Kirra continued to fume even as she watched the team of four move along the cliff-side, they were on alert and looking for her as they made their way towards the relay station. She'd used the momentary distraction showing her face had provided to regain her carbine and blast herself away from the group with her jetpack, it'd been risky but well worth it. Raising her hand to the side of her helmet she flicked on her combat recorder while she checked her helmet seal, the automated camera zooming in on the unknown fire-team as they moved into a cluster of structures.
'So thats where the people went.' She thought as her visor zoomed in on the man in civilian attire as he emerged from the largest of the buildings. 'Not much to look at bu-' Her thoughts were interrupted as text began to scroll down one side of her visor, much to her surprise. Translating Hungarian 2: "-he beasts, we dont know what they are or even who they are.. They killed my sun knight. Please, we need help." Her eyes flickering over the light blue text Kirra couldn't help but feel confused. 'How in the void did Terrans get out here?' She wondered before shutting down the ranged translation matrix, limiting it to just around five meters. The software was known to be buggy in translating certain words or phrases to Norian, so she wasn't surprised that some of it sounded.. Archaic, but the message still made sense.
Clicking her radio she quickly began making her way along the thin rooftops, her footsteps echoing as she moved. "Crimson, keep your eyes out. Those bandits we saw earlier might be a threat." She clicked, hardly making it more then another ten meters before getting a response. "We've noticed ma'am, i'm seeing numerous civilian casualties in the area.. Permission to search for survivors?" Came the cool reserved voice of Khan, a Norian rifleman and their resident Crimson Four.
Pausing she'd consider it for a moment before finally shaking her head. "Granted Four, proceed with caution and try to evacuate any civilians in the area.. I'm moving on the relay proper." She responded, it was the duty of any member of the Alliance to defend the weak and she wasn't going to turn her back on that oath, besides, she could finish the mission herself if she needed.
Pausing for a moment she took in her surroundings, something about them was off. On a hunch she slowly turned her head, her helmet cycling through its various visual modes, Infrared, thermal, and contaminant to name a few. Resting a few meters to her right, nestled in a tree, was an odd looking alien. At first glance, it looked a lot like a Tevronian raptor, a bird-like two legged predator with ornate colored feathers and soft skin, known to use its looks to draw in unsuspecting prey before ambushing them.
This being, whatever it is, most definitely is not a Tevronian raptor. Dressed in some kind of brilliant gold fitted suit and bearing matching colored feathers across the back of its head, Its eyes locked on the communications array off in the distance. Its grey skin and beak-like mouth fading to soft looking feathers along the back portion of its head, while most of its body was clearly protected from minor small arms by its armor, maybe even medium arms.
The armor itself seems more suited to movement, rather then punching power. A cursory scan by Kirra's helmet revealed that it was thick enough to stop small caliber rounds easily and was incredibly light weight. The armor completely covered everything but the creatures head, and its left foot bore a long claw-like boot, thick enough that it might be able to cut into starship grade hull. But more concerning was its rifle.
Shifting her helmet to it, Kirra's displeased expression slowly faded as basic information was fed directly into her cerebral quartex. 'A crystalline projectile capable of limited tracking at range, and explosive detonation once a significant amount of the crystals mass is present.. But only after firing.' She thought, a momentary lapse in her awareness finally catching her.
The beings head turned in her direction, its amber colored eyes blinking in what seems like surprise before narrowing. Moving at a speed that easily matched her own, the aliens rifle shifted and fired once, the round striking her in the chestpeice. The force of it easily threw her on her back, stunned by the impact and subsequent detonation of the pink needle-like projectile.
A few low level heath status alerts drew her attention as they appeared, and then quickly were squashed as a dull thud echo'd in her ears. Standing above her was the alien, its head tilted slightly in an oddly curious stance, its weapon held loosely. Not loose enough to show that it was relaxed, but loose enough to know that it was in control of the situation. Placing its heavy clawed boot on her chestpeice, the gold armored avian stared down at Kirra's armored form.
It seemed as though it was unsure what she was, and before it could explore the thought any further a harsh, guttural tone erupting from its forearm drew its attention. The brief switch in its eyes was all she needed. In a flurry of movements the avian found its foot pulled out from under it and its back indenting the sheet metal roof, a pistol pointed at its head.
The thing grunted in audible pain, but remained still, watching Kirra's polarized faceplate as it waited for the inevitable. A few seconds passed in silence before eyes drifted down to the creatures forearm, her suits hacking interface taking a few seconds to adjust to the foreign system before going to work. Hardly thirty seconds later, she had what she needed.
Turning back to the creature, a small section of her mind quickly read out anatomy, language and basic dialects. "Your not a bad shot.. Now give me a good reason not to kill you." She mutters, the helmets translator butchering her kind, quiet voice into a series of high pitched screech's and garbled chirps.
The creatures surprise lasted for a few seconds before a radiological alarm appeared in the top left of her HUD. Blinking in surprise, her gaze dropped down to where a small 'C' shaped pistol laid mere feet away from her belly, a massive ball of roiling green energy visible, the air around it vibrating as it attempted to escape the magnetic field holding it in place.
"A good enough reason, I believe?" Came a mono-tonous response through the translator as the creature stared back at her visor. 'Cheeky bird.' She half muttered, her pistol-armed hand slowly pulling back from the T'vaoan's head. "Your good. I let you up, you don't shoot me again?" She asks aloud, the delayed response from the translator showing as the avian's beak dipped a few seconds later. Counting down in her head, she slowly released the T'vaoan's neck, only rising off of him when the radiation alarm ceased.
Getting to its own feet, the gold armored avian's matching eyes moved over Kirra's armor quickly before locking on her visor once again short series of odd snuffling noises being audible to her suits lower audio spectrum as it did something, like a sniffle. A series of short chirps quickly followed following. "Your not one of the apes." It stated, clipping the odd sidearm to its thigh-plate. Tilting her head, Kirra couldn't help but stifle a scathing reply, translation tech wasn't the best.. And she'd only put the packet together in a few seconds so some mistakes were almost a guarantee.
"Apes?" She asked aloud, the translation slowly smoothing itself out as she kept him talking, her mind putting forward dozens of possible translations for the word the odd avian was using. "The smooth skinned ones.. Those the San'Shyuum label abominations to their gods will. The Humans." It finished, straightening up. A spike of both confusion and revulsion ran through her as the Skirmishers words were translated.
Before she could question the Champion more a series of rifle bursts erupted on a nearby bluff, where the flash of plasma of both green and blue variety was mixed with flashes of tracers. Above a pair of surprisingly quiet VTOL helicopters rushed over the hill to engage a turquoise colored aircraft of a.. Questionable design with autocannons while crewmembers inside fired out of the troop bay with machine guns and sniper rifles, the large 'U' shaped aircraft firing back on the offending gunships with a single tribarreled plasma turret of some kind.
From where she stood, there was little doubt that the fighting wouldn't affect her, but next to her the fast thinking T'vaoan's beak parted in something akin to a wordless laugh as several bright colored objects on the opposite bluff suddenly went dark, zooming in with her visor, Kirra was honestly surprised with what she saw.
Avians bearing a resemblance to the alien next to her were forming lines with energy shields, shields that were rapidly dropping under the incoming ballistic fire. Unlike the bird next to her, these ones had a more beige orange skin, and dead.. Milky eyes, their armor was much less covering and in the place of feathers, they had a few small spines sticking out the back of their heads, like whiskers almost.
A moment of confusion crossed her face until she accessed the bulk data she'd retrieved from the Champions comm. From his personal logs, and she was surprisingly glad to identify his gender without having to look for more 'obvious' features. But again, according to the logs, there was a blood feud of sorts between his sub-species and much of the alien religious conglomerate he served.
For whatever reason, someone termed 'Truth' had ordered a halt to all breeding by his sub-species. Those who refused quickly would find their family and friends branded heretics and destroyed, or in the case of some, fed to their more common cousins rabid kin as punishment before the offenders were gutted and paraded through the streets by fervors zealots.
Those that followed the decree were forced into the roll of shock troopers, where they were killed by the thousands in meaningless attacks against fortified positions, normally human cities or fortresses. Based on an estimate in the logs.. They were rapidly approaching extinction as a species.
With that in mind, she could see why he was enjoying the slaughter of so many warriors of this 'Covenant'. Glancing at the Champion, she understood why he watched as his 'comrades' were brutally slaughtered by the Demons that so many of the Covenants ranks feared. Zooming in on them she could easily recognize the forms of the team she'd encountered earlier.
The sudden realization that these soldiers were considered to be monsters by the Covenant due to their abilities was not lost on Kirra as she watched the team slice through the resistance they met with relative ease. Watching it, calculating each movement, there was little doubt in her mind that the soldiers, these demons.. Were genetically modified in a way that her people had long since abandoned.
'Maybe they're just that desperate?' She wondered.
Turning her gaze back to the relay outpost, she barely considered suppressing the urge to get up to it and plug in. After all, a relay like that had to process lots of data on a daily basis, data that would make her mission much, MUCH easier. All she had to do was get to it.
"What's guarding the relay outpost up there?" She asks, the foreign sounding chirps growing more smooth then the previous translations. Surprised, the T'vaoan's quick reply brought forth more questions. "A few dozen Unggoy and several squads of Sangheili Ultra's.. As well as a team of Zealots." He stated, crossing his arms as he watched the distant battle.
A few short seconds and the necessary data was displayed before her eyes. All that stood between her and the relay station was a team of religious commando's and elite warriors. Not exactly the worst odds, but not the best either. Making her way forward she was stopped by the sound of a weapon being activated, the gold armored skirmisher stepping up next to her. "If you mean to fight them.. I will fight by your side till my blood runs dry."
Turning her hidden gaze towards the veteran warrior, Kirra couldn't help but notice the cold flames burning in its eyes, a look she'd seen all to much in the past. Nodding she moved to step to the edge when another translation reached her ears. "And you may wish to seal your armor.. My lesser kin may be blind at the best of times, but they are scavenger's by nature, and your scent will alert them quickly."
Turning her head back to the avian, she quickly sealed her armor as he stepped forward and dropped into the mists below. Prepping her jump pack, she hoped she wouldn't regret sparing the rebel bird. With a flare of her shields coming online, she jumped. The fog below hiding her from sight.
Jump.
Bury fist in stone.
Jump.
Land on outcropping.
Jump again.
A few meters above her, the Champion moved through the fog with experienced movements. The mountain fog had reduced her to using her helmets built in silhouette detection system or SDS in order to see him. Each time he moved to leap, a flash of green highlight his body shape in the shadowy clouds. It'd started out slow, she was jumping from one rock ledge to the next almost in synch with the fast moving avian when he suddenly picked up the pace.
Now she was being left in the almost literal dust as she waited the five seconds for her jump pack to recharge. Clenching her armored fist on the rock she pushed off as an almost neon white flare flashed from her pack, the small vent on it glowing white as it propelled her half a quarter ton mass up the rock face to another outcropping. Settling on it she waited again while her suites lighting system remained offline, she didn't need it to see the bare grey rock-face.
Pushing off again her lithe form, or at least as lithe as one could be in a state of the art special operations combat skin, Kirra once again blasted upwards to another outcropping, this time simply gripping the ledge as she waited. Seeing as it was just simple climbing, the Lynx's mind trailed back to the bulk data she'd secured. Sorting through it she quickly disregarded the repetitive religious jargon that overlaid most of the reports and files, low grade encryption. It was almost surprising how easy it was to hack through it.
'Its like they've never dealt with a cybernetic attack before.' She thought off-handedly, her body more or less moving on auto-pilot while she focused on the data. Picking through it a number of old reports rapidly gained, then lost her attention as she edged through them. Most of them were combat reports, and most of them ended the same way. Fleet arrives over heretic (Human) world, worlds forces deploy. Fleet deploys ground troops and engages ships in orbit. Covenant troops face overwhelming resistance on ground and retreat to space while human ships in space are destroyed by the superior fire-power and shielding of the Covenant ships.
Covenant glasses planet, then moves on.
That little tid-bit stuck in her mind. There weren't just a few reports like this, there were hundreds. The Covenant wasn't out to conquer the human race, they were out to eradicate them in the name of their gods. Putting her own feelings of pure mortification aside, if not downright suppressing them thanks to the armors built in medical suite, Kirra focused her mind on putting together events while wirelessly continuing to hack into her companions communicator, and thus the Covenant BattleNet at large, it was pretty basic but it was slowly expanding.
First contact was actually surprised her, hidden in the data was a file uploaded to the data-net from a Kig-Yar ship-mistress, a captain in comparison to NHA ranks, the file stated that their equipment was detecting massive amounts of artifacts from their gods on a planet and they were moving to investigate. when she checked for additional logs, the closest she could find was an entry from a Jiralhanae Chieftain by the name of Tartarus.
The report is brief and states that his ship was pushed off by meddlers living on the world. The planet was then glassed by Covenant forces. This seemingly served as a catalyst and subsequent front line for a campaign on the planet by Covenant forces due to something their plasma bombardment had uncovered. Before they could uncover anything the second battle of the world, known as 'Harvest' in scattered transmissions, led to it falling back into human hands. A few brief records indicated a temple of some kind, and a beacon that led to another world under inspection by an 'Arbiter'.
Following that strand Kirra found that the mystery only grew, a pair Covenant warships were dispatched and one was destroyed the moment it exited FTL by human warships, two of which were destroyed and the remaining two badly damaged while the remaining destroyer engaged in surface activity at a second temple site. After that things get dicey, the ship and its crew leave for another section of space with a single human ship pursuing and arrive on a world infested by some sort of bio-organic parasite. The only accurate report she can really get out of the clutter and corrupted files is that the planet was destroyed by the human warship when it activated its FTL drive. The report doesn't state what happened to the ship, only that the planet was destroyed along with coordinates.
Filing that information away, Kirra found herself more interested in the 'temples' that were mentioned, and after a few seconds of searching, she wasn't able to find much. Only that they were rarely discovered and are revered as holy sites by much of the Covenant and the punishment for desecrating them was severe.
She was about to dig deeper when a brief touch brought her back to the situation at hand. One jump above her was the top of the cliff, and the installation proper. With a faint grin she pushed off and soared up over the edge, her boots landing on the grassy outcropping with a deep metallic thump. Steadying herself she found her T''vaoan 'ally' resting in the shade of the outposts wall, seemingly waiting for her with his needle rifle at the ready.
Now they could charge in through the front, which from the sound of approaching rotor blades, was not the best plan. Or they could sneak in. Turning her gaze to the wall, her helmet identified various weak points in the structure, including a very large air conditioning duct about head height. Now for her, that was at about seven foot even in her armor, easily above the reach of a normal human, and even some of the Covenant's warriors.
But for her?
Marching over to the wall she spent barely ten seconds on the piece of lightweight steel, her armored grip tearing it free of its housing as if it were cardboard before dropping it to the ground. With a faint grin she gripped the edge, and pulled herself inside just as the sound of weapons fire started. Just behind her the thud and subsequent grunt told her that the Champion had also decided to join her.
Switching her visor over to low light mode, she continued to lead the way through the vents. Granted the only way she could go was straight on since every other vent was too small for either her or the avian to fit, they continued on for what felt like minutes as the metallic echo of armor on metal rebounded around them.
And then Kirra realized one thing about the universe. No matter who you are or what galaxy you come from, every military with the exception of the Iodorians will go with the lowest bidder.
She'd barely registered the crack before the bottom of the vent fell out, landing her dead center in a large, cold room based on her suits readout. It was nearly below zero in the room, but based on the mass of computer surrounding her she could understand the reasoning for it. Pulling herself to her feet she reached over her shoulder and retrieved her carbine, quickly surveying the room while the clatter of armored feet and an irritated hiss announced the arrival of her wingman.
Inwardly she was glad that she had her helmet polarized, otherwise she was certain her smile would light up the room. It was such a horrible pun. with nothing in sight or on sensors for ten meters or so, Kirra's attention turned back to the wall of consoles lining the wall. With a few short steps she found herself looking them over until finally she found what she wanted, a universal jack port set into one of the consoles. Rubbing the small mounds of ice off of it she placed her left hand against the jack, her armor wirelessly interfacing with it before a small nano-assembler in her gauntlet whirred to life, creating a perfect 'key' in the palm of her hand.
Instantly she found herself submerged in data, navigational logs, communication protocols, star charts and other civilian data that she quickly copied over into her suit, while other files were clearly encrypted. Starting with the lower encryptions the young lynx found herself baffled as her first attempt resulted in her chasing her own ghost through the system, but her second ended in success and quick access to a majority of the personnel deployments for the planets military, more over she was finally able to ID just where she and by extension, her fleet had ended up in space.
Reach.
A simple name with a simple purpose, one that, as she tore through several other data caches, held a very important place in the heart of the human military, the aptly named United Nations Space Command. It was their military capitol, the center of their nations military and last bastion before their homeworld, Earth. At the name Kirra found herself pausing to look over a few files while she dedicated most of her mind to decryption of the military files and copying anything she could get her cybernetic hands on.
Within the span of a minute she'd secured troop and ship deployments on several UNSC Army and Navy units in the sector and copied them. At a minute and fifteen she was copying down several files dedicated to a group under designation 'ONI', at two minutes she was finishing up with a few nasty Trojans that had been hidden in the file and copying it, and most of the other files under designation 'ONI' as well as a few based around the so called 'Spartan's. At three minutes she had access to almost all starship designs in use by the UNSC and a few from ONI.
Whoever ONI was, they clearly knew how to play cyber warfare.. But they didn't have over two hundred years of experience in hand, like she did. Pulling her arm back, a small grin passed over Kirra's muzzle as the fast formed key quickly dissolved back into nano-paste. Turning back to her avian companion she nodded as a contact appeared on her motion sensors, and another one.
Company, at least five of them.
Snapping her head to the closest of the two open doorway she brought her carbine to bare as the first contact approached, and it was a biggun.
Standing at over eight feet of iridescent maroon armor, the Zealot's thick full head cover helmet shone in the light from its armors glowing blue trimming, the forked horns resting over its forehead giving it a rather intimidating appearance while in its hand rested an unignited plasma blade hilt. At the sight of the pair it clearly was surprised, a loud challenging roar echoing off the freezing walls as it ignited its plasma blade before being flung backwards into the room as a wave of light plasma rounds impacted its shields, and quickly punched through them and the armor beneath it.
The massive fanatical alien barely had time to finish its challenge when it hit the floor outside the door, sliding a few feet from the force of the weapons rounds. The silence that came next only lasted a few seconds before a grenade landed in the doorway. Throwing herself in a sideways roll, Kirra slid through the second doorway, landing with her carbine raised in time to catch an Unggoy in the face, mere feet away. The squat aliens light orange harness hardly had a chance against the powerful bolts of accelerated plasma, bolts rated for taking out what may as well be walking light tanks to normal infantry weapons.
Before the little alien had even hit the ground she'd already switched targets, firing on a second grunt while the crackle of a needle weapon echoed slowly in the background, a needle quickly piercing the neck of a Kig-Yar at the end of the hall while a second bolt of plasma made quick work of the only remaining Covenant warrior standing in the hall, another grunt in red. Rising from her crouch, Kirra quickly moved up to the corner while checking her motion sensors.
Nothing.
Stacking up on the corner she quickly rounded it, her carbine at the ready and her eyes down the sights.
Nothing..
Something wasn't right, her sensors had picked up one additional contact but there was nothing in sight. She'd just begun wondering if her equipment was malfunctioning when the fur on the back of her neck twitched. On instinct she rolled forward, landing next to the downed Zealot just as a blade of plasma embedded itself in the steel wall she'd rounded, a large figure shimmering as it moved to pull the blade out. Raising her carbine she fired, the shots going true before impacting the creatures side and arm, separating the latter in a brutal display of ash and gore.
Dropping to the ground with a guttural roar of pain, the zealot barely managed to reach for its missing shoulder before it found a much smaller blade of energy separating its head from the rest of its body, courtesy of the T'vaoan Champion who promptly extinguished it, his left hand returning to his rifle. with a grunt, Kirra pulled herself to her feet and steadied herself against the blackened doorframe, wondering for a moment why she didn't remember hearing the explosion. She'd barely let out a sigh when two more contacts came into view on her sensors.
Turning her head to the avian rebel, she nodded to the exposed vent and raised her rifle towards the only other entrance to the room. Not waiting to be told twice, the skirmisher quickly moved back into the room after a brief pause to remove the Kig-Yar's energy shield and leapt up into the vent while Kirra backpedaled to it, only shouldering her weapon after he'd clearly made it inside.
Kneeling down she activated her jump pack, quickly pulling herself back into the cramped vent as two armored figures burst into the room, one of them quickly making its way into the room as the two crawled back the way they came. Eyeing the broken air vent, Spartan designation three-one-two, call sign Noble Six, leapt up and pulled himself in as the much larger of the pair walked in, hefting a heavy machine gun. Shaking his heavily armored head, the massive Hungarian made his way over to a nearby control panel and went to work, he knew of the new replacements quirks and was willing to let him act as a Lone Wolf for now. It at least gave him the quiet he needed to do the technical work.
Much further along the air vent, Kirra activated her Radio. "Charlie Two-Two-Five, requesting immediate evac on my location, how-copy?" A few seconds of worrying silence accompanying her request were quickly chased off as the familiar voice of the pilot answered. "Affirm Crimson lead.. ETA on outpost is one mike. where do you want me to set down?" Grinning to herself, Kirra activated her nano-forge and placed a request for a basic high intensity flare in blue colorization. "I'll need you to hover at a cliff, we wont be sticking around here for long, watch for blue flare." She said as the object in question quickly constructed itself in her hand.
A few feet in front of her, the clawed boots of her companion dropped out of view as he dropped to the ground outside, followed quickly by her. with a quick twist of her armored hand, the blue flares cap snapped off and a bright blue flame started flashing from it, dark blue smoke lazily rising into the air above as she threw it to the ground by the cliff edge. "I have eyes on you.. Stand-by for retrieval, and.. decloak!" The pilot stated, a few meters above the cliff face the craft decloaked, its sleek black airframe fading into view as each individual hexagon style panel dropped its camouflage. with a roar of its maneuvering thrusters the craft dropped down to level with the cliff allowing the Skirmisher to simply step aboard, granted with a moments hesitation.
Kirra calmly followed him aboard, pausing for a moment to look over her shoulder as she gripped one of the hanging hand-grips above her. Hanging half out of the vent was the same soldier, the same Spartan, that she'd fought earlier. She didn't even bother to hide her grin at the sight of him, lower half stuck on a ruined piece of the grate that'd been left over, leaving his weapon on the ground and out of his reach. Then the troop bay shut and the craft dropped off to the side, the other troop bay opening as the craft approached the lower bluff, just about where the firefight had occurred earlier.
Stepping aboard the three members of Fire team Crimson found themselves staring at the T'vaoan in clear confusion. Their gaze slowly turned from him, to her, and back again before settling on her. 'This.. Is gunna take some time to explain.' She thought to herself as the troop-bay sealed shut, and the shuttle lifted into the sky, its main engines pushing it for orbit at high speed with its cloak going active a few seconds later, unaware that somewhere below in the outpost they'd triggered quite a few bells.
Four days later.
Epsilon Eridanus
NHAS Shield of the Void
Four days. In the first twelve hours, recon teams had been dispatched to not only the super-terran world of Reach, but to each of the other populated worlds. Tribute, Beta Gabriel, Circumstance, and Tantalus and one other world that surprisingly was un-named by the UNSC. By twenty-four the Shield's sensors had identified precisely three thousand eight hundred and nine starships in system, each ship was identified another hour later thanks to the data received by fire team Crimson.
Many of the crew were wary of the new arrival that the team had come back with, but when the experienced avian had gotten his hands on a translator and given them a small speech about his reasons for wishing to join, the crew had slowly started warming up to him. After all, he stated he'd be willing to work with the near-human norians, despite a few odd looks he'd send their way when he moved around the ship.
He was allowed to go anywhere he wanted within reason, and if he approached an area that was deemed to important to risk him causing harm or damage to, either purposefully or otherwise, the area's local AI would lock it down and the door would remain so until he left.
Its not like he could cut through ship grade nano-steel.
The skirmisher champion aside, by the end of the second day they were able to confirm that the Covenant presence on the planet Reach was likely greater then it appeared and construction on a low grade mobile shipyard were being prepared and troops organized. On day four, things heated up. A location ID'd as an ONI facility and potential hive of information was under attack and the local UNSC forces were unable to keep the Covenant at bay.
It had taken ten high ranking officers and the Vice Admiral a few heated arguments and twenty minutes worth of time before they'd approached Admiral Dregio with a plan, only to find that he himself had come to a decision.
Stepping onto the bridge, they were met with polarized windows and a half dozen tactical officers overviewing a three dimensional hologram of the base, designation 'Sword', and everything surrounding it for exactly ten thousand meters. The base itself was shaped like a triangular prism that had been cut down the middle, a series of causeways and bridges crisscrossing the interior of the structure while a large wall surrounded the entire compound, a single large courtyard with a sizable road connecting it to a nearby service road, and from their to one of the planets many highways.
It was a fortress under siege by a large portion of Covenant forces, a corvette class vessel clearly holding the air and making it more then difficult to approach the area.
Fortunately, the Admiral had no intention of putting any forces in range of the ship. According to the various UNSC channels that the ships intelligence officers were listening into, they already had a plan in place to handle the ship, and as the combined officers watched it unfold, they began to appreciate the UNSC's cunning nature.
That being said, they were surprised that another day and a half later, they were recalled to the bridge to find an even more shocking sight. On the holo-map was a massive barren plain where a very large encampment was visible highlighted in violet spread over the span of miles upon miles worth of Covenant equipment, supplies, and troops, hovering above them were three similarly colored corvette class ships and dwarfing all of them, was a massive twenty eight kilometer long Covenant warship highlighted in pink, its massive bulbous fore section and large size clearly placed it in the same weight class as the Shield herself seeing as she was only about a kilometer smaller.
Farther out at the edge of the map were three golden markers, the squad banner for fire team Gold clearly displayed above them in holographic form, a massive golden fist clutching a hammer. While a few kilometers to their south were two unidentified contacts in green, both marked by a rotating 'UNSC' marker, a spread eagle clutching the acronym in its claws.
"Alright.."
as one the entire bridge's attention snapped to the admiral and the two figures flanking him. On his right was Captain Mirrabel in her fitted dark grey one piece fatigue's, the twin crimson axe emblems visible on either shoulder of her tight fitting uniform while on his left was the Champion. He was out of his armor and wearing something akin to a jumpsuit as well, his however only covered his upper body, lower body, and upper thigh's, the rest of his body was left open to see, much like his face, his arms were scaled and his legs bore a resemblance to that of an old terran raptor, a single large curved claw visible on his toe.
The admiral himself was dressed in his full navy attire, his pure white uniform, cap, and shoe's were all showing signs of wear, despite just how new they were. His left breast bore dozens of awards ranging from the mundane to the kind that only a handful could dream of getting, his worn, tired face was wrung in a look of professional neutrality. something he'd learned to do over the two hundred and ten years he'd served in the navy.
"Thanks to information put forward by our newly gained ally, Champion Mon'tras Vagan, we've learned that the Covenant force on the planet is little more then a forward scouting force. They are looking for artifacts that are incredibly important to their religion, according to Vagan, they've found what they want and are preparing a trap for the UNSC." He states calmly before nodding to the T'vaoan giving the floor to the avian rebel.
"The main force under the command of the Prophet of Discovery knows they are outnumbered, and are going to deploy every avalible weapon at their disposal to cause as much damage to them as possible, when the humans arrives and overwhelm their forces, the Prophet will uncloak the Supercarrier here.." He pauses to highlight the supercarriers position with a clawed digit, the translators audio cancelation equipment making the speech nearly perfect, even if it didn't match up with his beak all too well. "..and destroy the human forces before deploying his remaining troops to keep them from reorganizing. Within three days of now, the Fleet of Particular Justice will arrive and purge the world of all life."
As he stepped back and let his brief summary sink in, Kirra stepped forward and took his place. "For the obvious reasons, we cant let that happen." Raising her own hand she slides a digit across the hologram, zooming far out. "So this is the plan.." She started, amber eyes flickering brightly.
"This is a stupid plan.."
Sighing loudly in her flight helm, Colonel Delila Wilkee once again restrained herself from verbally castrating the source of the complaint. Resting at the head of D Wing, Wilkee's entire flight of two seater SB-72G 'God Hammers' stuck out like an Slavian at a pleasure resort (Not a pretty picture). The five massive eighteen meter long anti-ship bombers were all resting in a Delta formation while nearly a hundred others like them maintained their own formations on either side and above or below her own craft. The large smooth back star-bombers each carried enough ordinance to knock out small Iodorian warships, cruisers even. But thinking it over in her head, the plan wasn't exactly foolproof.
In one run all one hundred and ten bombers were to dive through the atmosphere at high speed, avoiding the UNSC's orbital defenses and perform a lightning strike on the CSO Class supercarrier holding position exactly a thousand meters above the surface. Just looking at the amount of guns there were bristling around Reach's atmosphere was enough to make the pilots feel uncomfortable.
That fear was quickly lost when it was made clear that three corvette class ECM boats were going to come along for the ride, their powerful jamming equipment almost guaranteed that anything outside an Iodorian warship would be blind to them, unless of course they looked out a window. Backing up the bombers were three squadrons of the swayback winged SF-344 ''Star Falcon' fighters, the sight of their distinct 'V' shaped wings giving an additional layer of confidence in the plan.
Even then, there was always the chance for things to go wrong. They were up against an enemy they'd never faced before, an enemy who'd literally murdered billions without a second thought. Most of the pilots knew that, and that's what reinforced their faith in the mission. It was the duty of any member of the NHASDA to fight in the defense of the innocent, and punish those who mean them harm.
As the massive formation approached the first layer of orbital defenses, they cut all non-essential systems, the ECM boats pumping out as much interference as possible. That being said, they passed within a spitting distance of one of the human space stations, the Colonel herself spotting at least one man drop a mug of coffee as her squadron passed right in front of him. Powering up her craft's systems entirely she clicked the radio transmitter. "Looks like the jig is up, corvettes are to cut ECM and transfer all power to shields, same to the rest of you. Interceptors, engage Covenant craft only, if your engaged by UNSC forces, break off and lead them away. Bombers flight, no matter what, you stay on target."
One by one the various squadrons called out in confirmation and the ECM field dropped, much to the surprise of most of the UNSC's first line. By the time the second one knew what was happening the formation was just passing them and making hard for the upper atmosphere, coming in at an almost vertical angle, while the corvettes aligned their bellies with the atmosphere, the fires of re-entry just starting to burn around them.
Inside her bomber, Delila's hands quickly ran across switches and holographic control alike as she aligned her shields, diverting most of her power to the fore where the inferno of re-entry was picking away at her bombers energy reserves. Behind her seat her weapons controller brought the crafts targeting software online and confirmed the attack window.
Far below the diving force the armies of both the Covenant and the UNSC scrambled to engage one another while several small UNSC starships unleashed hell on the masses of banshee fighters and corvette's that contested the skies, only a few of them being informed of the incoming flight. The only thing they could spare to intercept them, a pair of flat delta wing styled Longsword fighters, were rapidly climbing to meet them, but found themselves so outmatched and out numbered that they had no choice other then to pull back, the pilots of both noting that the formation was diving on the Covenants position.
Back in the Colonel's bomber, the entire craft began to shake as the flames of re-entry faded and the speed of the entire formation began to drop, the ECM corvettes dropping down under them and accelerating toward the battlefield while half the escorting Star Falcons broke formation and followed at her word. Behind her the gunnery chief's console lit up as it began scanning on all spectrums, eventually locking onto the signature of the supercarriers primary engines. with a grin the blond haired norian uploaded it to the Colonels console and transferred weapons control to her, just the way she loved.
Grinning ferally behind her mask, the white furred canian officer quickly uploaded the target to the entire formation. Twenty seconds later they released their ordinance just as a UNSC frigate began its approach to a tower-like structure far below. Pulling off as one, the formation began to climb as their ship-killing payload dropped un-opposed on the cloaked carrier, and in a flash it detonated.
Caught with its shields down and in the midst of charging the ships plasma projector, the detonation tore the supercarriers engineering section apart, the power surge quickly causing hundreds of subsequent detonation along the ships central line before it finally detonated in the center, the ships 'neck' breaking off, sending two halves of the ship falling toward the ground, and subsequently on top of the Covenants encampment.
The sudden strike shocked both sides, and the Covenant's remaining fighters, which still numbered in the thousands at least, were quickly set upon by the skilled interception pilots of the SF-344's, their pulse-autocannons tearing through the unshielded banshee's and phantoms with relative ease, the three corvettes quickly dived down to level with a lone Covenant Corvette, the mass of missile fire and heavy autocannon fire tearing into it while the plasma fire sent back at the smaller ships was repelled by the corvettes shielding, the impact of the plasma draining them considerably, but no-where near enough to disable one before the ship was sent plummeting to the terrain below, violet and white fire erupting from dozens of hull breaches.
The lapse in battle was quickly filled as the UNSC's forces began pushing once again on the now greatly reduced covenant units. Above it all the bombers began their long climb to the heavens, only to find that the covenant were taking exception to them. Swarming up in pursuit were dozens of covenant banshee's, most of which were easily dispatched as the escorts dropped back to handle them, but one of the fighters dodged in and around the bombers as the SF-344's closed in, making it hard to hit it without risking one of the bombers.
With a sudden burst of speed it made its move, charging headlong across the formation before slamming into the upper portion of the colonels God hammer, the force of it sending her head sideways into the control panel next to her. Shaking off the sudden dizziness of the impact she attempted to assess the damage to her craft, finding her gaze to be blurry. Pulling back she dropped out of the formation and eased into a low dive, the hammers weren't designed to glide, and from what she was feeling, the engines were dropping off. first one, then two, then four..
Shaking her head she felt a sudden bout of nausea rush across her, a bout she quickly shook off as her bombers nose began to dip, no matter haw hard she pulled back on the control stick. Groaning faintly she settled her plane in as best she could, the ground below rapidly approaching. With a slow, almost groggy movement, she reached down and gripped the ejection handle on the side of her seat, and with a grunt, pulled it.
The last thing she remembered was the cockpit blasting away and her seat rocketing away from the aircraft, a massive gash of fire and smoke coming off the back of it from the gunnery station all the way to the rightmost of the three central engines. Then she was engulfed in blackness.
The first thing she felt when she regained consciousness was an almost debilitating headache. slowly opening her eyes she found the large bulbous visor of her flight helmet offline, a series of large spiderweb cracks criss-crossing their way over most of it. Groaning faintly she reached up and detached the mask from the helmet, exposing her platinum colored muzzle to the open air before slowly removing her helmet, narrowing her eyes as the light reached her eyes. Dropping it by her side she laid back again, raising a gloved hand up to her head where she could feel dried blood.
Turning over she let her hand fall away, her deep purple eyes scanning the landscape around her. There was snow, a few tree's and her flight seat just a few meters away from her so she wouldn't have to walk far to get her equipment. though as she took a few more seconds to survey the area, she noticed that she could see the gutted magenta fragments of a large covenant warship in the distance laid up against a snow capped mountain. She could remember that the target height had been way off, but just how far off had it actually been? Shaking her head she pulled herself to her feet, her first instinct being to grab at her head as dizziness washed over her, almost sending her back to her knee's.
Shaking her head clear again she got to her feet again, slowly and started walking in the direction of her chair. She wasn't sure just how long she'd been out but the longer she was up, the more she realized how much hunger was gnawing at her. with her stomach in mind, she doubled her pace. The chair growing closer and closer to her as she walked across the chilly steppe, a cold breeze forcing her ears back against the side of her head before she finally managed to lay a gloved hand on the half-frozen leather of the flight seat, her hands pulling the seat away from the frame to expose the emergency supplies stored within.
With an uncommon voracity she removed one of the survival rations and tore the aluminum covering away, her sharp, canine teeth tearing into the nutrient rich block of military super-food. It may be tasteless, but as she gobbled it down, she could have sworn it was the best thing she'd eaten in weeks. forcing herself from grabbing another, she removed a medkit and quickly removed the nano-injector from it before raising it up to her neck and slowly injecting the powerful micro machines, which immediately went to work on an injures she'd sustained, internal or external with an ungodly speed. Blinking slowly she sigh'd as the migraine she'd had since waking up faded away.
Placing the injector back in the box, she removed her weapons of choice.
The first was an SMG that had its roots back in the Dominion war, the Norians, having been colonists sent out by a forgotten empire, were quite adept in war and quickly recommissioned several old designs from their colony ships databanks, the G36 rifle had torn apart lightly armored mechs and dominion soldiers alike, and its reputation had continued on even past the war. The version she held was the NG47 PDW, a sub machine gun capable of spitting out a startling four hundred rounds of low grade plasma bolts per minute, the bolts weren't rated for going toe to toe with Iodorian body armor, but against unarmored or even lightly armored forces, it was utter hell.
Laying it aside she quickly drew a small ballistic sidearm, little more then a modified pulse handgun, it fired a .45 ACP round fast enough to punch through light armor, but little else. Holstering it she grabbed the white bag from the seat and set it down, quickly opening it and retrieving a pure white Ushanka she pulled it over her ears, the artificial fur and cold resistant fibers locking the heat between her fur and the clothing. Removing the rest of the winter uniform she briefly considered stripping out of her jumpsuit and slipping into it, after all, her fur would keep her warm enough during the change. and her suit was too bulky to go wandering around in.
A few short seconds later she sigh'd and stood up, her right gloved hand rising up and gripping the zipper of her suit before pulling it down in a single quick motion. Once it was off she was quick to regret not wearing anything under her suit, moving quickly she removed the thick grey and white camouflaged pants and slip them on, followed barely a few seconds later by a thick turtleneck sweater and a matching grey and white camo overcoat before finally slipping on the thick furred boots. Breath billowing out in front of her, she quickly stowed her suit, removed the emergency beacon, and pillaged the other remaining bags for supplies, the Temperate emergency kit had extra rations and a few extra flares that she took, the desert one had a few scarves and other light cloth items that she quickly removed and tied around her muzzle to block the cold air, as well as a pair of combat goggles.
The oceanic survival kit had a raft and a life jacket.. Not as useful as it could be, but a few dozen water purification tablets and a flare gun would come in handy. the barren world survival kit was missing, go figure. It wasn't like much would be in that one anyway, it was basically a rather shoddy tent you could put up and live out of till rescue arrived. Pausing for a second she reached back into the compartment before removing a small circular disk from her flight suit, the mini-holo projector flickering to life, thankfully undamaged.
From what she could see, she'd been unconscious for almost two and a half days.
. . .
'Well shit.. That's a new record.' She thought aloud, checking her location. From the holo-map, she was ten kilometers from the nearest city, which laid at the bottom of the mountain, if she hurried, it'd only take a few hours at most. twitching her hand she shut off the machine and pocketed it and picked up her SMG, holding the weapon one-handed at her right, she turned to look up at the ruined remains of the starship in the distance.
Smiling faintly she reached up and pulled the goggles down over her eyes, adjusting the makeshift face covering before she finally set off, trodding heavily through the snow toward the south, she finally felt a spike of joy for the first time in months, they may not have been Iodorians, but she still blew their ship out of the fucking sky.
And that was enough to put her in a decent mood for most of the climb down. The further she went the thicker the tree's became around her, and the warmer it slowly got. After about an hour she decided to open her coat and lose the bandana, after two she had the goggles back up on top of her hat and the jacket completely open, the turtleneck underneath feeling relatively good. So far everything seemed pretty good, her bombers had completed their mission and seemingly returned to base. The Long Night of Solace Was a burning wreck on the side of a mountain, and the Covenant invasion was probably stopped.. Wait.
. . . . . .
"Agh shit.." she muttered aloud, pausing to check her weapons charge, eighty-seven percent.. Not bad. Raising her head she picked up the pace, her left hand finding its way to the plasma-bolt weapon's foregrip, tightening around the molded plastic. The ground had long since given way to grass and dirt, and with it her pace was increasing. Not long after her revelation she found herself moving at a fast jog towards the city, her ears perked for the sounds of combat.
As she drew within two miles of the city, she heard it. A dull thud followed by a rush of heated air crossing over a tree covered rise a few meters ahead of her, crouching down she flat out ran the last few meters up the slope and stopped as she reached the top. In the distance was the city and hovering over it were the distinct shapes of three Covenant Corvettes.. Swarms of banshee's occasionally making passes while the distant screams of civilians and the cackle of gunfire reached her ears.
Her teeth glistening in the mid-day light, she readied her weapon, a cold anger spreading from the back of her neck as she moved down the slope and towards the city.
She had an oath to uphold.
Authors Note: So.. I'm not sure where to start here. Six is male and he's entirely equipped with ODST style equipment with exception to a Tac-pad on his right arm. The idea of Skirmishers being forced into extinction to me, makes more sense then the ominous black hole we've got for their race on the Wiki, I just cant see them willingly all charge to extinction considering they, like the Kig-Yar, are pirates, mercenaries, and the such.
If you guys think the bomber strike is a bit much, i'm gunna point out that a single flight of two Longswords were more then capable of opening up a hole on a ship of this class with only a handful of bunker busters.. The weapons used by the God Hammer bombers are what earned them the title, they are powerful enough to quite literally put any ship in the UNSC's fleet (Baring Infinity) Out of action for a significant amount of time.
Same goes for the fighters and yes.. The Norians are Hungarian, and to the guy who asked if they were Australian.. Just, how?
Anyway, if you guys want to help influence how this goes.. Post, review.. Things like that.
-Snips