Alpha Squadron

Alpha Squadron, also known as the Blood Hawks, was a Terran Confederate military squadron that later aligned with the Terran Dominion. Led for much of its history by Edmund Duke, the squadron prided itself on being the first group in and the first group out of any hot zone, earning a reputation for lightning-quick strikes on unsuspecting enemy encampments. Its fatality rate was the lowest in the Confederate Armed Forces, a mark of the skill and precision behind its rapid tactical maneuvers. (StarCraft (manual))

The Guild Wars and the Confederate years#

Captain Edmund Duke brought a unit of Alpha Squadron marines and goliaths to Onuru Sigma, where he met 33rd Ground Assault Division commander Brantigan Fole and a promising young captain named Arcturus Mengsk. Tasked with attacking a Kel-Morian Combine mining facility at the Noranda Glacier, Duke walked his aggressive tactics into a carefully hidden series of strongpoints and was trapped. Mengsk took over command, calling in Wraith strafing runs before his forces rushed the complex and rescued Alpha Squadron. The battle helped trigger the Guild Wars. Years later, in 2491, Alpha Squadron forces under Duke engaged the battlecruiser Hyperion under the newly formed Sons of Korhal, but the rebels repelled the boarders and escaped. (StarCraft: I, Mengsk; StarCraft II: Heaven's Devils; StarCraft: Uprising)

The coming of the zerg#

Eight years later the squadron was summoned to Chau Sara to suppress Sons of Korhal insurgents and instead encountered the zerg and the Cerberus Recon Squad. Duke led the defense of the city of Los Andares from a siege tank and even cracked the main zerg hive cluster, but these efforts only delayed the planet's fall. After Chau Sara was burned by the protoss, Alpha Squadron mounted a clumsy counterattack to defend Mar Sara, though Executor Tassadar withdrew rather than fire. On Mar Sara the squadron relocated the colonists to the wastelands and arrested Marshal Jim Raynor and his militia, before abandoning the world to the zerg. (StarCraft: Precursor; StarCraft (manual); StarCraft)

Defection to the Sons of Korhal#

A large detachment garrisoned Antiga Prime but failed to suppress the full-scale revolt the Sons of Korhal stirred up there. When the battlecruiser Norad II was attacked by the zerg and crash-landed on the planet, Duke sent out a priority-one distress call that was answered by Arcturus Mengsk. Convinced to join forces with the Sons of Korhal, Duke brought the rest of Alpha Squadron with him, and the squadron fought another two months against Confederate reinforcements and zerg. At the fall of Tarsonis, Alpha Squadron assaulted the central orbital platform, defeated the Delta and Omega Squadron troops, and planted psi emitters, though the genocidal nature of the operation drove a number of its troops to desert to Raynor's Raiders. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade; StarCraft: Queen of Blades)

Service to the Dominion#

After the Terran Dominion was formed, Mengsk sent Alpha Squadron to Char to flush out the zerg and retrieve Sarah Kerrigan. The mission was an absolute disaster: the ground force was dislodged from its drop zone with over fifty percent casualties, much of the fleet was destroyed by the protoss expeditionary force, and the Amerigo was infiltrated by Kerrigan herself. Distrustful of Duke despite his services, Mengsk later relegated the squadron to survey work, until a distress signal from the Fringe World of Bhekar Ro sent them to investigate a xel'naga temple. Duke ordered the temple nuked, releasing an energy creature that absorbed the surrounding protoss and zerg and destroyed the orbiting fleet, leaving the survivors stranded for months. In the final battle of the Second Great War, with his palace under assault by the zerg and Raynor's Raiders, Mengsk sent Alpha Squadron's elite battlecruisers to destroy the Hyperion. They fell to the combined firepower of the Raiders and the Swarm. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Queen of Blades; StarCraft: Shadow of the Xel'Naga; StarCraft: The Dark Templar Saga: Firstborn; StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm)

Known members#

The squadron's most prominent figure was General Edmund Duke, its commander for most of its history. Its officers included Captains Ragay and Sandler, and among its ranks at one time was Lieutenant Samir Duran, at least by his own account. Sergeant Roosevelt Brannigan was among its enlisted members. (StarCraft; StarCraft: Queen of Blades; StarCraft: Brood War; StarCraft: Uprising)