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Before the Fall: Part One: Requiem
Posted By: Jagged<shadowpilot1355@aol.com>
Date: 29 February 2004, 2:57 AM
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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.
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