Major Daye (left, without helmet) leads 9 Commando troops in the field.
The Ninth Commando (also written as 9 Commando, abbreviated 9 Codo) is a Blue Suns shock infantry outfit under the command of Major Arthur Daye and noted for their extremely brutal style of operations. Despite their successful track record, 9 Commando has recently suffered significant casualties in its missions during the Reaper War and its aftermath, leaving the unit significantly reduced in strength.
Unit History[]
9 Commando is a relatively new unit in the Blue Suns. It was initially created to counter the spate of uprisings backed by the Drell Liberation Front occurring in various far-flung colonies of the Illuminated Primacy. While hiring mercenaries was considered an unorthodox move for Primacy-affiliated governments, the reported incompetence of local planetary forces and the Primacy's lack of a strong standing army forced the hanar towards this decision.
President Moisetsho of Katamayla was the biggest proponent of integrating Blue Suns outfits into planetary defense forces and requested three battalion-sized units (designated "Commandos" in accordance with the Katamaylan Army system) to assist in putting down the rebellion on his planet.
9 Commando served with distinction on Katamayla where it earned a reputation as a ferocious unit in combat. Though ultimately rotated off-planet before the final defeat of the rebels, they were responsible for the discovery of a high-ranking traitor in the Katamaylan government and, later, the discovery of the rebel group's hidden base.
The group left Katamayla with President Moisetsho's commendations and went on to fight on other Primacy colonies, such as Trendalay. Following Katamayla, the unit was contracted by the central government of the planet Yndola to help with the current civil war on the planet. The 9 Commando group was called upon by federal forces to provide a backbone to their military, with a sub-Commando being placed within each regular army unit, providing experience and mission support in volatile military situations. As a result, the rebel forces fell within three months to the combination of 9 Commando mercenaries and Yndola federal forces. The Blue Suns board of directors considered the mission an “unqualified success.”
The unit was also present for the Fall of Omega and reportedly assisted in the defense of Blue Suns HQ at Katange Arcology. According to Blue Suns resports, 9 Commando suffered heavy losses at both Adjutant and Cerberus hands during this action, including one of their senior officers, Captain Jonathan Nielson.
Following their evacuation, the unit was rebuilt on Bekenstein. Shortly afterwards, the group was sent to their old stomping ground of Katamayla after a resurgence of rebel activity; after being dispatched to the hot zone, it was revealed that many of these rebels were actually Reaper inductees. Approximately half of 9 Commando was killed on the first day of the operation; final death tolls after planet evacuation are still unknown. What is known is that the remainder of 9 Commando was deployed to Earth with Task Force Hammer, reportedly to liberate a Reaper processing camp on the outskirts of London.
Post-war, 9 Commando was focused primarily on rebuilding and retraining until the planet Tshombesha, having seceded from the Vonskar Coalition, hired 9 Commando to provide a backbone to their local forces against the Coalition's forces and their Eclipse support. Once again 9 Commando suffered significant losses in the field, so much so that it had to be rotated off-world to refit and rebuild back up to a fighting unit.
Unfortunately, it was here that 9 Commando ran afoul of company politics: Daye and his unit had been considered to be in the camp of Solem del'Serah's in the split between the Sun's Chief Operations Officer and his would-be usurper Darner Vosque. The unit's decimation on Tshombesha was just the excuse Vosque's loyalists needed to score a victory: Daye, promoted Lieutenant Colonel after the Reaper War, was reduced in rank once more to Major, and 9 Commando was similarly reduced in strength to a mere company-sized element. Daye's most trusted subordinates -- including almost all of the few remaining officer and NCO veterans of Katamayla -- were transferred out of the unit, leaving Daye with a unit full of unfamiliar leaders and fresh faces.
Daye and his new officers and NCOs set to work rebuilding, and before long the new 9 Commando was to be tested on the sulfurous green world of Scatum, whose Sultan's rule was threatened by religious extremists. 9 Commando's counterinsurgency work, as archetypically brutal as ever, proved a surprisingly unqualified success in putting down the Terminus rebellion. Newly emboldened and confident, the unit returned home to Omega to continue training and prepare for its next mission.
It was in such condition that 9 Commando, alongside Melindra Vesh's Kurinth Security and Flower Wilde's Single Order Solutions, was dispatched to the planet Bangui to deal with an uprising of disgruntled miners against the colonial government.
Unit Organization[]
Prior to and during the Reaper War, 9 Commando had a programmed strength of roughly 500 men, not counting support personnel attached to the unit as necessary, though this was an upper limit and rarely reached. The Ninth was divided into four subordinate units, also called Commandos, 91 through 94 (pronounced Nine-One, etc) each one divided into four platoons of twenty-five men. Post-war this organization was maintained until after the Tshombesha campaign, at which point 9 Commando was reduced in to a company in strength, and the sub-commandos reduced to platoon-sized elements.
Noteworthy Members[]
- Major Arthur Daye: Commanding officer since the unit's inception. Veteran of counterinsurgency operations Earthside in the Afghan DMZ. Considered responsible for forming 9 Commando into the unit it is at present.
- Centurion Roaklar Hath'nak: The unit's first Centurion. Batarian. Resigned his post following the first Katamayla contract.
- Centurion Lucas Dunn: The unit's second Centurion, and another veteran of counterinsurgency missions on Earth. A former logistics man in the Suns; Daye's right hand in the field prior to being rotated out of the unit post-Tshombesha.
- Centurion Aceline Caron: The unit's current Centurion, a ten-year veteran of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. Centurion Caron's extremely aggressive style of operations made for a very good fit with her commander's natural approach towards warfare.
- Captain Friegsid "Katamayla" Khor'shok: Commander of 92 Commando, a decorated former officer of the batarian Hegemony who was awarded the Cross of Goronak. Originally part of Major Kobus Puren's 13 Commando on Katamayla, but was transferred over to the Ninth when allegations were made of humanocentrism in Daye's unit.
- Captain Serge Rossi: Commander of 93 Commando, later the unit's XO. A former officer in the Systems Alliance Marines of francophone descent, Rossi was recruited into the Suns by Major Daye during 9 Commando's layover on Bekenstein. KIA on Tshombesha.
- Captain Kobus Puren: Commander of 94 Commando post-Reaper War. Demoted and transferred from his previous command of 13 Commando for “excessive anti-social behavioral issues” after the Reaper War. KIA on Tshombesha.