Sovereign Right

Sovereign Right
Vessel Profile
Type	WarShip
Class	McKenna

History

The Star League

Prior to the coup launched by Stefan Amaris in 2765, the SLS Sovereign Right was a McKenna-class battleship in service with the Star League Defense Force navy. In July 2772 the Sovereign Right was directly involved in Operation CHIEFTAN, the Hegemony Campaign launched by General Aleksandr Kerensky to liberate the Terran Hegemony, which Amaris had usurped control of and renamed the Amaris Empire. Commanded by Vice Admiral Noeki Giersson the Sovereign Right had been operating as a part of either the Eighth or Thirteenth Fleet, and as such was assembled as part of the WarShip element of the task force commanded by Admiral Vicho Nnamani and charged with the liberation of the Lone Star system.

Nnamani led the operation from his flagship, the SLS Quéribus, flagship of the Eighth fleet, and began by leading a combined task force based around seventy WarShips to destroy the SDS in the Lone Star system. Launched simultaneously with an attack on Nusakan, this was the first attack by the SLDF against an SDS and the associated drone WarShips.

Nnamani initially tried to use small decoy parties to attack the drone fleets at the two main jump points, tasked with hitting and then running for deep space to try and lure the drones away. This was largely unsucessful; a few smaller drone ships followed the decoys, but the bulk of the fleets remained in place. The defenses as the zenith point of the Lone Star system alone consisted of sixty-two drone WarShips plus a host of smaller drone fighters and assault ships and two defense stations. Nnamani's task force jumped for the zenith point, as did the surviving elements of the decoy squadrons. The SLDF WarShips initially tried luring fighting at range, discovering rapidly that the battle for control of the system was going to be far bloodier than initially hoped; the drones concentrated on launching precision attacks against the SLDF carriers and heavy cruisers while taking advantage of opportunity shots at the smaller escort vessels. Nnamani's ships destroyed the drone fleet, in large part thanks to the heavier guns of the battleships such as the Sovereign Right within his command, but a third of the SLDF fleet was lost in the action.

The main SLDF ground force then arrived in system, bringing with it reinforcing WarShips in the form of the escort flotilla assigned to XLIV Corps, bringing the SLDF fleet up to sixty WarShips and more than two hundred DropShips. The fleet burned for Lone Star only to be intercepted two days away from the planet by a second drone fleet, this one consisting of two thirds of the drone forces assigned to the nadir jump point augmented by another twenty drone WarShips from the Lone Star defenses. For a second time the drones launched an attack that involved diving into the heart of the SLDF formation and selectively targeting particular ships; in this case, the targets were the transports, and one of the four Divisions assigned to the planetary assault - the 138th Mechanized Infantry Division - was wiped out in minutes, with the others taking significant losses. Even though the SLDF quickly destroyed the drone fleets. The battle was far from done, however; some forty drone WarShips still lay close to Lone Star itself, augmented by Rim Worlds fighter squadrons.

Nnamani and the Quéribus led the SLDF fleet to the moon of Vespa and engaged in a game of cat and mouse with the drone fleet that lasted for three days as the drones attempted to crush the SLDF fleet while simultaneously remaining close to the defense stations. Nnamani's final attack threw his surviving fleet at a single station, pulling in the entire drone fleet in two waves; Nnamani and the Quéribus were a high priority for the drone ships this time, and the Quéribus was destroyed early in the battle, with Nnamani killed aboard his flagship. Leadership of the remaining naval forces fell to Giersson, who assumed command from the bridge of the Sovereign Right. Giersson destroyed the drone fleet and two of the defense stations - the third was captured by SLDF marine boarding parties - enabling the ground forces to begin landing on Lone Star on the 22nd of July 2772.

The Sovereign Right survived the Hegemony Campaign and later departed on the Exodus, following General Kerensky into the Deep Periphery.

The Clans

As at 3059 the Sovereign Right was serving as the CSA Sovereign Right within the Clan Star Adder touman and was attached to Alpha Galaxy. The Sovereign Right continued to be an active part of the Star Adder touman throughout the next decade and into the Wars of Reaving.

Wars of Reaving

In 3072 Khan Stanislav N'Buta of the Star Adders was looking for revenge against Clan Blood Spirit for their actions on Strana Mechty, in which the Star Adder enclave was destroyed and saKhan Dante Truscott was killed. In August N'Buta mobilised a large part of the Star Adder navy including the Alpha Naval Reserve Star and struck at the world of York; the Sovereign Right was one of the WarShips mobilised for the attack.

The Aegis-class heavy cruiser CBS Exsanguine was in the York system at the time, and immediately on arrival the Star Adders engaged both the Exsanguine and the nearby recharge station. The Blood Spirits launched five assorted stars of AeroSpace Fighters and DropShips to join in the battle, but were unable to prevent the Star Adders from crippling the Exsanguine and leaving the Exsanguine's commanding officer, Star Admiral Ilse McFadden, with no way to retaliate.

Once it was obvious that the Exsanguine was crippled, the Star Adders pulled back from the battle and instead pressed on to York. In the face of attacks from military and civilian vessels - up to and including civilian DropShips ramming Star Adder vessels - the Star Adders secured themselves in orbit above York and then landed DropShips to evacuate the Star Adder personnel located at their one enclave on the planet. One of the casualties from the suicidal Blood Spirits attacks was the Essex-class destroyer CSA Tehuantepec, which broke up against the planetary atmosphere after being left spinning out of control following three Merchant Caste Union-class DropShips rammed themselves into her maneuvering thrusters; despite the damage taken and the impending loss of the ship, the Tehuantepec did manage to launch all of her DropShips before breaking up.

When the evacuation of the Adder enclave was complete, the Sovereign Right began a twenty-two day orbital bombardment of York, beginning with the city of New Tara but extending outwards to strike at all of the major cities and industries on the planet, shattering the Blood Spirits. More than three quarters of the planetary population were killed and upwards of ninety percent of the industry was destroyed; while the Star Adders ceased the bombardment short of completely destroying the capital world of the Blood Spirits, the bombardment tipped the planetary ecology into decline as the damage resulted in conditions akin to a nuclear winter, beginning York's slow death.

Blood Spirit Annihilation

The Sovereign Right and the Nightlord-class battleship CSA Absolute Truth were both assigned to the destruction of the Blood Spirits in the Colleen system in October 3084 under the guise of a Trial of Absorption. Leading a task force consisting of Gamma, Epsilon and Xi Galaxies, the two battleships proceeded to the planet Haven and summarily crushed the two surviving Blood Spirit WarShips, the York-class destroyer CBS Stooping Kite and the Carrack-class transport CBS Karianna Schmitt.

After the Star Adder ground forces had crushed all of the opposition on Helen and looted as much isorla as could be transported off the planet, the Absolute Truth began a two-to-three week campaign of orbital bombardment that targeted every holding and enclave on the world and on the other inhabited world in the system, Honor. The Absolute Truth then left the Sovereign Right in the system for several months to continue destroying any Blood Spirit survivors discovered. The Sovereign Right kept a watchful eye on the system for some time afterwards, destroying a small number of DropShips that attempted to escape from the system a month after the catastrophic bombardment.

The Sovereign Right was still an active part of the Star Adder touman as at 3085.

Bibliography

• Field Manual: Crusader Clans
• Field Manual: Updates
• Historical: Liberation of Terra Volume 1
• Wars of Reaving