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Before the Fall by Jagged
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Before the Fall: Part One: Requiem
Date: 29 February 2004, 2:57 AM
Preface: Originally, I was going to write once and have that be the end of it, but I got enough positive comments that I decided to finish off this story. My story doesn't follow the supposed Halo 2 storyline, so my apologies if this bother you.
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When he looked out of the bridge of the UNSC ship Ranger John 117, most famous of the Spartans, no longer saw a beautiful ball of blue, green, and white. He no longer saw his successes. He only saw failure reflected back to him by the virulent fires burning over much of the planet, reflected back by the plasma fire arcing down on it by the Covenant fleet that now owned it. He had only to look out the opposite side of the bridge, the port side, to see the shattered remains of the once great UNSC Home Fleet.
It was reduced by at least half, but with no time for a proper tally, they could only guess at how many had lived to leave Earth in the hands of their foe. It was still being reduced, as the Fleet's withdrawal was still being harassed by the genocidal Covenant. As the Master Chief watched, a squad of Longsword fighters led a valiant attempt at taking down the battle cruiser that was the flagship of the Covenant invasion fleet. He saw a small armada of Seraphs heading to intercept, and knew the attack would fail.
He turned to the ship's radio operator, "Tell Squad. A-3 to break off, they're being set up,"
"Yes, sir" came the immediate reply, "Squadron A-3, fall back to guard the Fleet's run to slipspace, and we'll pick you up,"
Ships began disappearing as they left the Earth's gravity well, entering slipspace and heading to the fallback point. Turning again from the view port he walked to the helmsman, "When the Longswords are aboard let Cortana take us out; she can do the calculations faster than the computer," he said, handing him the construct disk.
"Yes, sir, the fighters are aboard," He said, sliding the disk into the computer. Then the white of slipspace enveloped them. He stood, silently for a moment, and then asked, "Cortana, how long will it take us to arrive at Threshold?"
"A few hours at least, Chief. I'm going to us the time to begin analyzing the information on the Covenant that I recovered from Halo 04,"Came the AI construct's reply. Threshold had been chosen for a fallback spot because the Covenant there had been eliminated only days before. It was not likely that they had reinforced the system, especially since they were busily murdering Earth's population.
"I'm going to the freezer, defrost me 15 minutes before arrival," He said.
"Will do," She said in an all too cheery voice. He hoped that she would have enough time to fix whatever being in Halo's computer system had done to her.
Almost six hours later, when he awoke, Cortana had news.
"I discovered something, Chief," she said in quickly and seriously when he arrived on the bridge about 14 minutes later. "I'll explain when we get to Threshold, but the short story is that we need to go back to Reach,"
"Why not just go now, we could be there in-,"
"We are definitely going to need the Fleet's help with this," She cut him off. "We aren't just going to Reach," she continued, "We are going to re-take it,"
Then, they dropped out of slipspace, this forestalled any more questions he would've asked.
"Communication from the flagship," said the Comm. Officer. "They send us greeting, and request that the Master Chief join the Command Staff for a conference,"
"No problem, come on Cortana, time to go," He replies as he pulls her disk out and inserts it in his helmet.
Half an hour later, the arrived in a small conference room, on the flagship, Rotunda.
The Admiral began to speak," We have just suffered our greatest defeat in the history of mankind. Our losses, both civilian and military, were substantial. We were vastly outnumbered and under gunned. What we need now is to step back, and catch our collective breath. We need time to take stock, inventory, and recover from the enormous kick in the gut that we've all just taken. To do that we need one thing, a distraction, a diversion, anything to keep the remaining Covenant forces away from this system,"
"You mean a diversion," The Chief spoke, "You mean bait,"
"Not in as literal a sense as that, but yes," The Admiral replied.
"Which is something we can provide," Cortana finally spoke," I have found something. When the Covenant glassed Reach, they maintained a garrison of sorts there....to search through the mines for something. What they expect to find, I don't know. But, I expect to find two things there. One, should we retake it, we provide ourselves with a place to offload a few hundred refugees under suitable guard, beneath the surface where they can't be harmed. Second, I believe we will be able to find the key to winning this war, a Covenant cruiser with the possible location of the Covenant home world in its systems,"
At this statement, the people around the table sat in utter silence. Not only was she suggesting a distraction, she was suggesting a way to win the war. Less than a day after their greatest defeat yet.....
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Shorter than last time i think, and not near as much action, but i was setting up the storyline.
Part 2: Retaliation
Date: 5 March 2004, 1:21 AM
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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