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The Mother of All Battles: Bombed by Seraphs
Posted By: Andres
Date: 28 April 2005, 7:37 PM
Read/Post Comments
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How could they possibly be Japanese planes?
— Admiral Husband E. Kimmel
1425, January 19, 2563 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Lira Omega System, UNSC Inner Colony Controlled Space
Space Warning and Control System Craft
On Combat Air Patrol over the Planet Ocean Prime
The red light on the display made his head snap into the screen. "That can't be right," the young Petty Officer tapped two quick commands into his keyboard. The screen zoomed into the electronic "noise" on the far side of the system. By a star a small blanket of radar jamming clouded the radars waves, what troubled the PO was that it was a jamming that was not on the ships database, thence the UNSC did not know about it.
He keyed the mike, "Lieutenant, you should come and see this."
The Lieutenant made his way between the two rows of chairs of the craft's belly; he placed his hand on the Petty Officer's left shoulder. "What's up?"
The Lieutenant took a long look at the screen, analyzing every part of the electronic cloud; it was nothing like he had seen before. Unlike radar jamming it had no pattern, just "puffs" of electronic interference on the screen. He walked to another station, Infrared Scanning. "What do you have?"
"Well sir, I don't know," he cleared the view for the Lieutenant to see. It was like a small star. "Print it."
The Petty Officer tapped a button on his screen, automatically a shred of paper popped out of the printer next to the screen. The Lieutenant grabbed it and slowly read its content.
"How can that be?" it was not right. It could not be possible, "plasma?" he whispered. The sailors in the room turned to see him. "Covenant? Here?" he slowly thought the situation through, "no way."
1525, January 19, 2563 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Lira Omega System, UNSC Inner Colony Control Space
Ocean Prime, Ocean Continent, City of Caribbean
Fifth floor of Preston Cole High School
This teacher was a moron, or so the kid thought. He struggled to remain awake but it was undeniable hard, the math class was too boring. His eyelids closed and opened sporadically, his head stumbled from right to left as he struggled to keep it right. Before he knew it his eyelids closed and didn't open again for the rest of the class.
Fifteen minutes later voices woke him; he rubbed his eyelids as they opened and leaned on the back of his chair, he stretched his back and arms, and noticed that the kids were not on their chairs. What was happening? He didn't know but all the kids of his class were over by the window staring outside, talking low among them selves; curiously the teacher was not around. He got up from his chair and made his way through the desks of the class room onto the opposite corner, he tapped a kid on the shoulder.
"Sup Tom?" he asked a kid of his class, Tom turned around surprised that there was one kid on the school that did not know what was happening. "Look," he grabbed him by the shoulder and walked him to the window. He had to stand on his toes to be able to watch the window, only the city of Caribbean was on his view, basically a large, unindustrialized town, hundreds of red rooftops to see.
"I see nothing dude," he rubbed his hair and began to turn, Tom was undeniably stronger than him, he pressed his hand against his chest and signaled to the sky. Then he saw it, hundreds of tear drops descended on the planet covering the bright light of Lira Omega, they dove until the horizon and disappeared in the distant blue, thousands of them. "How long has this been going on?" asked Kenny, Tom turned to face him right next to him, "about ten minutes or so, teach' left to see what was that. I think god is crying."
He had purged out all the fear of his mind by years of suffering because of his brothers. The kids left the room and joined the torrent of kids running to the stairs of the basement. He was left alone, just as he liked to be; he turned around and leaned against the wall of the window and simply watched.
From the fifth floor of the School the city looked like if it was any normal day, there was nothing to be seen out of the ordinary except, perhaps, the shade generated by the teardrops descending entering the planet. Then it happened. The air raid alarm resonated through speakers in the city; the people stopped their cars, exited and ran to the nearest buildings to hide in the shelters bellow the structures. That was not a first sight for Kenny; it was practiced constantly in order to save lives.
Dozens of columns of smoke rose to the sky behind the blocks of buildings in the general direction of Fort Caribbean; a large contrail formed beneath the missiles as the disappeared onto the sky. It had cleaned all doubts; a massive planetary invasion was taking place. The sound of the anti aircraft batteries firing reverberated as they fired in the buildings around the city sending yellow beams into the sky until the eye can see. Yet with all this, Kenny didn't move. The teardrops then appeared on the sky to the north from the opposite side of the others descending previously, hundreds in a tight pack, the human fire caused hundreds of small explosions of the formation.
Then a large blue cloud replaced the black one. It was not known to him then, but on the noses of the Seraphs plasma torpedoes began to charge. He could be fearless, but he was not stupid. He turned around and through the already opened lane between the desks and left the room, he did a right turn. There was a girl lying on the cold floor with her hands covering her head, Kenny crept up on her.
"What is up with you?" he asked in a not so gently way.
"I'm doing... the thing for emergencies," the young girl said referring to the drills.
"That won't..." he was interrupted by a series of loud explosions. The hallway felt like if it was thrown to the sky and dust slowly entered the room. He was instinctively over the girl to protect her from the falling glass from the hall's lights.
The explosions had ceased but it still felt like is everything was shaking; it was the effect of the shock he had just suffered. He could not move but he was going to do it whatever the cost. He grabbed the girl by the shoulder and dragged her to a nearby room, looking for shelter in the awful fright of being bombed by Seraphs.
1528, January 19, 2563 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Lira Omega System, UNSC Inner Colony Control Space
On Combat Air Patrol over Ocean Prime
The Elite piloting the Seraph made a mistake worthy of a rookie. He made a tight loop, making him loose all the speed and energy, putting him nearly stationary in the air, an easy target for the old Longsword. The pilot triggered both 140mm rotary guns and seven hundred HEI rounds flew towards the Covenant Fighter-bomber. The shields turned silver then failed. The teardrop shaped craft turned into two pieces of a heart descending like a meteorite into somewhere in the planet.
"That's a kill, you have him," called the ground controller in a cold voice, too many men had died in the massive air battle.
"Roger." Major Frank "The Tank" Kramer checked the ammo display on the Multi Function Displays by his knees in the small cockpit of the Longsword fighter. He was almost clean, only a full magazine of five hundred 140mm rounds remained; it was not enough to keep him in the fight they were loosing. "I'm clean," he sighed and pressed the knobs on the navigation screen, he moved the finger over the gel and the picture moved, he enabled a live data feed, "requesting vector to home base, and I'm Clear to upload NAV data."
"Roger that," a full three second pause followed as the female controller took a pause to plot the course, "uploading."
A NAV marker appeared on his HMD, he enabled the autopilot for the thirteen minutes trip at mach 12. Finally the Major had some time to relax in the cold cockpit of his fighter; he was surrounded by displays and consoles that displayed all the data he needed. "Roster," he voice activated the flight roster screen. The battle had started at long ranges, the Longswords fired their long raged missiles outside the atmosphere, then on the four hundred fighters turned into the planet and dragged the fight into the atmosphere where the humans had the edge, mainly because the training on atmospheric conditions. Off all the planes had scrambled from his Guard Base to meet the Covenant all were shot down except him.
He looked to the right of the cockpit of the planet. For some reason this planetary chain had their planets with eighty percent water portion. The Waterway Continent of ocean prime had the size of Australia back at earth; it was the only continent sized land of the planet, the rest of the planet were a series of Island chains through the massive oceans. He loved his home planet.
"Zebra one switching control, contact homeplate one-zero. Good day," said the female controller emotionless.
"That's a Roger and thanks," he uploaded the data into the COM console on his right armrest. "Homeplate this is Zebra one, checking in, over."
The only response he got was static. According to the NAV display he was only two thousand miles away just on the verge of radio contact, but he knew to expect the worst. His home base was on the small town of Riverbed, on the outskirts of the city of Waterway, a peaceful town that depended mostly on tourism. He was a member of the Air Home Guard, he was a lawyer and flying was just a hobby, until now, as He was now fighting for his life and family.
It was clear for him since the war started, his village would be attacked as soon as the Covenant invaded or glassed the planet. It was next to the largest Reserve base in the system, over five hundred ships.
The inertia dragged him forward as the aircraft slowed to a bare two hundred knots in less than thirty seconds. His body went numb when his airfield came into view. Everything was set a fire, from the runway to the Hardened Hangars were embedded in blue flames, but the worst thing by far was his town, aflame too, every house and car, his body paralyzed for a full minute as the autopilot loitered over the town.
He had to get down checking his family.
He activated the onboard AI. "Get me a lading spot."
"Roger," the AI construct changed rapidly the screen on his NAV console, "There, " it pointed to a clearing by the highway a bare ten miles from the city.
"Ok, bring her down." The AI selected a small parry ten miles from the village, a perfect place with a ravine to hide his craft. The AI landed the ship on the middle of the field and taxied the craft onto the hiding spot. The pilot turned the engines down, the roar of the powerful engines died with a soft whistle, as soon as they stopped the cockpit opened and the warmer air mixed with the colder atmosphere generated by the aircraft.
The stairs to the left of the cockpit dropped. He punched the seatbelt on his chest and he was free. Frank checked bellow his chair and pulled a backpack, the survival kit. He struggled to get out of the cockpit and jumped to the ground. According to his training he had to find a good spot to transmit but first he had to check his inventory. He opened the kit an lay it on the ground, he pulled out three magazines for his SMG, four Magazines for his standard issue pistol, two smoke grenades, four MREs and a paper map.
"Bummer," he sighed. He checked his paper map; if it was up to date the location was almost in the middle of the highway. Two choices, the city or the town, the town was his home and base, the choice was obvious. Yet he had seen it from the sky, the base was neutralized and the town was a fire. If the base was neutralized there was no way to inform the city of the situation.
Then the sad memory then hit him. His family was on the village. All the tactical analysis was now rubbish, the decision was made.
The Major slowly crept out of the bushes and onto the highway, unsuspecting of what may lay behind. His only clue was the smell of rotting flesh and a column of smoke. He slowly raised his head; he found the source of the smoke and flesh, it was a massive car crash or more accurately a slaughter possibly caused by the Covenant air. Both lanes, separated by cement racks, were cramped by cars until the eye can see.
He knew one thing; one of those cars may help him to reach the village, thirty miles away. He said a long Ok and moved for a closer looked.
All the cars were on flames or burned to their skeletons.
"Is anyone ok?" he screamed. After ten seconds there was no response, in the whole river of colors there were possibly no survivors. He walked by the burned fields that separated the bushes to the highway, it was depressing.
. All the cars had their drivers and passengers on, testimony to the surprise of the invasion, he avoided that sight.
"I can't use shit here," he paused and climbed onto the hood of a car. He slowly scanned every inch of the massacre of cars and people, finally there was a good sight, a Motorcycle.
Perfect. He now could drive to the village and save his family. He jumped into the comfortable driver's seat, the key was still there, and there were neither trails of blood nor sing of struggle. How this perfectly able bike ended empty on the side of the rode, he would provably never know.
1533h, January 19, 2563 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Lira Omega System, UNSC Inner Colony Control Space
Planet Omega. Joint Forces Command Center.
Big Horn Continent.
The constant tapping on the tile floor was the only thing to be heard in the darkened room. The old man was in the worst shape ever, he had not shaved nor showered in three days and nights, nor had he had a proper meal. Yet he was as alert as ever.
The door of the room slowly opened and the face of a young commodore appeared on the open mark. Domanenko knew how to read a man, and the way this man acted was a prelude for bad news. The Marshal nodded and the man entered the room, on his right hand a yellow paper was extended flat.
"Sir," the Commodore saluted, the Marshal slightly nodded in return. "Its confirmed now. Ocean planet chain is under attack," the Commodore waited for an answer, there was none. Only the scary eyes of the veteran man on him, "they seem to have gone against the largest planet of the Chain." The Commodore was impressed by the eyes of the Marshal, they did not blink. Like if he was possessed by some unknown evil his eyelids remained lock open, "their force composition is of-."
The Marshal slightly shook his head, "no." The Commodore was shocked at the answer, the Marshal saw how the face of young man slightly bended backwards after his answer. "Just tell me where are them and what do we have near there."
1534, January 19, 2563 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Lira Omega System, UNSC Inner Colony Control Space
Highway West
The sound of one screaming woman forced him pull the handles of the brakes, the motorcycle grounded to a halt sending a cloud of dust all around him. Two loud detonations, like if someone had slammed a hammer into an aluminum ceiling, popped on the right flank. The Major instinctively jumped to the ground and interlocked his fingers behind his back to cover himself.
"Oh my god!" screamed a boy randomly ahead of him. He jumped out of the woods and onto the highway followed by a slow cloud of needles, he disappeared launching blood and tissue everywhere.
Two more bursts of beams popped on the trees on the flank followed by a large scream of pain, he checked his sidearm holster and his pistol was there. He pulled it and laid his left hand flat on the ground right next to his head; the man rolled to his back and grabbed his sidearm with both his hands. He moved the barrel and exposed the breech, it was loaded. He rolled until he was with his chest facing the ground, and crawled over the sandy ground to the closest cover, the bike.
The pilot, untrained in ground combat, was unaware of the enemies approaching the highway from the woods that covered the left ridge. He slowly arose to see over the bike onto the woods. Then it happened, the loud barks of a Grunt on the woods warned his friends of the presence of a human on the highway.
Between the levees and branches a green light began to glow. In the Field Manual this was described as overloading plasma pistol, the pilot aimed his sidearm at the green glow and pulled the trigger; two tracers entered the woods and killed whatever was inside, in retaliation a Covenant Elite emptied his carbine on the bike; dust and rocks were raised around him as the radioactive bullets landed around him. He covered his face and head with his right arm and fired his pistol over the bike to the woods, hitting nothing.
More dust and rocks jumped to the air around him as more bullets landed around him. In the background the roar of an Elite was to be heard as it shouted orders to his subordinates. The loud roar of the monster was simply soar and awful, it could left a man deft if it was done next to him.
The roar then changed, it was continued and regular, and in a way sort of electric. All the rocks and dust were changed by a cloud of smoke and sticks. The pops of the Covenant carbine was replaced by detonations.
"Give me fifteen degrees right," called the crew chief. The pilot stepped on the right pedal and the Pelican traversed right. The side gunner pressed the button on the butterfly handle of the Gattling gun and the seventy millimeter roar erupted again.
"We got enemy Seraphs inbound at high speed," the Copilot turned to see him, "lots of them. I expect them to be here in fifteen minutes."
The pilot grunted, "roger that." The pilot watched how the side gunner methodically erased the woods with his gun. The smoke from the dust and expend propellant clouded the view, yet they could see what they wanted. The survivor by the bike, the Pelican and it's crew were from a CSAR squadron at Riverbed Air Base. They escaped in time because they had been ordered out in time when they were on ready five. The last they saw of their base and town was a series of explosions on the horizon when five hundred Seraphs blasted the base to hell.
The gunner finished the woods and a full magazine of seventy millimeters. "Cease fire, cease fire," the pilot said over the COM. He moved the elevation lever forward and the nose of the aircraft descended but the aircraft maintained altitude but gained speed. He made two passes over the woods, it was clear. Everything that was on it when the strafing began was dead.
"Shit," the copilot barked. He turned to face him, his expression and the word that came out of his mouth could only mind one thing, bad news. "A single Seraph is five minutes away," the copilot shook his head. "I didn't plan for this, we can't outrun it now."
The pilot sighed; he had prepared himself for this kind of eventuality. "Ok, we only have one choice," said with a sad tone. "We have to ditch the craft," pulled the joystick and the aircraft came to hovering position. "George, find us an LZ near here," he ordered his copilot.
"Roger, Roger," the copilot laughed as he pronounced the words of the words. He did not have the check his instruments; he spotted a nice field two miles away. "There," he pointed at the fields.
"Ok," answered the pilot.
Frank looked at the Pelican that hovered over the woods, the squadron markins on its tail indicated that they were from the C-SAR group. It banked right and then left in quick succession. It was a salute. It passed over the Major with the rear door opened, the crew chief waved him to come to the craft, but the craft left.
It was a signal.
He had to meet them somewhere, he raised his head over the bike and there was nothing in what was once the woods, only a few trees remained unharmed. He sat on the chair of the bike and grabbed his map and looked for a possible landing zone. There was a field three miles away, if he had to guess they were headed there. He started the engine and accelerated away to the presumed LZ.
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