Abyss
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History
The Abyss was an SLS Dropship.
Shadow History
While the reasons why the Tripitz ended up abandoned in an uninhabited Periphery system near the Taurian Concordat are unknown, a number of unconfirmed documents of questionable provenance have provided some context.
The mysterious former ComStar operative known as "Damocles" (later revealed to be Com Guard agent Tempest Stryker) provided documents to INN reporter Sandra Raines during an interview conducted in a safe house on the world of Sheratan. Damocles was intent on providing what he claimed was accurate information about the Word of Blake sect known as the Sixth of June, the agents known as Manei Domini and their leader, the figure known as The Master. Among those documents were pages allegedly recovered from the diary of Colonel Hanni Schmitt, the last commanding officer of the Black Watch, the SLDF unit responsible for guarding the First Lord of the Star League.[1]
According to the diary pages, events surrounding the death of the last member of House Cameron to hold the title of First Lord, Richard Cameron, differed from those commonly believed to be true. The major differences highlighted through the diary pages were apparent confirmation that Richard and his wife Elise had twin children, not the single child reported elsewhere, and that those two children—Amanda and Ian Richard—escaped the massacre of the Cameron bloodline in the Unity Palace throne room at the hands of Stefan Amaris as a result of the actions of Schmitt and a small number of other loyal officers. Those officers arranged for Major Ian MacIntosh of the Black Watch and his BattleMech lance to swap Amanda and Ian Richard for another unnamed child and escape from Terra during Amaris' coup aboard the Colossus-class DropShip SLS Abyss while the remainder of the Black Watch distracted the Fourth Amaris Dragoons with a last stand on the Gorst Flats. The Abyss purportedly escaped thanks to covering fire from the Reagan SDS installed on Terra to rendezvous with a waiting WarShip on the dark side of Luna; that WarShip, the SLS Tripitz, then carried the Abyss and its cargo out of the Sol system.[1]
The information provided by Damocles remains the only source containing these claims, and as such is unconfirmed and constitutes at best a rumor. It should be noted that while a number of elements of the information provided by Damocles to Sandra Raines such as Blakist involvement in the Circinus Federation turned out to be correct, other allegations—such as Kali Liao and The Master being one and the same person—were proven to be spurious. If the diary pages of Hanni Schmitt are accurate, then the Tripitz was due to take Major MacIntosh to a safe haven within the Terran Hegemony or, failing that, to allies in the Federated Suns or Lyran Commonwealth. No explanation was offered for how the Tripitz would end up abandoned in an uninhabited system near the Taurian Concordat.[1]
Documents recorded in the secret journal of former Precentor ROM Victoria Parrdeau (secured by Chandrasekhar Kurita during the Blakist Jihad) included a snippet claiming that ComStar had another motive entirely for destroying the Tripitz quite apart from keeping its technology out of Taurian hands, one which Parrdeau believed the Taurians would never discover. No further information was included explaining what that reason was however, and it is not known if Parrdeau was referring to ComStar attempting to cover up the role of the Tripitz in saving the Cameron Twins spoken of in the diary provided by Damocles or something else entirely.[2]