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Chapter Six: Rise of the Phoenix
Posted By: Blue Jaguar<CrazyMadSh33p@netscape.net>
Date: 29 September 2003, 4:50 AM
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CHAPTER SIX
01:03 (ATLAS Time) Bridge UNSC Cruiser Leyte Gulf
1st Lieutenant Nick Rosen flipped the comm switch to the CIC. "Admiral, we are preparing to exit slipstream......exiting now." Rosen flipped the comm switch off and walked over to the sensors station on the bridge. "What have we got now?" Nick asked the sensors officer.
"Looks like a couple cruisers, some destroyers, and quite a few frigates. I count 79 ships total, about 30 of them appear to be damaged, 9 of them are definitely out of service." The sensor officer replied.
"All right people, keep sharp, navigation, how far till we reach the Covenant fleet?" Nick demanded.
"Sir, we exited fairly close to the Covenant fleet, I estimate we have thirty seconds until we are in range to fire." The navigation officer replied.
"All right, weapons, give me a firing solution, Loki should have one picked out for the entire fleet." Rosen said, referring to the ships AI.
"Lieutenant, I have firing solution, locking it into computers now." The weapons officer responded.
Rosen looked out of the view ports at REACH. It was like a gray and brown marble. It was somewhat disgusting, looking very similar to vomit, but somewhat beautiful with the black backdrop. Rosen then turned to the Covenant fleet. The ships still resembled stars or something similar, maybe too bright to be stars, but they were still too small to look like warships.
"Lieutenant, the fleet is preparing to fire, but the Covenant fired first, enemy rounds are incoming now." The sensors operator reported.
Rosen thought for a second, if the fleet fired their salvo now, their shields would be weakened by the amount of energy needed to fire the MAC cannons, but if they waited the Covenant would be able to continue firing and make them go to a defensive stature. The admiral was no fool however, and 5 seconds later the entire 17th fleet, all 57 ships, opened a full salvo on the Covenant fleet.
The Covenant torpedoes streaked in towards their targets. The UNSC ships, rather than break formation and try evasive maneuvers, remained somewhat in formation. The cruisers and larger destroyers however, moved in front of the frigates to take the blows for them. The Frigates would have been decimated by a torpedo strike, where as the larger ships could absorb several.
The Torpedoes slammed into their targets. Rosen looked out the view ports as flashes of plasma went by his ship and then struck targets around him, causing their shields to flare a bright blue and then go back to being transparent. One ship however, shields flared and then collapsed. The UNSC Chehalis was struck by a Torpedo in the side. It was the 3rd torpedo to hit the ship, and it went right through the shields and into the armor. The torpedo broke through what little armor the frigate had and hit the armory. The Leyte Gulf shook violently as the shockwave from the frigate reached it. The wave was followed by thousands of fragments from the ship.
"Give me a damage assessment" Nick ordered to the Defensive Systems operator. "Lieutenant, shields holding near 59 percent, several small craft were knocked out by the debris, a few are still alive but dead in the water, shall I dispatch rescue teams?"
"No, we don't have enough resources to launch a rescue party now, we will wait until the battle is over." Rosen new very well that most of the pilots would be dead by then, but the fleet just couldn't afford to launch a rescue party now, in the middle of a major battle.
"Sir our MAC Salvo is impacting now." The weapons officer reported.
Rosen looked at the battle map. He watched as Covenant warships were hit by incoming MAC rounds. First their shields flared, then after a few successive rounds they failed them and the cannon shots began hitting the hulls of the ship. The MAC rounds fired from the Leyte Gulf were somewhat more effective that the others. A 50 megaton nuclear warhead had been attached to the front of the rounds. It had a proximity detonator set for 100 metres, the tungsten rounds still managed to survive the blast due to the thick titanium shield around the warhead, which only allowed the bomb to detonate in a forward motion. The MAC round did however, hit with a much lesser force.
"13 enemy ships knocked out sir, 9 damaged." The weapons officer reported again.
"How long till next salvo?"
"Fleet will fire next main salvo in thirty seconds, a secondary salvo will fire ten seconds later."
"SIR! Enemy firing second salvo! ETA twenty seconds!" The sensors operator yelled.
"All ships evasive maneuvers! Frigates take cover, Cruisers move in front and try and take as many hits as possible." Admiral Louis said through the fleet com system.
The formation broke apart, Frigates immediately began blowing emergency charges and drastically changed courses, while the Cruisers moved in front and began deploying countermeasures like mad.
The Covenant torpedoes reached the fleet. Only a few went for the decoys, while the rest stayed on target. The Leyte Gulf vibrated as a torpedo hit it.
"Shields down to thirty-four percent sir!" The defensive systems operator sounded off.
A second torpedo hit the ship, causing the lights to dim, but flare back to life.
Finally a third, followed closely by a fourth and fifth torpedo hit the ship. The entire ship rocked as though they were having an earthquake. The officers not seated on the bridge were thrown about like toys, and even some who were seated were uplifted and thrown across the room. The ship suffered more aftershocks as Longbow missiles exploded in their launch bays.
"Damage report!" Rosen yelled.
"Sir missile bays on the port side are all out of action. Shutting down all port compartments. Hull breached in three places, MAC system temporarily offline, I'm trying to bring it back up." The Systems operator replied.
"Admiral Louis to bridge, what is your status. We have lost all links to the ships sensors."
"Admiral, we have suffered moderate damage, missile bays on the port side are out of action, and we have lost MAC capabilities temporarily. Our shields are climbing but only at three percent per minute." Rosen replied.
"All right, turn the ship around and head back to the far side of the planet. I want our dropships to begin recovery operations for ground and space personnel. I will be moving the flag to the Juan de Fucas." Louis ordered.
"Yes sir, we are changing course now."
The Leyte Gulf changed course and began heading against the fleet, in its wake other heavily damaged ships followed, nearly 15 total. The UNSC had already lost 17 ships and only destroyed 13, they needed a miracle.
01:11 EST (ATLAS Time) SBT.1A1 Iron 2-1
"Well that's the last of the ground batteries, I guess we'd better regroup with the rest of the main force." Major Huff said into the battalion comm system.
"Admiral Louis to Iron 2-1." A voice said through the radio.
"This is Iron 2-1, go ahead." Huff replied.
"Iron 2-1, we are taking heavy fire from Covenant warships in orbit, can you help us any?"
"I'll see what I can do. I might not hit anything though."
Huff ordered his armor to begin taking aim on the Covenant warships in orbit. The guns were elevated to the limit, 35 degrees.
"All units fire on my command." Huff waited five seconds. "FIRE!"
20 one hundred kiloton nuclear tipped rounds streaked away from the tanks. They approached the Covenant ships in orbit, hitting nineteen of them. The Covenant had been caught completely off guard, and while the rounds caused almost no damage, it shocked them a great amount.
"All right, everyone target the same ship this time." Huff said, as he locked a target into the Battalions netlink.
Once again, all of the tanks opened fire again, this time only 14 of the rounds hit their target. It was completely devastated however. The ship was an already damaged frigate, and the additional rounds blew away what remained of it.
The group fired off a few more salvos before the Covenant began to fire back.
"Uh sir....we have incoming..." Huffs Gunner said to him.
Huff looked up. "Aw fuck..." he said, just before the Covenant torpedo rounds hit his tank group, wiping it from the universe forever.
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