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Part 2: Retaliation
Posted By: Jagged<shadowpilot1355@aol.com>
Date: 5 March 2004, 1:21 AM
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Preface: Here it is floks, number two in the series, three in my career...
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....."How can you be sure?" asked one of the many officers present in the small conference room," How can you know that the most closely guarded secrets of the Covenant is at Reach?"
"I never stated that I knew, simply that it was likely," replied Cortana, clearly taking the question as a shot on her abilities.
"Will you please explain your reasoning, Cortana?" asked the Admiral.
"Of, course," she began," During my time spent in the Control Room of Halo, I recorded every transmission or communication made by he Covenant. I put them on a priority scale, by categorizing the time, origin, destination, and encryption difficulty. The third highest, the one that concerns us, was sent from a Covenant Battle Cruiser to a ship of the same class, at a time when most on the ship would be on a sleep cycle, and was very heavily encrypted.
"While en route from Earth, I used the Ranger's facilities to speed the decoding process. The top two turned out to be planning for fighting the Flood. But, the third was garbles, but I managed to decipher the coordinates of Reach, orders for two Battle Cruisers to go there, and the transfer of coordinates of a place called 'The Source of the Light of the Truth,' I could not interpret the coordinates themselves, only something that roughly tranlated as 'these are the coordinates to....' along with orders to go there only in an emergency,"
As she finished, the Admiral looked to each person sitting at the table in turn, waiting for them to absorb this information.
"I believe that this is worth a look. Current intelligence suggests that only the two mentioned Cruisers are stationed at Reach, along with a garrison of ground forces. To combat this, we can only spare four Halcyon-class Cruisers, their Longsword fighters, their Marines, and the accompanying ground vehicles. That is including the Ranger," said the Admiral.
"That will be enough, but we will also need a ship to carry the refugees to re-inhabit the tunnels," this came from the Master Chief himself," And I would also like to bring the other remaining Spartans, Fred, Will, and Linda to assist the ground forces,"
"You can have them. I will send an unarmed troop transport along after Reach has been pacified with the refugees," consented the Admiral.
"Thank you, sir. I expect to depart before the day is over," Cortana said.
With that, preparations began. Almost seamlessly, the ships of the taskforce prepared themselves. Horizon, Whirlwind, and Defiant were to accompany Ranger during the mission. As they gathered at the jump point for the run to slipspace, Master Chief addressed his troops.
"Most of you have been kept in the dark about our destination, target, and objectives," he continued, "First; I can tell you that we are going to hit the Covenant back. Second, I can tell you we are going to take back something they took. We are going to Reach. Our objective is to take it and destroy the garrison there, good luck to you all," at this point, he restricted the transmissions and spoke only to the other three ship captains," If at all possible, I want you to disable the Cruisers there. Aim for the drives and weapons system. If a cruiser should crash-land on the planet, I want at least one squad of Marines from each ship on the Landing Zone less than twenty minutes afterward. Good fight to you," The communication ended as the ships entered slipspace.
Approximately nine hours later, the taskforce dropped out right on top of Reach. The Ranger, leading the formation, immediately let loose a single, long distance, barrage to hold off any ships that might be near. This covered the other ships re-entry, but it also announced to the entire garrison that they were there.
In orbit above Reach were two Covenant Battle Cruisers, one that identified itself as Tribulation sent its Seraph fighters to attack on a different vector, and charged towards the taskforce at full speed. The second, The Guard of the Light, stayed in orbit, but sent its own fighters to act as a screen for Tribulation. The Master Chief quickly re-ordered his forces.
"Cortana, I want Defiant and Horizon to blow right through that screen and hit Tribulation. Have their fighters hang back in the engine wash of Defiant, so when the Seraphs turn to chase Horizon, the Longswords can pounce on them. Next, I want our's and Whirlwind's fighters out to meet those from Tribulation. Whirlwind will come with us as we try and sneak past the Tribulation to hit Guard of the Light,"
"Affirmative, the fighters are away," came her reply, slightly strained.
At that moment, the Defiant and Horizon hit the screen and blew through it easily. As the Seraphs turned to pursue, they got hit by the escorting Longswords and pounded mercilessly, taking heavy losses. Seeing this, the Tribulation's commander stopped his ship and rolled it to bring the largest amount of plasma cannons in line with the UNSC ships. Elsewhere, the fight was not going as well. The fighter squadrons from Whirlwind and Ranger had taken heavy losses during the first head to head run, but had succeeded in keeping the Seraphs away from the starships.
"Send half of the squad off of Horizon to reinforce the fighters from us and Whirlwind. Are we past the Tribulation yet?" asked the Chief.
"Not yet, it's about ten degrees relative below us..." Cortana paused for a moment," If we and Whirlwind lower our bows slightly, we can hit them hard on their starboard weapons banks. Horizon reports main cannon and shields offline, they're falling back,"
"There goes sneaking by quietly, do it," he replied as the ship's bow lowered.
The cannons of Ranger and Whirlwind went active and pounded the Tribulation heavily, breaching the hull on three decks. The lights on the ship fluttered a few times, then shut down along with the plasma cannons and drive systems.
"Have Fred and Linda board Tribulation with two squads of Marines. Tell them to enter on the decks that are breached, there will be few if any survivors. How many Seraphs remain?" he asked, seeing distant explosions where the half squad from Horizon had reinforced theirs.
"At this battle, all but two....scratch that...one have been eliminated, at the other battle, 7 remain," came Cortana's reply.
"Send the other half of Horizon's Squad to finish the other battle, and have Defiant's escort us to hit the Light," he turned to the comm. officer," Damage report for the other ships?"
"Horizon has repaired their cannon, but they have sustained heavy damage to the bow, Defiant has no critical damage, but they've lost roughly 67% of they're offensive capabilities, Whirlwind is basically untouched with 97% shields, we are undamaged," came the reply.
"Alright, Cortana, when the Seraphs are finished, recall the Longswords and put three-quarters of them escorting us and the other fourth guarding the Defiant and Horizon while they undergo repairs,"
"Already on it, Chief,"
By now they had closed to range with the other Battle Cruiser and were taking hits. This Cruiser fought more conservatively, moving constantly to provide better angles for its gunners. The the Longswords arrived. The fighters made strafing runs, knocking out individual plasma cannons, hitting the drives, and radar arrays. They ship could not hold out for much longer, and it began a turn towards Reach and into a low orbit. Then two Longswords collided and the debris pierced the bridge of the Cruiser.
"Report damage on The Light!" he shouted.
"It appears to be without power except for the engines, which are currently pushing it further into Reach's gravity well. It will impact on the Northern Hemisphere, less than two hundred klicks from the garrison there," came Cortana's urgent reply.
"Send drop ships down to land less than twenty klicks away and have them take Warthogs and Scorpions from there," he ordered," What's the progress of the Tribulation boarding? Oh, and have Will accompany our drop ship,"
"Alpha team report increasing resistance as they near Tribulation's bridge, which appears to be intact. They're squad has been reduced from twenty to fifteen, with no fatalities yet. A medic is with the injured already,"
"Okay, Cortana, you're in command of tactics and coordination, I'm going down in one of the drop ships that's on the way to the Guard of the Light crash zone," with that, he ran from the bridge to the armory, taking a pistol and a battle rifle and extra ammo for each. From there he barely caught the last drop ship to leave the bay.....
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There it is...let me know what you think. I don't know anything about Covenant or Human starships, but i gave it my best shot.....
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