Winter Wind (Individual Invader-class JumpShip)

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Winter Wind
Vessel Profile
TypeJumpShip
ClassInvader

History[edit]

The Winter Wind was an Invader-class JumpShip in service with Clan Ghost Bear during the era of the Clan Invasion as the CGB Winter Wind.[1]

On the 15th of December 3059[2] the Second Star League task force known as Task Force SERPENT was following a covert route to the Clan Homeworlds when it encountered a Clan Ghost Bear convoy including the Winter Wind in the Deep Periphery.[1][3] Task Force SERPENT was in a system some four jumps - 120 light years - past the system the Explorer Corps had named Meribah when the Winter Wind and the other ships accompanying her arrived in the same system.[2] The Winter Wind was transporting scores of civilians in three attached DropShips that the Ghost Bears were relocating to the Inner Sphere.[4]

The convoy was under the overall command of Star Colonel Alonso Gilmour, commanding officer of the Congress-class frigate CGB Shining Claw, and when Gilmour accepted the batchall issued by Marshal Morgan Hasek-Davion of Task Force Serpent he initially rejected out of hand the idea of sending the Winter Wind back to Arcadia to warn of the presence of Inner Sphere WarShip forces in the Deep Periphery.[5]

The Captain of the Winter Wind, Star Captain Hector, was determined to be able to jump out of the system to avoid being captured by hostile ships; as a result, he demanded that the crew of the Winter Wind begin hot-charging the K-F Drive, rather than risking waiting the remaining five hours required for the drive to charge from the jump sail. Despite the preparations made by the crew of the Winter Wind, she was disabled early in the battle by the Lola III-class destroyer ISS Ranger, who destroyed her field initiator and drive controller with a combination of a White Shark capital missile strike and heavy naval laser fire.[4]

Despite the damage done to the Winter Wind, Hector was insistent that she would not be captured, and ordered his crew to prepare to repel boarders. Meanwhile, the Whirlwind-class destroyer CGB Fire Fang attempted to protect the Winter Wind,[4] as the Kyushu-class frigate DCS Haruna had been tasked with delivering several DEST boarding parties to capture the JumpShip.[6] The Haruna ended up taking damage from repeated volleys from the Fire Fang; the Fire Fang was damaged in turn by the Haruna, the Fox-class corvette FCS Antrim and a pair of Avenger-class DropShips, the DCS Dojo and DCS Hainan.[7]

The Winter Wind managed to launch two of her three embarked DropShips, the Union-C-class CGB Arctic Frost and CGB Blue Kodiak,[8] but the Broadsword-class CGB Ice Dart was locked to her DropShip collar as result of the damage inflicted by the Ranger.[9] The Achilles-class DropShip DCS Bisan launched by the Haruna successfully delivered at least two NL-42 combat shuttles carrying troops to the Winter Wind, despite the Winter Wind attempting to engage with her PPCs.[10]

The DEST soldiers successfully captured the Winter Wind in the face of stiff resistance from the crew and the Elementals embarked aboard before Star Captain Hector surrendered, by which point the crew had already destroyed many of the computer systems aboard and the sensitive information stored in those systems to deny that knowledge to the Inner Sphere.[11]

Despite the efforts of the Winter Wind's crew, the offline backups of much of the information weren't destroyed; with this information and the computer core aboard the Fire Fang, which was captured intact, Task Force SERPENT was able to develop tactics and procedures for using WarShips to provide tactical support to ground combat, something no-one in the Inner Sphere had been able to practice in centuries; those new doctrines were tested with practice fire against one of the uninhabited planets in the system.[12]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 The Hunters, p. 199, "Chapter 22"
  2. 2.0 2.1 The Hunters, p. 191, "Chapter 22"
  3. Twilight of the Clans, p. 18, "Defender"
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Hunters, p. 203-207, "Chapter 23"
  5. The Hunters, p. 191-192, "Chapter 22"
  6. The Hunters, p. 209, "Chapter 24"
  7. The Hunters, p. 216-218, "Chapter 24"
  8. Twilight of the Clans, p. 19, "Defender"
  9. The Hunters, p. 221, "Chapter 25"
  10. The Hunters, p. 223-224, "Chapter 25"
  11. The Hunters, p. 225-230, "Chapter 26"
  12. The Hunters, p. 264-265, "Chapter 29"

Bibliography[edit]