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Last Fortress - Deep Strike (Chapter One)
Posted By: Mike<mikehunter00@yahoo.com>
Date: 19 August 2003, 2:24 AM
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"At thirteen hundred the force was detected just off the meteor belt. At thirteen forty-five, Pluto was glassed, and all contact with the outpost there was lost. An emergency flash traffic message was received at thirteen fifty, and at fourteen hundred, our fleet began to move."
He paused for a moment to bring up the map.
"Task Force Dagger, composed of carriers Constellation, Essex, and Saratoga, will move out with the destroyers, Spruance, Jenkins, and the McCaffrey," he said as he pointed to the blue designators on the map.
"Task force 116, consisting of the other two carriers, and a destroyer screen will also be with us. But remember, the capital ships will not be making the jump. It's gonna be just us fighters out there." The pilots paused for a moment to take in the information.
"Unfortunately, that's about all we have." Several of our ships are in dry-dock as we speak, and they're being scrambled, but fifteen minutes ago, we lost contact with Saturn outpost.
No one spoke. There was nothing to say. They were coming.
"Which is why gentlemen, we've called upon to conduct, a deep reconnaissance in force. Our targets will be determined when we find out what we're up against, but as for now, we're to conduct an in-system jump and hit them while they're still approaching Earth."
Someone broke the silence, "But sir, that's suicide, has an in-system jump even been tried before."
The Colonel conducting the briefing looked exhausted as he replied to the comment.
"Son, look they're coming, and they're coming pretty fast. Now it's up to us to slow them down, so our boys on the ground can be ready for them. This ain't Reach, we can't retreat anywhere. If they get Earth then it's all over, and we lose."
The pilot nodded his head sympathetically. He was just scared. But then again, so was everybody.
"Now as I was saying, our priority of targets will be as follows: Loaded troop transports are your primary target. Enemy carriers are secondary. Escort frigates and supply ships are your tertiary objectives. Remember watch out for fighters, but use save your nukes for the transports. We're only going to get one shot at this, and if we go down, Earth goes down."
The pilots nodded, as they moved out of the briefing room, and into the supply lockers. Quickly donning their equipment and giving a few last words of encouragement, they ran to their fighters.
A voice could be heard over the speaker. "This is the captain, pilots to your ships. Officer of the deck, you may commence flight operations when ready, all crew man general quarters for flight operations repeat man general quarters for flight operations."
It was a frenzy in the corridors as the pilots ran down the long hallways. More like organized chaos. This is where the training kicks in. It wasn't a frenzy as everyone knew exactly where they were supposed to be. The klaxons were unrelenting however, as the pilots of Bravo Flight, Iron Angels moved to the hangar. The crew cleared the way, as the pilots moved forward.
Upon reaching the hangar, the pilots moved to their respective fighters. Lieutenant Junior Grade Jimmy Sanderson ran as hard as he could to the ship. His crew, headed by a Senior Chief Lipton, stood ready, and began to guide him as he inspected his ship. They had done a good job. They always did.
He jumped into the cockpit, of the new fighters. X-22 Shadow's they were, the latest in military technology. Jimmy couldn't help but think that it wasn't at all reassuring that his ship was made by the lowest bidder.
Sweeping thoughts away, he began pre-flight. His fingers danced across the buttons, as he made sure his systems were working. On the headset, he could hear the Senior Chief going through the checklist.
"Environment."
"Check."
"Weapons."
"Check."
"Guidance Systems."
"Check," as he pushed the final button, and the cockpit sealed him into his fighter.
"Alright sir, checks out, pre-flight complete, ready to launch."
"Thank you Chief."
"Thank you sir, good hunting."
Jimmy smiled as he looked to the launch officer for permission to launch. The man in a white flight deck shirt, looked at him as he waved his fist, signaling Jimmy to start the engines. The engines roared to life on the Shadow. The officer moved his arms above his head, and Jimmy saluted to the man. The launch officer saluted back bent down and touched the deck, meaning Jimmy was cleared to launch.
He punched the afterburner, and sent his ship into the dark reaches of space. Next to and behind him were his friends, the others of Bravo Flight, and they too were ready.
He heard the Flight leader, Major McKnight over the intercom, "Gentlemen, form up, and prepare to go to slip stream. Flight, check in when ready."
The voices echoed in his mind.
"Bravo Ten standing by."
"Bravo Five standing by."
"Bravo Two standing by."
The others checked in, and finally it was Jimmy's turn, "Bravo Nine standing by."
Major McKnight came over the intercom again, "Alright Angels, go to slip stream."
The fifteen fighters of Bravo flight joined the hundreds of other fighters in the Squadron as the stars turned to streaks, and they were gone to meet their fate.
Minutes later they arrived at their destination, with no apparent casualties from the inter-system slip stream jump. But they did see the covenant armada. It filled the space.
It must have been at least fifty ships. The largest invasion force Jimmy, and I'm sure all the other pilots had ever seen. By now, they'd all learned what the covenant ships looked like, and could easily pinpoint the types of ships they had with them. Jimmy counted seven carriers, but others said eight. But what he did see was a massive amount of troop transports, probably all loaded.
That was just capital ships of course, but there were others, auxiliaries, supply ships, and the picket cruisers.
Major McKnight's voice came in over the intercom. "Bravo Flight your targets are those troop transports. Alpha will is on our six running cover. I'm patching the targets through to your HUD."
Red dots started appearing on Jimmy's screen and he followed McKnight's bird as they lined themselves up with one for a strafing run.
Lieutenant Morrison's voice came through, "That's weird, no fighters."
And at that instant his ship was vaporized. Another scream came through the com,
"Fighters, three o'clock, lots of em."
"Evasive action, keep yourself on that bomb run," the Major replied.
But it was too late, the fighters had closed in, and soon enough individual dogfights broke out.
Jimmy caught a Covenant fighter on its tail and sent a blast right through the fuselage.
"Nice shot Bravo Nine."
He tried to get a clear shot of the transports, but more fighters just kept coming in.
Jimmy didn't know what had happened to Major McKnight, but they couldn't let this happen, they needed to get to that transport.
"Bravo flight, break through those fighters and get to the transports," Jimmy screamed.
His warning light went off, and he saw he had a Covenant fighter on his tail. He pulled to the right hard, and let the enemy fighter pull past him to his left as he clipped the side of the Covenant fighter and sent it spinning off into space.
He saw his opportunity open as Alpha flight moved in to support. They were badly beaten up with their own fight, but were giving Jimmy and whoever was left alive enough time to slip through and hit those transports.
Jimmy broke through the fighters and called for all fighters to follow him.
"Bravo Four on your six."
"Bravo Seven on your wing."
Alright boys, I'm uploading targets, hit them with all the firepower you have and then bug out, and try to take as many of those fighters with you as you can.
One fighter could almost take out a troop transport, if it got lucky, but he didn't want to take any chances. He assigned them all the same target, and came in hard and fast.
The three fighters smashed through the destroyer escort, and simultaneously launched four projectiles each, which streaked to the unlucky troop transport.
Jimmy screamed, "Bravo flight pull up, pull up! Bug out, I repeat bug out.
There was no answer as the three fighters split up, and jumped back into the dogfight.
The shockwave and debris signified the destruction of the Covenant transport, and a temporary victor for Earth.
Before long, all the fighters were empty of munitions, but not before they had taken two other troop transports with them. Then came the evac code signal.
Jimmy now leading Bravo flight, after everyone except Bravo Four and Seven were destroyed, got the command.
"Bravo flight, disengage, I say disengage the fighters and prepare to slip stream."
"Four Ready."
"Seven Ready."
"Alright break contact. Disengage."
The fighters jumped into slip stream, but not before Bravo Four disintegrated into a ball of flame and debris.
Upon returning to their carrier, they were told the mission was a success. A total of three troop transports were destroyed, and two others were seriously incapacitated. Unfortunately they were told, the Covenant were still coming, and the battle was far from won. For now though they had slowed them down, and bought time for the Marines.
There was still a major naval battle ahead when the Covenant reached Earth, and of course, if, well it was more of a question of when they defeated the UNSC Naval forces, there was the battle of the planet.
Earth was still outnumbered four to one, and the defenses she had in orbit would take some of the Covenant cruisers down, maybe even take half or even most of the fleet, but they would still come until the very last was destroyed. They had showed some understanding of tactics on previous battles, but they expected that here, the would fight until the very last.
The war would go on, and although they had bought crucial time with the deep strike, the Covenant coming, and they were coming fast.
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