A/N: This chapter may seem a little rushed because I had not originally planned to include it. However, upon proofreading, I felt the jump from the first chapter to the now third chapter was too much, and decided I needed to bridge the gap.
As stated in the next chapter, I was intentionally ambiguous with the description of the marine.
First Responders
LOCATION: MILKY WAY / SIGURD'S CRADLE / SKEPSIS SYSTEM
DATE: circa 2552 CE
366 years after the Reaper War...
Alliance warships had undergone a great deal of changes in the past 366 years. Long story short, everything got bigger and better. Frigates became corvettes, cruisers became frigates, dreadnaughts became cruisers, and carriers became assault ships. Superdreadnoughts and supercarriers, which only the Geth possessed three centuries ago, became the new regular dreadnoughts and carriers, with new classes of superdreadnoughts and supercarriers being built, bigger and better. There was also no such thing as a fighter carrier anymore. All carriers were armed with at least a Thanix Cannon now.
After Earth was destroyed, the Alliance also stopped naming their warships after landmarks from the lost world. Lost, but not forgotten. Now, they gave warships more original names. Usually the names were something inspirational, but sometimes they were menacing.
The SSV Darkest Before Dawn, an Alliance assault ship, was just about to get back to patrolling the Terminus after refitting on Franklin with the rest of its wolf pack, consisting of a cruiser, two frigates, and three corvettes. An assault ship was designed to deploy and support ground forces. A few centuries ago, assault ships only carried battalions, but newer and bigger ships meant newer and bigger detachments. Now, assault ships carried regiments. The SSV Darkest Before Dawn was carrying the 1st Regiment of the 943rd Marine Division. It was one of five similar wolf packs that made up the Sigurd's Cradle rapid-reaction naval task force. One of the wolf packs had an assault ship jam-packed with countless drones, unlike the other four, which were carrying troops.
Normally, the five packs were split-up, all patrolling a different star system in the Sigurd's Cradle, staying close, but not too close, ready to regroup and respond to a crisis in their assigned area at a moment's notice, but the entire task force was grouped together at the moment, preparing to depart from the naval base on the northern hemisphere of Franklin after refit.
An Alliance marine from Prime 2-1 lay down on her bed in the barracks of the Darkest Before Dawn, her eyes closed, just listening to some music. The music stopped when she received a urgent data packet through her omni-tool. She opened the packet and read through its contents as alarms blared and emergency lights shone. The ship's AI, which had become mandatory aboard all Systems Alliance vessels after the Reaper War, blared a message over the ships intercom.
"All hands to battle stations. Marines, prepare for combat drop."
The data packet was filled with tons of information, none of it even close to what the marine expected. She was sure they were about to respond to a Council threat, not an uncommon occurrence, even during this time of supposed peace. She had never heard of this Covenant Empire, or any of the races under its authority, but apparently she was about to be fighting them, and possibly assisting their enemies, the UNSC, two previously and completely unknown factions. She was not about to charge into a conflict blind however. She was given a plethora of information from the Geth regarding the Covenant's capabilities, as well as the UNSC's. The Covenant were to be engaged on sight, but the UNSC should only be engaged in self-defense. There was a great deal more of information, but that was what really stood out.
Systems Alliance marines had a desired loadout ready in their rooms aboard most vessels, as well as in other areas throughout the ship, and the marine jumped out of her bed, stripped down, almost destroyed her locker while opening it, donned her battlesuit, and magnetically slung on her weapons.
She kept it simple. For her primary weapon, she wielded the M-34 Avenger assault rifle, the newest model in the Avenger series, and the standard-issue assault rifle of both the Systems Alliance and Batarian State. For her secondary weapon, she wielded the M-29 Predator heavy pistol, the newest model in the Predator series, and the standard-issue sidearm of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps. Both weapons were incredibly light, and incredibly hard, as was the case with all Alliance small arms weapons. You could lift them with one finger, and bust open a skull with one swing.
Ready to jump right at anything crazy enough to come her way, the marine charged off to meet up with the rest of her squad in the well deck and prepare for a combat drop. When she arrived, all of her squadmates hooked up to an orbital drop net. When their time came to deploy, they would jump out of the well deck and free fall to the surface of the planet. The net would keep them together and could be guided by their squad AI. The mass effect field of the net would increase their mass during free fall, increasing their speed. Then, the mass effect field of the net would decrease their mass to near-zero and the thruster in the center of the net would fire up and soften their landing. Once ready to deploy, all they could do was wait.
After receiving their new orders, the rapid-reaction force formed up and jumped into slipstream space using the new slipspace drives developed for the Alliance by the human scientist Eli Wegner, the mastermind behind the M-490 Blackstorm. They arrived in the Epsilon Eridani System in less than an hour. How fast you traveled through slipspace was largely dependent on literally how fast your ship could travel. Advanced slipspace drives allowed for more accurate jumps, and the Imperium's extremely advanced slipspace drives could radically warp space and time, allowing them to travel across the galaxy instantaneously, but still, how fast you got from A to B in slipstream space was, as in real space, still largely dependent upon your acceleration. The relationship between your ship's mass and thrust determined how fast you were going to go. Less mass and more thrust meant faster speeds. More mass and less thrust meant slower speeds. Mass effect fields lowered a ship's mass to near-zero, allowing for monumental acceleration through both real and slipstream space alike.
The rapid-reaction force exited slipspace on the outskirts of the Epsilon Eridani System and immediately scanned the area. After they knew where everything was in the system, the made a precision jump to Reach and engaged the existing Covenant naval forces in orbit. They had received intel gathered by the Geth, Collectors, and Imperium Humans on both the Covenant's and UNSC's capabilities, and knew just what to do.
The naval battle was over in less than a minute. The Covenant ships had a severely limited range in comparison to the Alliance ships, and were all destroyed before they could even mark a target. Their shields were disabled by one or two proton rounds from a Mass Accelerator Cannon. After their shields were lost, a single burst from the Thanix Cannons on the Alliance cruisers gutted every last ship. A Thanix Cannon consisted of a number of barrels placed closely together, combining their fire into a single bolt. The bigger the ship, the bigger and the more barrels that could be added. Thanix Cannons were found on everything from fighters to battle stations. An Alliance cruiser wielded a Thanix Cannon consisting of eight capital ship-grade barrels in a circle formation, impacting a target with 528 kilotons of kinetic force.
Some of the Covenant vessels didn't even have shields, and were simply obliterated moments after engagement. The rapid-reaction force didn't even need to employ any advanced tactics or special weapons. All they had to do was just point and shoot. After achieving orbital dominance, the 943rd Marine Division was deployed to finish the job.
