Bernlad (Individual Congress-class WarShip)

This article is about the WarShip. For the JumpShip, see Bernlad (Individual Star Lord-class JumpShip).

Bernlad
Vessel Profile
Type	WarShip
Class	Congress

History

As of 3061, the Congress-class frigate Bernlad was a WarShip in the Clan Goliath Scorpion touman and was serving as the CGS Bernlad. The Bernlad was serving as a part of the four-ship Einheriar Battlegroup and acting as an escort vessel for the Goliath Scorpion flagship, the McKenna-class battleship CGS Lei Kung.

In December 3068, Clan Snow Raven was involved in a large Trial of Possession in the Lum system called by Clan Star Adder's Delta Naval Star for control of the planet's orbital space. The resulting battle saw almost six Stars of WarShips and DropShips, and almost seven Stars of aerospace fighters, battle each other in one of the largest naval engagements to be fought in the Clan Homeworlds up to that point. The CSR Bloody Talon survived the engagement, although the other two Snow Raven WarShips—subsequently confirmed as being the Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser CSR Avalanche and the Aegis-class heavy cruiser CSR Morning Violence—were crippled and on fire, and the CSA Cho Polu, a Volga-class transport, was destroyed, burning in Lum's atmosphere before carving large craters in the surface of the planet with its remains.

No sooner had the Star Adders retreated from the Lum system when a second hostile force arrived: Clan Goliath Scorpion's Beta Naval Star. The Goliath Scorpions also announced a Trial of Possession, this time for the Lum naval yards, and the senior Snow Raven officer present, Star Admiral Thomas Waters, bid the entire of the Lum system's assets in defense out of sheer exasperation.

Water's decision proved to be a very costly mistake for the Snow Ravens. When the Lum Shipyards tried to cover the Bloody Talon, which was facing down the Bernlad, one of the escorting Goliath Scorpion DropShips, the Cathage, was penetrated by point defense weapons from the shipyards and exploded. This led the Bernlad to immediately fire a broadside on the Lum shipyards, which were subsequently targeted by other Goliath Scorpion vessels as viable targets. Three days later, the remains of the shipyards, perhaps half of which had been destroyed, were in the possession of the Goliath Scorpions, and there were no Snow Raven naval assets left in the system.

In June 3073, the Bernlad was one of five vessels amalgamated hastily into a new star, the Alpha Naval Reserve Star, and deployed to the Foster system in an attempt to reassert the Goliath Scorpion presence in the system following the disastrous loss of Gamma Galaxy and Loremaster Kyrie Ben-Shimon in the system a few months beforehand. Deploying alongside the Nightlord-class battleship CGS Atropos, the Aegis-class CGS Corona Borealis, the Lola III-class destroyer CGS Auriga and the Sovetskii Soyuz-class CGS Serket, the various ships transported both the remains of Gamma Galaxy and the entirety of Beta Galaxy, and discovered when they entered the system that there was no trace of any forces on the world other than those from Clan Steel Viper.

The resulting Trial of Possession for two Steel Viper enclaves on the surface began cordially, but were disrupted by the actions of a Goliath Scorpion warrior who had unwisely used necrosia to excess during the duel, resulting in the battles quickly becoming a free-for-all with the Goliath Scorpions ultimately seizing control of the two enclaves after deploying elements of the Alpha Naval Reserve Star to strike key targets from orbit.

Following the battles on Foster, the Scorpions merged the remains of Beta and Gamma Galaxies together and moved to Glory, arriving in-system in September 3073. Glory was home to Kindraa Mattila-Carrol, one of the many Kindraa within Clan Fire Mandrill and allies of the Goliath Scorpions. When the Scorpions arrived they found that the shattered remains of the Kindraa were trying to hold on to their enclave at Portage in the face of repeated strikes from Steel Viper forces. Under the command of saKhan Kelton Myers the Scorpions moved to assist their allies, only to be intercepted by two Steel Viper WarShips, the Potemkin-class cruiser CSV Ophidian and the Congress-class frigate CSV Silver Snake. The Steel Vipers declared the Scorpions to be dezgra—a consequence of the earlier battle on Foster—and immediately attacked, with the Ophidian inflicting heavy damage on the Bernlad at range.

Both fleets promptly launched aerospace fighters and DropShips and a brutal fight ensued as the Steel Vipers attempted to disrupt the Scorpion forces trying to land on Glory. The Scorpions destroyed the Ophidian and heavily damaged the Silver Snake, but lost the Auriga, Corona Borealis and Serket before the Silver Snake and the remaining Viper fighters were driven back.

In April 3074 the Bernlad was deployed as an escort vessel for Beta Galaxy alongside the Lei Kung and the Potemkin-class cruiser CGS Karttikeya, all operating under the overall command of saKhan Connor Rood. 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 there.

What the task force did find at Waypoint 531 was a battered Black Lion-class battlecruiser; which was identified by her ID codes as the CSJ Streaking Mist, a vessel formerly a part of the Clan Smoke Jaguar touman. 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.

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 the rear of the Bernlad, 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.

Rood adjusted his plans, moving the remaining equipment to DropShips aboard the Lei Kung before reassigning the matériel amongst his troops. Rood then led the task force into Umayyad space in July, arriving in the Córdoba system. A Trinary of forces from the First Cateran Cluster was dispatched to raid Córdoba, while the Lei Kung moved on to deploy troops again, this time in the Valencia system. By the end of the year the task force had struck at six worlds, obtaining intelligence and prisoners from both the Umayyads and Castilians.

Following the ejection of the Goliath Scorpions from the Clan Homeworlds in the wake of the Wars of Reaving, the subsequent conquest of Nueva Castile and the creation of the new Periphery nation known as the Escorpión Imperio, the Bernlad was one of the three WarShips to remain in service with the former Scorpion touman by 3085.

Notes

• The destruction of the Avalanche and four other Snow Raven WarShips unaccounted for specifically by name in sourcebooks was confirmed by the BattleTech Developer Øystein Tvedten via the Catalyst Game Labs Ask The Writers Forum:

“	*Opens Ye Olde Tome of Warshippe* Avalanche - Lum 3068 Morning Violence - Lum 3068 Eternity - Lum 3070 Blue Lancer - Lum 3070 Tenacity - Lum 3070 With regards, Øystein	”
	— Øystein Tvedten, 01 November 2013

Bibliography

• Field Manual: Warden Clans
• The Wars of Reaving