Onibaba Maru

[Thunderer]

Battlecruiser Onibaba Maru

Onibaba Maru

Tirpitz Rheinland Battlecruiser
Disabled 827 A.S.
Recovered 828 A.S.
Launched 828 A.S.
Status: Active

The Onibaba Maru, or Demon Hag, is the former Rheinland battlecruiser RNC Kaiserin Leicht, named after the Rheinland empress who started the Eighty Years' War. She was later renamed by the GMG in line with Kusarian mythology and in a fashion that was intentionally derogatory to her original namesake.

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The Kaiserin Leicht was scheduled for completion in 826 and she was originally supposed to be called Alaric, but her construction was accelerated after the Second Rheinland-GMG War had broken out and her namesake was changed to fit the new patriotic fervour.

After launch, she was integrated into the Kolleda's fleet, which was sent to the Sigma Front after the war had expanded and Rheinland started fighting Kusari. The Kolleda's commander, Rear Admiral Jürgen Lindauer, appointed a certain Fritz Langsdorff von Spee as the Kaiserin's captain, by the time the best student to ever graduate from his Kolleda Tactics School. This new academy had seen expedient to apply a school of thought considered at best unorthodox in Rheinland, a system of tactics applicable for asymmetric warfare, rather than Rheinland's traditional doctrine of pitched battles and pincer maneuvers. Captain Langsdorff was also an ardent nationalist and a supporter of the Imperialist Movement, who shared a personal devotion to vendetta against the GMG with his mentor.

The Kolleda's initial action was directed against the KNF battleship Hyono in Sigma-21, but after the latter had withdrawn to Honshu, the Kolleda was ordered to remain in Sigma-21 and garrison the system. The resourceful rear admiral, of course, managed to accomplish a lot more, though not always in accordance with his orders. The Kolleda's elements frequently managed to surprise their foes in raids on Honshu and Sigma-59 itself, and return before their enemy could muster a reaction. The new Tirpitz-class battlecruisers were instrumental in this: possessing firepower near to that of battleships, they still had the speed and maneuverability to slip away from a relief force. By the start of the Rheinland Civil War, the Kaiserin could pride itself with this impressive combat record: 2 Kusari destroyers disabled, 1 Kusari gunboat, 2 GMG gunboats, 2 Kusari transports, 5 GMG transports interdicted or disabled, three GMG bomber wings repelled and unmeasured damage inflicted to GMG installations in Sigma-59. The GMG knew so little of this ship, save her name. In Kusarian tradition, they dubbed her the Kanashibari, elsewhere known as the Night Hag.

In early 827, Rheinland disintegrated into a civil war and the Kolleda was called back home. Although Rear Admiral Lindauer originally intended to disobey this order and complete his personal crusade of vendetta, his crew was not willing to follow him and they were eager to return home amidst the time of turbulence. But von Spee's crew was of different make. Most of them were handpicked fanatics and zealots, and if not, they were persuaded into von Spee's local cult of personality by his unbroken streak of victories. The Kaiserin Leicht stayed in Sigma-21, poised to exact the Empress' vengeance from beyond her grave. Rear Admiral Lindauer knew of this, but he quietly approved of his disciple's motives, and wrote the battlecruiser off as a casualty so he would not have to call her back.

Free from the chain of command, the Kaiserin was an unleashed beast. She was no longer tied by any rules and regulations, and war crimes became no more than a theoretical concept whose existence was disputed. The Kaiserin's first next victim was one of Niigata's biodomes. Almost a hundred civilian lives were lost in the attack. And before the GMG could assemble a sufficient response force, the battlecruiser disappeared again. For months, almost no GMG operations were spared from her erratic raids, and she was the prime sore of the entire corporation's paramilitary. And then, without any obvious reason, the raids suddenly stopped.

A GMG patrol that had temporarily got lost in the Mekong Cloud stumbled upon what looked like an abandoned Tirpitz battlecruiser in early 828. Subsequent boarding confirmed that this was the Kaiserin Leicht. The ship was filled with corpses. Soon, after examining the ship's logs, it became evident what caused her demise. Low on water and repeatedly unable to steal it from the GMG due to their new protected convoy strategy, the battlecruiser began to exploit the Tonkin Cloud ice for water. A few days later, her crew became afflicted with an unknown disease. She finally set course back home, through Sigma-15, but her crew became incapacitated by the illness before the ship could reach the jump hole, and the Kaiserin remained adrift in the cloud until she was found.

Her discoverers were quarantined and the ship was disinfected by a special hazmat team. None of GMG personnel fell ill, indicating that the illness must have only been transferable through consumption. The ship only had to undergo minor repairs and she was quickly enrolled into GMG service. Microbiology and toxicology reports from the bodies have not amounted to conclusive results and none of the battlecruiser's crew have fallen ill with similar symptoms yet. She has been renamed to Onibaba in disrespect to her original namesake, and related to the nickname she carried while she still lurked from the Sigma-59 nebulae.

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