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The Crimson Viper by The Commodore
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The Crimson Viper
Date: 10 February 2006, 11:45 am
Captain Orhis looked at the navigation computer watching the huge amount of ships heading towards REACH and wondered how his small "gunman" class cruiser would survive this encounter. He and his crew had survived quite a few missions before, but even he, the Captain; the man who was supposed to always think they could pull through had serious doubts.
He had to concentrate. "Lieutenant Robinson, is the MAC gun ready to fire?"
"Waiting for your order sir," answered Robinson with a grave look on his face.
"Good, make sure all guns are ready to fire as soon as the covenant come in range."
"Yes sir."
The captain went back to the display and watched what was happening. There was not a single ship in the covenant fleet the Viper could stand up to. It was in that moment that he saw a large group of ships separating from the main group and heading towards a destroyer.
"Lieutenant Whitham, which ship is that?"
"That one sir?" his hands quickly moved over the console as he scanned the database. "The Pillar of Autumn sir, newly outfitted"
"Outfitted for what?" the captain returned.
"Classified, sir."
"Right, Lieutenant McGrath take us between that ship and the covenant. Full ahead"
"Yes sir." She quickly moved her fingers over the console and the ship was soon moving towards the Autumn. Captain Orhis didn't quite know what he was doing. All he knew was that ship was carrying something important and he had to protect it.
"Sir getting a call from Admiral Stanforth" Lieutenant Whitham said.
"On screen" answered the Captain.
"Orhis, what the hell are you-
There was a huge impact and the whole ship shook.
"Report!" shouted the Captain.
"Hull at eighty percent, communications out!" said Lieutenant McGrath.
"Whitham, warn me if there's another impact! Full tactical alert!" The red lights came on. No answer from Whitham though.
"Whitham?" He turned around and Whitham had gone all that was left was a bloody trail. The rest of the crew on the bridge looked at him. "Leave it, ETA?"
"One minute." Answered McGrath.
"Robinson, is the MAC gun still hot?"
"Yes sir."
"Good, arm our nuke."
"Yes sir."
If this worked the autumn might be able to make run for it with its valuable cargo, whatever it was.
"Sir we're nearly in position and the covenant have just fired simultaneously."
"Brace for impact!" shouted the Captain.
The shockwave hit the ship hard.
"Fire all broadside guns! Fire the MAC and the nuke!"
The small ship fired a deadly salvo of destruction. The covenant fired again.
"Captain, the ships hull is at twenty percent! Should we pull out?"
"Negative, we need to protect the autumn!"
"Yes sir,"
After two minutes there was hardly any damage to the autumn but the lights on the small cruiser were flickering.
"Captain, one more hit and we're done for"
"Hold position!"
Suddenly, the Autumn jumped into slipspace.
"Get us out of here, McGrath!"
"Yes, sir!"
The cruiser jumped into slipspace with a jolt.
"Report, McGrath!" shouted the captain.
"Slipspace engine is barely working, the coordinates are all wrong! I can't correct them. We'll get to our coordinates in about two hours."
"Damage?"
"The compartment behind us is fully intact, the engine room is still together and so is the hangar. Everything else is gone."
The captain paused a second. "Gone?"
"Yes, sir."
"How many men do we have left?"
"Fifty-six."
That was two hundred dead and floating in space. They had only been in the battle twenty minutes.
"What rank are they?"
"Thirty marines, sixteen engineers ten pilots." Lieutenant McGrath answered.
"Can we reach them?" He asked her.
"Not until we come out of slipspace."
"They have enough air, don't they?"
"Yes, sir."
"What do we have in the hangar?"
"Two tanks, three warthogs one of which has the new MAC gun, five pelicans, plenty of ammo and guns and enough supplies."
"We should look for Witham, come with me."
"Yes sir." Answered Lieutenant McGrath.
He left the bridge with Louise McGrath. They followed the bloody trail to Lieutenant Withams quarters. They found him dead on the floor. It looked like he was trying to get back to the door.
"Get someone from maintenance to clean this up." Said the captain.
"Who?" Answered McGrath.
"Get some marines then."
She left the room.
It was then he noticed that Lieutenant Witham had his hand clenched around something. He crouched down and opened up Lieutenant Withams hand. The captain found a high-memory chip.
Crimson Viper part 2
Date: 12 April 2006, 3:11 pm
Lieutenant McGrath came back with three marines.
"Lieutenant, I found this in Withams hand," he showed her the memory chip. "Come with me back to the bridge this could be important."
They walked back to the bridge together. When they got there the captain slotted the chip into the main screen. The image of Witham with a bleeding head appeared on the screen.
"Captain, I sorry had to leave you like that," He looked at his bloody hand then collapsed on the floor, " I've been working on this since I came aboard this ship. I couldn't tell anyone as it's against some UNSC regulations" his head fell and his eyes went blank.
Suddenly, a small man appeared on the hologram panel. The man looked twenty or so years old. He was holding some kind of pad in both hands and looked very focused on it. He was wearing a light blue t-shirt and jeans. He had long, black hair, which reached the bottom of his eyes. He completely ignored the captain.
"You are?" the captain began.
"Oh right, introductions. I'm Cody. I'm an AI and lieutenant Whitham told me I'd be working for you," said the man. "Where is lieutenant Witham by the way?"
"He died some time ago," answered the captain.
"Flat-lined eh? Shame, I thought he could have leveled me up quite a bit as time went on." Answered Cody.
The captain was shocked "OK, I want to make this clear. I don't need an AI"
"Really? Cause, I think if you ever faced a Covenant destroyer with this hunk o' junk YOU MIGHT JUST SURVIVE WITH ME BY YOUR SIDE!" shouted the AI.
"Fine! What are your capabilities?" returned the captain.
"Well, I can hack in to covenant and ONI networks alike, I can disable a whole covenant network and I can jam covenant communications." Answered Cody proudly.
"Can you tell me exactly when we're coming out of slipspace?" the captain asked.
"Well," Cody began "considering the state of our slipspace engines," he paused. "NOW!"
The captain fell out of his seat, and everyone else fell over as well. "Report!" Shouted the captain.
"We're heading towards a planet!" said Cody.
The captain got up and looked at the firestorm outside the window. "Close the shutters!" he ordered.
A metal screen lowered outside the window
"Time till impact?" asked the captain
"One minute and thirty three seconds" answered Cody. "The engine sector of the ship is breaking of! We're coming in too hot!"
"On my mark, fire emergency bow thrusters!" The captain shouted frantically over the noise of the ship's burning hull. "Height?" he asked.
"1500 meters!" replied Lieutenant McGrath.
"Keep me posted! Said the captain as they broke through the cloud layer. The captain saw a vast desert stretching below him with a small oasis to the north
"1000 meters!"
The captain hatched a plan.
"500 meters!"
"Mark!" shouted the captain as almost immediately the ship exploded upwards.
The back f the ship crashed into the ground first and the front came slamming down on to the dry, loose sand. The ship slid about 300 meters and then came to a halt.
"What do we do now captain?" asked Cody.
"Do you know where the stern of the ship crashed?"
"About two hundred miles to the west. Why?"
"We're going to get as many supplies on to the warthogs and then go see if anyone survived," said the captain calmly " if there's someone alive we take them with us and head to the oasis north of here."
"And then what?" Cody asked.
"I saw water in the oasis." Replied the captain "water means there's oxygen and those two put together mean life. Life means plants and animals and plants and animals mean food." The captain continued.
Cody considered for a moment and then said "And we just live out the rest of our lives there?"
"Well…yes." The captain said blankly.
Cody looked like he was going to protest but then he simply said "OK".
Everyone agreed and then began to leave the bridge until they heard some clearing their throat behind them. They turned around and saw Cody who was gently tapping his foot on his little pedestal.
"Sorry," the captain said as he removed the chip "I'm not used to having you on board".
The captain and his lieutenants walked to the cargo hold where the rest of the survivors were the marines and pilots greeted them
"Damn, you can drive me any day," a familiar voice said.
The captain turned around and smiled as he saw his old friend Colonel Elliot Brassi.
"Hi Elliot!" the captain beamed the two of them knew each since they were in Navy school. The first couple of years there they were in the same class but then Elliot's grades dropped and he was transferred and became a marine.
"So what's the plan boss?" The major asked. The captain told him about the oasis and the engineers. "Sounds like as good a plan as any." The major replied.
* * *
As they drove out on to the dry, hot desert the captain looked up into the sky and saw a small flash and a dark shape emerge, immediately he realized he realized it was a cruiser. A covenant cruiser.
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