Donovan Steele

Donovan Steele
Character Profile
Affiliation Steel's Eagles
Rank Colonel
Profession MechWarrior


Donovan Steele was a MechWarrior officer who formed the Steel's Eagles mercenary unit.[1]

History[edit]

He was a ruggedly handsome man with prematurely silver hair, the right side of his face disfigured by a jagged scar, the souvenir of a knife fight on Star's End that had cost him an eye. During his life many opponents had gambled that Steele's handicap would limit his combat ability.[1]

During their contract with House Liao to invade the minor border world of Kujari in 3033 he was put in command of a task force consisting of four battalion sized mercenary commands: St. Cyr's Armored Grenadiers, McCrimmon's Light Cavalry, Rivaldi's Hussars and his Steel's Eagles. He attempted a Dragoon-style deception, with the Eagles and the Light Cavalry descending in DropShips amid maximum sound and fury, hoping to draw the Widows into battle and then smash them with the two remaining battalions hidden in polar orbit. Unfortunately for Steele's Eagles, that attack did not deceive the Widow and the Widow intermediately dispatched Jackrabbit Moskowitz's Aerospace Company to search for the DropShips that she suspected remained in orbit. They did discover them in less that an hour and attacked Steele's DropShips. Steele asked immediately them to land, which they did kilometers away from Steele's Eagles. Needing to link quickly with the Hussars and Grenadiers and avoid being attacked individually, the unit slammed into the weakest part of the Tarantulas and after 45 minutes of brutal fight forced the Dragoons to withdraw and linked with the rest of the invasion force.[2] Then the Widows went underground. Steele's Eagles and the rest of the force held the major supply points depriving the Widows of the ammunition and spare parts necessary to fight a Wallacia-style guerrilla war. For three weeks the attacking task force tried to find them, but they were unable too, breaking their morale and letting them a false sense of security, expecting the Widows to have left the planet. And after a fourth week, and with even officers on Steele's Eagles challenging his paranoia and defensive patrols they were doing,[3] Widows forces attacked in force Steele's Eagles headquarters trying to decapitate the invasion force. Colonel Donovan Steele challenged Natasha Kerensky, but lost, his banquished Marauder ended in front of Kerensky's Warhammer armor shredded, one arm hanging useless. Natasha Kerensky, sensing in Steele's the mercenaries hard-nosed common sense and called on him to surrender. Colonel Steele not only surrendered, he also led his unit to defect to the Federated Commonwealth rather than face a vengeful Romano Liao.[4]

BattleMechs[edit]

Donovan Steele piloted a Marauder during his fight against Natasha Kerensky, though the 'Mech ended destroyed. It is not known which 'Mech he piloted afterwards.[4]

References[edit]

  1. 1.0 1.1 More Tales of the Black Widow, p. 16: Steele Fury
  2. More Tales of the Black Widow, p. 17: Steele Fury
  3. More Tales of the Black Widow, p. 18: Steele Twilight
  4. 4.0 4.1 More Tales of the Black Widow, p. 19: Steele Twilight

Bibliography[edit]