Merry Christmas to all my readers! Here's my present to you all. Its not as long as I'd like, but it serves as a good break point before the battle gets mopped up and I bring in the Spartans.
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My deepest apologies, in my rush to get this out I didn't do my usual proofing and ads a result made several grievous errors, please accept my apologies and this updated version if chapter 5.
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"Sir!" "Sir!"
Ardes nearly had to do a double take as two of his officers called out for his attention in perfect harmony. Hesitating no more then a split second, Ardes turned to his tactical officer on the belief that the turian manning the station might have the more pressing issue.
"What is it, tactics?" He called out shortly, his frustration clearly evident. So far the only thing that seemed to be saving his fleet from total destruction was that the aliens' weapons had freakishly long recharge times.
"Sir," the tac officer reported, "the Pride of the Ancestors has broken formation and is charging the enemy fleet at flank speed! They have begun evasive maneuvers as well!"
For a moment, Ardes wasn't sure if he should order his ships to open fire on the fool that was Dorrell, but the that was settled as his comm's officer spoke up.
"Sir, Pride of the Ancestors is broadcasting surrender messages in all known formats and languages. I believe they intend to hide in the enemy fleet."
That settled it for Ardes. His voice trembling with rage and cold with fury, he turned and spoke to the communications officer, "Open a line to all ships, you are to open fire on the Pride of the Ancestors for Captain Dorrell intends to betray his people and surrender to the enemy."
As he finished, he rounded on navigation, he roared out his next command shouting, "Bring us to the front of the fleet and get all of our guns pointed at that traitor. Start shooting as soon as you have a solution."
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"Now would you look at that..."
Rear Admiral Shearton's pronouncement had gotten at least the temporary attention of the entire bridge crew as they stared at the tactical display to watch as one of the alien ships bolted away from the enemy fleet, screaming bloody murder on every available communications channel.
The ship in question was making what was probably top speed towards them and would arrive in only a few minutes while despite the desperate maneuvers her captain was putting her under. What made the situation far more interesting though, was that the rest of the alien fleet had rounded on the frigate analogue within a few moments of its break and had begun to open fire on it.
More interesting, the cruiser that had been holding position in the back had hauled up into the front for a clear shot at the frigate.
"Tac, how far out is Admiral Chitose?"
"Less than forty-five seconds sir." Was the brief answer.
Shearton had come up with an idea, a daring one, but an idea. If that ship fleeing away from the rest of its kin intended to surrender, Admiral Chitose was in a splendid position to separate them from the potential wealth of information.
"Comm's link with tac and send Admiral Chitose exit coordinates three klicks to the port of the lead cruiser and tell her to be ready for a bump."
"On it sir, and done," was the joint reply."
There was a two second wait before the comm's officer spoke up saying, "Admiral Chitose acknowledges and confirms revised exit coordinates."
With that recognition, Richard sat back in his command chair with a touch of ease in features as he said, alright, now weapons, get the guns recharged on the double."
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For Captain Ammen Dorrell, his crew, and the entirety of the Pride of the Ancestors, life and death were merely one poor maneuver of the helmsman away from each other. For the moment though, the officer steering the ship was doing a fine job and had yet to let them take more than a grazing shot since the rest if the fleet had opened up on them.
Unfortunately it seemed their shots were getting closer with every shot.
They were still sixty-five thousand kilometers out from the other fleet when everything changed.
As he watched the tactical display, Dorrell spread his mandibles in a frown as he watched a section just to the Palaven's left grew staticky and unclear. Turning to the sensor officer, he demanded to know what was happening when someone, likely the sensors officer switched the tac display to a live feed of the space the fleet occupied.
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"Sir, spatial anomaly detected three kilometers to port. Unknown composition! I can't figure out what it is!" The sensor officer shouted in panic.
With a casual flick, Admiral Ardes Trell switched the massive tactical display over to a live feed of the space to the Palaven's left, and what he saw left him slack jawed.
A section of space some eight or ten kilometers in diameters had sprung to life. Where there should have been nothing, there was now a mass of boiling white from which stretched a tangled net of electric blue lines that writhed and twisted like something alive.
As he watched, the prow of an object, larger than any ship he had ever seen began to emerge, flanked on either side by two smaller ships, each of them both at least a kilometer and a half tall but dwarfed by the ship in the center.
Trell's thoughts didn't get any further as the prow of the massive ship drove through the bridge of the Palaven.
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Captain Dorrell watched with horror as the swirling wrongness in space expanded before proceeding to disgorge the largest ships Ammen had ever seen. He caught sight of two kilometer and a half high ships emerging and angling away from the physics defying wrongness as a five kilometer high monstrosity suddenly heaved forward out of what was rapidly becoming apparent was a portal.
The monstrous ship simply continued to pour further and further out of the portal and Dorrell watched with open mouthed horror as the ship still emerging from the portal simply ran over the Palaven, a ripple of silver-gold shields the only sign from the ship it had even registered the dreadnought that had been in its way.
The ship crashed further through the line of the turian of the fleet till to the shock of everyone in the fleet, nearly fifteen kilometers of ship sat in the middle of the remaining battle group, and then the ship came to life.
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Vice Admiral (lower half) Kongo Chitose had enjoyed the smooth transition into normal space out of slip space with a the standard nonchalance of an officer who had been through the event too many times to count.
Standing tall and well filled out, Admiral Chitose's appearance mostly belayed the Japanese origin of her name as she was an imposing six foot two inches tall with only tell-tale traits in her facial features owning themselves to her asiatic heritage. Like the straight, solid black hair that was kept at a constant sixteen centimeters to meet regulations or the very slight almond shape of her hard, gold eyes that were at odds with the strangely playful grin on her face as the ship came to a halt after fully exiting slip space.
"Admiral," Commander George Lash called out from navigation a touch of amusement in his tone, "I think we hit something as we were coming out of slip space. Cameras didn't get much of chance, but they do show what appeared to be a cruiser class ship directly ahead as we had exited our portal."
To her credit, Admiral Chitose took a moment to look at the tactical display that was showing a cooling cloud of debris where the ship had entered real space and the now disoriented alien fleet before checking the pictures navigation had had pulled up.
Giving a wry smile, Chitose decided now was an appropriate time to make a crack if ever there was in a fight for a commanding officer as she said, "Yes, I do believe we did hit something, however it wasn't friendly so there's nothing to worry about. Now comm's, would you kindly get me a line to Rear Admiral Shearton? I would like to know the situation before we begin popping hulls."
"Yes ma'am," was the quick response.
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Rear Admiral Shearton had been watching with interest as the alien fleet fell apart and struggled to regroup after what had likely been their command ship was run over by the sudden appearance of Vice Admiral Chitose's fleet.
His observations were brought to a halt though a much woman much younger than himself with hard gold eyes appeared on the display in front if him giving a small smile before saying, "Admiral Shearton, think you could brief my crew and I on the immediate situation before start shooting? We did notice one of the alien ships has split from the fleet and is heading your way with its squawker going."
"Yes good to know they caught your attention. Right before you arrived, the rest if that fleet had just begun shooting at that ship after it starting shouting and making its way towards us so I'd hazard they don't want it communicating with us. If you like, we'll take care of it and you'll be free to deal with the rest of their fleet provided you avoid hitting the construct."
"Seems sound enough, I believe we can accomplish this," Chitose replied before ending the connection.
There was a brief pause from her Audacity class Battle Dreadnought and the two Infinity class battleships alongside it before everything sprang to life across the three ships.
With a grim smile, Richard watched as each of the Infinity classes suddenly shot a series of heavy frigates from their under carriages to join the fight, a dozen total suddenly joining the fight at knife range while the Audacity class began to launch its own compliment of internally stored ships.
Thundering out of the ventral bays came four of the UNSC's newest and proudest ships, the Orion class heavy cruiser. Beside them were a dozen destroyers that rapidly spread out to take formation all the while taking pot shots at the alien fleet.
Chitose's ship wasn't idle itself either as the gun batteries and missile tubes across the hull had begun during nonstop to wipe out the alien fleet.
That though, left Rear Admiral Shearton with his own issue. Namely the alien frigate charging towards them full speed hollering at the top of its lungs.
"Nimitz," Richard ordered, watching the AI's holograph pop back into being, "Coordinate with the rest of our fleet's AI's as needed, I want you to disable that ship until further notice and bring it to a full stop, make sure they can't overload whatever they're using for power as well."
"On it, sir," the AI replied with a crisp salute.
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For Captain Dorrell, things only seemed to be going from bad to worse with each passing moment with the only upside being that his ship wasn't being shot at anymore.
What had him frightened beyond measure though was that the fifteen kilometer long monstrosity had suddenly gone and started disgorging even more ships, four dreadnoughts and over a dozen cruisers in fact. That was to say nothing of the fact that the two five kilometer ships escorting it had launched six cruisers each. The mere idea of doing such a thing was preposterous to him. Fortunately, his rather grim chain of thoughts was interrupted by a shout from communications officer.
"Sir, one of the alien ships has replied to our hails!"
Before he could even consider giving a response the lights on the bridge went out.
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So another chapter ends and with over 12,000 views I have to say I'm a bit overwhelmed. Thanks to all of you for your support and reviews please continue!
