Streaking Mist (Individual Black Lion-class WarShip)


Streaking Mist
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassBlack Lion

History[edit]

Clan Invasion[edit]

The CSJ Streaking Mist was originally built for the SLDF, eventually becoming part of General Aleksandr Kerensky's Exodus Fleet. Later the ship became part of Clan Smoke Jaguar's touman. It became the Clan's flagship by the thirty-first century. In 3058, it was serving as a part of The Jaguar's Den Keshik alongside the Congress-class frigate CSJ FireCrest and two Essex-class destroyers, CSJ The Iowa and the CSJ Sabre Cat.[1]

Death of Clan Smoke Jaguar[edit]

The Streaking Mist served during the invasion of Huntress by the Second Star League as transport for Khan Lincoln Osis and his reserve forces from Strana Mechty. Ultimately, it was used by the severely wounded Khan for his withdrawal to Strana Mechty.[2][3][4] Two Smoke Jaguar WarShips - the Streaking Mist and the Potemkin-class cruiser CSJ Osis' Pride - were unaccounted for following the final battles at Huntress.[5]

Somehow, after the Great Refusal, The Streaking Mist become isorla for the Star League, which keep it in orbit around Huntress along with another Jaguar WarShip and civilian JumpShips. Eventually, former Smoke Jaguar Trent and Paul Moon, along with a large group of Jaguars of all castes, stole the ships, using them to make an exodus to Wayside V, where they settled.[6] After defeating a Clan Goliath Scorpion attack, Moon, to keep a promise to Russou Howell, sent the Streaking Mist back to Huntress with the Scorpions who refused to join the Jaguars and those Jaguars who wouldn't fully accept the new way of the Clan. After returning to Huntress and releasing the Scorpions, the ship's crew made contact with Howell, evacuating him and the remnants of his Jaguar bandits from the planet.[7]

The Streaking Mist became the only WarShip of Howell, and became later involved in all his raids against the Clans from 3063 onward.[8][9]

The Wars of Reaving[edit]

Atreus[edit]

The Streaking Mist was involved in a damaging raid on the Clan world of Atreus in early 3072; arriving over the planet, the Streaking Mist launched two DropShips containing a raiding party led by the Jaguar – Howell – and then proceeded to blockade the planet, destroying several merchant vessels in the following weeks. The Jaguar's forces began by landing near Firebase Gamma, a Clan Fire Mandrill holding, destroying the defending Sixteenth Assault Cluster of Kindraa Faraday-Tanaga.[10]

Shortly after the Jaguar's forces had moved on from Firebase Gamma, a deadly plague began to spread across the world, one which would later be identified as primarily threatening those with the Hoskins, Tanaga and Quesnel genetic legacies. Despite the plague, the Jaguar continued to raid both Fire Mandrill and Steel Viper holdings across Atreus for several months, capturing slaves and resources before the Jaguar and the Streaking Mist departed.[10]

Priori[edit]

In late 3073, Clan Star Adder 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 Vincent Mk. 42-class corvette CSA Pegasus, the Fredasa-class corvette CSA Arcadian Asp, and the recently reactivated Samarkand-class carrier CSA Yorktown.[11]

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 Streaking Mist was in the system as well. The Burrock forces waited for the Star Adders to approach before engaging them 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.[11]

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, which were hard pressed 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 until they reached a pirate point and jumped, leaving Priori to its fate. The resulting war on the ground took almost a year to resolve, with the Star Adders finally gaining complete control of the world in October 3074.[11]

Waypoint 531[edit]

In April 3074, a Clan Goliath Scorpion task force operating under the overall command of saKhan Connor Rood and consisting of Beta Galaxy and the Congress-class frigate CGS Bernlad, the Potemkin-class cruiser CGS Karttikeya and the Goliath Scorpion flagship, the McKenna-class battleship CGS Lei Kung. The task force was charged with investigating the various systems that made up the state known as Nueva Castile in the Deep Periphery, and by June had traveled as far as Waypoint 531, where a Binary from the Third Seekers had been left behind.[12]

What the task force did find at Waypoint 531 was a battered Black Lion-class battlecruiser – the Streaking Mist. The crew of the Streaking Mist were moving supplies from the cache at the waypoint onto the Streaking Mist when the Scorpion task force arrived, and after some initial hesitation Rood ordered Star Admiral Towie to engage. Even with 75% of its armament missing, the Streaking Mist was a considerable threat; as the Scorpion forces moved to intercept, the Streaking Mist evaded the attempt to box her in and struck at the Bernlad, inflicting substantial damage to her rear, including her engine decks. The Streaking Mist jumped when it reached the nearby jump point, taking half of the contents of the Scorpion cache with it.[12]

Ghent[edit]

In 3079, Clan Star Adder was in pursuit of a number of surviving Dark Caste forces, including those led by the Jaguar. Tracing equipment used by the Jaguar back to a cache on Huntress, the Star Adders put the cache under observation, and Star Commander Wyndham Earle and a contingent from the Star Adders' 471st Sentinels later captured a group of bandits observed moving equipment out of the cache. Repairing the bandit DropShip, a Lion damaged by the 471st in the initial attack, Earle's forces were able to bluff their way aboard the bandit JumpShip in the system and captured both the ship and its navigational data.[13]

Earle transmitted the navigational data to Loremaster Fletcher Daniels, who had been running a specialist Watch operation in conjunction with Merchant Factor Ulysses, intent on hunting down Dark Caste groups; Earle then jumped out of the Huntress system in pursuit of the Jaguar, while Daniels assigned the bulk of three Star Adder Galaxies – Kappa, Sigma and Tau – to the search for the Jaguar.[13]

Star Colonel Earle was the first to track down the Jaguar; Earle's forces jumped into the Ghent system, which was an abandoned wasteland after the withdrawal of Clan Diamond Shark from the Clan Homeworlds. Earle's forces arrived to find the Streaking Mist in the system, undergoing repairs – the bandits were gathering scrap and debris already in the system and using it to conduct patchwork repairs as best they could. Earle used subterfuge to convince the crew of the Streaking Mist that his suborned bandit JumpShip was laden with quality technical salvage from the cache on Huntress, and was able to persuade the crew of the Streaking Mist to allow his Lion-class DropShip to dock. Once docked, Earle's forces and the Watch initiated a three-hour battle that raged throughout those areas of the Streaking Mist that were still pressurized.[13]

Earle died during the battle but his replacement – Star Colonel Portia Lahiri – learned that the Jaguar was on Ghent. Lahiri ordered the suborned JumpShip to return to Star Adder space and inform Loremaster Daniels and the Star Adder leadership of the information. Kappa Galaxy was swiftly dispatched to Ghent, arriving some three weeks after the battle to seize the Streaking Mist; Galaxy Commander Jenica Turgidson found no sign of the Streaking Mist in the system other than a communications buoy left by Colonel Lahiri, with a message stating that Lahiri was going to jump the Streaking Mist out of the Ghent system to prevent the Jaguar attempting to leave.[13]

To all intents and purposes, the Streaking Mist vanished at that point. The post-operational report from the capture of the Streaking Mist indicated that it was in extremely poor condition and it was concluded that she would most likely have been unable to survive a jump. No sign of the Streaking Mist had been found by 3085 other than some inconclusive rumors that she had been seen near Nouveaux Paris.[13]

References[edit]

  1. Invading Clans, p. 70: "Command Trinary (The Jaguars' Den)"
  2. Twilight of the Clans, p. 11
  3. Shadows of War, p. ??[citation needed]
  4. Prince of Havoc, p. ??[citation needed]
  5. Field Manual: Updates, p. 105: "The WarShips of a Dead Clan"
  6. Forever Faithful, p. 228
  7. Forever Faithful, p. 273
  8. The Wars of Reaving, p. 192: "Other Personalities of Note - 'The Jaguar' (Russou Howell)"
  9. The Wars of Reaving, p. 89: "Military Commands (3072)"
  10. 10.0 10.1 The Wars of Reaving, p. 138: "Death of a Kindraa"
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 The Wars of Reaving, p. 131: "Punishing Priori"
  12. 12.0 12.1 The Wars of Reaving, pp. 129–130: "Scorpion Deception"
  13. 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 The Wars of Reaving, p. 166: "Leaders (3085)"

Bibliography[edit]