November 29,2620 13:30 hours Nova's Light shipboard time
Onboard the bridge of the Nova's Light
In Specialized Berth, Oort Space Docks.
Fleet Commander Sarah Gorman was standing on the bridge of her newest ship command, the UNSC SSB Nova's Light.The Nova just came off of the Omega-Level Security Space Docks in the Oort Cloud, in the same space the Infinity was built, and was in the process of being outfitted for deep-space flight and combat. Sarah watched as the last few flights of Darters brought the last of the materials aboard for the fabricators. These fabricators are the relatively recent innovation that allows the ship to carry out its designed 3-4 year patrols. To sustain the crew for these long patrols, the ship parks in a system's asteroid belt, Kuiper Belt, or Oort Cloud to mine for the materials necessary to resupply the ship for combat and crew requirements.
Looking even further after, she watched as the Revolution maneuvered into the massive port hangar bay of the Nova. The Revolution and the Yorktown are the 2 newest UNSC supercarriers of the Revolution-class. They are about the same size as an Infinity-class battleship,but designed to carry small strike craft. They each carry 100 squadrons of Broadsword-class fighter-bombers.
Turning to the Captain's Ship Status Board(CSSB), she saw that the Rev was the last ship into the hangar. All 8 of the new Ares-class super destroyer were already loaded into their drop bays, and the Infinity-class battleships were being locked down in their bays for Slipspace travel. The Ares-class are a major upgrade to the existing Thanatos-class destroyers still in production with the UNSC. These new SSDs have quad pivot-mounted MAC MK. X guns in the prow. These new MAC guns fire a shell that varies between 600 tons to 1,500 tons at 150,000 km/s. The reason for the variable tonnage shell is that the UNSC HighCom wanted different options for different engagements. The Infinity-class has remained relatively unchanged since the introduction of the Infinity, but the Series 8 MACs have been replaced by the MK. ventral centerline drop bay registered as empty, but that was normal. The refitted Phoenix-class colony ship, The Second Chance At Life, captained by Fleet Admiral Stone, was away on a mission. While not part of the Nova's allotted ship complement, the Nova was designed to carry the Chance on the off chance that Stone needed a place to refit and rearm his ship.
On the next screen of the CSSB, Sarah saw that the main antimatter reactors were just coming online, the process boosted by the 6 reactors based off the design from the now destroyed Pillar of Autumn. The UNSC had just discovered how to make antimatter in large enough quantities to be used in both reactors and weapons. The ship's Sniper missiles are a testament to that. They are launched just like the aging Archers, but once 100 meters away from the ship, they make a micro-Slipspace jump to 100 meters off the target's hull, then detonate a few kilograms of AM upon impact, severely damaging a ship in the detonation. This is especially effective against Covenant ships, which can take a 1,500 ton MAC shell and keep going, depending on the type of ship. Also, Archers were easier to shoot down and the Covenant shielding could have recharged by the time the missiles reached the ship. The micro-jumps decrease the number of missiles needed to be fired to reach a ship, while increasing the chance of a missile reaching its target. Looking at the MAC diag….
Alert!Unknown ships detected entering the 50 AU shell!
"Thanks Takao. Send the ship to Combat Alert Alpha ." All hands, this is the bridge. Man battlestations! Repeat, man all battlestations!This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a drill! Throughout the ship, men and women were running to reach their battle stations. The crew then jumped up from whatever it was they were doing, being it sleeping, eating, or messing around in the lounges, and began to sprint for their battle stations. Even being a 100 kilometer long ship, the crew were able to reach their battle stations within 10 minutes, due to the ship's interior teleportation and tram system, which was optimized for just this kind of emergency. Well, almost everyone made their battle stations in time, thought Sarah, as the other 5 members of her Spartan-VI fireteam made it onto the bridge.
"Sorry for being late Commander, we had to let the tram drop off Turret 1's crew first." Alexis Rogers(Alex) said. Alexis is the 2IC(second in charge) of Sarah's fireteam, Ranger. Alex moved off towards the operations other members of Ranger were moving to their positions on the bridge as well. These were Kassandra Kennedy(KK), moving towards the weapons station. KK is the best of the best when it comes to shooting at long-range targets. Ashley Adams(Ash) moved towards the communications station. Ash is the resident stealth expert within the fireteam. Samantha Rogers(Sam), who happens to be Alex's sister, moved towards the navigation station. Her bridge duties coincide with her fireteam expertise, as she is the team's pilot. Kelly Nelson moved towards the engineering station. She has an eye for detail, making her the ship's engineering officer and the best spotter on the team. The bridge's normal Navy crew were already on their way to the secondary command deck.
"Warm up the MACs ,KK. Cycle them up to 90% until we have a firing solution from Takao. Prep Sniper pods A1-A30. Start the warm-up cycle on the flare launchers. Alex , warm up AM reactors to 50% and fusion reactors to 75%.Sam, get us clear of the a course for intercept on the largest unknown vessel, flank speed. Ash,tell the other ships to get ready for a combat drop." As the Spartans worked their stations, the Nova moved away from the docks. The bow then swung around to face the incoming vessels.
"MACs at 90% charge and awaiting firing solution. Sniper pods ready. Point defenses and flares ready."KK reported " Reactors running at 50% and 75%" THUMP "What was that Alex?" Sarah asked. " AM reactors 3 and 5 have dropped to 0% output, running the others to 75% to compensate. I'm being told that number 3 AM reactor just lost its connection to the AM storage chamber and should be fixed momentarily. Number 5 has a breach in the reactor compartment and needs a full overhaul. We have a few casualties, all injured and heading for the med bay in that section. No fatalities."Unknown targets powering up.!I am reading energies congruent with antimatter beams being powered as well as particle shielding!Also, electromagnetics are going off the charts near their prows! " I knew I forgot something! Alex, raise the shields NOW! Hardlight layers first, then the Covenant tech!" "Copy Commander, raising shields." Alex was furiously working at her console, trying to get the shields up before the antimatter beams hit the ship. "Iona, can our weapons get through their shields? I believe the larger MACs will pass right through the shields. Particle shields just block lasers and beams as well as smaller projectiles. Anything over, say, 75 tons should get past them. 'Thanks Iona. Hyuuga, Haruna, aim to disable all vessels, we don't know what they are. If we don't kill outright, they may be willing to talk." As the firing solutions are plotted by the AIs, the now hostile ships fire their main guns.