Colonial Defense Forces – Minos- Tauron Lagrangian Point Three
Vanir Class Commandstar
CDF Atlas
"Admiral Sterns, you have full command of the fleet in this sector. I will be heading the defenses of Tauron and the station, we should be receiving reinforcements in about an hour…."
The radio feed cut out as Admiral Corman briefly acknowledged yet another alert in the command center of the huge Tauron Defense Station before returning.
" I am sending you all of our available reserves and pulling back anything else that was in a low orbit. Gods speed." The tinny voice of Admiral Corman faded away as the line cut.
Admiral Vellena Sterns frowned as she gripped the handset for a second before setting it down, looking around at the men and women under her command as they went about their duties with professionalism that made her proud.
The forty four year old Caprican turned to the main display as the icons of her seventy eight and growing ships along with their Vipers as they formed a protective screen around the flagship. The angry red icons of the enemy ships formed a loose wedge as they launched their dreaded fighters.
Sterns had until an hour ago, had problems taking the sealed orders and briefing seriously that she had received a week ago, until now.
The whole existence of honest to Gods aliens had been a shock to the core of her more traditional Leoni religious beliefs, but seeing them on the optical screens and the DRADIS more than proved the point.
Having read on the capabilities of these Covenant ships she knew that it would take everything at her disposal to fight them, but she still had her doubts on the claimed energy shields and how easily their weapons defeated Colonial defenses. But she cast them aside as Admiral Corman had insisted that despite her having more than twice as many ships it still was not certain the outcome, something that managed to strike home.
"Enemy ships are nearing 90,000 kilometers sir! Waves of fighter craft are launching and coming in very fast! Our Vipers are moving to intercept." Her DRADIS officer, Francis Denota , called out.
"They are probing our defenses. Re-affirm to all pilots that they are to use concentrated fire and to avoid head on engagement with those things, according to reports. Tell them not to be shy about holding down their triggers to take them down." Sterns ordered as she paced the fore of the huge command center, looking out from the bridge windows, one of the most unique things about her flagship, at the twinkling cluster of blue lights and orange flashes that were the alien's fighters and her own ships flickered in the untold expanse.
The Atlas was one of the few Commandstars in the Colonial Defense Forces fleet. A dedicated command and control ship, its huge array of sensors coupled with oversized command and control centers and the largest DRADIS array fitted to a space going vessel made the ship perfect at commanding large fleets, defenses and even planetary assaults. Stretching to just shy of a thousand meters in length, its unique twin hulled design with a large connecting engine block and central command section made the Commandstars wholly unique among Colonial ships. However it was not meant for direct combat by any means, it was only armed with a motley array of nuclear and conventional anti ship missile tubes and most of the space that was left had been used giving the ship an incredible amount of point defenses, including the new CPD systems, and anti fighter missiles. However with the emergence of the latest Mercury Battlestars and Prometheus Class Battlestars, coupled with advances in Laser communications, the Commandstars were rapidly being deemed unnecessary. As such the Atlas was one of four left in the fleet.
Sterns watched as the Covenant fighters , advanced looking teardrop shaped things with a huge flaming drive and articulate fins, sped towards the wall of Colonial Vipers like a pack of predatory fish in large wedge formations at tremendous speeds.
The radio chatter among the throngs of pilots was palpable as commanders and squadron leaders shouted orders.
Anticipation crept up her spine as she watched the Covenant fighters suddenly launch a flurry of smaller energy torpedoes from much further ranges than she had been briefed about.
Colonial Viper Mk VII
Bird Flight- Off of Battlestar Hygerra
Captain Asto
"Break Break Break!" he screamed into his squadron mike as the angry blue spears of tracking honest to god's energy tore through space from the enemy fighters at fantastic speeds.
Vipers flipped and threw themselves onto wild new courses in an attempt to dodge the energy torpedoes, some even firing off flares and chaff in a vain attempt to spoof the missiles.
It was not to be.
Two dozen of the swarm of Vipers nearest to him turned into dirty fireballs as the missiles impacted, not exploding like normal missiles but boring into the Vipers in milliseconds and causing them to explode.
Asto cursed as one missile shot not two dozen feet from his starboard wing, causing a shocking increase in ambient temperature on his plane.
To his utter horror the missiles that missed made drastic course corrections and hit another Viper or Raptor from behind or the side, slicing through them and turning them into debris. As his command link crackled to life.
"Put the speed on and get into range now! Remember to keep firing at them until they blow up! Don't be shy on those triggers."
His mind calling for revenge he pressed his turbos and was pressed into his seat as the Viper shot forward, engines blazing from refined Tylium as the other Vipers followed suit.
The large alien fighers grew on his DRADIS and HUD as the targeting system managed to get a faint lock.
"Firing!" He called out as with the pull of his trigger he sent one of his anti figher missiles flying off of its launch rail towards the alien fighter not seconds away from engagement range.
The missile crossed the distance as the Covenant fighter, much to his surprise, made no attempt to evade.
Asto held his breath as the missile struck the alien fighter head on, losing lock for a second before reacquiring at the last possible second as it impacted and briefly covered the alien ship in fire.
The ship reappeared as an electric energy blister flashed and shimmered before subsiding, leaving the ship unscathed at it sped toward him like an angry beast leaving him wide eyed in shock.
"They are on top of us!" one of the squadron leaders cried through the area wide frequencies as just as he looked just in time to see the alien fighers fire pulses of blue energy at him and the Vipers around him, out of range of his cannons.
They were much faster than he had expected.
"Fraking shit!" he cursed as he threw the small Viper into some of the most drastic maneuvers he had ever done, nearly holding down his RCS thrusters as he constantly adjusted his pitch and yaw while the crushing Centripetal forces assaulted him and his G-Suit.
Asto nearly went unconscious as blackness crept into the side of his narrowing vision , as the blue strobbing effect of near misses from Covenant energy weapons lit up the cockpit.
Gasping for air he pulled back on the stick and flung his fighter around, hoping to end up on the tail of an alien craft, barely noticing the screams of death and static in his squadron headset.
The flaming hulks of dozens of Vipers careened past him as the realization that nearly half of his squadron was gone hit him, joining those from the others as he poured on the turbos as he dove into the furball.
He dove and weaved as yet more Vipers joined him, and more met quick deaths in the unforgiving vacuum.
Most of the Alien fighters were using their much greater speed to simply make quick and devastating slashing attacks at the Colonial fighters, turning several more into flaming debris before the first Covenant fighter went down from streams of cannon fire by three assailing Vipers.
His DRADIS was nearly overwhelmed with the whole mess of contacts, but despite this coming in hard on his three o clock was a lone Covenant fighter that had broken off from the rest, zooming in and looking to make him yet another victim.
"Oh no frakking way you do." He breathed as he waited the several agonizing seconds as the alien fighter closed at an alarming rate as the fight and local stars and planetary bodies spun around him.
Just as the range closed he cut his engines and pulled up on the stick, using a powerful burst from his maneuvering jets, shot up and away from a burst of deadly plasma that cut through the area of space he had just been.
Fighting the crushing G forces he spun the ship and turned, hitting the throttle just in time to have the much faster and larger Covenant fighter slide into his gunsight.
Hitting the Turbos to keep the alien enemy from speeding away he jammed down the trigger as the venerable little Mk VII Viper shuddered as its three engines burned white hot and its three 30mm Cannons spat a line of orange armor penetrating rounds at the Teardrop craft.
The shields flashed yet again as they burned bright as Asto ignored his training to use short accurate bursts and held the trigger down, keeping the alien fighter in his sights as he went through the most wild maneuvers he had ever done to keep the huge Covenant fighter from speeding away or spinning around and turning him into floating molecules, briefly loosing his target before finding its burning engine trail again.
Ignoring everything else going on around him his eyes widened as the accursed energy shields finally collapsed allowing fifteen shells to tear into the hull, coring into its bluish hide as one lucky round ripped off one of the large vectoring fins, sending the alien craft into a spin trailing strange blue drive plumes as Asto cheered in victory, finish the Covenant fighter off with another long burst that perforated the Covenant fighter.
Turning back into the fight he nearly gasped as the amount of losses the Colonial fighters had taken, his DRADIS was nearly overwhelmed as the amount of spinning debris almost made the sensors useless.
But the IFF markers told the tale.
Cursing he spun around and joined another Viper in assaulting a Covenant fighter, batting down its shield in combined fire and finishing it off with a anti fighter missile, just in time for another alien fighter to come in from above, firing its weapons as the two Vipers twisted to evade.
The other pilot wasn't as lucky as a pulse of energy weapons fire hit the Viper in the cockpit, cleaving the Colonial fighter in two as Asto suddenly found himself on the defensive as the previously damaged Covenant teardrop spun around and fired a stream of angry fire in return.
Reverence Class Grand Cruiser
Incorruptible
Fleet Master Tano 'Inanraree watched the screens with both satisfaction and concern as he studied the progress of his fighters, which were tearing into the human's defenses with satisfying results.
The presence of so many human settlements had a huge surprise, to put it simply .
Four worlds, all inhabited by the same insect that was humanity. Four worlds, all pristine and within the habitable zone of the local star no less, now tainted by the presence of humans.
"Shipmaster." His targeting demos called out from the fore of the expansive bridge as holographic targeting reticules scrolled across the screen before the young Sanghelli.
"The enemy is well within our range, and we have lock on with all of our primary weapons and secondary batteries."
Looking up at the vast viewscreen he took in the sight of the Human fleet. Their ungainly ships had now sluggishly formed a defensive line in the primary lagrangian point and were now fighting off his Seraphs with their small dart like fighters, which for every one his Seraphs blew out of the sky two more seemed to take their place.
"Pull the Seraphs out and have them switch to high speed attacks on their ships and fighters, we can afford to use hit and run tactics, playing into their fighters strength and their numbers is foolish when we can burn them from the skies out of their range."
He looked again at the tactical readouts from his fleet pondering the situation.
The rest of the Empire needed to be informed of this grand discovery, but he wanted to have fun with his prey first, simply sitting back and burning them as they could have done far out of these Colonial's range provided little fun.
Looking towards the eleven ships in his fleet which were crewed by the repulsive Jileraharse, he let loose a grin as he paced the bridge before turning to his Second in Command, Field Commander Ronalee.
"Contact Bractanus, tell him that he is to take command of his squadron and they are to charge the enemy, lets see if these lesser humans can even put up a fight, but order the commander of the Heavy Destroyer Holy Blade to provide limited fire support."
Ronalee let loose a deep short laugh as his longtime friend nodded in understanding.
CDF Atlas
"We have about a third of the enemy fleet coming in fast, nearing 40,000 kilometers!" her XO Francis Denota called out as twelve Covenant ships surged forward on the DRADIS like a flock of predatory fish on Picon of Aquarion.
Glancing at the optical viewer she watched as a the very loose formation of two manta ray like CRS Light Cruisers, four Corvettes, three Frigates, a single Destroyer and a CCR Cruiser with the looming and imposing alien form of a one point five kilometer RPV Class Heavy Destroyer following closely behind, approached the defensive line with deadly and arrogant intent.
"Enemy fighters are breaking off for now, Lords we took some losses ." Denota breathed as she handed the reports for the Admiral's scrutiny as Stern's eyes danced over the report.
Indeed that was an understatement, nearly seven full squadrons of thirty Vipers and Raptors apiece had already been turned to atomized chunks of melted debris, and taking only about half of the initial wave of Covenant teardrop fighters with them, whose numbers had only swelled as they launched another two hundred which spread out into V shaped squadrons of Ten fighters apiece and rocketed into the ever growing furball.
The fleet moved into position to intercept as weapons ports opened and main batteries charged as the collective sensors of the now eighty two defending ships reached out into the vacuum beginning to attain a lock at the edge of their effective combat range.
"Tell the Vipers and Raptors to get out of the way and hold the perimeter, those Fighters are coming back again." Sterns ordered as the main fleet accelerated ahead, leaving the Commandstar with its escorting Berserker Cruisers.
"Aye sir." The comms officers replied as Sterns pulled the latest transmission off of the machine, eyeing the paper and throwing it away into the growing stack.
"Twenty seconds to effective range, enemy still closing, DRADIS is having trouble picking up energy signatures."
The collective mood and anticipation in the CIC could not have been more transparent as Admiral Sterns felt here pulse quicken in her throat as the seconds ticked by.
"Ten seconds…Poseidon confirms lock on, rest of the fleet is confirming!" Denota called as the transmission from the Warstar heading the defenses confirmed a lock on.
"They may fire…." Sterns was cut off by the yells from the communications officers.
"Enemy is firing!"
A hundred plus beams of concentrated and condensed energy that could have powered a small town with each pulse speared out across the darkness and into the Colonial ships.
Beams and laser pulses melted and burned through armor on dozens of ships and sliced open weapons and whole decks as ships buckled under the assault.
One of the diminutive Valkyries dipped out of formation with its bow belching flame and atmosphere as several smaller warships slowly spun out of formation with decks ripped open and engines damaged, firing their maneuvering thrusters to right their possibly endless tumble as bulkheads sealed to end the proverbial bleeding.
Ignoring the reports of damage throughout the fleet Sterns nearly screamed.
"Return fire!"
The collective firepower from a single Zeus Class Warstar, seven Mercury Battlestars, nine older Pleiades class Battlestars, eight Columbia Battlestars, twenty two Berserker Cruisers, eight Siegestars, nine Valkyrie Light Battlestars , five Destroyers, eleven Gunstars and the limited firepower of two Brimer Carriers; cleaved through the dark as hundreds of Heavy Main Railgun slugs, secondary battery projectiles and several hundred missiles streaked towards the Covenant ships.
The smaller and more agile of the alien warships let loose a large burn from their engines, appearing to a casual observer like comets flashing into existence as they moved themselves out of the line of fire while the Holy Blade , destroyers, frigates and Cruisers switched their lasers to fast tracking modes .
Swarms of Colonial anti ship missiles were speared by quick pulses of directed energy and flashed out of existence, turning into nothing more than fireworks as the Covenant point defenses swatted the slow moving Colonial missiles out of the sky with arrogant ease.
All the while their lateral lines coalesced in energy.
Some twenty seconds after their firing, the Colonial fusillade hit unabated as the Covenant vessels disappeared behind a wall of electrical fire and static as their shields took the blows.
The Colonial commanders and officers watched, their eyes transfixed to their displays as the latest DRADIS sweep sent out another pulse.
One of the Corvettes emerged with a trio of hull breaches and trailing debris from hits dealt it by a Mercury's main bow guns, its engines sputtering and its armor dented inwards in several more places as the Heavy Destroyer moved to cover the wounded ship.
"By the Gods." Sterns breathed as she watched in awe as the alien vessels released a wave of Plasma torpedoes.
Tearing into the blackness of space, sixteen streaking lances of blue plasma and energy tore across the distance (and comparatively short range to the Covenant), in seconds.
The wall of defensive fire and flak the Colonial fleet put up was about as useful as a umbrella against the gall of a hurricane.
Two Gunstars simply went nova as the torpedoes travelled the entire length of the ships and expended their energies in the engine blocks while at the same time the Mercury class Battlestar Liani listed suddenly on its axis as a torpedo wrecked much of its bow, setting the bow ablaze as atmosphere spewed into space.
Escape pods launched from a Cruiser as fires and explosions raced across the length of the doomed vessel , the pods dodging the debris of a dying Valkyrie light battlestar whose port flight pod was completely severed and belching quickly dying flames from ruptured fuel lines.
"Holy Frak!" Sterns watched in horror as three of the energy torpedoes burned and ripped into the bowels of the Columbia Class Battlestar Vega, igniting the fuel lines and storage for the Viper's tylium.
The amidships of the 1600 meter warship bulged outwards for a brief moment before turning into a brief and gigantic fireball, briefly blinding the DRADIS as the remains of the ship spun into the paths of Vipers while back on the Atlas the crew frantically relayed the reports.
"Vega is down with all hands! Liani reports heavy damage to its bow!"
"Zodiac is combat ineffective, abandoning ship!"
"Escorts Gia and Oina are off of the scanners!"
"Cruisers Caprica's Way and Scorpion are lost! Vipers are confirming the Destroyer Celestron is drifting."
Her mind nearly overwhelmed with the damage reports the Colonial admiral cut them off as one of the ideas and tactics used by Admiral Kaviss dawned on her.
"Have ALL ships vent atmosphere where they are hit by those things! All ships Fire at will! Spread into battlesquadrons! Full use of nuclear ordinance is authorized!" she ordered as more pulse lasers stitched lines of damage and destruction across the fleet.
Two more Ships dipped out of formation trailing debris as the fleet let loose their full destructive fury, firing barrage after barrage of slugs and shells towards the enemy as the Covenant fired in kind, coring into yet more Colonial ships with energy beams followed by a volley of high energy secondary plasma cannons.
Sterns clenched her fist as yet another Light Battlestar went up followed by a Gunstar spinning away trailing bodies and a dozen hull breaches dealt it by Plasma cannons.
That was nine ships now.
The shields on the Covenant ships were aflame as they recklessly surged forward, the only semblance of a greater tactical mindset were the supporting alien fighters making slashing attacks and further depleting her Vipers and attempting to strafe her ships.
However what worried her was the fact that the larger ships were just sitting back and watching, only firing a laser at any Raptors that came too close and swatting them out of the sky.
The wounded Corvette finally broke up under the guns of a Pleiades Class Battlestar, and a Covenant frigate and light cruiser lost their shields and had wounds open up in their hulls as yet another wave of surviving missiles, some nuclear, hit the Covenant ships, covering them in fire and nuclear radiation. As the brief suns dissipated they revealed the wounded Frigate tumbling out of formation aflame and the Destroyer's shield's collapsing.
The Covenant responded with yet another volley of torpedoes, and this time the Pleiades Class Battlestar that destroyed the corvette was singled out as it exploded in flame and debris and tumbled away, joining the melted mass of a holed Mercury and a nearly bisected cruiser in the expanding floating graveyard.
Yet another Gunstar went up as dozens of Laser pulses played over the ship as the Siegestar Taor began spinning in place as atmosphere vented from a dozen hole breaches.
However the worst was to come.
A Second alien Corvette shattered under the combined firepower of the Warstar Poseidon and the Light Battlestar Janasburo while the wounded alien light cruiser succumbed to its wounds with the help of trio of anti ship missiles from a Siegstar detonating inside it. All the while a huge burst of energy collected at the fore of the Covenant Heavy Destroyer.
The sensors throughout the fleet picked up a huge climb in ambient energy and heat from the bow of the alien ship before in a millisecond the energies went absolutely off of the scale and disappeared.
The fore energy projector on the Holy Blade flashed a brief and hellish pencil thin beam of pure uncontrolled energized matter that sliced through the dark with a bright purplish beam that almost instantly impacted headlong into the bow of the Columbia Class Battlestar Talos.
The beam simply burned through entire decks and feet of armor in an instant , slicing through the upper decks and instantly igniting atmosphere but also fuel and equipment, exiting out of the engine block of the Battlestar and winking out of existence as fast as it had flashed into existence.
One sixteenth of the Battlestar's mass had instantly been vaporized.
The Talos heaved as explosive decompression ripped through it faster than bulkheads could halt, vaporizing even more of the ship as its entire length rippled as its proverbial structural spine snapped as more intense explosions tore the guts out from the bowels of the Colonial warship, which began to violently break up as the fellow warships watched in horror.
The defensive line beginning to collapse the attacking Covenant ships surged forward, firing more lances of pulse lasers and several more plasma torpedoes tore into the Colonial fleet, spilling more human bodies tumbling into the void as another three ships winked out of the Atlas's displays or were disabled.
By this point the much faster Covenant ships had closed to knife fighting range, approaching the edge of the Colonial's 10,000 kilometer optimal engagement range.
Luckily for the Colonials, who were not aware of it at the time, the ships were commanded by the recently inducted Brutes, whom tended to simply rush their opponents and focus their ship's firepower at the enemy and only held a limited focus on point defenses.
Something that Admiral Sterns had begun to notice.
"Give me a link to the Siegestars, tell them to spin up their FTL drives!" she shouted as the ship rocked as a single pulse laser from one of the Frigates swept over the bow of the Commandstar, blowing out a section of a deck.
"Aye sir!" the XO responded as she watched the situation.
These aliens were extremely aggressive, so much so that they were willing to place their ships in harm's way by focusing their power on destroying her ships and not intercepting her missiles. Though they could afford to, as most of her missiles simply exploded harmlessly against their shields and at the long ranges they had been previously fighting at they were swept from the sky before they could hit their targets most of the time.
Though her fleet was suffering horribly from the fury of the alien's tactics, a point buried home as two ships succumbed to the deadly efficiency of the aliens advanced weapons, the fact was that even though as badly damaged her heavy units; her Battlestars and Cruisers, were, they were still mostly in play.
However she would lose them all soon if she did not act now.
"Order them to plot a jump directly off of the starboard side of the enemy ships. I don't care if they will scatter their formation or how inaccurate they claim a point blank jump will be they just need to get as close as they can. I want them to launch every nuke and anti ship missile they have at point blank range on my order. They are to hold back as the battlestars and Cruisers to surge forward and to the port side of the enemy ship's flank. Our remaining escorts are to hold back."
The crew immediately began dispatching her orders as she watched the battle unfold.
The now exposed hull of the Covenant destroyer was a wreck as fleet's heavy guns pounded away at the thicker hide while the Colonial's ships shifted, the larger Battlestars and cruisers pushing their engines well past the safeties and firing broad side after broadside from their weapons.
The Covenant Destroyer was finished off as something vital within the ship was hit, the ship splitting open from within as the Colonials cracked open the shields on another of the remaining Frigates.
However the powerful shields of the Cruiser and the Heavy Destroyer refused to overload, covering the two larger alien vessels in electrical stormed of fire as the two ships responded in anger as they turned to give chase.
Ten more angry lances of plasma torpedoes and a fusillade of pulse lasers speared into the Colonial advance, ripping apart two more Battlestars and out rightly slicing apart two more Berserker Cruisers, the flaming hulks of their now dead and dying superstructures tumbling away into the endless void while the other ships sustained heavy damage, the Poseidon losing her number two flight pod to vacuum.
Her escorts, the remaining Light Battlestars , Destroyers and Gunstars, launched every last remaining missile they had, leaving five dozen ghostly contrails cutting a path towards the enemy.
Not even half of them made it half way to the target before they were erased by a sweep of directed energy weaponry.
Admiral Sterns clenched her fist, it was now or never.
"Execute!"
The 800 meter long alligator like wedges of her seven remaining Siegstars flashed out of existence, and nearly immediately all eight of them appeared right next to or behind the alien vessels, several barely a hundred miles out.
Before the Covenant Commanders could have even reacted, much less recover from the shock at the "lesser" human's ability to perform such a short ranged jump, the Siegestars lateral and dorsal sides simply erupted as every last anti ship and nuclear missiles leapt from their launch rails and cut across the short distance in seconds.
The Covenant ships, having tightened their formation in preparation to plow through the Colonial battlefleet and with their pulse lasers still tasked with intercepting the previous wave of missiles, were defenseless.
At once dozens of new stars burst forth into existence as more and more missiles and nuclear weapons hit, some vaporized by the previous detonoation but others surviving and detonating as well.
Radiation heat blurred out the Covenant warships for a full twenty seconds as the Seigestars exhausted their nuclear munitions, hurridly trying to regroup with the main fleet as their DRADIS tried to re-acquire a lock.
Sterns watched the screens as her heart thumbed in her chest.
"Tell all ships to empty their weapons the second they get a new lock.."
She was cut off by cries of alarm and shock from the crew.
"Maam! We have a contact! Two Covenant warships are still active!"
The Heavy Destroyer and a lone Frigate emerged from the dissipating cloud of debris and radiation, both of them with visible thermal damage as they both limped forward, amazingly surviving as the rest of the Covenant ships were now nothing more than radioactive debris.
The Frigate, though heavily damaged, still let loose a torpedo that burned open one of the Siegestars and disabled another with the combined pulse lasers from the two alien ships.
The thirty Colonial warships from her main fleet, sensing victory accelerated all fired as one without waiting for orders.
The damaged Covenant Heavy Destroyer, its hull scorched and its systems fluctuating with no hope of escape, defiantly fired its bow Energy projector , slicing a Cruiser almost nearly in two with its pencil thin beam of matter.
Dozens upon dozens of railgun slugs tore into the alien vessels, opening decks and punching through bulkheads and armor as another, then another salvo pounded the ships into oblivion.
The Frigate finally broke apart, its broken shell spinning into two different directions as the Heavy Destroyer, its course now ballistic and its hull almost unrecognizable, erupted in a giant blue fireball as its reactor went critical.
The combined cries of joy from the ships of the fleet rose to a fever pitch over the fleet wide radio as the crew of the Atlas congratulated each other only to be cut off by Admiral Sterns.
"Quiet! We still have two thirds of the enemy fleet left!"
She looked at the tactical display with growing despair.
Thirty of her ships were now out rightly destroyed, their hulks melted and blown open as the remaining fifty two ships all had damage, some serious.
Worse still her nuclear stockpile were running low, and she still was staring down twenty four of those monsters, all of whom were much more powerful than the ones they had just fought.
"Reform the fleet. We have to hold them as long as we can" the admiral cooly ordered, knowing just how hopeless it was.
Incorruptible
"Fleetmaster, Bractanus and the Holy Blade are destroyed. Orders?" Field Master Ronalee turned to the Fleet Master, who sat brooding in his command chair.
"They put up much more of a fight than anticipated. Still a pathetic attempt." Inanraree growled as he turned to face the fellow Zealot.
"Do we have targeting?"
"Yes Fleetmaster."
The Sangheili's mandibles formed into a human looking grin."
"Accelerate and open fire."
UNSC Wink of An Eye
"Christ they are going to simply snipe them from out of their weapons range!" Lieutenant Haverson remarked as he watched the energy readings on the Covenant warships skyrocket as their lateral lines collected energy for the inevitable.
Commander Branson watched the holographic tactical displays as the Wink of an Eye coasted on its own momentum at a point some hundred thousand kilometers "above" the battlezone and coming from a slingshot orbit from under the cover of its Stealth systems and the interference provided by the Colonial world "Tauron" it was called; natural satellite's rings.
The moment the sensors on the UNSC prowler had picked up the huge outburst of Čerenkov Radiation from the exit of the Covenant battlefleet, the crews of the two ships immediately were horrified of the immediate and obvious repercussions.
Branson did not know how, but the Covenant did not just find the Colonials by chance this soon after the UNSC had by mistake. Space was far too vast for such an occurrence.
No they had tracked them here, and if they had potentially tracked the Prophesy here they could have tracked it….to Reach.
The very thought unsettled his stomach.
However during their station here, now approaching a second week, Fallon had intercepted brief flashes of discreet radio traffic and even a primitive but workable laser com buoy system that had given the AI's translator matrix hours of information and a revelation.
(As well as the possible existence of an extremely well hidden command and control base)
The Colonials had already met the Covenant.
The AI and his officers had guessed that it couldn't have been more than a month or two ago, but by the dramatic increase in their defenses and how they had put themselves on an even more defensive war footing than they had before only confirmed it.
As he watched the battle unfold he could clearly tell they had fought them before, as they focused their much weaker firepower on only several ships at a time and tried to draw the aliens in close.
"As much good as that did them" he thought.
He cringed as ship after ship broke apart or burned under the Covenant's weaponry.
And he had thought the UNSC was outgunned; a two to three ratio disadvantage looked pretty good compared to how the Colonials were faring, a six to one or worse disparity.
He had dispatched the Red Horse, the fellow Prowler, back to UNSC space at flank speed, a trip that would take days to reach the nearest outpost equipped with a Slipspace COM Launcher to contact HIGHCOM and Earth, a system that would still take days.
Until then he was forced to watch as the Covenant forces assaulted the Colonials.
They had already no doubt idly sent whatever communication system they had to contact the rest of the Covenant about their discovery, and more ships would soon start flowing into the system and the three others and start slaughtering billions.
"Sir, what do we do?" Haverson asked as he and the rest of the crew turned to him, their eyes betraying their thoughts.
They couldn't sit back and watch this anymore.
Fallon's ever unique avatar flashed into existence next to his commander's seat, illuminating the dim bridge and overriding the red hue that shone throughout the crammed space of people and control screens and consols.
"Commander we are not under any orders regarding this situation. I and I am sure my biological counterparts agree that we must help these Colonials, UNSC citizens or not, they are human and the Covenant will still slaughter them."
Branson knew it in his gut to.
He knew he was in for a ringing from his superiors, but superiors be damned.
"Weap Ops, how many Hornet mines are we carrying?" he turned to the younger woman at her station.
"Sir we have ten mines, forty megatons apiece. Not enough to put much more than a dent in their fleet."
Branson cringed, they couldn't destroy more than a ship or two, most certainly the monsters the Covenant had in their main fleet.
"What is the status of those new Torpedoes Command was kind enough to give us at Earth?"
The AI was the one to answer this time, trying to politely answer the woman at the same time he cut her off.
"The Mk. 13 Fusion Adaptable Stealth Delivery System, or FASDS? We have eight of them sir and I am not too sure about the Stealth coating on them surviving their magnetic launch rails, plus we have to get within twenty thousand kilometers to use them, and they do not have the power to crack the shields on a shielded target."
"But they can certainly crack an unshielded ship open am I correct?"
"Yes," the AI nodded as a sly grin formed on it's face, "But you would need to drop the shields on one ship before firing.
With that Branson turned to Haverson, "Helm give me a burn around here." He pointed on the star chart at the area of space where the Covenant would likely flow through, where the lagrangian point's stable gravity would allow for a greater range of mobility.
"Aye sir." Haverson acknowledged as the Prowler's engines burst to life for a five second burn before shutting off, the stealth systems, baffles and electronic camouflage working overtime trying to keep the ship hidden.
"Sir! Enemy ships are preparing to fire on the Colonials!" the navigation officer cried aloud as Branson watched in silence on the main display at the fore of the dimly lit ovalish bridge.
The hellish angry energy from dozens of plasma turrets, cannons , pulse lasers and energy projectors burned an image into his irises as they all fired as one.
Branson and the others all inhaled as a wall of no less than fifty lances of Plasma torpedoes, the Covenant ships charging their weapons to full power and having spent time charging all of their emitters to their full capacity, all scorched the blackness of space as they tore across the distance towards the seemingly helpless squadrons of battered and bruised Colonial warships.
"My god.." he whispered as the Colonial warships launched one last defiant and titanic salvo of railgun fire and missiles at the enemy that was far out of their range, some hopelessly off the mark as several ships frantically tried to turn out of the way and others dumped atmosphere from their outer areas while their smaller single ships and fighters spun out of the line of fire and death.
The spears of death and destruction hit nearly as one.
Colonial ships hulls armor boiled and vaporized, mixed with venting oxygen and photonic pressure that blasted the flames into wavering plumes. Entire Battlestars erupted and twisted in space as their mass was suddenly reduced dramatically and shockwaves travelled the lengths of their frames, blasting through bulkheads and sections alike.
Already damaged Cruisers and Light Battlestars literally melted and burst apart as fuel and atmosphere expanded within, tuning feats of human engineering into angry smears of fire and debris.
The Commandstar Atlas spun around helplessly as one of its twin hulls sheered off completely and its engines melted from the stress.
A larger Mercury Battlestar suddenly went silent as twin lances of hellfire simply erased the iconic alligator bow of the warship, killing all inside almost instantly as once proud warships that had previously fought off an assault with all their might were now simply slaughtered.
Branson didn't even realize he was cursing as the gigantic Covenant Reverence Super Cruiser fired its twin energy projectors in unison, targeting the already nearly disabled Warstar Poseidon that had been leading the Colonial charge.
The thin twin beams of hyper accelerated matter and energy traced paths of death along the battered prow of the two thousand meter long warship, slicing through armor and decks as if it were not there and obliterating the ships in a dramatic transfer of heat, energy and pressure waves as the beams exited the other side of the Colonial dreadnaught, which for a second began a lazy tumble before a series of huge pressure waves burst from within the bowels of the ship, setting off the reactor and leaving nothing but spinning flaming debris that quickly died in the lack of oxygen.
The RPV Heavy Destroyers and CCS Battlecruisers followed suit in firing their own single Energy Projectors, vaporizing or cleaving apart nine more already dead or doomed Colonial warships in a fantastic display of overkill.
The two or three surviving ships tried to flee before the Covenant fleet, having already casually accelerated towards the planet, fired a fusillade of laser pulses that cored and split open the remaining ships, before their targeting turned to the tumbling debris that were the shattered hulks of the Colonial fleet as only a couple of dozen escape pods launched from them, burning into the remains of the ships and causing yet three more to blossom into fireballs.
It was all over in thirty seconds.
Not one of the Colonial ships were left as the wings of surviving Vipers no longer with any support tried to make best speed back to the helpless jewel of Tauron now with flocks of much faster Seraphs giving chase and picking them apart.
The volley of railgun slugs and missiles that the Colonials had fired which had managed to make it and hit the Covenant ships simply bounced off of glowing energy shields.
It was the worst slaughter he had ever seen.
"Sir?" Sir!" the commander vaguely heard as his grip crushed the armrests of his seat in rage.
His senses returned to him as he pulled his eyes away from the screen to look back at the crew, all of them with anger and hate in their eyes as some of the female officers were wiping away tears.
"Yes?" Branson replied as he cleared his throat, realizing he had to bite down and swallow his own emotions.
"We have one of the CCS's in our range and we can launch four of the Fury's to pop its shields, anything else will give us away and be a waste." Lieutenant Haverson replied as the crew all looked to their commander for support.
He nodded as he glanced over to the avatar of Fallon, the AI clearly showing sorrow on his artificial projection of a face as well, so telling in fact that Branson had to remind himself it wasn't "real".
"Launch them, and take us in. Give me a dry firing computation for our torpedoes and fire them dumb, that EMP will knock out our targeting for a few minutes at this range and turning on our targeting radars will give us away. Take us in."
Haverson nodded as with a burn from the 162 meter manta ray ship's engines he crossed the threshold for the closest a Prowler had ever attempted to get to a Covenant warship.
The Covenant fleet was beginning to spread out to form a loose orbital perimeter around the planet, a tactic that he knew meant either a planetary glassing or the landing of an invasion force, something those four alien carriers and Battlecruisers certainly held within them.
The Prowler had used its momentum from its slingshot orbit to catch up and eat of proverbial "ground" between them, but they were now closer than any Prowler had ever dared attempted to get.
"Dry launching Fury's, One Two, Three and Four away." The weapon's officer seemingly whispered unnecessarily as the three nuclear mines accelerated away from the outwardly invisible UNSC stealth ship, their small boosters accelerating their coated frames towards one of the CCS's that was further away from the flagship than all of the other ships, most likely moving to take out the Colonial's defense station.
Branson could only imagine the hell that was currently taking place on the surface of the world and the command station, as its crew were completely helpless to the inevitable .
But for every Covenant ship that he could destroy he knew he would safe countless more from the horror of an orbital plasma bombardment, even if it was just one small victory.
As the minutes ticked by the deadly form of the Covenant Battlecruiser grew larger and larger as the helm plotted the best interception course, one that would place them right in the middle of the graveyard of Colonial ships.
Branson swallowed and said a quick prayer as the twisted hulk of a Colonial Light Battlestar, its hull still glowing a dim orange from the extreme heat of the Covenant torpedo that had tore into its hull and burned the center of the ship to a cinder, spun past.
"The radar is almost useless out here." Haverson called as he piloted the ship past the twenty thousand mark.
"Turn it off! We don't need it anyway, we will fly blind." Branson quickly ordered as Fallon immediately did so, the Commander wiping a bead of sweat from his brow as the range ticked down by the second.
"Twenty Thousand kilometers sir, I can turn on our targeting just long enough for our torpedoes to acquire a lock a switch it back off after we fire, we can fire them blind in this mess sir." The Weapon's officer replied as the eerie graveyard of ships floated by.
"Do it. Fallon our nukes?"
The AI nodded as code flowed the length of his body for a moment before answering.
"Ive positioned them as close as I can and on all different sides, I suggest we do this now because a patrol of Seraphs are coming near us, I find it odd but I think they are going to move to establish an orbital perimeter and land troops." The AI announced.
"Probably to have more fun massacring more people, targeting light them up!" Branson responded firmly.
The crew went to work and after thirty seconds Haverson cried out.
"Ive got tone!"
Branson didn't waste a second as he stood up, unable to keep himself seated, "Launch number one and two! Fallon detonate and shut down our radar now! Zero emissions!"
The ship rocked and its camouflage flickered out of existence as two fifteen meter long Fusion tipped torpedoes wrapped in a stealth coating launched from their two magnetic launch assisted tubes and rocketed away.
Four suns burst into existence around the 1700 meter long Covenant warship, bathing it in fire, head and radiation as it disappeared from the screens for several seconds.
"Come on." He breathed as he watched the fires subside as the deadly form of the alien Battlecruiser re-emerged from the fires of destruction.
And with its shields burning bright.
"No!" Branson roared as the torpedoes ignited their boosters, accelerating to hundreds of Gees and closed the gap.
The crew watched as the missiles closed, undetected by the blinded sensors of the alien warship and the other ships in the area that were not overcome with EMP.
"They are going to bounce off." Branson cursed as the torpedoes closed to within seconds of impact.
Then, as if by some sort of error on the set, the shields on the CCS flickered off and collapsed with a spark, somehow overloaded from stress or some fortunate miss giving.
The UNSC crew and commander couldn't even respond in surprise as the two multi-megaton fusion torpedoes, now unhindered, slammed into the unshielded hide of the vast warship and detonated.
The viewscreens went white as the alien battleship disappeared.
Two fifty megaton jets of plasma and gas as hot as a star cored into ship, burning through thick armor plating and hull, and found the central magnetic plasma lines feeding the Covenant warship's reactor.