STV Arkhamina's Lament

Ship Summary
Ship Name	STV Arkhamina's Lament
Faction	Unspecified
Hull Type
Ship Class	Vespoidea-class
Brief Description	Flagship of House Machariel
Campaign	Rogue Trader: After the Gold Rush

Laid down at Drysan Construction Yards roughly 1,100 years ago as Scrutiny, Arkhamina's Lament was originally a Resolution -class long-range reconnaissance ship. After a lengthy construction while the Imperial Shipwrights scoured the sector for powerful augur arrays and cogitator banks, she did her shakedown with Battlefleet Calixis scouting out the far corners of the sector. Once the Navy was content with her readiness, she was deployed to Port Wander as part of the forces investigating the ship disappearances along the edge of the Drusus Marches. She served with distinction here, her captain, officers, and crew amassing numerous Imperial Navy commendations. Thanks to the distinction of her crew and the accolades afforded them, Scrutiny was one of the first Imperial ships through the Koronus Passage when it was finally re-opened at the end of the 40th millennium.

Over the next 300 years she sailed the void as part of an Imperial Navy scouting mission. Along with a dozen other light cruisers, she wandered the Expanse surveying worlds, fighting pirates and, when her captain and crew could manage, bringing the holy light of the God-Emperor to the godless heathens that lived therein. After centuries of duty, the scouting mission had still only charted a fraction of the regions of the Koronus Expanse. Realizing that they had neither the time nor resources to dedicate to a truly thorough charting of the Expanse, the Navy recalled the scouting mission to the Calixis sector and replaced them with cheaper and more expendable, Rogue Traders and Free Captains. Time and the ravages of interstellar exploration in a hostile sector had not treated Scrutiny well, and upon her return she was decommissioned, her crew reassigned, and she was sent back to the Drysan yards for a full refit.

For decades she sat laid-up in drydock at Drysan. Designated for re-purposing, her powerful augur arrays and their component cogitator banks were removed as she was slowly and painstakingly reconfigured as a troop carrier to ferry forces of Imperial Guardsmen from the Calixis Sector to Port Wander and the Koronus Expanse. Her interior compartments were converted to special barracks and munitoria to carry the Guardsmen and all of their necessary equipment. She was fitted with drop-pod bays along either side of her keel for the fast deployment of troops to battlefields, and heavier armour and weapons were installed to protect her in her new, more martial role. Nearly 100 years to the day from her decommissioning, she put in at Port Wander with fresh paint, a belly full of Imperial Guardsmen, and a new name, Aegis.

Aegis served in her troop carrier/combatant role remarkably well for centuries. Even after her reconfiguration and recommissioning, she continued to collect commendations and battle medals under the leadership of her numerous captains. Eventually however, the cost of keeping her and the remainder of her sister ships operational became too much for even the Administratum to countenance, and Aegis, along with all remaining Resolution -class ships were decommissioned a final time and sold out of the service. By coincidence, a recently retired Lord-Admiral of the Imperial Navy named Phineas Machariel was in the market for a personal ship. Admiral Machariel had been granted a Warrant of Trade in recognition of nearly a century of faithful and distinguished service to the Imperium. Having served aboard Scrutiny as a midshipman, and again as a young lieutenant, he had a soft spot in his heart for the old ship. With his not insignificant pension, and loans acquired against the future earnings of his nascent Trade Dynasty, he was able to buy Aegis at auction and still have enough left over to comfortably fit her out. With a powerful ship, now named Arkhamina's Lament as a nod to his wife's reaction to this lavish purchase, a hand-picked crew, and a promise of near limitless wealth, he sailed through the Maw and into his future.

Now, nearly two hundred years later, Lament still serves as the backbone of the fleet of House Machariel. Somewhat diminished due to neglect caused by the waning fortunes of the Dynasty, she is still a proud, reliable ship. She is currently under command of Lyssa Machariel, the current holder of House Machariel's Warrant of Trade, and is undergoing a minor refit at Machariel shipyards.