Righteous Fury: Jackals Atlatl-Class Attack Vessel
The Righteous Fury was the United Americas Atlatl-class attack vessel that carried Colonel Zula Hendricks' Jackals in Philippa Ballantine's Alien: Inferno's Fall and Alien: Seventh Circle, from a story with Clara Carija. The hull had been laid down as the USS Bronte and never served under that name. In 2186 it burned to the Union of Progressive Peoples mine world Shānmén, wrecked the hovering pathogen bomber with Hornet missiles, and later left Minos Station over the ice world Dimitar after a failed raid, with the last Jackals and Mae Hendricks aboard.
Class And Commission
The Fury was the second Atlatl-class attack vessel built by the United Americas. The class had more power than the older Conestoga and Bougainville hulls, and at full reserve it could make 1.23 light years per Terran day. When the Jackals formed as a multinational unit, the UA supplied this ship for Zula Hendricks to command, and the crew renamed it. Some Jackals treated the change from USS Bronte as bad luck, the way sailors once treated a renamed Earth hull.
The embarked force mixed trusted marines from the United Americas, the Three World Empire, and a smaller UPP contingent. Three generals funded that brigade in 2145: Christian Cunningham, Kasey Ristic, and Washington Sekiguchi. Zula gave orders from the ship and no longer went on away missions. Major Ronny Yoo had been with her since Jericho 3, and Captain Olivia Shipp was among the officers who ran landings from the hangar.
Layout And Systems
The onboard artificial intelligence EWA flew the ship, while physical communication and navigation stations remained at the bow for the Jackals. A wartime hull of this type also needed a companion synthetic to walk the decks and watch what the sensors missed. That body was Erynis, a standard Weyland-Yutani model with a tall bald human face, and the Fury had no workshop that could build a second human-like shell. Mae woke in a stock combat body because that was the spare the ship carried.
Fast burns dumped gravity and put the company into g-chairs, with gases, powdered supplements, and stims used to bring human crews back after the high-g run. Jackals not needed on the bridge rode in deep cryo. Ship systems were new enough that Mae measured their performance at 18.734 percent above the previous Cygnus 5 suite. Named spaces later in the story included a hangar bay, port hangar damage after the bomber fight, cargo bay E7 at Pylos, and an umbilical used at Minos.
Heavy Dropships
Surface work ran from UD-24 heavy dropships, which carried more guns than the UD-6 Mohawk or the UD-4 and were large enough for a full platoon plus cargo. A UD-24 held stowed weapons, a med bay, and a monitoring station for the lieutenant. On a combat load the belly took an armored personnel carrier. For the Svarog lift the crews bolted refugee restraints into that bay instead.
Lieutenant Roza Ganser's first ship was the Austrian Egg-Terminator, with nose art of a man in sunglasses holding a shotgun and a cracked egg. Corporal Evan Matthews flew it. The later tailings ships were Sergeant Masako Littlefield's Egg Beater, painted with a mustached chef beating a Xenomorph egg, and the Queen B. Corporal Ortiz and Private Steiner took the Egg Beater cockpit, and Private Okiro drove that ship's APC. Olivia Shipp flew a separate northern-hemisphere rescue while Ackerman worked the tailings pad.
Important Engagements
The Fury's recorded fights were the 2186 rescue at Shānmén, the residue chase after Pylos, and the raid on Minos over Dimitar. Zula commanded from the hull on the first two, then spent weeks on the ice during the third. The ship left the falling station with the last Jackals aboard and with cryo pods left to recover.
Shānmén Rescue
After a Black Goo strike emptied two townships on the world the Jutou Combine called Heaven's Cradle, Mae put the next likely target at the rim of the Weyland Isles. A satellite lock sent the Fury on a 67.2-hour burn toward GJ1187 / Shānmén. The ship hid behind the planet's largest moon, broadcast UPP emergency codes authorized by General Ristic, and got no answer. EWA then read a fading distress from Svarog Mine, and Zula opened a channel to Toru McClintock-Riley.
Two XIP-34B Hornet missiles left the launch bay, punched the atmosphere, and wrecked the hovering horseshoe bomber over New Luhansk. One hit the port side and the other the middle of the curve. Large pieces of that hull fell on the town. Ganser's Austrian Egg-Terminator then went down at the broken Svarog gate, and Mae fought Erynis for control of the Fury before Zula sent her down again with Lieutenant Ray Ackerman in a third combat body. Egg Beater and Queen B held a tailings landing zone until the last Knot survivors reached orbit, and the survivors later met the three generals in cargo bay E7 at Pylos.
Bomber Chase
After Pylos the generals ordered the Jackals to find who had flown the bombers. Zula stayed awake on stims and coffee while the regular troops slept in cryo. She factory-reset EWA and Erynis so they would not remember that Mae was synthetic, which also cut Mae off the ship network and left her running panels by hand. The Fury tracked leftover residue the Shānmén miners had recorded, staying outside its own long-range lock, with Lieutenant Gabriella Rossi coming out of light stasis as the chase closed.
Mae faked engine trouble with a shield flicker, dumped supply barrels, and detonated missiles, then the horseshoe ship threw rock with gravitational singularities and stripped metal instead of using a magnetic shield. Port railguns stayed in the fight, and about a quarter of a full spread reached the starboard wing of the bomber. The Fury lost two dropships, took damage in the port hangar, and suffered hull breaches on decks nineteen and twenty, while the cryo pods held. Plutarch II was too hot and heavy for a landing, at two hundred degrees, eighty-four percent carbon dioxide, and 1.8 Earth gravity.
A mid-sized black arrow ship cut between the Fury and the bomber, widened the railgun wounds, and finished that hull. The pilot was a scarred Bishop named Rook, flying the UAEV Blackstar. He docked, identified the enemy as a juggernaut, and handed Zula a disc from Blue Marsalis that pointed at Minos. The Fury was too damaged to keep hunting without a repair dock, so Zula took that lead and came in under a parts cover for the Three World Empire fleet.
Minos And Escape
Minos hung over Dimitar, also called LV-895, on a 100,000 kilometer graphene and diamond-nanothread elevator. Station AI Kaspar delayed the Jackals, then later locked both the station and the Fury under containment protocols. A three-team raid failed. Green Team died in command after Kaspar turned Erynis's key against the ship, Blue Team died in vacuum, and Red Team spent weeks trapped on the ice.
When the last six humans came up the elevator, Rook held Kaspar on a crash course and unlocked the umbilical. The crew disconnected by hand. EWA was jammed, so the Fury could use attitude thrusters before the main engines would fire. Lenny Pope restored the systems, asked to be called Leonard Pope, and took the vacant conduit post that had been Erynis's, with a copy of Rook in his eye implant. Zula left with disc drives of Minos proof in her webbing, and Mae began plotting the locations of the Jackal cryo pods that had to be recovered.
Key Crew
- Col. Zula Hendricks commanded the Fury and the Jackals. She stayed aboard during the Shānmén landings, later spent weeks on Dimitar, and left Minos with the last survivors.
- Mae Hendricks was Zula and Davis's synthetic daughter. She fought from the ship on Shānmén, lost network access after the Pylos reset, and survived the Minos crash on the Fury.
- EWA was the ship AI. After Pylos a factory reset wiped its memory of Mae, and Kaspar later jammed it until Leonard Pope restored the boards.
- Erynis was EWA's companion synthetic. Mae overrode him during the Svarog crisis, Zula reset him at Pylos, and Kaspar wrecked him in Minos command.
- Maj. Ronny Yoo was Zula's senior officer from Jericho 3. He picked Ganser for the first Svarog landing and was on the bomber chase.
- Capt. Olivia Shipp ran Jackal landings from the Fury, flew a northern rescue on Shānmén, and left Minos injured.
- Lt. Roza Ganser led the first Svarog drop on the Austrian Egg-Terminator and was lost with that ship.
- Lt. Ray Ackerman led the tailings landing, then Red Team on Dimitar, and was carried back onto the Fury with a planetary sting.
- Sgt. Masako Littlefield rode the Egg Beater with Mae and later held the Blackstar docking bay.
- Lt. Gabriella Rossi came out of light stasis for the bomber chase and reported thermal spikes on the juggernaut.
- Leonard Pope restored the Fury after Minos, took Erynis's conduit post, and carried a copy of Rook in his implant.
Behind The Scenes
Philippa Ballantine wrote Alien: Inferno's Fall for Titan Books, from a story with Clara Carija. The United Kingdom paperback came out on 26 July 2022 and the United States edition on 9 August 2022, with cover art by Alex Ronald. Alien: Seventh Circle followed on 7 January 2025 as the next Jackals novel, not as a numbered Inferno sequel. The 1986 film Aliens does not mention the Righteous Fury.
The bound Free League Alien RPG cinematic EVAC in the Inferno's Fall paperback puts Delta Squad aboard the same Atlatl-class hull during the Shānmén bombardment, at Romashka Outpost rather than at Svarog. In the novel the UA supplied the ship to Zula's unit. It was not a hull the Jackals seized from another crew.
Conclusion
The Righteous Fury was the second United Americas Atlatl-class attack vessel, laid down as the USS Bronte and given to Colonel Zula Hendricks' Jackals. In 2186 it reached Shānmén, destroyed the hovering bomber with Hornet missiles, and lifted the last Svarog survivors. After the Minos raid it pulled free of the falling station, took Leonard Pope as conduit, and left to recover the Jackal cryo pods.
Appearances
- Alien: Inferno's Fall by Philippa Ballantine (Titan Books, 2022)
- Alien RPG cinematic EVAC by Andrew E.C. Gaska (bound in Inferno's Fall, 2022)
- Alien: Seventh Circle by Philippa Ballantine (Titan Books, 2025)
Tag Categories: Alien Universe Ships | Colonial Marine Lore | Alien Lore
