The USS Randolph CSGN-04
Specifications
Builder and completion date: George W Bush Memorial Station (Luna-L3),
ESY 124
Length: 189 meters
Mass: 11,200 tons
Propulsion: Fusion, one primary thruster with two sets of heavy
maneuvering thrusters
Range: Interplanetary only
Armament: 50 'Starstrike' nuclear missiles; 24 'Bayonet' antimissile
rockets; 2 neutral particle beam cannon; 2 antimissile defense lasers;
2 'Barbette' missile launchers in retract-mounts; plus two 'Rearguard'
antiship missile launchers. Carries 2 heavy transatmospheric shuttles,
2 TAF (transatmospheric fighters, usually TAF-512) and 4-6 Utimechs
(utility mecha)
Deployment and History
The USS Randolph was the first of a class of powerful (for the time)
interplanetary cruisers built by the declining United States of North
America to counter the increasingly aggressive occupation of the solar
system by the United Republic of China, the Bharat Republic (India),
and several powerful nationless corporations. Completed behind schedule
and massively over-budget, the USS Randolph was the most powerful Human
warship for over a decade. Her massive armament of nuclear missiles
could threaten even hardened targets on planets, as well as any
spaceship, domebase or station. The Chinese cruisers of the 'Ting Ju
Chang' class built at Lin Tse-Hsu Station were thought to be a direct
response to the Randolph class.
From its first shakedown cruise the Randolph had an active and
illustrious career. While picking up crewmembers in Earth orbit the
Randolph was directed to monitor the Indonesian invasion of New Zealand
and shot down several ballistic missiles from the submarine Saliendra
which came too close to American satellites. A month later the USS
Randolph and a Brazilian frigate rescued the survivors from the supply
transport "Barycenter" and got a warm reception from the public on
Juno. But the Randolph's claim to fame was the Xibalba Incident in ESY
146, where the ship faced down a fleet attempting to intervene in that
trans-Plutonian planetoid's attempt to break away from Eurasian Union
control. The leader of the Xibalba Colony independence movement, Ivan
Pieteras, heaped praise on Captain Moreno and crew of the USS Randolph
for their daring action (although later it would be discovered that the
United States Outer System Command on Chiron had ordered the Randolph
to stand firm because of an interest in the Ares-Olympia Corporation's
massive holdings on Xibalba and throughout the Kuiper belt, one of a
series of scandals in the nearly-autonomous military bases of the outer
solar system).
Obsolete and mothballed inside Phobos in ESY 186, the USS Randolph
actually survived the demise of the Unites States of North America.
After the mothball fleet was finally purchased by the Star Pilgrim
Corporation, the various ships were gradually broken up for parts that,
while old by military standards, were useful for assembling the
civilian automated interstellar transports that would accompany the
first wave of planned interstellar colonization missions. Many of the
Randolph's systems found their way into the convoy that followed the
huge colony ship "Utnapishtim-6" to Ross-128. There the transports were
briefly used as barracks stations and finally scrapped. The hull of the
Randolph itself was part of a historical museum at Phobos until that
satellite was mined out, and later during the Nanoswarm chaos the remnants of
the ship and the rest of the base were de-orbited over the Elysium
spaceport by an anti-Vestan political group.
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page uploaded 11 February 2001
