[Updated enjoy]
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Star Chart: South Eastern Border of S.R. controlled space…
Location: U.N.S.C. Benediction…
Date: 11 June 2560…
Time: 7:00 military standard time…
A man that looked no older than 36 walked down a dusty grey corridor wearing a simple but finally pressed suit of U.N.S.C. Navy BDU, with a name tag reading out as "Alexander" sewn into it over the left breast pocket. His well maintained yet worn black boots clanked against the steel grated floor of the bulkhead. Alexander was the navigational officer of Admiral Cutters former ship, the first Spirit of Fire during the Covenant War in the early days but since then he was given command of this ship.
Another day in the great A.U.R., Alexander mused looking over reports from the rest of his small patrol group in one hand, while he sipped from a coffee mug in the other hand with the words "galaxies greatest dad!" painted in a crude childlike manner on the side (the patrol group consisted of two Strident heavy frigates, three Charon light frigates, and one Autumn heavy cruiser that acted as the patrol groups acting command vessel).
"Captain on deck!" one of the bridge guards saluted as Alexander walked through. The buttstock of the soldier's MA5B hitting the ground with a strong metallic clang.
"At ease," the Captain said returning the salute to the guard before returning his attention to his task at hand.
"Give me a sitrep," Alexander ordered taking his normal seat in the middle of the bridge control staff with a stoic expression on his face while he drank his coffee. His patrol group was only sent to this tail end of space because the planetary leadership out here spotted an unknown spacefaring species in the sector.
"We've reached system, yet I cannot hail anyone on local coms," Rax the ships A.I. stated, "there also appears to be at least 40 unidentified ships of cruiser class and below on the opposite side of this system in orbit over the Sangheili colony as well as a large number debris above the planet." (this world is only a small farming colony of about two thousand or so souls, and yes I have checked the ship sizes of the two universes and from what I can see dreadnoughts in mass effect only reaches about the size of a U.N.S.C. cruiser with the only exception being the Destiny Ascension which is half the size of the Infinity.)
"Are they insurrectionists, we all know they've gotten sly about their actions lately?" Alexander asked sighing.
"Negative, no U.G.R. ships emit an energy reading like this..." Rax goes silent for half a second, "Captain, I've picked up a video feed, you need to see this."
"Put it on the view screen," Alexander ordered, "and set us a course to orbit the closest moon to our current position but keep us on the dark side out of sight of our new friends."
The viewport turned black as the video started. It showed images of roughly humanoid figures in strange armors that covered them from head to toe obscuring their features past their body shape and they seemed to have personal shield systems yet couldn't halt plasma aliens were clearly invading the planet but it was hard to see anything coherent with the camera shaking, and switching between different viewpoints, for instance helmet cams on police officers and local P.D.F. trying to fight back and help civilians to street cameras watching intersections where heavy fighting took place. The entire crew was silent as they watched realizing what was happening while they saw the new race start dragging civilians off, killing those who fought back or were too wounded to be of use.
These creatures were mostly made up of humanoid looking creatures but one in every twenty were hulking brute like monsters that when wounded enough would go berserk against the soldiers that had caused enough bullet and plasma burns to do so (which was a lot). They also wielded interesting weapons which seemed to fire kinetic projectiles yet had no ammo magazines to speak of.
"What do we do now?" the weapons officer asked being the first one to shake from his stupor.
"Get me a secure line to the Dauntless, and get our weapons primed," Alexander ordered his facial features grim, It's Harvest all over again.
"Yes, sir, I'm on it," the communications officer nodded.
"This is the Captain of the Dauntless, what is it, sir?" the Captain asked voice tone making it obvious he had seen the same video Alexander did.
"I need you to get to HIGHCOM now with this new information, follow Cole Protocol, and get the hell out of here," Alexander ordered sternly, "tell them we've got a new fight on our hands."
"And the rest of you, sir?" the Captain asked his tone turning to one of hopelessness.
"We'll try to keep them in the system as long as we can," Alexander sighed, tightening his fists.
"Copy that, sir, good hunting," the Captain of the Dauntless cut communication as it jumped through a slipspace portal.
"How're our weapons coming along?" Alexander asked.
" Our MAC's are sitting at 100% power we just need firing solutions," the weapons officer said.
"Good, aim to cripple them I don't civilian casualties if we can help it," Alexander said looking to his navigations officer "I want an emergency jump cycle to put us right on top of them." The officer nodded.
The Benediction, as well as the other four remaining patrol ships, jumped through slipspace, coming through just 10,000km away from the enemy force. After a couple of seconds, seven multiton MAC rounds shot at the threat aiming for the engines of several ships, smashing through them like knives through butter. This sends the three cruiser class ships spinning slowly out of control plus disabling them from fighting back with the rest of their fleet, while the other four rounds just obliterate the engines of four other frigate sized ships leaving 33 of the enemy ships left to fight back.
"Rax get orders out to all saber teams to get to the launch bays, and get us some fighter screening," Alexander ordered over the ship's loudspeaker.
"Understood, Captain," Rax calmly said.
"Captain they're turning to face us," the navigations officer called out.
"Engage evasive maneuvers!" Alexander yelled as the hostiles sent multiple volleys of mass accelerator rounds at sublight speeds every few seconds. The U.N.S.C. ships were able to outmaneuver the first volley of rounds with the rest of them harmlessly bouncing off their Covenant based shield systems.
"Report," Alexander coughed out sitting up in his chair.
"Our shields are holding at 41.7% power," Rax said statically, "I had to divert power from weapons to keep the shields strong."
"And the other ships?" Alexander asked picking up his spilled coffee cup.
"All frigates have lost shielding, Athans and Valkyrie have sustained minor hull breaches," Rax informed, "while Titan has lost it's main MAC and is running on emergency power, and Deimos has been destroyed with all hands it looks like a lucky shot caught the main fusion reactor."
Damn it, Alexander thought, "how many more attacks like that can we survive?" Alexander asked thanking any god listening for their momentary reprieve from the onslaught.
"It's a 0.5% chance for our fleet to survive to make another attack run," the A.I. said.
"Sir, we have boarding craft incoming," the weapons officer called out.
"Get all saber wings to intercept those boarding craft, and get the crew of…" Alexander was cut off as he fell out of his chair, while more rounds impacted the Benediction shields breaking them and blowing chunks of titanium plate off its broadsides causing the lights to go out and turn an eerie red color signaling that the main reactor has just gone offline.
"Rax, what happened?" Alexander asked picking himself back up, "RAX!"
"I'm... captain... reserve power..." Rax stated with static making only a few words eligible to the human ear.
"Get whatever power you can to the point defense guns, and engage Cole Protocol," Alexander ordered getting nothing but static in return so he activated the ship's intercom, "all crew, prepare to dispel boarding parties," and almost as an afterthought said, "give them hell."
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Star Chart: South Eastern Border of S.R. controlled space…
Location: U.N.S.C. Benediction floor C hangar deck…
Date: 11 June 2560…
Time: 7:40 military standard time…
"Johnny… Johnny, come on wake up," a kid no older than 19 years old wearing U.N.S.C. standard issue M52B body armor (Halo Wars 2 marine body armor from the cinematics) awoke to the yammering of his Unggoy squadmate Flal, and the blood red from the lights.
"Yeah, I'm up man," Johnny said to calm his three to four-foot tall squadmate, while he grabbed onto his throbbing head, "ugh, my head, what happened? It feels as if I've been hit by a pair of hunters."
"A crate fell on you, and knocked you out cold," Flal said bluntly, "come on let's get going Sarge is waiting for us in the hangar."
"Okay, I'm getting up," Johnny said shaking his head while standing up. Johnny and Flal moved fast down the corridor they were in, as they moved along they ran past a couple scattered crewmen and marines sitting to the sides holding ice on bandaged head wounds and other injuries.
"Sargent, what's going on?" Johnny asked as him and Flal walked through the hangar bay door toward their squad mates.
"All crew, prepare to dispel boarding parties," the captain grunted over the loudspeaker.
"Never mind," Johnny turned pale.
"Get your head in the game, Private," the sergeant ordered, "the main bulk of enemy troops will be deploying boarding craft in this hangar bay our, job is to stop these bastards from claiming the ship."
"Hoorah," the squad yelled out.
Johnny's heart pounded in his chest as he aimed down the large hangar using the sights on his M395 DMR from his spot on a catwalk overlooking the entire hangar in clear nervousness from his very first and most likely last engagement if these things were anywhere as ruthless as the covenant he read about in history books, and were told about by his father. 30 of the best sharpshooters in his company including him, were placed strategically across the catwalks around the hangar with at least one in every five having an SRS99-S5 sniper rifle or an M41 SSM Jackhammer rocket launcher to suppress and destroy anyone stupid enough to enter the hangar from the outside entrance. The rest of the company sat patiently behind crates and barricades awaiting the first wave of enemy combatants to fly through, and land on the ship so they could throw automatic fire down range into the kill box.
"How are you doin' buddy?" Flal asked from Johnny's right side holding a Jackhammer launcher in his hands.
"Nothing, so far," Johnny said steeling his determination, "so why am I so anxious?"
"Well you're people call it butterflies in the stomach I think," Flal said in a joking manner.
"Don't you have a section of the catwalk to watch?" Johnny asked gesturing down the walkway.
"But I'm bored," Flal complained.
"Then it sounds like you chose the wrong profession buddy," Johnny joked.
"True, see you later, Johnny," Flal said waddling back to his position as if the day was just another normal day.
Yeah, if we survive that long, Johnny thought grimly looking back down his DMRs sights.
"Get ready, first dropship wave inbound," his Sargent barked over the comms.
"How many?" one of the other marines asked over comms.
"Six drop ships and four gunships," the sergeant said bluntly, "Jackhammers lock your targets and make sure they only land in a pile of broken metal."
As the ships came flying through the hangar six anti-tank missiles came out of the catwalks above the aliens, two of these missiles made direct hits into the sides of two gunships subsequently blowing two ships to tiny pieces of slag while the rest only made glancing blows to the rest they were aimed at. While only causing minimal damage to their intended targets they still caused them to spiral out of control, crash landing to the ground of the hangar with some exploding in flame on impact to the surface. Total casualties of the hostile force included four means of transport three of which exploded on impact to the deck, and two gunships, leaving four still left in the air and one permanently grounded. The two gunships that survived the initial volley of rockets turned their weapons upon their attackers firing multiple rockets of their own, plus automatic fire killing ten unfortunate souls in the resolved explosions plus collapsing several catwalks killing five more under the weight of steel.
Johnny fired his DMR at one of the gunships aiming for the cockpit. It took half the magazine in his DMR to break through the glass in several places causing the ship to crash and burn into the ruins of the catwalk it had already destroyed. Everyone still alive on the catwalks aimed their rifles at the last gunship and opened fire, in the same manner, this time only taking four shots to bring it down from the sniper rifles 50 caliber rounds the ship ending up in the same manner as the other. Soon after the marines on the catwalks were pinned down by the survivors of the downed crafts on the landing pad and the crews of the gunships.
"Shit," Johnny hissed in pain when he took a direct hit on his shoulder between his armored plates. The wound was not fatal but it still hurt like hell and from what he could test is that the bullet did not leave an exit wound but that would be something he will have to deal with later. Johnny shrugged off the pain, and peaked out of his cover to fire three shots off from his DMR at the hostiles moving across the catwalk to his left with the first two shots breaking the shields of the closest enemy soldier with the last round punching through the creatures armored temple sending it to the ground in a heap of body mass turning his odds from five to one, to four to one. This movement sent pain through his injured shoulder forcing him back behind his cover with enemy fire coming in behind him.
This is it, Johnny thought, I'm sorry mom. Johnny slid out his sidearm an M6H magnum from his holster with his good hand and lifting himself back out of his cover aimed his magnum at the aliens but before he could get a shot off a Jackhammer rocket flew by his head impacting the hostile aliens with a furious explosion of fire and gore.
"You really should be more careful," Flal said in his amused Unggoy nature while he waddled over his Jackhammer rocket launcher smoking, "what would your mother do if I had to up and tell her you died like a jackass."
"I think she'd kill you for not pulling my ass out of the fire," Johnny said with a pained smile gripping his wounded shoulder.
"Come on let's get you to the-" Flal's head exploded from a well placed shot from the last surviving humanoid creature spraying gray matter, and baby blue blood across Johnny's face and chest plate.
"Flal!" Johnny yelled out in horror turning to face the crippled monster holding up its weapon shakily to Johnny next. This was the only time Johnny got to see the aliens without a helmet, the alien had brownish looking skin serrated looking teeth and four hate-filled eyes. Johnny turned aiming his M6H back at the fucker, they both fired off at the same time Johnny's shot blowing off the alien's four-eyed forehead head while the alien's round hit Johnny in the sternum causing him to fall over his cover in a heap.
Johnny laid there his breathing staggered, with his own blood pooling around him, while he grew colder and colder as the seconds ticked on. His life flashing before his eyes from his childhood, through his school life, first kiss, first time driving a car, his first time, basic training where he met Flal his closest friend, his family, all of it coming through in vivid detail. Once this was done he looked over at the mangled corpse of Flal a single tear running down his cheek.
"I'm... sorry… my friend… I'll meet you… at… the bar..." Johnny said shaking with the last of his strength leaving him.
"All marines fall back," he heard his sergeant yell into the comms over the sound of battle that felt so far away before everything was enveloped in a peaceful, soothing darkness.
