Hi everyone, I'm back! Now with my hiatus over, I can go full speed ahead and get this done! During the absence, I have written six more chapters and estimate that there will only need to be four or five more afterwards. My guess would have to be that there are around 20 or 21 chapters. Updates will once again be regular, as long as I find ample time to add on.

UNSC Ballista

June 1, 2558

Aegis studied the Blessed Composition through the bridge viewer. The sleek vessel had been a CCS designation, one of the most feared Covenant ships, shadowed by the larger Assault Carriers and the gargantuan Supercarriers. Assault Carriers were often seen as the Covenant fleet flagships and could easily hold their own even against the CCS ships.

On the other hand, the fabled Supercarrier was the stuff of legends. So far, there appeared to be only a handful of these ships. Easily dwarfing the massive Assault Carriers, these ships could decimate nearly any other ship thrown at it, UNSC or Covenant. A single Supercarrier was easily capable of staging an entire raid on a UNSC planet. So far, to Aegis' memory, only one Supercarrier was destroyed by UNSC forces. A group of stealthy infiltrators had malfunctioned a slipspace drive and severed the vessel in half.

There was no way Ballista was equipped with the weapons for taking down a Supercarrier no matter how modified it was.

He might as well have regarded the new cruiser as a supercarrier. The most noticeable difference aside from its darker blue color that nearly made in invisible was the large opening that slanted to the stern on its dorsal side. The axial side showed multiple Covenant devices and adapters. Wires seemingly tangled inside were placed at the back of the opening. Upon zooming in on the appendage, the purple glow shimmered as a small crew of grunts in vacuum suits mingled around the consoles under the watchful eye of an elite.

"Commander." Dan Tyler brought him out of his thoughts about the cruiser. "We have the two corvettes on an intercept heading. I'm reading them powering up their point defense cannons."

"Helm, slow us down slightly. Wepps, warm the MAC and get the Archer missile safeties off."

"Aye sir." Both men began tapping on their stations. The Ballista's engines dimmed, slowing her pace down. With the bridge crew's eyes glued to the display, Aegis was glad to see that the enemy ships didn't change their course. The smaller guns on the side began to glow their familiar purple, nearing their firing status.

"Ah! Come on! Work!" Luke Riley banged his fist on the table, Trip sharply looked in his direction.

"What are you doing?" The commander was leaning over with his hand partially on his chair to steady himself as the Tyler shifted over.

"Teaching David a new trick."

David was the name of Luke's weapon firing computer. Because Ballista had no onboard AI, he had installed a supercomputer. Named after the android from the 21st century film Prometheus, it served as a replacement. Riley often used it to more than just handling his station whenever there was no combat.

"I don't have time for that!"

"Enemy plasma rounds fired!" The bridge shook as the first few rounds impacted the ship's shields. Since its conception, Ballista was fitted with improved energy shielding with extreme resistance to plasma. However if the corvettes weren't dealt with, the shields would down and the Guardian frigate would be as vulnerable as a standard UNSC light warship.

"Shields down to eighty four percent!"

Aegis pushed on the throttle as the Ballista slowed its heading. Purple and white streaks accelerated right in front as the missed shots passed not ten meters in front of the bow.

"MAC is primed and ready to fire." Riley reported.

"What's the second corvette doing?"

"Moving into a flanking position and powering on her lateral turrets."

Aegis sighed, "Arm the MAC and take aim at the flanking corvette."

"Aye sir." The Ballista's MAC muzzle glowed red as it began to charge its powerful MAC gun. Unfortunately, the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon was an unguided weapon and was unable to lock on to a target. Luke's eyes were glued to the reticule as the corvette came into view.

"Fire!" Aegis shouted. The targeting was not even on the hostile vessel yet.

The ship shuddered as the massive tungsten projectile exploded out of the bow. Within a split second, it connected to the corvette. Smoke covered any view of the enemy vessel. Leah was the first to gasp when the visibility cleared.

The corvette's armor flashed a light around the entire body of the ship that flickered away a moment later. It was outfitted with an energy shield.

"Damn." Drew snarled, "Shields?" It came as a huge surprise, as both corvettes were the SDV type, a ship that previously lacked shielding during the Human-Covenant war.

The corvette's guns fired again. Daniel Tyler however, didn't even look scared as he calmly guided the ship through the salvo. The rounds were close enough to see sparks being thrown off. One found its mark, but dissipated since the shields had slowly been recharging.

"Looks like they've been busy." The comms officer noted.

"We'll have to improvise." The commander affirmed, "Prep torpedo tube one and lock target."

"We've got more problems," Tyler called from his station, "the second corvette is warming up her port side turrets as well."

"Fine then." Aegis had turned to him to give another order when Drew suddenly cut in. "Cut all engines and keep us parallel to the corvette's starboard side."

"Would you mind telling me what's going on?" In a situation like this, Aegis only felt secure when he was in command of his ship.

Dan and Drew exchanged a nervous look before the latter explained, "It's complicated stuff. Just wait and give me the conn commander."

"Don't 'commander' me you crafty bastard!" Aegis studied the tactical display, starting to feel a slight sweat on his palms. The flanking corvette had about thirty seconds before its weapons had a lineup of Ballista. All eyes were on the second Covenant ship as they saw the purple plasma shots get larger as the weapons were fired. Then Aegis realized Drew's plan, they had to time it right or the Covenant ship would adjust its aim if they moved and it would nail the frigate as it tried to dodge the salvo.

"Wepps, shell the flanking corvette with a few. Helm, warm the engines."

The plasma came closer, streaking across the space between them and began getting brighter as if anticipating its target. On the starboard side of the ship, the 40mm antiaircraft point defense guns blazed as it fired the thunderous rounds at the shielded ship. Lights shimmered as the rounds impacted harmlessly across the barrier before finally giving out, sparking over from the shielding depletion.

"Go!"

Tyler's hand slammed on the throttle as the engines quickly burned and Ballista shot with incredible speed out of the way. Since these were not the homing type, the trajectory could not be altered once it was fired.

Trip grinned as he saw the plasma accelerate closer, missing Ballista by a huge margin.

The unshielded flanking corvette saw the incoming barrage and already had tried to take evasive action. Unfortunately, it was too soon. The plasma shots impacted the port engines, shutting them down in a fiery purple explosion. The lack of propulsion had brought down the corvette, where the remaining plasma impacted and melted through its armor. The heat still radiated as the ship rolled to its side, with the destroyed hull being barely recognizable.

"That bought about sixty seconds." Aegis was already moving to square two as he allowed a small mental celebration. While some considered him to be a brilliant naval officer, he politely declined a rumor from a naval junior officer that he would be the next Jacob Keyes. "Lock torpedo onto the plasma cells by the turrets."

"Torpedo locked." Riley pulled back the trigger, "I'm ready to fire."

"Fire." The metallic firing sound exploded from beneath the ship as the guided aerial missile was catapulted out of the bow, just below the MAC's muzzle. A thin wisp of white trailed behind as the torpedo accelerated towards the corvette.

In response, the Covenant corvette's turrets charged up, just as expected. Luke toggled the plasma fire on David and the torpedo automatically made adjustments to avoid the deadly blasts. In vain, the corvette's engines whined at a higher pitch in a last resort to avoid the torpedo, but it was too late. The torpedo, with nearly five hundred pounds of high explosive material slammed into the plasma storage. Being volatile fuel for the corvette's turrets, the plasma ignited instantly creating a massive fireball that scorched the entire starboard side of the ship. The explosion imploded slightly and then burst out again, completely shutting down the shields. It rolled to its starboard before smaller explosions rippled through the sleek hull before slowly breaking apart. No escape pods were detected.

He smiled, Drew's plan had worked, the intercepting ships had failed in their task and now were merely a cloud of shattered metal drifting in space. The bridge crew let out a cheer with Drew's normally emotionless face cracking into a wide grin.

"Excellent work everyone!"

"Leah, monitor all Storm chatter. Hail me once you get anything."

"Got it. Just be careful, there's some Flood readings down there."

"Now let's get down there before the Covenant take our toy. Let's prep the Phantom for infiltration."

Destroyer Forgivable

It was not an unusual sight anymore that the bridge crew of the Forgivable had on their faces.

Even Kasam was aghast; a single human frigate effortlessly eliminated the ships that he ordered to intercept and deal with. During his days as the secondary Shipmaster on the frigate, human vessels were hardly even a threat by themselves. A corvette could easily give any UNSC common vessel a run for their money, save for the more powerful cruisers. These ones were modified with better plasma weapons and energy shields for the sake of the gods!

The Covenant had landed seven Phantoms on the ground with a group of Lich gunships at the dock where the dormant Composer had been left for nearly a hundred thousand years. Although surrounded by an energy barrier, most of the dock had flood material all over it. Kasam was among the first to descend from his Phantom's gravity lift. The unholy screeches of the flood were already audible, followed by the plasma cannon fire as the grunt gunners blasted at the abominations. The first victims writhed as they lay at their final resting place.

Fortunately the flood were few in number with the barely recognizable species. The ugly combat forms sprinted ahead with groups of infection forms scurrying behind. Kasam carried a needler in one hand and his sword in the other. He raised his weapon and held down the trigger. The stream of needler rounds quickly buried themselves in the rotten flesh, causing the combat form to explode. Kasam covered his helmet with his arm as greenish fluids splashed on his armor. An elite growled, raising his storm rifle and firing plasma into the following infection forms.

"We're going to have to fight our way to the Composer!" Kasam shouted to his troops. He spotted a combat form taking a massive leap towards him with his whiplike arm outstretched. With a swift motion, the small Zealot seized the form as it landed and prepared its attack. Kasam easily jumped with his legs evading the tentacles. With a roar, he drove the sword straight through the flood's abdomen. Looking back, the other troops stared at him in awe as he tossed the dead flood behind him. At once, the elites began to join him, barking orders to the grunts and jackals. Kasam stood by as the groups began to pass and battle their way inside. Surveying the borders, he relaxed slightly as the glassing had not been too far away with a complete encirclement around the dock. Knowing that the Storm leaders don't like to be kept waiting, he frowned, kicking a chunk of rotten flood as far away as possible. If all went well, then his merit on Blessed Composition would make him an idol in the Storm.

The high pitched screech of the Flood snapped him out of his thoughts as he turned back to the dock to rejoin the fight. As he jogged along, he noticed another Phantom descending to the other side of the Composer. It aroused his curiosity, but shrugged it off as he rejoined the fight.

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