*I Do not own the characters or plot of Halo or Kantai Collection
February 10th, 2535, 0400 Hours MST
The Punic-Class Supercarrier UNSC Wish Upon A Star had just arrived in the Lambda Serpentis system along with its escorts, or at least what was left of them, two Paris-Class Heavy Frigates, one Halberd Destroyer, and two Halcyon Light Cruisers.
As the small damaged battle group limped home to the Jericho VII dry docks they attempted to hail FLEETCOM on the planet, the Admiral opened the comms.
"This is Read Admiral Stackhouse speaking we require immediate repairs and refit. The Covenant is coming, I repeat the Covenant is preparing to attack the Lambda Serpentis system."
"This is Captain De Blanc of the UNSC Resolute, we hear you, I will spread this to all forces on the planet and initiate evacuation procedures, the rest of the defense fleet will be put on guard duties, we have to buy the civilians as much time as possible."
After the brief, but tense exchange of information the two ships disconnected and went about to prepare for the upcoming battle.
"Comms tell the escorts to form up on us, we're going to rearm and refit as much as we can before they get here." The Admiral ordered.
"Yes, sir but really shouldn't the covies have gotten here first? I mean they have always been faster in slipspace than us." The comms officer replied.
Pondering this for a moment the Admiral replied with. "We gave them a hell of a beating, they probably wanted to regroup before following us, nonetheless, we should still send recon probes to the edge of the system to alert us when they do arrive."
"Yes, sir." The bridge crew replied.
"The Captain has the bridge." Said the Admiral leaving to inspect the ship and the damage it had weathered in the previous battle, this wasn't realy necessary but the Admiral liked to have his men see that he was in the thick of it, just like them.
"Come on, just one more fight and then I have a feeling we'll get a nice long break afterwards, all of us, no war, no Covenant, nothing, just a nice long nap." The Admiral whispered softly, more to himself than anything, but he could have swore he heard the ship groan in an almost sad way. He had been serving on this ship for over a decade and it felt more alive to him now more than ever, this ship embodied the fighting spirit of humanity and their will to not go gentle into that good night.
As he was walking down the hall to the transport terminal to head to the engine bay, he passed the ship plaque, he stopped to read it for what must have been the thousandth time.
Punic-Class Supercarrier UNSC Wish Upon the Stars
Laid Down: December 10th 2521
Completed: November 19th 2524
Launched: January 21st 2525
Usque Ad Finem
After taking a moment to reminisce over the send off ceremony that felt like it was centuries ago but in reality was just over a decade ago he continued on to the tram station. He entered the one that would take him to the engine room and then sat down on one of the many benches. In the car with him was a pair of Longsword pilots who held the familiar thousand yard stare. The Admiral himself had held that stare from time to time after particularly devastating battles.
"Pilots how are the Longsword squadrons holding up?" The admiral questioned, steeling himself for bad news.
"S-sir they are reporting at seventy-five percent strength, but we will require significant resupply to continue fighting a this capacity." One of the pilots responded
The Admiral pondered this for a moment, that didn't explain their moods, the Air force was particularly cynical when it came to casualties and it would take more than twenty-five percent losses to do this to his veteran crew.
"Is there anything else I need to be informed of?" The Admiral asked trying not to push his men.
"Uh n- actually yes there is something sir, when we were fighting, the Covenant, they attempted to hail our fighter, oh yeah, this is my navigator," He said gesturing to the man next to him. "Anyways they hailed us and forced they're way onto our view screen, and sir they had some sort of Forerunner artifact and they wanted to try and capture some of our pilots to activate it and the squadron lead ordered us to not let that happen by any means necessary." The pilot finished.
The Admiral let this information sink in, and then he realized what he meant when he said "any means necessary", they were forced to shoot their own comrades disabled Longswords if they were boarded. This was most definitely the reason of their stares and general down mood.
"All we can do now is continue to fight for them and for everyone else we've lost, but most importantly, what we should be fighting for, is those we still have so that they do not suffer a similar fate." The Admiral said, then he heard the tram buzz to signal that they had made it to the engine room, he bid the pilots farewell and moved to speak with the head engineer. The only thought in his mind at the time was, this is going to be a long day.
The only thing that Wish Upon a Star could feel was a blinding, burning pain all over her hull. She could already tell what was wrong with her as reports began to make their way to her bridge and were filled by the crew. As she focused on the reports the pain began to fade.
Port Mini-MAC: damaged beyond firing potential
Starboard Mini MAC: ammunition empty but still operable
Main Super MACs: ammunition empty but still operable
Archer Missiles: 65 pods destroyed, 34 pod doors obstructed, 12% ammunition remaining
50mm Point Defense Guns: 59 inoperable, 7% ammunition
600mm Deck Guns: 7 inoperable, ammunition empty
All in all it wasn't an awful situation, just restock ammo and repair the Port Mini MAC and she would be combat ready once more, ready to take the fight back to those covie fucks, she world rain hellfire down upon their worlds as they had done to hers.
She could feel her repair crews moving around, patching up holes in the hull and attempting to repair the deck guns and the mini MAC. She was still limping towards the dry docks, estimates put arrival in 15 minutes, then she could have a rest, didn't the Admiral mention something about rest? That this might be her last battle before a nice, long nap? The true meaning was not lost on her, and she thought that if she was to go down protecting a human colony, then there's worse ways to go, and she was ready, she had been fighting for so long and a break sounded nice.
So guys that's the first chapter hoping to get more done soon, just for reference and since there's not much concrete info on the Punic I'm going to put some stats down here to give a better visualization.
Length: 4250 meters
Width: 250 meters
Height: 750 Meters
10 meters of titanium-A armor
2 Forward facing Super MACs 60% of the power of an ODP
1 Mini MAC on each side of the ship
24 600mm Deck Guns
270 PDGs
1000 Oversized Archer Missile Pods