasalhague at 1940 hours before a combination of reactor overloads and outgassing tore her apart; the Ghost Bears surveyed the remains but declared the wreck unsalvageable due to the destruction of her K-F drive and the stress damage caused to her structure. The Lair of Mighty Wyrms would fare little better than the Dieron Star; having managed to retreat from the Rasalhague system, the Lair of Mighty Wyrms suffered a catastrophic jump drive failure two jumps later in an uninhabited system and was scuttled by her crew to prevent the Rasalhague Dominion from recovering her.

Bibliography

• Era Report: 3062
• Field Manual: Draconis Combine
• Field Manual: Updates
• Field Report: DCMS
• Historical: Wars of the Republic Era
• Jihad Hot Spots: Terra