SSV Cairo
From FABT
|
' |
 |
| Production information | |
|
Manufacturer: |
|
|
Class: |
|
|
Operator(s): |
|
| Technical information | |
|
Length: |
569m |
|
Width: |
65m |
|
Height/depth: |
81m |
|
Max acceleration: |
20 kilometers per second |
|
Engine unit(s): |
|
|
Shielding: |
|
|
Hull: |
164cm of Titanium-A2 Ablative Heavy Armor |
|
Sensor systems: |
|
|
Targetting system: |
|
|
Armament: |
|
|
Crew: |
1,905 |
|
Skeleton crew: |
110 |
| Usage | |
|
Commissioned: |
29 August 2154 CE |
|
Destroyed: |
19 July 2183 CE |
|
Role(s): |
Attacking enemy ships/orbital fire support |
|
Engagements: |
|
|
Affiliation: |
 |
|
Fleet: |
Second Fleet (2154 CE - 2159 CE) |
|
Commander(s): |
Captain Hotep Ranihura |
SSV Cairo AE-8 (Attack/Escort-8) was a Geneva-class heavy cruiser in the Alliance Navy. The eighth ship of her class to be built, the Cairo was assigned to the Second Fleet under Admiral Kastanie Drescher before the First Contact War, and then reassigned to the Fifth Fleet under Admiral Steven Hackett following its establishment after the war. The Cairo was one of the initial thirty Geneva-class ships built following the formation of the Systems Alliance in 2149 CE, being assigned to the Second Fleet shortly after its commissioning, where its position in the fleet took it to the very edges of rapidly expanding Alliance space. Despite the Alliance's hassle in attempting to nail down a purpose for the Geneva-class ships, Kastanie Drescher was the sole exception on this issue in that all of the Geneva vessels in her fleet were used for protecting Shanxi, Terra Nova and Eden Prime, the furthest extrasolar colonies that humanity had settled at the time. The Cairo in particular was patrolling Shanxi when the survivors from the Relay 314 massacre arrived in the system, and thus was one of the first vessels to be mobilized for war by the Alliance when the First Contact War broke out. While the Cairo was not part of the task force Drescher took to Relay 314 to get revenge for the massacre, the ship would participate in the subsequent First Battle of Shanxi, surviving the battle to later fight in the battles of Charon and Second Shanxi as well. Like all other Geneva-class ships, the Cairo went through minor upgrades after the war in an attempt to modernize it, and shortly after returning to active service, it was transferred to the then-newly formed Fifth Fleet under Admiral Hackett. In its new posting, the Cairo would participate in the Skyllian Blitz, taking part in the Battle of the Dhopris System where it was responsible for bombarding batarian positions on Uighur. The ship did not take part in the Theshaca Raids, although the ship would be swept up in a scandal in 2180 CE when it was discovered the ship's XO, senior staff and many of its security detachment had ties to Cerberus and were believed to have been leaking Alliance Geneva-class schematics to the organization, as well as leaking other information. The Cairo was taken out of active service for a year, reentering service in 2181 CE with all of its senior staff replaced, including the former commander of the ship's security: the rest were acquitted. The damage however was done, and the Cairo earned a reputation as a 'ship of traitors.' One of the senior staff arrested would later escape prison and command a Cerberus warship during the Reaper War.
In 2183 CE, after the outbreak of the Eden Prime War, the Cairo would be present at the Battle of Armstrong, although its position at the rear of the fleet meant it saw very little action. The Cairo then returned with the rest of the Fifth Fleet to Mars where the ship and its crew would briefly enjoy some shore leave. When Hackett hastily assembled the fleet to counter the geth assault on the Citadel, the Cairo came up alongside the SSV McKinley as it formed the first wave of Alliance reinforcements at the Battle of the Citadel. The ship miraculously survived the geth return fire unscathed whilst saving the ARW Destiny Ascension, with the ship's evasive maneveurs being so eratic and rapid that it ended up ahead of its formation: in doing this however, it was able to destroy 4 geth light frigates, landed a death blow on a damaged heavy cruiser, and used its point defense guns to chase off several geth fighter squadrons that were harassing the Ascension. The Cairo's erratic movement meant that it ended up being the first ship after the SSV Normandy to confront Sovereign afterwards, although this also meant it was one of the first ships Sovereign destroyed as it defended itself against the besieging Fifth Fleet, with the Cairo suffering a direct hit through its MAC gun that erupted at its stern, bissecting the ship in half briefly before detonating its reactor, totally obliterating the ship in an explosion that damaged two other frigates beside it and turned a piece of its bow into a kinetic weapon that then bissected the destroyer Aberdeen beside it. The sacrifice of the Cairo and its crew is noted on the Heroes of the Citadel monument, along with the other ships of the Fifth Fleet that were destroyed saving the Citadel. The Cairo is often called the "Savior of the Ascension", due to the captain placing his ship directly in the path of the geth assault on the asari dreadnought, placing his crew and ship at risk, and effectively managing to almost single-handedly blunt the geth offensive, allowing the dreadnought to slip through to the safety of the Alliance lines and retreat.
The ship was named after the city of Cairo in the former North African Protectorate on Earth.