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Prologue: Battle of Croton
Posted By: Trevor White<twhite1721@hotmail.com>
Date: 7 April 2003, 6:21 PM
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1527 Hours September 14, 2554 (Military Calendar)
"Six months and no Covenant activity, something's up." Sgt. Mikhail thought to himself.
It had indeed been six months since the UNSC had detected any Covenant, in space or planet side. To most it seemed like this day would never come, but a few still held suspicions that the Covenant weren't gone but were merely biding their time.
0423 Hours September 16, 2554 (Military Calendar)
A crewman knocked at the door to Capt. Ambrose's quarters.
"Sir, here's night watch's report." the crewman said briskly.
"Thank you son, you may go." replied Ambrose.
Capt. Ambrose sat reading over the night watch's logs, nothing unusual, some space dust, a rogue comet, a few clusters of stray atoms. Nothing worth even reporting, but Capt. Ambrose was one of those few who doubted the Covenant had just given up and gone home. As the Capt. Got ready to go to the bridge alarms staring going off, he immediately ran to the COM and called up to the bridge to find out what was going on. Just as he started talking the floor below him seemed to lift up and lurch sideways with a force that could have only been caused by impact of plasma weapons.
"Bridge, this is Capt. Ambrose. Report"
"Sir, they just came out of nowhere. Six, no seven, Covenant CSS-class ships just came out of hyperspace" a crewman responded.
"Initiate Cole Protocol, arm all weapons, ready fighter crews like I wanted them scrambled 10 minutes ago!" the Capt. exclaimed.
"I'm on it sir!" the crewman replied.
Just as the Capt. had released the com button the ship lurched again, this time with considerably more force than it had previously.
"Saxon, what's the ships status?" the Capt. asked the ships onboard AI.
"Well, I've got good news and not so good news" Saxon responded.
"Cut the crap Saxon!" the Capt. yelled.
"Sorry, According to my readings 5 of the 7 Covenant ships the emerged from slip-space have reentered slip-space. So, according to basic mathematical formula that should leave...processing...2 ships." Saxon said with a hint of pompousness in his voice.
"You don't say...give me the readouts of the 2 remaining ships."
"Both ships are Covenant frigates; the CCS-Hallowed Oath, and the CCS-Righteousness and Might. Sir, according to UNSC reports, both of these frigates just fled from a battle over the planet Adeona."
"Good. Saxon, bring the MAC cannon online and activate the point defense cannons. I want firing solution for both ships according to the Keyes Loop coordinates."
"Already working on it sir. Sir, are you sure you want to risk attempting the Keyes Loop? We outnumber the Covenant 5 to 2."
"Well if that's the case I want every ship to get a copy of your coordinates, oh and make sure you calculate for the size of each ship and the time it needs to get to it's target. We don't need anybody 'bumping fenders' out there."
"Move like you got a purpose marines!" shouted Sgt. Mikhail as he prepped his men for combat.
"Alright ladies we're about to go planet side. I know some of you have never seen combat, but that's no goddamned excuse. You either fight the Covenant or I'm gonna kill your pansy butt. You got me!" he shouted.
"SIR, YES SIR!" the marines shouted in unison.
"Good. Now I want everyone on a Pelican." he shouted.
Outside in the empty vacuum of space the battle with the 2 Covenant frigates was going frighteningly well for the UNSC task force. After about 2 minutes the Covenant crews began abandoning their ships heading for the planet's surface.
"Sir, hundreds...no thousands of drop ships are heading for the planet." A crewman reported.
"Good, we've got'em on the run. Ensign patch me through to the docking bay." Capt. Ambrose stated.
His voice blared over the COM system throughout the docking bay "Alright men, it's your job to beat those Covenant bastards on the ground. Remember, you're the best of the best and I want you to let the Covenant know that, Ambrose out."
"You heard the man, let's go kick some Covenant ass!" Shouted Sgt. Mikhail.
"Hey Rennerd, you got a second." Mikhail shouted over to a nearby Sgt.
"Sure, what you want?"
"I'll bet you 20 bucks my squad gets more confirmed kills than yours does." Mikhail said
with a smirk
"You know you're one crazy SOB." Rennerd responded and then ran back over to his drop ship.
After all of the squads had been loaded into their Pelican drop-ships the drop-ships lifted off from the docking bay and began their decent towards the surface. During the decent the Covenant, who had apparently brought artillery with them began to shoot at the drop-ships...needless to say a few drop-ships never made it including the one that carried Sgt. Mikhail and his squad (but it's ok because he was a real ass and all of his troops were umm...special).
"Sir, we've lost Drop-ships 449, 726, 989, and 435!" Shandor, Rennerd's spastic radioman said.
"CALM DOWN SHANDOR," Rennerd snapped back, "Alright marines we touchdown at the LZ in 5, I want first squad to follow me. Second squad I want you to follow Gearhart. When we hit the turf SPREAD OUT, I don't need a well placed mortar taking out my entire platoon."
Two minutes before the drop-ship hit the ground explosive bolts fired and sent the back hatch flying off, this was to make sure that the marines wouldn't get bottle-necked at the back of the drop-ship.
The drop-ship touched-down and hundreds of thousands marines piled out of their respective drop-ships only to find that the Covenant weren't any where to be found.
"Where the hell are they?" Rennerd asked.
"Sir, all platoons report ZERO Covenant activity!" Shandor responded.
"CALM DOWN SHANDOR, THAT'S AN ORDER!" Rennerd snapped back
'Why's that boy so damn spastic?' he thought to himself.
"Alright men, I want a command post up and running in 15." Rennerd ordered a group of privates who had been milling about, "Shandor, I want you to radio in and get me eight Warthogs up here, I want the running patrols. Oh, and make sure at least two of them have SAMs mounted on the back. We got a war to win."
The ground engagements on the surface of Croton were the fiercest and bloodiest since the fall of Reach. Nothing could have mentally or physically prepared the marines of the UNSC for what they were about to face.
During the fighting on Croton the Covenant mounted a multi-front counter attack against the UNSC's other military command colonies; New Reach, Parasprea, and Ehrtos IV. The entire UNSC fleet would become engaged in the largest space battle in the history of the war; all supply lines were immediately stopped. This meant that the soldiers engaged in ground battles wouldn't be re-supplied until sufficient numbers of Covenant ships were destroyed as to let some of the UNSC fleet resume supplying the ground troops.
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