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An ONI's story.
Posted By: Fighting Fysh<nelsonfysh@hotmail.com>
Date: 1 February 2007, 2:56 am
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A slight haze appeared in realspace, similar to the haze generated by the heat on a hot day on the tarmac. It intensified until the area shimmered with an unnatural beauty. To an observer it would seem as though a hole was appearing out of nowhere, a hole that continued to grow, until it seemed that a gaping gash had been torn in the very fabric of space. A metallic shape pushed through the haze until an entire ship was gliding into the surrounding area. The haze appeared to dissipate, until the ship was sitting there on its own, in a perfectly normal region of space.
This ship was unique, in that it was the smallest UNSC ship with the capacity to take down a covenant ship. Only two times the length of a longsword fighter, and shaped very similarly, the UNSC Safeguard was the pride of the ONI's secret fleet. However only a select few people knew the true potential of this ship and anybody looking would have no idea of the power and innovation housed within the walls of the craft.
Of course there would be no observers to this slipspace jump, Vice Admiral Henning of the ONI had planned this operation to the letter. The Virgo system was on the fringe of UNSC controlled territory, and had been uninhabited since the covenant threatened the sparsely populated area almost twenty years ago.
"Status Aldia", asked Henning.
Aldia the onboard smart A.I., who took the form of a golden phoenix, ruffled her feathers elegantly.
"All systems running within operational parameters"
"And the new technology?" asked Henning apprehensively.
"Fine" Replied Aldia, "Charging as we speak, should be online in two minutes and thirteen seconds".
"Good, give me full burn and take us to the far side of Titus".
Titus, the only planet in the system was one of the largest planets Henning had ever seen. Henning had heard that it was almost twenty times larger than Jupiter, but that meant nothing to him. Henning had not been to Earth since he was a little child, and now his work was based on Reach. Earth was like a long forgotten memory. At least it's safe on Reach he thought, albeit a little ironic that Earth was not the most defended area in allied space. All that will change though if this new technology works, he speculated to himself. No more messy space battles, just a few ground based emplacements and any Human planet would be invulnerable from the air.
"Technology charge complete," chirped Aldia.
"Good and our position seems safe enough. Cut power to the engines and engage refractive camouflage."
"What exactly is this new technology?" asked Dawking, one of the two soldiers attached to the security of the bridge. "And if you don't mind me asking, what the hell are we doing here."
Henning's temperature rose and he glared at the officer, unused to the hot-headed nature of the ODST. He took a deep breath. Remembering that the only reason he was here was because the ODST were the best troopers in the universe.
"I know you would prefer to be jumping into some suicidal nightmare marine, however this technology needs protecting. God help us if the Covenant ever get their hands on it."
"Sorry Sir, but it would give us a whole heap of inspiration if we knew what we were protecting," challenged Dawking, seemingly unafraid of the high rank of the Admiral.
"For your information marine we are carrying three important technologies. Firstly the light bending technology that provides us and our two Shiva Nuclear warheads with limited radar and visual invisibility. Secondly the energy dispersing armour that you are wearing which will provide you with some protection from covenant plasma based weapons." But I hope we don't have to test that one out today he thought, "and finally" he continued "the laser weapon, which provides a concentrated beam of photons, that, because they are not solid, will totally bi-pass the covenant shields which can potentially take down a Covi ship in one hit." "Happy now Marine."
"Sir Yes Sir!" replied the marine.
"Our mission, marine is to test the new weapon in a combat situation. That is exactly what we are doing. Because the range of the beam is infinite in space and travels at the speed of light, we are going to sit here, hit a couple of covenant ships and then get out. Simple."
"Aldia, check our systems and wat…."
"Slipspace rupture!" interrupted Aldia, "Five hundred thousand kilometres away, right where we sent the distress signal from. Two capital class ships."
Henning looked at the control panel to his left.
"Aldia, sound the battle alert, arm the two lasers and bring up the schematics of the enemy ships. Get a firing solution and fire at will."
Sirens blared as the two holographic panels on the floor lit up and shined two identical holograms into the room. The sight made Henning's blood boil. Aldia rotated the two ships and magnified the view on the bulging purple sides. The housing of the plasma cannons. The weapons that had caused countless human losses.
"Weapons locked," announced Aldia, as two red circles appeared on the plasma cannons. "Firing in 3…2…1…"
CRACK!, CRACK!
Twin shudders rocked the ship, as all eyes were drawn to the holograms. With the extreme speed of the laser, it took a little over three seconds for the beam to hit. Nobody but Henning was looking at the actual ship, the main thought was that the laser would impact on the shield.
"Impact" Aldia announced,
"Where?" shouted Dawkins, but nobody else needed any clarification. The first Covenant ship, lent left, as the plasma was decompressed and spilled out of its housing. With nothing to guide it, it spilled onto the inside of the ships shields, and started filling the remaining space. Plasma impacted on the ship itself and ate away the entire first two decks. This caused the ship to list dramatically, due to the decompression, directly into the path of the floating plasma. Hundreds of secondary expostions were seen as the ships shields flickered and failed, and the ship spun completely out of control, half of its thousands of decks eaten away. The hologram of the covenant ship, now dead, flickered and was replaced with a close up view of the one remaining ship.
"Aldia, ready the lasers," asked Henning calmly, as the covenant ship turned to face them before rocketing forward.
"Affirmative," replied Aldia. "Wait….One laser is malfunctioning. We will have to make do with one. Readying lock."
"Fire when ready," authorized Henning.
"Enemy ship has moved" commented Aldia, one red circle appeared on the hologram.
"Probability of a hit is fifty seven percent. Take the shot sir?"
"Take them to hell," was the calm response.
"Brace yourselves, firing in 3…2…1…"
CRACK!
All eyes were now on the covenant ship, but seconds passed and nothing substantial happened.
"Miss…they must have corrected course. They are on a collision course, what action sir?"
"How long until we can fire again?" queried Henning
"Twenty three seconds", she replied, "But their momentum is too great. Even if we hit, they will still crush us. Our mass is exactly one three thousandth of theirs, they wont even feel the collision".
"Hold position and fire at will. Hit their plasma guiding system if you can't hit the plasma itself. Sound the collision warnings and prepare for evasive manoeuvres. Ready the top emergency thrusters." The covenant ship raced towards them, the lines of plasma glowing redder, until it hurt to look at even the holograms.
"Covenant plasma weapons preparing to fire," warned Aldia.
"Okay crew brace yourselves for this. Aldia, remove the safeties on a Shiva warhead, engage its camouflage and prepare to fire in our reverse direction," the crew looked puzzled at this order but kept it to themselves. "Prepare point defence and fire the laser when ready.
"Covenant plasma torpedo inbound. Firing in 3…2…1…"
CRACK!
"Enemy plasma guidance system offline," Aldia reported, and as she spoke the enemy plasma dispersed, no longer held in place by the controlling magnetic guidance system.
"Enemy ship impact in ten seconds!"
"Crew give me full burn at a forty five degree angle forward and down, brace for emergency thrusters." The ship accelerated downwards, as in the view screen the covenant ship loomed menacingly. "Fire thrusters now!"
The ship shuddered and flew downwards, under the prow of the covenant ship, as it raced overhead.
A loud scraping was heard as the Safeguard cleared the covenant ship and accelerated in the opposite direction.
"Aldia fire the Shiva and Report."
"Done…Shiva away….Both lasers have been scraped off, three top decks have been breached. Decompression complete. Three crew los…."
A loud bang was heard on the top of the Safeguard.
"Sir enemy boarders." Yelled Robertson, the second in command. "They must have been launched in anticipation for our manoeuvre."
"If they knew what we were doing to do, why didn't the compensate their position?"
"Maybe they want to take our ship intact." Replied Robertson "Maybe get there hands on our technology and use it against us."
"That cannot be allowed to happen. Marines ready your men and prepare to repel boarders. Aldia, what is the status of the enemy ship?"
"They are moving in a slingshot orbit around the planet, contact in twenty seconds at their current velocity." Oh my god, she thought. Genius. "Enemy impact with warhead in seventeen seconds."
"Good, turn us around and bring us to face the enemies position when the warhead goes off. Remove the safeties on the second warhead and fire it at the point the covenant ship will be, twenty seconds after the first warhead impact. Robertson clear the data files as per the Cole protocol and sent all the data on the lasers to command. Dawking what is
the status of the boarders?"
Dawking was hunched over his communication consol, talking frantically to his marines.
"Estimates of the enemy's strength is seven stealth elites, but we can't be sure. They are pushing back our forces and making a beeline for the bridge. We are trying to hold them off but even with our new shields, we can't fight them effectively if we can't see them. Plus most of them have energy swords that burn straight through us."
"Fine" replied Henning, well just hold them off as long as you can. And call all external crew to fall back and defend the bridge."
"Communication complete," commented Robertson, "Data erased."
"Good now lets watch the fireworks."
Out the front view screen, the covenant ship came into view around the planet, just as the hologram showed the small warhead impact on the prow of the enemy ships shield. The ship flashed white and a cloud of distortion obscured the covenant ship. It came back into view as its shields flickered and dropped….just as the second warhead impacted with the ship. Another flash of white and the Covenant ship simply disappeared in the storm of energy, turned to molten slag by the sheer force of the blast.
"Sir, slipspace rupture. I'm picking up the presence of four more covenant ships."
"Okay, Generate a random slipspace vector, and prepare to jump."
"Vector generated sir…and…jumping"
There was a haze of distortion around the bridge and suddenly they slipped out of regular space.
"Sir! The boarders have breached the sealed bulkheads. It's only a matter of time until they reach the bridge," cried Dawking.
"Set up the stationary guns to the side of the bridge doors and call the men back," replied Henning, "We'll seal the bridge doors. That should hold them."
"Sir, Yes sir."
Henning pulled out his magnum and inspected the clip. He slammed it back into place and stared resolutely at the bridge doors.
"Sir everyone is in," spoke Dawking as seven more troopers ran into the bridge. "We have taken almost one hundred percent losses. They've lost only one."
"Okay, Aldia seal the doors, and prepare the self destruct sequence. If things don't go so well, we blow this tin can."
The crew stared at him shocked with the finality of his words, before inspecting their weapons and readying for the defence of the bridge.
Sparks appeared in the centre of the large doors, and they spread right down the break between them before stopping.
"Crew, brace for grenade and contact!"
The doors flew open with a crash, and the troopers opened fire. The first volley highlighted the first elite's positions as their active camouflage failed under such a huge volley. Henning emptied a full clip at the nearest elite, and gunted with satisfaction as the last round, smashed through the elite's shields and cracked the unfortunate elites skull in half.
"Take them down! Take them down!" screamed Dawking as he levelled his assault rifle at an elite charging at him and fired. A hale of bullets roared from his gun, but the elite kept on coming. It was two steps from him, when it leapt and tackled Dawking to the ground. It was much too strong for Dawking, and as it held his neck to the ground with one hand it raised its energy sword with the other, and with brutal ferocity, it slammed it down in the middle of Dawking's chest.
Half the crew turned to view the terrible loss, and a couple of marines took the beast out, but the distraction was all the remaining elites needed. They charged into the room and began to butcher the remaining troopers. Energy swords gleamed as they systematically killed the few crew still alive. Henning watched and fired until only he and Robertson remained. They both levelled their weapons at the elites, and knowing that all was lost, Henning yelled,
"Aldia, Kill them all!"
"Yes sir," was the reply, and as the two remaining men charged at the elites, a shudder was heard from below. Everybody on the deck stood still, and Henning spoke.
"We have done our duty, and Earth will live on." A loud boom was heard and then…black.
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