Exodus Ranger

Exodus Ranger
Vessel Profile
TypeWarShip
ClassYork

History

As of 3059, the York-class destroyer Exodus Ranger was serving as the CSA Exodus Ranger within the Clan Star Adder touman. One of five York-class ships to be in service with the Star Adders at this time—the others being CSA Exodus Avenger, CSA Exodus Crusader, CSA Exodus Sentinel, and CSA Star Fire—the Exodus Ranger was one of the five ships that made up the Alpha Naval Reserve.[1] The Exodus Ranger would continue to serve throughout the next decade[2] and into the Wars of Reaving.

Wars of Reaving

3070

By early 3070, the Exodus Ranger was one of two Star Adder WarShips stationed in the York system, serving alongside the Volga-class transport CSA Pompeii as a continuing albeit diminished naval presence in support of the single Star Adder enclave that continued to survive on the Clan Blood Spirit homeworld.[3]

3072

By December 3072, the Star Adders had suffered a number of casualties amongst their WarShip fleet as a result of battles during the ongoing Wars of Reaving. With ships lost in combat against Clan Coyote, Clan Snow Raven and most recently a resurgent Clan Burrock the Star Adder leadership decided to activate some of the eight WarShips that formed a part of the Clan's last naval reserve. The naval reserve had been given the designation MSKC-2 and was established in a planetless system; a salvage party was assembled, and arrived at MSKC-2 in late December. The Exodus Ranger was one of the WarShips assigned to the salvage party.[4]

The Star Adder convoy discovered shortly after arriving that a group from the Dark Caste had already been working on activating ships from the mothballed fleet, and had already successfully activated a Kimagure-class pursuit cruiser and a Riga-class frigate, both of which were missing from the cache;[4] with the Society providing WarShip assets to Clan Burrock, it was likely that these two ships were the Kimagure-class CBS Admiral Russell Nga and Riga-class CBS Hetherington respectively.[5]

As the Star Adders moved to engage the Dark Caste party, another supposedly mothballed ship from the cache, a Baron-class destroyer, powered up and moved to engage the Star Adder forces. Combined strikes from the Exodus Ranger and another Star Adder WarShip, the Lola III-class destroyer CSA Cameron's Flame, appeared to easily cripple the Baron, but as the Cameron's Flame transited past the Baron the crew of the Dark Caste ship fired their main aft batteries and inflicted heavy damage on the Cameron's Flame. The Cameron's Flame managed to maneuver slowly to try and finish off the Baron fired her thrusters and caused both ships to accidentally collide. The collision was the final straw for the Cameron's Flame, which suffered a fatal loss of atmosphere, leaving most of the crew dead.[4]

The remaining Star Adder forces faced no other capital vessels in the system and easily destroyed the Dark Caste ships as they attempted to retreat away from the cache to the solitary JumpShip nearby; the Star Adders carefully picked off the smaller craft before destroying the JumpShip. The Star Adders then inspected the remaining cached ships before activating the CSA Yorktown, a Samarkand-class carrier; based on the information available, Khan Stanislov N'Buta made the decision that the Star Adders didn't have the time or resources to reactivate the other WarShips and instead chose to destroy them. N'Buta also ordered the remains of the Cameron's Flame to be scuttled, denying the Dark Caste any more resources from the system.[4]

3074

In late 3074, the Exodus Ranger and two other Star Adder WarShips, the Aegis-class heavy cruiser CSA Stellar Serpent and the Sovetskii Soyuz-class heavy cruiser CSA Divine Conquest, were assembled along with no less than seven Galaxies of Star Adder forces - Alpha, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Sigma, Tau and Xi - into a task force under the personal command of Khan N'Buta for a strike at the Tanis system. The Star Adder Watch had identified that something was seriously wrong in the Tanite worlds, and N'Buta was determined to regain control of the system. Invoking a previous agreement with Clan Cloud Cobra, the Star Adder saKhan persuaded saKhan Hannibal Banacek of the Cloud Cobras to join the task force, accompanied by another York-class ship, the CCS Brimstone, and the Fredasa-class corvette CCS Hell Fury.[6]

The task force arrived in the Tanis system on the 17th of December and the Stellar Serpent, Divine Conquest and Hell Fury quickly attacked and defeated the two defending Burrock WarShips, the Mako-class corvette CBS Ingrid Bucharev and the McKenna-class battleship CBS Second Coming, securing lanes for the various Galaxies to begin making planetfall. The Exodus Ranger and the Brimstone were responsible for escorting Alpha, Sigma, Xi and Tau Galaxies to Alexandra, where the defending Tanite, Burrock and Society forces launched ferocious defensive surface-to-atmosphere fire that saw half of Xi Galaxy destroyed before it could make planetfall.[6]

With the ground campaign on Stacha proceeding frustratingly slowly for the Star Adder forces thanks to the wily tactics of the Bandit leader known as Jaguar, who used the main industrial complex on Stacha as both a defensive position and a base for hit and run attacks, Khan N'Buta ordered the Exodus Ranger to destroy the complex by orbital bombardment. Unfortunately for the Star Adders, Jaguar and his forces avoided being destroyed, and the attack failed to flush the determined bandits out into the open.[6]

Destruction

The Exodus Ranger is not listed as having survived the Wars of Reaving,[7] and was therefore most likely destroyed during the Annihilation of Clan Steel Viper in 3075.

References

  1. Field Manual: Crusader Clans, p. 119: "Naval Assets"
  2. Field Manual: Updates, p. 50: "Naval Assets"
  3. The Wars of Reaving, p. 54: "Fuel for the Blood Feud"
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 The Wars of Reaving, pp. 112–113: "Constriction"
  5. The Wars of Reaving, p. 89: "Military Commands (3072)/WarShips"
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 The Wars of Reaving, p. 144: "Adder's Assault"
  7. The Wars of Reaving, p. 168: "WarShips"

Bibliography