“THAT junked-out Merchant is what your people sent for you?” Cortez exclaimed into the silence that had descended onto the bridge of the Dragoon’s Overlord as the battered old JumpShip had entered the viewing ports. He barked out a burst of laughter, while many of the other Dragoons looked away quietly. “For such a Very Important Personage as yourself, Scorpion, this is the best your Clan can do?”
Jason gazed out through the viewing port with his hands crossed behind his back, the DropShips acceleration providing enough pseudo-gravity that he did not—yet—have to worry about free-floating in zero-g. And then he turned to face the environmental systems tech.
“Appearances can be deceptive, Mister Cortez. And considering that my mission—the second half of my mission, that is—will take me deeper into the Inner Sphere, would it not be appropriate to use a ship which does not appear out of place among the free-traders and general mercantile traffic? GSS Jenna Scott may not look like much, gentlemen, but she is far more than she appears to be.”
The Dragoon commanding Artemis nodded in agreement. “Just a run-of-the-mill Merchant class, eh, Cortez? Nothing special, right? Well, Mister, you just go on believing that, along with everyone else that picks her up on sensors.”
The old, white-haired man who had once lived in the Homeworlds turned to face Jason. “Which one was she, sir?”
“Pathfinder, Captain Humphrey. And she has an entirely new kit-bag of tricks to add to her arsenal as well, including a lithium-fusion battery and a hyper-pulse generator station. Her guns have been rather thoroughly updated and expanded, and her armor replaced with the latest generation of lamellar ferro-carbide. But for all intents and purposes, she still looks—and appears on sensor arrays—as an early-flight Merchant class; making her ideal for my purposes.”
“You can’t squeeze all of that into a Merchant, I don’t care whether you are Clan or not. It won’t physically fit,” sneered Cortez.
“If you will recall, Mister Cortez,” replied Jason, “I never said she was a Merchant class ship—you did.”
As Cortez opened his mouth again, Humphrey spoke up, “Stow it Pieter. That is something I never—in all my days—expected to ever see again; certainly not in active service; a Tracker class WarShip.”
Someone whistled as the bridge went quiet. “Skip, are you sure? I mean, there haven’t been any of those around since the early 2600’s?” asked one of the Dragoon fighter pilots.
“Sure I’m sure, Garnier. First assignment I ever had as a Wolf free-born warrior was in the Clan Naval Depot. I spent almost a year doing nothing but watching over a whole bunch of moth-balled ships floating in space, just in case the Dark Caste managed to find them. There were three Trackers in the Exodus fleet, but they look so much like a Merchant I’m not surprised people got confused. I have no idea how they ended up there, though.”
Jason smiled. “It was a matter of bureaucratic confusion. The three wound up moth-balled in the SLDF Alula Australis Naval Reserve Depot after the Reunification Wars. They were supposed to be assigned to the Graham Depot for disposal—and the paperwork got bungled. SLDF Naval Headquarters had copies of the original order for disposal of three Trackers at Graham, and an acknowledgement from the Graham Depot that there were no longer any more of that class in the Reserve. Not that they had disposed of them, mind you, but that they did not have any to dispose of. Some bureaucrat on first on Keid and then on Earth misread the communication and marked the ships off the naval rolls. From that point forward, as far as the bureaucracy was concerned, the three ships at Alula Australis simply did not exist. By 2685, the Depot commanders there had quit even trying to correct the snafu and placed the ships in the trailing Trojan orbit behind the gas giant Vermillion. And there they sat until the Usurper overthrew the Star League and killed Richard Cameron.”
“The Rim Worlds Navy considered putting them back into active service during the Amaris Coup, but they had their hands full with the rest of the Reserve—and Trackers were far too lightly-armed and armored to garner much attention. So they remained untouched up to the Exodus, when the Great Father’s staff found them still floating in orbit. He needed every ship he could get his hands on, so they came with us on the Exodus; after which they were promptly mothballed once more, this time in the Clan Homeworlds.”
“At least until we dispatched the Dragoon’s on their recon mission, Captain Humphrey. That same year, Khan Djerassi of my Clan petitioned the Grand Council for permission to reactivate the ships; the other Khans considered them almost worthless as WarShips, so he got them. We rebuilt them—or rather had the Ravens rebuild them—and ever since they have quietly served in our Toumen. We of the Clans do always advertise when we are around, after all.”
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And thus was born the Jenna Scott-class Covert Operations & Surveillance Vessels. Three Trackers found in one of the Clan Naval Depots were restored to service as the GSS Jenna Scott, the Cyrus Elam, and the Naomi Djerassi.
These vessels have been heavily rebuilt (by the experienced Engineers and Technicians of Clan Snow Raven) and are almost a brand-new class of WarShip.
Like the Tracker, these ships mass 120,000 tons, carry two docking collars, have a Safe Thrust of 2-G's adn an overthrust of 3-G's, and appear (both visually and on sensors) to be nothing more than a Merchant-class JumpShip.
Fuel stores were increased to a 360 day supply (at 1-G of acceleration), and the armor replaced with 93 tons of ferro-carbide composite. The structural integrity was enhanced and the Jump-sail was made detacheable.
Of course, in normal operations where the Jenna Scotts are pretending to be Merchant-class JumpShips, the high acceleration and detacheable Jump-sails are virtually never used. But they are available if necessary.
The Ravens next added Lithium-Fusion Batteries and an HPG, along with a Large Naval Comm-Scanner Suite.
Armament was completely revised with six NL-35 Naval Lasers as the core of the vessel's armament. Considered light for a WarShip (even one as small as this one!), the Scorpions and Ravens considered it sufficient for most operations. This capital battery (one each in the fore, fore-quarters, aft-quarters, and stern arcs) is backed up by a secondary battery of lighter weapons: 3 ER Large Lasers, 2 ER PPCs, 2 Gauss Rifles (120 shots), 4 ER Medium Lasers, 1 Ultra AC-20 Autocannon (120 bursts), and ER Small Lasers.
This secondary battery is repeated in all eight arcs of the ship.
Six hundred and four double strength heat sinks fully compensate for all weapons heat generated.
There is a single 75-meter Grav Deck, along with four Small Craft and quarters for 25 Marine Elementals. Crew consists of 155 officers and crew (including the crews of the small craft and Marine Elementals), with quarters for up to 85 passengers (nominal maximum complement of 240). There are sufficient stores of life support, water, and provisions to operate for up 360 days at full load.
Six thousand tons of spare parts are carried aboard, along with a cargo bay able to house an additional 6,000 tons of stores.
Since the Wolf's Dragoons eventually chose not to utilize these ships on their recon mission, the Scorpions had little use for them. Until Operation Revival. At that time, all three vessels were reactivated and prowled around the edges of the Inner Sphere, gleaning intelligence from signals intercepts and contact with Periphery powers.
When the Scorpions decided it was time to leave the Homeworlds, the Jenna Scotts were put back into service once again to scout the way forward for the Scorpion Exodus Fleet. It was also their duty to provide last-minute recon data of the most vital of targets: Circinus itself.
With the establishment of the Scorpion Empire, the future of this class is uncertain. The Scorpions do not need these three light WarShips as WarShips per se, but they might still have value to gather intelligence on the Marian Hegemony, Free Worlds League, and Lyran Alliance nee Commonwealth.
They could well be mothballed again tomorrow, or might serve for another hundred or so years. Only the future will tell us.
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Topic: Jenna Scott-class Covert Operations & Surveillance Vessel (Clan Goliath Scorpion (Read 9794 times)