Chapter 1: Reach…Over and Out

Part 1

Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death!

— Virginia Woolf

September 6 2552/ Military Standard Calendar

The black of space wasn't really all that black. Though weak, starlight spread out in a faint hazy mist. It was quite beautiful to look at. During peacetimes. Now, Commander Eiji Rodriguez wished reality matched his name. The half Japanese and Fijian skipper of the destroyer Torn Asunder had just initiated passive scans after they had jumped in system. As per the Cole Protocol, they had made a blind slipspace jump and now had no idea where they were.

Reach. Home world of the military might of the UNSC. Well not anymore. Eiji still saw flashes of one of the greatest fleets ever mustered, being ripped to shreds by the Covenant. He still heard the panicked last seconds of the UNSC Minotaur on the highband, within the first hours of the battle. God rest their souls.

However many ships got destroyed, a few had got away. The cruiser Pillar of Autumn and the heavy frigate Into The Breach amoung others. The pain of the knowledge was almost too great to bear. Turning from the view ports, he addressed the ships 'dumb' A.I Chukov. The A.I looked dour dressed in the military uniform of the Russian tactical genius.

"Chukov, scans detected anything yet?"

"Scans are complete Commander. Our particular patch of space is quiet. Sensors do not detect any anomalies that would suggest any Covenant activity within 100,000 km of where we are situated." Rodriguez stifled a sigh of relief. Composure, at all times in front of the crew. It was about time they got a break. So far it had been a crap month.

Sure they had managed to vape 3 corvettes and a destroyer and were still alive. But that paled against the reminder that the aliens controlled Earth's doorstep. They had come out of the fight half dead. Their port side battle plate was the same as tissue paper for all the good it would do them. Two and a half metres of armour amid ship had been reduced to a metre thanks to a kamikaze run by a Seraph fighter. Normally it wouldn't have caused that much damage, but they had been grazed by a plasma torpedo prior to the attack. Thank whatever gods it hadn't been a direct hit.

Perched on his seat the commander brought up the ship status logs. Reading it he winced. The damage report read more like their epitaph with each line and data point. The marine complement had been hammered. Preliminary reports from the billets suggested heavy casualties, maybe even up to a third of the total force. That was without mentioning equipment losses. The number one M.A.C was offline while the second was maxed at fifty percent charge. They had had 800 Archers out of a complement of 2240. Half the launch tubes were slagged and the point defence cannons could possibly defend against a light swarm of Banshee interceptors but nothing more. His darling desperately needed repairs.

"Chukov, find the nearest planet and get us behind it. I want us covered. We've been hanging in the same spot for too long. I'd rather not have this ship be the covvies piñata. "

Turning to his XO he said "Contact engineering, they haven't updated the engine condition logs. If it's in the red we're screwed if we need to sprint."

Lieutenant-Commander Wallace Hemmingway replied "Yes sir. I'll have to ask manually. Intra-ship comms are down."

"Really? Another one bites the dust I suppose. We really need these repairs done ASAP. Alright, issue a general order to all personnel. We're to communicate using our data pads. They have an independent data link system. Have marines stationed at various points about the ship for relay." The XO turned and walked out of the bridge.

Addressing Lieutenant Kory Mbabane his Communications officer he said "Lieutenant how are our exterior comms. Please tell me they're ok. I need good news."

"Sir. Comms are good high band fluctuations within normal limits. Interference is minimal. We could hear a baby wail on earth sir."

"Good to hear. About the clarity. Not the baby." The Commander joked. He grimly returned to surveying the logs again. There was a faint ping as Chukov popped back in his holotank. "Sir scans show a gas giant approximately 380,000 km from current position. Deep scan shows that the planet is roughly twice the size of Jupiter with a similar atmosphere. It is orbited by 2 moons one of which is earth like."

"Earth-like eh? Navigation plot a course for the moon. I just got the engineering report, systems are green. The S-F drives are hot, and sublight engines are within tolerances. Commence full sublight burn."

In the midst of the journey, Kory Mbabane reflected on the ship she was serving on. It was one of five modified Harpy-class destroyers in existence. It had been built for the theoretical possibility of reinforcing or extracting troops in heavily controlled Covenant territory. The Harpy-class were formidable ship to ship fighters, sacrificing cargo capacity for more armour and an increased amount of weapons systems. Normally ships of the class like the Heart of Midlothian had no cargo capacity. On the surface the Torn Asunder looked the same. She packed 2 M.A.C cannons. 32 oversized Archer missile pods, with one pod carrying 70 missiles and 16 point defence auto cannons. The destroyer had one major difference. It had small cargo hold with a complement of Marines and vehicles, to better support its role.

When the ships were commissioned the Admiralty had no idea how to classify the ship. Was it a super heavy frigate? Or was it heavy destroyer? Finally it came down to the armour. With 2.5 metres of Titanium-A it was a destroyer. When Kory had been informed 2 months prior to the Battle of reach, of where she had been posted and what she was posted to and the purpose of the warship, she had laughed. Kory knew she would die on the ship. They had all come close to death. Only the moments of brilliance by the Commander, reminiscent of a young Preston Cole had kept them from sucking vacuum. Nevertheless, she was proud to serve on the ship now. The shared trial having strengthened the bonds between the members of the crew immeasurably. They all mourned the fall of Reach. And they all swore: they would go back!

Part 2:

The Commander looked up from his pad as the destination proximity alert rang out. He closed the ration report he was reading and stood up. Glancing through the view port he took note of the satellite they were arriving at. The moon was about one and a half times the size of earth. The moon had a predominantly green belt in the equatorial regions suggesting earth like weather patters. Water content seemed to be comparable to that of earth. Just to be sure, Eiji checked with Chekov.

"Chekov, what are the characteristics of the moon? Continents, oceans and the like."

"The moon has four continents. Land area is vast for a water dominant planet such as this. Land covers 46% of total surface area with water covering the rest-Warning! Detecting unknown signal of significant strength from the west coast of the biggest continent. Transmissions not detected earlier due to strong ionosphere activity."

"Unknown signals? Do they resemble any of our Covenant samples? Is it human, like the Innies?"

"No commander. This signal is of a type not matching the Covenants. It has never been documented and does not match known human signals to date. It could be made by an Insurrectionist outpost. They cobble together transmission equipment all the time."

Eiji furrowed his eyebrows. He didn't sign on to solve mysteries. He'd deal with the signal later. Right now his main concern was getting the destroyer partly ship-shape. To that end he tapped out a few orders on his tablet and sent it to engineering. He authorised 72 hours of EVA for the diagnostics. Hopefully in that time, a Covenant fleet wouldn't jump down his throat. The actual repair would of course, take much longer. The onboard fabricators could only make so many spares. He estimated they'd be floating around for at least a couple of weeks, just to get the M.A.C cannons sorted. Half the capacitors were blown and control subsystems for the #1 M.A.C were glitchy as hell. He wondered what he would put in his AAR. 'Got ass kicked, gave names' seemed like a good header. He had fine people under his command. They just had shit enemies.

He knew he was wasting time ruminating on the ship. He had a far more unpleasant duty to undertake. Meeting with the Marines CO. He knew the most damage taken by the ship had been where the marines had billeted. He got the preliminary casualty report, which was bad. Now to see what the butcher's bill was.

Taking the elevator to the mid decks, Commander Rodriguez reviewed what he knew about the CO of the marines. His name was Captain Jake Chapman. He was one of the last off Reach before the covvies stomped it to hell. He shared command of Charlie Company with First Lieutenant Barney Tosco before he got a field promotion for bravery. He set up a trap for a platoon of Covenant to cover his company's retreat. He led the Covenant into a gulch with a mongoose and called a strafing run on himself. The strafing run worked, and he miraculously survived. His was the spirit that had frustrated the Covenant for two and a half decades. He could already hear the cries and moans of the wounded as he approached the Marine billets. It sounded like a symphony composed by demons. He palmed open the door and walked through.

"Captain on deck! Ten-hut!" A voice roared from amoung the throng of soldiers.

"At ease soldiers. I need to speak with your captain." Rodriquez said.

"Sir, I'll be with you in a moment." A voice called from his right. Turning he saw the captain kneeling with the military chaplain beside the bedroll of a horribly burnt man.

"…gustum et locutionem, tactum, gressum deliquisti…" The chaplain murmured. With his hand on the soldiers head "Amen…" he ended.

The captain stood up spoke to the chaplain and then walked towards Commander Rodriquez. The man's face was lined with weariness. Although he was only thirty, he looked ten years older.

Captain Chapman said "Cpl Cayapo is close. But then quite a few are."

Rodriquez raised his eyebrow. "Can you give me a run down?"

"Yea sure. We had a company strength of 170 when we got aboard. Mostly a mix n match of Alpha through Delta companies. That last hit outright killed 33 men. Critical casualties are 17 men. 25 men have severe bone breaks and the rest have minor fractures and bruises, including me. But enough rest and bio foam should go a long way."

"You have 95 effectives. That should be enough."

Chapman looked up sharply at this.

"Sir, what do you mean? Are we expecting trouble?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Half an hour ago, Chukov detected an unknown signal being emitted from the moon we're holding station above. And before you ask, no, it's not Covenant or our own. So here what I want you to do: set up a base near to where the signal is originating, scout around and find what's causing it." Rodriguez ordered.

Chapman had no problem with the orders. They were concise and to the point. However he did have a question. A somewhat absurd one.

"Sir what if we encounter sentient life? What do we do then?"

"Do not engage. There's a reason for that, if it's Covenant they may have a way to contact reinforcements. Lord knows there might be a fleet on its way already, and the company is already severely under strength. No need for unnecessary death. So err on the side of caution. Prepare for deployment in three hours."

"Sir is that all? I'll need to brief my men."

"Dismissed Cpt." Having finished with what he came to do, Rodriguez left Chapman to his men. Now time to compile the logs together. Unknown to him his orders would change the lives of everybody aboard the Torn Asunder.

Secured in his ward room, Eiji took a look at the rest of the logs. He picked up a data pad and re-read the report he closed earlier. It seemed that they had perishables for a year and a half. Picking up the report from Logistics, he was reminded of what made his ship so special. It resembled a standard destroyer in shape. But that was the limit of the similarities. The difference lay in size. Both in length and width as well as capacity, in order to support its mission profile The Torn Asunder was a full 40 m longer at 520m and 230m width. Its depth was a 150m due to its cargo hold. And that was the most important difference. Most destroyers were so heavily laden there was no space to put a cargo hold without sacrificing armour or weapons. His ship managed to reconciliate both. Perusing the document he noted the inventory of the cargo hold. By no means did it rival the capacity of even a light frigate, but it had space to spare. It held two YSS-100 Sabres, two D77-TC Pelican dropships with an attached troop bay, two scorpion tanks and seven M12 LRV Warthogs, two of which were the Gauss variant.

It was quite impressive they had managed to fit all of that on a destroyer. It was a change in military doctrine. He wondered whether this late in the war, it would make any difference.

Looking at his clock, Eiji was reminded of the op that was to take place soon. Sighing he entered a few more words into his report and saved it. Five minutes later he was at the cargo bay.

Speaking to the gathered troops he said "Mission is a go. Godspeed. Marines watch your backs down there. We don't know what we're up against and I want you all back in one piece." He watched as the Pelicans loaded with troops swung out of the ship gracefully and headed down towards the moon. Only time would tell what was going on. But hopefully those men would bring a few answers back.

Courage is being scared to death…and saddling up anyway.

John Wayne