UNSC DDC-1370 Ohio

=Prototype Drake-Class Corvette=
- "I see, bringing a corvette to a fist fight?" -MSGT. "Patchwork" O'Malley
- "Fuck you, I'm Navy." -LCDR. Monty Edward "Immortalis" Aldrich
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== Operational History ==
The UNSC DDC-P-1370 "Ohio", started construction on February 11th, 2510. It rolled off the manufacturing line as one of the first prototype Drake-Class Corvettes in January 2511.
Starting off life as a patrol ship in the Epsilon Eridani Fleet, the Ohio usually operated with at least two other Drake-Class Corvettes or one Paris-Class frigate to patrol the outer edges of the Epsilon Eridani system. At this time the Drake-Class was still in its prototyping phase and was undergoing evaluation and preparations for real field testing. 
In April of 2511, the DDC-P-1370 Ohio would be ambushed by insurrectionist forces while on patrol and boarded. All crew members aboard were promptly executed and their bodies thrown out of airlocks. The ship in which the DDC-P-1370 Ohio was escorting at the time, the UNSC FFG-731 The Long Run, was also ambushed, and taken temporarily offline by onboard UNSC saboteurs gone turncoat for the United Rebel Front. The crew of The Long Run however, were better armed and and were able to counter their attackers but not before insurrectionist forces managed to engage the slipspace drive of the Ohio, and leave the system.
=== Assignment to a Penal Battalion ===
On July 16th of 2511, First Lieutenant Logan William "Rabid" Aldrich was leading a small reconnaissance force on the the Gallopade Islands on Alpha Corvi II, when a distress call was forwarded to him by local UNSC command. The distress call came from a nearby UNSC outpost which was in the process of being attacked by a seemingly friendly UNSC Drake-Class Corvette. Upon closer investigation, the hull identification number of the vessel turned out to be DDC-P-1370, which matched a ship listed as MIA from the Epsilon Eridani Fleet. Aldrich took his small recon team and prepared to divert his operation from recon to a small Quick Response Force. On his way to the outpost, Aldrich called back to their homebase and requested backup from First Lieutenant ---- "ACE" --------. By the time Aldrich and his team had arrived at the Outpost, they found that it had already been mostly destroyed with only a few remaining UNSC Marines holding off insurrectionist ground forces who were utilizing AV-14 Hornets as troop transports/landing craft. 
Aldrich and Ace staged an ambush on two of the AV-14s and managed to apprehend them. Utilizing the two hornets, Aldrich and Ace staged a boarding assault of the DCC-1370 Ohio, entering through the rear hanger bay. After four minutes of intense close quarter fighting throughout the corridors leading to the bridge of the ship, Aldrich and Ace seized the bridge and sealed all uncleared bulkheads throughout the vessel. With Aldrich at the controls, he piloted the ship out of the atmosphere of Alpha Corvi II. Once out of atmosphere, Aldrich then disabled life support and vented the oxygen out of all the locked sections of the ship, killing all the remaining insurrectionist crew members. 
By this time however, the Epsilon Eridani fleet had already replaced the Ohio with another, newer prototype of the Drake-Class Corvette, so by the order of FLEETCOM, the freshly liberated and blood soaked DDC-P-1370 Ohio was transferred under the command of the 137th Wolfpack Battalion for the purpose to be used as a mobile operations base and general transport, a situation almost completely unheard of within the UNSC Navy. 
Once under the 137th's command, 1LT. Logan W. "Rabid" Aldrich temporarily took the position as the ship's commander and returned to Reach to request refits to better suit the mission of the 137th Wolfpack Battalion. The refits included a completely redesigned server room (with an upgraded capacity to fully interface a UNSC Smart A.I. with every system of the ship), A singular RSM-19 Shiva Launch tube (which would become standard on later Drake-Class Corvettes), A full cryogenics bay, a SOEIV Drop Pod Bay, an engineering workshop, a full armory, and of course, a full wet bar in the mess hall. 
The new mission directive that was given to the DCC-P-1370 Ohio meant some changes were to come with its designation, among other things. The vessel was no longer classed as a prototype vessel as the need for a small patrol ship with the firepower of the Drake-Class was not needed by the UNSC Navy at that point in time. This caused FLEETCOM to put the entire project on the backburner until such a class of vessel was widely needed, as the cost in resources, time, and credits was much too high for a project such as this. Because of this new decision, the DCC-P-1370 Ohio and the other three prototype Drake-Class vessels were stripped of their Prototype designations and brought to the Aszod ship breaking yards on Reach to be scrapped, except for the DCC-1370 Ohio which had already been pressed into service and put into active use as an expendable vessel for an expendable penal battalion. 
=== First Deployment (2511 -2514) ===
In late December of 2511, Acting commander of the DCC-1370 Ohio, 1LT. Logan William "Rabid" Aldrich (The 137th Wolfpack Battalion's head Intelligence Officer), set off on a mission to eliminate the remnants of a hostile insurrectionist faction the 137th had been in a near constant conflict with for the previous six years. This saw the DCC-1370 Ohio engaging hostile vessels in sometimes eight on one skirmishes. But with the refits given to the Ohio just a few months prior, the crew of the Ohio would continue to find themselves victorious in their naval efforts. Utilizing the onboard ODST pods and D77-TC Pelican Dropships in the hanger bay, the 137th Wolfpack Battalion crew members engaged in continuous boarding actions against hostile ships both in and out of atmosphere. Utilizing a combination of guerilla and shock/awe tactics to plant explosive charges directly on the reactors of hostile vessels. Within the first two years of the deployment, the DCC-1370 Ohio and its crew of convicts turned UNSC Soldiers, managed to successfully engage and destroy a staggering sixty-eight hostile vessels.
The victories of the 137th aboard the DCC-1370 Ohio would very quickly be cut short however, as they closed in on the unmapped moon the remaining insurrectionist remnant forces were now fortifying and preparing for a planetary scale invasion, believing the UNSC had send an entire battlegroup of warships to eliminate them. Under the cover of night and inclement weather, the DDC-1370 Ohio entered the atmosphere of the insurrectionist occupied moon. Due to the hurricane like conditions in the upper-atmosphere, the DDC-1370 Ohio lost power while on decent to the surface, and crashed in a heavily wooded section of the moon, killing only six crew members but injuring fifty-two, leaving only thirty crew battle-ready. For two weeks the crippled vessel found itself under constant bombardment by the weather of the moon, constantly being struck by lightning and subjected to winds and flooding on a scale only found on celestial bodies deemed "uninhabitable" by UEG standards.
Once the weather cleared, the remaining members of the wolfpack ventured out of the crashed Ohio, to find themselves staring into the night sky of a moon closely orbiting a gas giant. Severely damaged, the DDC-1370 Ohio was unable to retain power to her engines leaving the vessel stranded until the surviving crew could either repair the vessel or be rescued by UNSC forces. The thirty battle-ready 137th members, Lead by 1LT. Logan William "Rabid" Aldrich, ventured out into the forest to start gathering intel of hostile forces. After a four week reconnaissance mission Aldrich and his team returned with a map of the region and the locations of insurrectionist strongholds, including the main command facility. With this intel, the little power able to be generated by the Ohio was diverted to weapon systems. Launching all remaining Archer missile pods and SHIVA Nuclear missiles, the DDC-1370 claimed the final victory over the insurrectionist remnant forces, and eliminated all infrastructure, leaving any survivors of the missile bombardment and nuclear attacks subject to the moon's hostile weather patterns and local fauna. 
The DDC-1370 Ohio found itself in a precarious situation, and the crew voted to divert 90% of power reserves to broadcasting a distress signal. By some matter of luck, a Prowler class vessel operated by Naval Special Warfare Group Seven (NAVSPEC-7), had been in orbit of the gas giant for two months prior to the Ohio's arrival with the intention of finding a way to do exactly with the crew of the crippled Ohio had somehow managed to do. The prowler entered the moon's atmosphere and landed near the DDC-1370 Ohio to render assistance with repairs and medical assistance to the critically injured crew members. After a long process of patchworks and rushed repairs, the DDC-1370 Ohio fired up its engines in late November of 2514, limped into the skies once more, and entered slipspace enroute to the 137th Wolfpack's homebase on Alpha Corvi II. Thus ending its first deployment. 
=== Disaster In Slipspace (2515) ===
While transiting back to Alpha Corvi II from its first deployment, the DDC-1370 Ohio experienced a sudden loss of power due to rushed field repairs. This caused the vessel to be torn out of slipspace and emergency backup power to be engaged. As per protocol written by the ship's commander, 1LT. Logan William "Rabid" Aldrich, himself and two mechanics would be automatically woken up from cryosleep. Lost adrift in deep space, the three worked for weeks trying to repair the vessel with minimal supplies and rations, which were already nearly deplenished due to its three year deployment. After three weeks of non-stop work, the fatigued and food deprived emergency repair crew made an almost fatal mistake. While attempting to repair a coolant line, pressure from an unchecked hand valve burst open, quickly filling the whole vessel with coolant fumes. While not immediately fatal for those directly exposed, they quickly started to develop symptoms of hallucinations of demonic entities, skin lesions, lapses of total insanity, and complete insomnia. This went on for three days straight until against all odds, the three emergency repair crew under constant mental bombardment of creations from within their own minds, managed to repair the DDC-1370 Ohio to the point in which it could re-enter slipspace and continue its journey back to Alpha Corvi II. When the three re-entered cryosleep, they were in critical condition and due to the complete insomnia and the coolant fumes rushing through their bloodstreams, the cryogenic sleep process failed to suspend the minds of the three individuals, leaving them in a state of complete animated suspension, but total awareness of the passage of time with the inability to move their bodies. The three crew members continued to experience hallucinations in a state similar to sleep paralysis, but for a time spanning three months until they reached Alpha Corvi II. The entire time aware, awake, and alert to everything happening around them. 
=== Second Refit (2515) ===
To the crew of the DDC-1370 Ohio, it was clear that the unique ship had its downsides. Maintenance was far too labor intensive even without having to deal with battle damage due to the lack of spare parts unique to the now shelved protype Drake-Class Corvettes, meaning damaged parts or even entire systems couldn't just be replaced by a new unit in most situations. Relying solely on M58 Archer missile pods and a singular RSM-19 SHIVA missile silo also proved to be lacking while in combat due to the limited storage capacity for spare ammunition for such a large weapon type, having to rely mostly on boarding actions and stealth to combat enemy vessels. All of the downsides were to be expected however, as the Drake-Class prototypes were originally meant to be heavily armed Patrol Vessels, not direct attack ships. This did not stop the engineers of the 137th Wolfpack Battalion from drawing up designs to submit to FLEETCOM, requesting a second refit of the currently unique ship.
At first the submission for a refit of a last remaining protype of a shelved class of corvette was seen by FLEETCOM as absolutely absurd. The manufacturing lines for the vessel had already been redesigned to fill the maintenance needs for the Punic-Class Supercarriers, and the DCC-1370 Ohio had been marked for scrap four years earlier, then marked off as an expendable asset. Because of this, FLEETCOM directly denied any requests for refit or repairs for the DCC-1370 Ohio. 
Not satisfied with this answer, a newly recovered 1LT. Logan William "Rabid" Aldrich, took the crippled vessel to Reach to make an appeal directly to the Council of Naval Operations. After a long period of debate and once shown what the 137th Wolfpack Battalion have accomplished with just the one vessel in its first deployment, a special admission was approved for a second refitting of the DCC-1370 Ohio. 
The second refit saw the combination of designs from the 137th Wolfpack Battalion's engineers, the most up to date version of the shelved Drake-Class Corvette specifications, and custom design features made by Solaris Shipworks and SinoViet Heavy Machinery. The main focus of the refit was to make as many systems as possible compatible and interchangeable with with the parts and systems of the brand new Stalwart Class Light Frigates, in an attempt to cut future maintenance costs. The RSM-19 SHIVA Missile Silo was removed and in place more ammunition capacity for the onboard M58 Archer Missile Pods were added. Three M910 Rampart Point Defense guns were attached to the stern top and bottom and another near the bow on the underside of the vessel. Ammunition storage for the Ramparts were located in the new compartment with the extra Archer missiles. The old Series III CODEN slipspace drive was also stripped from the vessel, and replaced with the much newer, more effective, and compact model, the Series IV CODEN, specifically a Starwerx FTL-290C. The Hull of the DCC-1370 Ohio also obtained underlying layers of lead foil and Anti-spalling layers in an effort to more evenly disperse the heat generated from the plasma that envelops ships upon an orbital re-entry, allowing the DCC-1370 Ohio to perform much faster re-entry maneuvers. With the inclusion of Stalwart class light Frigate mechanics, much of the bulky, experimental mechanics of the original design Drake-Class Corvette were stripped, leaving much more room within the vessel than was previously available. With the added room, Aldrich requested a small but well equipped engineering workshop to be added, so the 137th Wolfpack Battalion would gain the ability to do their own research and development projects to further aid the more specific and lesser common goals the Battalion often found themselves with. At first this request was met with some resistance by FLEETCOM, however it had just barely fit within the budget given for the refit of the DCC-1370 Ohio, ultimately making its way into the final second refit designs. 
In total the second refit of the DCC-1370 Ohio cost a total of 2.5 Billion Credits, and took three years and eight months to complete. 
=== Re-Deployment to Alpha Corvi II (2518) ===
Once the refit was completed, the DDC-1370 Ohio returned to Alpha Corvi II with a fresh coat of paint. With the new slipspace drive, the journey only three quarters of the normal time. 
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