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The Gettysburg Incident by Bootsman
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The Gettysburg Incident: Chapter 1
Date: 29 September 2005, 10:02 pm
The Gettysburg Incident
Two longsword fighters roarmed trough the meterofield of Titan MK-3. Both of the pilots knew how a small mistake would send them blasting to hell, not to mention the possible activation of the Shiva MK-9 prototype Fission-Nuclear-Missles, propably taking the whole artificial planet with them.
''Comeon John! you can do better than that!'' Admiral Harper yelled to John over the radio from Gettysburg.
''Fine! I'll show your highrank ass some flying'' John replied from the longsword and soon after that the radio went dead.
Few seconds later the other longsword boosted ahead of the other one and continued speeding off in the distance and finally disappearing from the other longswords Field Of View. This was mostly because of the asteroid field blocking the view, but damn if John wasn't a kickass pilot.
''sir, I've lost my view on John'' Sargeant Rashon's words were hardly heard by Harper because of the fuzz going on Gettysburg's bridge.
''RASHON! Get back to Gettysburg ASAP, We have a CCS-class covenant battlecruiser coming in, we need everything we've got!'' Harper yelled on the bridge while showing some of the rookie bridge personell what to do.
Rashon switched on the main sensor array and calculated a route to avoid leading covenant patrols and turned his course to Gettysburg.
Harper kept a deep look on the bridge's mainscreen and especially stared at the battlecruiser that had appeared minutes ago.
''Sir, we are ready for a secured broadcast to UNSC-Actual'' said the communications officer.
Harper took a deep breath and walked to the communications center, seconds later a videolink of ''Lord Hood'' the supreme commander Jason Hood of the UNSCDF showed up on the screen.
''Comeon Harper, what do you have for me?'' Hood asked, you could see he was definetly not happy about the recent events and was busy with other stuff than a single ship.
''Not sure sir, looks like a CCS-Class, but it is way too big to be one. This is why I called you. Any of your boys seen one of these? Or should we name this the Harpercraft?'' harper said with a small grin on his face.
Hood walked away from the viewscreen for a second and then came back with a piece of paper.
''Harper, whitdraw all fighters and ground units. That ship is a new CTG-Class Capitalship or a Dreadnought. A single one of those destroyed one of our distance fleets ALONE!'' Hoot yelled and closed the videolink right after sending the data they had on the CTG to Gettysburg.
Sargeant Jones ''Bootsman'' Rickson and Corporal Timmy ''Demonhuter'' Mendez were just loading the last of the fusion cores in to the transport warthog when Bootsman's radio came up.
''This is Gettysburg-Actual. All ground units pack up what you can and head back to Gettysburg. Priority Alpha-4''
For a moment Bootsman and Demonhuter just stood still watching at eachother until Bootsman said:
''Well............Shit...''. Right after Bootsman finished, they both started running towards the powerplant they had taken the fusion cores and as soon as Bootsman opend the door he yelled:
''Allright! Everyone get the fuck up and pack your gear! We're heading back to Gettysburg via the old albatross we found. Somekind of new covie-ship up there and we are running!''
Not far after this The 7th ODST sguad was driving across the Titan MK-3's desert and heading for the albatross as fast as they could.
As soon as they arrived, Bootsman hopped on the albatross pilots seat and took and ran the basic preflight tests and then showed a thumbsup to Demonhuter to signal that they were good to go.
Sgt. Thomas ''Pinkballer'' Jackson was piling up the last of the fusion cores right next to the warthog in the albatross cargo bay, and watching as the other ODST's strapped in their seats and placed their helmets on the seat next to them. Pinkballer laughed for a second cause he would prolly have problems fitting in to the seats because he was bigger than a normal ODST, unlike the others he was a huge tank that could smack his fist trought an elite's force field if he needed to.
When all the ODSTs were on their seats, Bootsman egnited the engines and took off with the heavily shaking and dusty albatross.
''Hey Boots! Are you trying to kill us or is this old crap doing it?'' Pinkballer yelled from the cargo bay.
''Yuph! This babe is abit old, but still flies like a dream dont you think? I mean, who wouldnt want to fly huge cargo versions of pelicans? especially when they have been digged up from sand!'' Bootsman replied from the cockpit while battling out with the control joysticks that the albatross had on its both handles of the pilots seat.
''Allright, we're clear from the athmosphere now. Demon! Get up here and take the controls, I'll check on the fusion cores. AND PLEASE! try to avoid seraphs allright?'' Bootsman yelled from the ladders leading to the cockpit while he was sliding them down.
''Ok, these babies look just fine, will give Gettysburg's engines a nice boost dont you think?'' Bootsman said to the ODSTs with a small grin while checking the readings from the fusion cores.
Demonhuter set course for Gettysburg and let the autopilot do the flying while he finally had time for a nap.
End of chapter 1
The Gettysburg Incident: Chapter 2
Date: 11 October 2005, 6:18 pm
Gettysburg incident: Chapter2
Gettysburg bridge.
10.5.2552. 1600 hours.
Harper walked nervously around the bridge. He had asked the same question about a dozen times now but tried once again just to be certain.
''Any signs of John? or shall I assume him MIA?'' he asked from a liutenant that was operating at the sensors section.
The liutenant turned around and looked Harper right in his eyes and said:
''No,sir. I picked up somekind of signal from the covie ship but i doubt it's him. Given what they know about his... ehm.. Reputation. I hardly think they want him alive.''
Harper laughed for a second and then sighed heavily.
''Well, yell for me as soon as you learn something new.'' Harper said and then walked back to the main viewscreen.
He had been thinking about what he would do if the covenant cruiser would spot them. would he run, fight or abandon the gettysburg and take the battle on the surface? Deep inside he knew that a halcyon class cruiser has nothing to do with a mothership or a dreadnaught, but some certain little prototype nukes onboard could make a nice boom. Still it would be way too risky to try take that thing down with a prototype nuke. Only god knows what could happen.
Gettysburg hangar.
10.5.2552. 1620hours.
Rashon had just docked his longsword on his regular docking at the 3rd level of the docking bay. The docking bay was similiar to the POA's one, for one small exemption. It had 5 levels instead of the 4 that Autumn had. Every docking port, seven per level, had 2 walking ports on each side and the ships would dock between them. Longswords would dock bow first, but pelicans would dock with their rear's towards the docks main walkway, for easy entry for marines and equipment, that coverred most of the levels. As for the albatrosses. Gettysburg had only 2 and those were stocked on the hangar bottom floor. next to staging areas for warthogs and scorpions.
Rashon opend the front hatch of his longsword by pressing a small blue button on the roof terminal the longsword had ontop of the seats.
He then proceeded to walk towards the back of the longsword and down to the hatch and ramp that would lead him out of the longsword.
As soon as he had cleared the longsword an angry mecanic dressed in a orange uniform came yelling to him:
''Goddamit Rashon! Your longsword is busted again! You have any idea how much these things cost?!''
Rashon stood in amazement since he tought the longsword was fine, atleast he didn't find any difficulties flying it back.
But as he turned around and saw the damage the longsword had taken he started laughing of joy that he actually made it back to Gettysburg.
The longsword had been pierced by the meteors from numerious locations among its hull, but one took especially took Rashons eye.
A large chump of the starboard wing was missing from right next to the engine.. If only it would have hitten abit on the left. Rashon would be toasted by now.
''Whoa.. Didn't notice that before.. Don't worry mate.. You'll get it fixed in notime'' Rashon said and tapped the angry looking mecanic on his shoulder.
Rashon was lucky not to get punched by the mecanic, once again, his higher rank had saved him from certain fight.
Titan mk-3 orbit. 5000km's from Gettysburg
10.5.2552. 1720 hours.
Bootsman and Demonhuter were now both sitting in the cockpit of the albatross. Boots had the controls and Demon was just watching the space trought the windows. Albatrosses were otherwise the same looking as pelicans, but they were much bigger and had a tight cockpit that had a very narrow window that would show only what was need to be shown. The cockpit was full of buttons and HUD's from bottom to the top and everyone of them had a specific function.
They were approaching the Gettysburg from it's rear, Bootsman clearly knew this since he could see the Gettysburg's engines generating a light that could be mistaken for a star but the sensors said diffrent. Demon was keeping a firm grip on the pilotsticks on the co-pilots seat, alltough he knew that Rickson was a good pilot.. He couldn't let go, just to be sure.
While Rickson and Mendez were taking things cool and relaxing in the cockpit. The rest of the 7th ODST squad was still nervously sitting on their seats.
Everyone of them had nervous looks on their faces. All of them were pale of fear, since this was their first contact with the covenant ever, they were hella scared.
One of the men stood out especially, this was pvt. Uber nicknamed Pinkballer for some odd reason he did not like to say. Unlike the others, he wasn't pale at all. He was just sitting on his seat and humming some lyric that no-one knew. He had done numerious missions to covenant controlled planets and knew about what was coming, maby this was why he wasn't so scared. The ODSTs had been quiet for a while, but now Pinkballer made a start:
''You know.. If they knew we were here. they would have blown us to pieces by now.. You guys should try to relax.'' After these words all of the ODSTs, exept Rickson and Mendez, started to stare Pinkballer in amazement. After a few painful minutes one of them started laughing and the others followed until they all were laughing their heads off. You could clearly hear Pinkballer's german accent'ish laugh from the crowd of others that had a really high voice compared to his.
Right after they had started laughing really hard. something bumped the ship really hard. The laugh stopped immidiately. Right after that one of the ODSTs yelled: ''What the hell was that!?''. Some of the ODSTs were confused and frightend that it was a seraph shot that blowed near. These toughts were quickly replaced when Sgt. Rickson yelled from the cockpit:
''Slipspacerupture! something just came out of slipstream really close to us!''
Gettysburg bridge.
10.5.2552. 1725 hours.
''Sir! Slipspace rupture, 4800Km's to our rear! Single vessel. Not covenant!'' The liutenant operating the sensors yelled to admiral Harper.
As these words were finished, the UNSCDF logo that had been on the mainscreen went down and a display showing the ship came up.
It was clearly bigger than gettysburg but just abit smaller than the covenant ''Harpercraft''.
''Give me contact. Lets see if these are intelligent type of aliens!'' Harper yelled towards the communications officer that was in the next booth to the left of where sensors was. The officer pressed a few buttons higher than his head and then gave a nod to Harper.
''This is UNSC-Gettysburg to unidentified vessel. Identify yourself or we will be forced to open fire without hesitation'' Harper spoke while lookin down to the floor with his eyes allmost shut. The bridge was silent for a moment, but suddenly a voice from the speakers surpriced everyone in the bridge because it was familiar and definetly a human.
''This is Fleet Admiral Kane. Stand down Harper. We are to assist you as you evacuate the planet and jump to UNSC controlled space.''
After hearing this, Harper raised his other eyebrow and looked at the other bridge personell being amazed like he was.
''Liutenant, scan the ship and tell me if that is really UNSC hardware. I haven't even heard about anything that big.'' Harper said with a low voice.
The liutenant pressed some combinations on his keyboard and then looked at Harper and said.
''Sir. They have a fusion reactor similiar to ours and I'm receiving UNSC-vertification-codes. It's one of ours allright.''
Harper started to smile abit and then continued to speak directly to Admiral Kane.
''I never knew we had such a big ship in the fleet. Neither did i knew that our ships could have shields. Sofar I've only seen ones in the mjolnir armors.''
After a few moments Kane respond
''Well this baby just came out of the shipyards 2days ago. Hood had it built in secret from everyone exept the high command, since this is the most advanced military warfare we have. We didn't want to risk alerting the covenant in case of possible violations of the Cole protocol.''
Aurora bridge.
10.5.2552. 1755hours.
Kane was sitting in his chair on the UNSC-Aurora's bridge. looking troung the main viewscreen and pointing some of the personell some basic thing to do.
Aurora's bridge was similiar to the frigate bridges. It had 1 seat for the commander of the ship and 2 pilot seats infront. Unlike the Achilles and Halcyon class cruisers. Everyone on the bridge had a place to sit. The tecnology on Aurora was topnotch. The Super MAC-Cannons were similiar to the ones on the orbit of Reach, but ofcourse more powerful because of the small upgrades. There were 4 mac cannons, 2 on each side of the ship. 2 on the bottom and 2 on the top. All of them had hatches covering them from incoming fire and those hatches would slide open and the cannons would push abit forward for fiering.
Other major difference to other cruisers, other than the size, was the fact that Aurora was smooth and didn't have a visuable deck like Halcyon and Achilles cruisers. Aurora had 4 huge engines on the back of it and there was a bright blue glow shining from them and making the whole surface of the ship shine in the otherwise dark space. But because of the shields it had. It didn't shine outside the shields.. Making the ship allmost invicible for the covenant sensors or bare eyes.
End of chapter 2
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