Alexander (Individual Aegis-class WarShip)
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| Alexander | |
|---|---|
| Vessel Profile | |
| Type | WarShip |
| Class | Aegis |
| In service until | December 3068[1] |
History
The Aegis-class heavy cruiser later known as the Alexander was a Star League Defense Force WarShip which survived the Amaris Civil War and followed General Aleksandr Kerensky on the Operation EXODUS. The Alexander also survived the Pentagon Civil War, becoming a part of the touman of Clan Widowmaker. Following the Absorption of Clan Widowmaker by Clan Wolf the Alexander and a number of other WarShips were placed in mothballs.[2]
The Alexander remained in mothballs until Clan politicking lead to the formation of Wolf's Dragoons, raised to perform a detailed reconnaissance and intelligence-gathering mission in the Inner Sphere in advance of a planned invasion. Clan Wolf equipped Wolf's Dragoons with the Alexander and a number of other WarShips in the belief that large mercenary units operating in the Inner sphere were likely to be equipped with WarShips, deploying the Alexander as the WDWS Alexander; the Alexander kept her original Widowmaker color scheme, which fortuitously matched the Wolf's Dragoons regimental color scheme.[2]
Wolf's Dragoons swiftly learned that WarShips were effectively extinct in the Inner Sphere, at least in the armed forces of the Great Houses, and left the Alexander in mothballs in the Periphery until after Operation Revival, the Clan Invasion of the Inner Sphere. In 3053 the decision was made to retrieve the Alexander and the other WarShips from the Bristol Cache in the Periphery, and a small task force under the command of Colonel Mackenzie Wolf, son of Jaime Wolf, was assigned to the recovery mission.[3] The task force discovered when they arrived at the cache that brigands or looters had discovered the Alexander and the other vessels and were attempting to loot the ships, and responded to the Dragoon claim to the cache by firing on the task force. Several boarding parties were deployed to reclaim the vessels,[4] but Mackenzie Wolf was killed during the operation to clear the Alexander.[5]
The Dragoons subsequently reactivated the Alexander and redeployed her to their holding on Outreach, where she formed a part of the Dragoon Naval Command, serving alongside the Congress-class frigate WDWS Beowulf, the Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser WDWS Athena, the Vincent Mk. 42-class corvette WDWS Mars and the Lola III-class destroyers WDWS Darius and WDWS Nelson.[6]
In 3067 the Alexander and the Mars were deployed in support of Alpha Brigade, operating under contract to the Draconis Combine along the border with the Clan Ghost Bear Occupation Zone.[7] The Alexander was still deployed in Combine space when Blakist-backed mercenaries attacked the Dragoons on Outreach, killing Jaime Wolf and inflicting heavy damage; the loss of the Athena and Beowulf to overwhelming defenses in the Sol system when a large part of the Dragoons and a number of Allied Mercenary Command units launched Task Force Vengeance and attempted to attack the Word of Blake on Mars.[8][9]
The Word of Blake responded with a counterattack against Outreach in force, deploying a task force escorted by a Black Lion-class battlecruiser, an Aegis, two Essex-class destroyers and two Lola IIIs; the Blakist naval forces destroyed the two Dragoon orbital stations,[10] as well as the Darius and the Nelson, and deployed ground forces to assault the Dragoon forces still present on Outreach. General Maeve Wolf broke through the blockade with the Alexander and deployed Alpha Brigade[11] - approximately two battalions of troops from Alpha Regiment[1] - on Outreach,[11] as well as destroying a number of inbound Blakist DropShips before the badly damaged Alexander had to withdraw to the edge of the system, where it lurked in waiting for an opportunity to do more.[1] With the troops from Alpha Regiment bolstering the defenders against the combined forces of the Blakist First and Fourth Militia Divisions[1] the Blakists responded with orbital and nuclear bombardments of the planet.[1][11] Maeve Wolf ordered a retreat to Arc-Royal in the last week of December 3067; the Alexander covered the Dragoons' retreat, inflicting damage on two of the Blakist WarShips, but was destroyed during her valiant defense, leaving the Mars as the only remaining Dragoon WarShip still active in January 3068.[11][1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Total Chaos, p. 41, "Another Day, Another C-Bill"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 AeroTech 2 Revised Edition, Color Plate 3
- ↑ Wolf Pack, p. 95-96
- ↑ Wolf Pack, p. 116-118
- ↑ Wolf Pack, p. 125-127
- ↑ Field Manual: Mercenaries, Revised, p. 113, "Dragoons Naval Command"
- ↑ Field Manual: Mercenaries, Revised, p. 114, "Alpha Regiment: Dire Wolves"
- ↑ Dawn of the Jihad, p. 34, "Debacle Over Mars"
- ↑ Dawn of the Jihad', p. 34, "Mars: What Happened?"
- ↑ Dawn of the Jihad, p. 35, "Fire In The Void"
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Dawn of the Jihad, p. 36, "Outreach: A Survivor's Account"