Admiral Russell Nga

Admiral Russell Nga
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassKimagure

History[edit]

Only five WarShips of the advanced Kimagure-class pursuit cruiser survived the Amaris Civil War, and all five of those were Star League Defense Force WarShips that followed General Aleksandr Kerensky on the Exodus.[1]

Of those five ships, two were refitted by Clan Snow Raven to become the new Conqueror-class carrier;[2] a third languished in a Clan Star Adder naval reserve designated MSKC-2 until it was reactivated by scientist and technician caste workers who formed a part of the clandestine organization known as the Society.[3] That Kimagure was given to the resurgent Clan Burrock and redesignated as the CBS Admiral Russell Nga. The Admiral Russell Nga would serve alongside at least one other ship recovered from the MSKC-2 cache, the Riga-class frigate CBS Hetherington.[4]

Salonika[edit]

In 3072 one of the last Diamond Shark convoys to leave Vinton during the Wars of Reaving was gathered at Salonika in early July and under the command of Star Admiral Lori Hawker. The convoy consisted of almost sixty JumpShips - two with mobile repair stations in tow - along with the Volga-class transport CDS Bold Venture and the Carrack-class transport CDS Star Swimmer, and was waiting for straggling merchant caste vessels when the convoy was surprised by the sudden arrival of an unidentified Cluster of vessels, which Admiral Hawker believed to be the same group of vessels that had been hitting nearby Diamond Shark stations in recent weeks.[5]

Admiral Hawker ordered the Bold Venture and the Star Swimmer to engage the new arrivals, and both ships responded quickly to her orders. The unidentified vessels were actually a Cluster of ships from Clan Burrock, under the command of Star Admiral Olson Nga, and consisted of six JumpShips, the CBS Hetherington, and some ten Stars of aerospace fighters crewed by a mixture of Burrock personnel and volunteers from Tanis. The Star Swimmer closed first as the Burrock forces began a delaying action, with the Burrock JumpShips hot-charging their engines as the fighters and the Hetherington engaged the Star Swimmer. The Burrock forces managed to inflict only moderate damage on the Star Swimmer before it closed on the JumpShip CBS Earthen Vessel, intending to board and capture the Burrock ship; the crew of the Earthen Vessel panicked at the Diamond Shark WarShip's approach and triggered their K-F drive. With the K-F drive of the Star Swimmer in close proximity, the result was the Earthen Vessel's hyperspace field warping and inflicting catastrophic damage to the drives on both ships.[5]

Despite the damage inflicted on the Star Swimmer, both Diamond Shark vessels pressed the attack, with the Star Swimmer destroying one JumpShip while a second JumpShip surrendered to the Bold Venture. Two Burrock JumpShips and the Hetherington successfully jumped out of the Salonika system, whilst the last Burrock JumpShip misjumped and was lost. Admiral Hawker believed her convoy to be safe at this point, and transmitted information on the engagement back to the Homeworlds while ordering that the Star Swimmer be stripped of essentials, as the damage inflicted on the ship meant that it would have to be abandoned as the Diamond Sharks withdrew to the Inner Sphere. What Hawker didn't know was that her message would never be received, as the Burrocks had destroyed or taken control of the HPG stations between her and the Homeworlds.[5]

Two weeks after the first battle, the Diamond Shark convoy was still gathered at Salonika when the Burrocks returned. This time, the Burrocks had brought their main fleet from Tathis, just seventy light years away, and found that the Diamond Shark convoy had increased to seventy-one ships of various sizes. The Burrocks had brought the Hetherington back into the fray, along with the CBS Admiral Russell Nga, the Mako-class corvette CBS Stone Crab, eight Stars of aerospace fighters, and almost thirty DropShips.[5]

The appearance of the Burrock forces caused a degree of panic amongst the Diamond Shark Merchants, but Admiral Hawker responded quickly; gathering together just over twenty combat-capable DropShips of her own from the assembled merchant fleet, Hawker used those DropShips plus the Bold Venture and the Star Swimmer - which had been stripped of several systems, but which still mounted most of its weapons and remained maneuverable - to strike at the Burrocks. The battle itself was brutal, and fought amidst the assembled Diamond Shark flotilla, with many of the Diamond Shark ships falling to targets of opportunity; twenty-one Diamond Shark JumpShips were destroyed, along with most of the combat-capable DropShips assembled by Hawker and both Diamond Shark WarShips. Before being defeated, Hawker's forces managed to destroy nearly half the assembled Burrock DropShips as well as the Hetherington, but the forty-eight surviving JumpShips were left unarmed and helpless. With little choice other than to be taken as isorla, the remaining Diamond Shark vessels surrendered, and the Burrocks used their surviving warriors to place forces on the thirty-three ships they deemed to be the most important. The flotilla was then ordered to jump back to the Tanis system, although the fifteen vessels without Burrock warriors aboard all managed to lose themselves from the convoy, scattering into the Deep Periphery as the Burrocks brought the rest of their prizes home.[5]

Priori[edit]

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 Vincent Mk. 42-class corvette CSA Pegasus, the Fredasa-class corvette CSA Arcadian Asp, and the recently reactivated Samarkand-class carrier CSA Yorktown.[6]

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.[6]

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.[6]

Notes[edit]

  • The Wars of Reaving indicates that when the Yorktown 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.[6] The Wars of Reaving further indicates that at its height Clan Burrock mustered seven WarShips,[4] 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.[3]
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, the CBS Hetherington, one Kimagure, the CBS Admiral Russell Nga, and two Mako-class corvettes, the CBS Ingrid Bucharev and the CBS Stone Crab.[4] 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,[7] 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.[5]
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 Clan Star Adder 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.

References[edit]

  1. Technical Readout: 3057 Revised, p. 218: "Kimagure WarShip Profile"
  2. Technical Readout: 3067, p. 220: "Kimagure (Battlecruiser/Carrier)"
  3. 3.0 3.1 The Wars of Reaving, pp. 112–113: "Constriction"
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Wars of Reaving, p. 89: "Military Commands (3072)/WarShips"
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 The Wars of Reaving, p. 102: "Bearding the Shark"
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 The Wars of Reaving, p. 131: "Punishing Priori"
  7. The Wars of Reaving, p. 93: "Death Rides Forth"

Bibliography[edit]