Editing Otavalo

{{infoBoxIndividualSpacecraft
| image      = 
| vesselname = Otavalo
| prevname   =
| type       = [[WarShip]]
| class      = [[League (WarShip class)|League II]]
| prevclass  = 
| servicesince = 
| serviceuntil = 
}}
The FWLS '''''Otavalo''''' was a ''[[League (WarShip class)|League II]]''-class [[destroyer]] in service with the [[Free Worlds League Navy]].

==History==
===First Succession War===
In February [[2787]], the ''Otavalo'' was serving as a part of the FWLN [[2nd Fleet (Free Worlds League)|Second Fleet]] and was one of the WarShips assigned to the invasion force assigned by [[Captain-General]] [[Kenyon Marik]] to carve a path ten parsecs wide through the [[Capellan Commonality|Capellan]] and [[Sarna Commonality|Sarna Commonalities]] of the Capellan Confederation.<ref name="FSWp53">''First Succession War'', pp. 53–54: "A Path to Sarna: The League-Confederation Front"</ref>

Assigned to the first wave of the invasion were ten assorted regiments of the [[Marik Militia]] and almost four times as many conventional and aerospace groups. The ''Otavalo'' was assigned to the task force that targeted [[Second Chance]]. The first battle for Second Chance took place in space; the [[Free Worlds League Military]] task force arrived at the nadir [[jump point]], with the ground forces - led by the [[19th Marik Militia|Nineteenth]], [[20th Marik Militia|Twentieth]] and [[Thirty-eighth Marik Militia]] regiments - being escorted by a substantial naval group that included the ''[[Atreus (WarShip class)|Atreus]]''-class [[battleship]] [[FWLS Sorunda|FWLS ''Sorunda'']] and the ''League II''-class destroyers FWLS ''Otavalo'' and [[Ospina|FWLS ''Ospina'']], two [[squadron]]s of attack [[DropShip]]s and three [[Wing (Formation)|wings]] of [[aerospace fighter]]s. In contrast with the other three systems hit in the opening wave, there was a substantial [[CCAF]] naval presence in the Second Chance system, as part of an ongoing patrol of the border. The Capellan naval presence was smaller than that of the FWLM task force, consisting of the ''[[Du Shi Wang]]''-class battleship [[Mica Liao (Individual Du Shi Wang-class WarShip)|CCS ''Mica Liao'']] and the ''[[Soyal]]''-class heavy cruiser [[Solstice|CCS ''Solstice'']], but both ships were at the zenith jump point when the FWLM task force arrived, and immediately began plotting an intercept jump.<ref name="FSWp53"/>

The two Capellan WarShips arrived just as the League task force was starting to burn for the planet, and announced their presence with a long-range [[mass driver]] shot from the ''Solstice'' that destroyed the ''Ospina'' in a single hit. The League forces came about and engaged, with the ''Otavalo'' and a squadron of attack DropShips targeting the ''Solstice'' as a priority, while the ''Mica Liao'' exchanged fire with the ''Sorunda''. The ''Sorunda'', more heavily armed than her opponent, raked the ''Mica Liao'' with fire from her forward batteries and then turned, adding a broadside to the damage already inflicted, while launching a squadron of nuclear-armed fighters. As the ''Mica Liao'' turned to try and present a fresh set of armor to the ''Sorunda'', she exposed her weakened side to the ''Sorunda's'' fighters, who scored at least two hits against the damaged battleship, destroying her. Heavily outgunned, the ''Solstice'' launched her own nuclear missiles, destroying a pair of DropShips - an ''[[Intruder]]''-class attack DropShip and a ''[[Vengeance (DropShip class)|Vengeance]]''-class fighter carrier - before being crippled and then exploding under the weight of fire from the ''Otavalo'', attack DropShips and fighter screens.<ref name="FSWp53"/>

Having powered through the Capellan naval defenses, the League task force moved to deploy ground forces on Second Chance. The primary defensive unit on the ground was the [[Twentieth Liao Lancers]]; mustered originally to defend Raman II, the Lancers had been rotated to Second Chance in [[2785]] to fill the gap left by the [[Third Tikonov Lancers]], who had been redeployed into former [[Terran Hegemony]] space. A new command with little combat experience, half of the Lancers were on exercises on Second Chance's northern continent when the FWLM task force appeared, and word of the swift destruction of the Capellan naval forces was a heavy blow to the Lancers' morale - and that of the planetary government, who had little faith in the Lancers.<ref name="FSWp53"/>

The planetary government ordered the Lancers' support formations to deploy to Sevarias and Sweethaven, two major port cities; the support regiments were vehicle and infantry regiments raised locally, and the government planned to use them to cover the evacuation of high-level officials from the government and the major corporations present on the planet. The discovery that their attempts to rally to defend the planet were being blocked by the planetary government to cover their own evacuation was the last straw for many of the Lancers; by the time the League task force arrived in orbit, a third of the Lancers had already deserted. The League task force detected a number of DropShips warming up for liftoff at Sweethaven; working on the assumption that the DropShips represented a possible attack being launched, the captain of the ''Sorunda'' initiated a seven-minute orbital bombardment of the spaceport. The hellish firestorm destroyed four ''[[Union]]''-class DropShips belonging to the Lancers, two armor companies and a regiment of infantry - and also killed both the planetary governor, Duke Maynard Stott, and the Security Minister, Haley Fernando, along with the majority of the planetary elite. When League [[General]] [[Matias Rosenkov]] called for Second Chance to surrender an hour later, [[Colonel]] [[Mila Palmer]], commanding officer of the remaining Lancers and the senior military officer left on Second Chance, had little choice but to acquiesce.<ref name="FSWp53"/>

==References==
<references />

==Bibliography==
* ''[[First Succession War (sourcebook)|First Succession War]]''

[[Category: Individual WarShips]]
[[Category: Individual Destroyers]]
[[Category: Individual League-class WarShips]]