Belt Pirate Wars

Location
 Causes
  United States |  Republic of Eboracum (2105)
 Regency of New Menorca (2107-2111)
 Knights of Schubart (2107-2111)
 Joseph Loveridge
Vix Bannon
Gilles Marcangeli
Rosario Lombardo

The **Belt Pirate Wars** were a series of conflicts between the United States and Pirates of the Asteroid Belt (officially known to themselves and their supporters by a number of different names) in the early 22nd Century.

## Background

At the end of the Guardiola Incident, 227 Specialists, and 5 advanced military spacecraft of the Mediterranean Union-backed Guardiola Foundation fled the Earth-Luna system to the Asteroid Belt, taking shelter in the Hilda cluster near the Jovian-Solar L3 Point. These Specialists of the former 9th Squadron spun up their home Asteroid, Eboracum, and remained inactive until 2105, when upon hearing no further contact from the Guardiola remnant groups on Earth, declared themselves the free Republic of Eboracum, and declared war on the colonies.

## History

### **War of the 9th Squadron**

The first incident of Specialist raids on the colonies occurred in 2105 when the then-united force of Eboracum staged a series of hit and run attacks on O'Neil Ships bound for Mars from Titan. These attacks left the vessels crippled, but loss of life was minimal, never reaching more than a dozen individuals. The Jovian, Titan, and Martian Planetary Guards conducted three special operations against the Specialists that destroyed three of their five spacecraft and killed 57 of their members, while capturing another 22. The remaining 148 fled aboard the remaining spacecraft and stolen light transports to various asteroids in the belt that were home to small criminal communities.

### **Second Pirate War**

After the First Pirate War of 2105, the 9th Squadron informally disbanded, and its members inserted themselves into various criminal organizations in the belt, with the two remaining ships controlling the largest factions, both claiming to be the legitimate leaders of the 9th Squadron. The Knights of Schubart were formed from an elite group of Specialists who served as the personal guards to the Guardiola leadership, and organized themselves under a council of Knights, having used their skills to take over various gangs and crime families on Schubart and nearby asteroids. Gilles Marcangeli, one of the few surviving captains to have had actual land holdings on Earth, named himself Regent of New Menorca (a cluster of minor asteroids opposite the Schubart cluster), and claimed to be ruling on behalf of Martína Guardiola, the rightful heir to the Guardiola Foundation, however there is no evidence of any of the confirmed Guardiola heirs having a daughter around the time that Martina would have been born. It has been suggested that Martina was born through artificial means to provide a genetic progeny to legitimize the New Menorcan regime. Both organizations swelled their ranks well beyond the original 227 by recruiting directly from local pirate groups and press-ganging innocent astronauts into their ranks.

The two pirate groups conducted raids on military and civilian vessels, stole valuable resources and manufacturing equipment, extorted local governments across the asteroid belt, and even kidnapped civilians by taking O'Neil ships hostage. Planetary Guard forces engaged regularly with these pirate groups for more than four years, culminating in the destruction of one of the two remaining ships in 2111 when both organizations aligned for one final stand against the colonial forces.

### **Lombardo's Insurgency**

The final ship was taken over by a new captain, one Rosario Lombardo, who united the remaining specialists for one final attack against the Colonies. Retaking Eboracum in 2112, Lombardo spent the next two years building up his forces using stolen manufacturing equipment procured in the Saturnine system. By 2114, his force numbered 495 armored fighters, 3 assault carriers, 10 gunships, and the final Guardiola Cruiser, refitted over the last decade. Lombardo had convinced a number of established pirate groups to join his force, making them believe they could achieve an independent New Pirate Republic, and had funded his enterprise after having taken over the Solar System's largest criminal syndicates.

For 13 months Lombardo's confederacy staged a series of attacks against asteroid defense platforms in the Belt before capturing a frozen Hydrogen meteor bound for Venus. Redirecting it toward Mars in 2115, the pirate fleet positioned itself near the meteor while the colonies sent its largest fleet since the Guardiola Incident to retake it. At the Battle of TMH-119, the remaining members of the 9th Squadron and their supporters from the Asteroid Belt were killed in the final battle of the Belt Pirate Wars, while the meteor was safely positioned in a parking orbit before being redirected downsystem to Venus.

### **Remnant Conflicts**

With the destruction of the 9th Squadron's remaining ships and fighters, most colonial leaders assumed the piracy problem in the belt would simply fade with time, however the training and experience gained by those forces loyal to the 9th Squadron remnants led to infighting and the creation of new Belt Pirate groups who would continue to plague the Asteroids in a diminished capacity until 2127.