AN: And here we are with the first segment of the Battle of Earth. It turned out to not be longer than the chapters have been lately, but then again, its 3k+ words of combat, so that's something! That, and it seemed to fit at the length it was.
Incidentally, I'm currently thinking that the Battle will be at least five chapters. This one, at least two other space segments, and at least one ground segment. Might be longer even...my muse is in overdrive on this one really. Which is a good thing mind you. ;)
I hope everyone enjoys the chapter!
1200 Hours, November 30th, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
Earth
As cleanup continued on the surface of Earth, the UNSC Home Fleet floated at the ready. They had received a message days ago...a message from a new Halo. As if that wasn't bad enough, the message's contents had been far worse. A Covenant fleet, larger than any other, heading right for Earth. SG-1 was even now bringing the Arcadia Strike Force back to Earth, while Miranda Keyes gathered any other ships that could be spared from their own colonies. Already, Sigma Octanus had been stripped of defenders, the veterans of that battle gathered around the UNSC Iroquois next to Cairo Station.
Two supercarriers...two dozen cruisers, from the massive Valiant to the small, hastily retrofitted Halcyon-I's...and hundreds of smaller ships. All were gathered, together with the three hundred ODPs.
As Lord Hood looked out at this massive gathering of firepower from his post on Cairo Station, he wore a grim frown on his face. While it was true that this was quite possibly the mightiest gathering of human military might in history...it still probably wasn't enough. The report from SG-1 said that much. Even as hundreds of UNSC ships floated around Earth, even more Covenant warships approached. And not all of the human ships were fully upgraded either.
This was going to be humanities last stand. If Earth fell, so too did the UNSC...no matter how many colonies survived. Too many ships, too many personnel, were at stake here.
"Sir," an aide approached the old Admiral.
"What is it?" Hood asked, turning away from the window.
"Io Station just went dark. They reported a Slipspace rupture before communications ceased."
The Commander-in-Chief of the UNSC sighed heavily, "Then they've arrived."
Turning away from the pale woman, Hood walked back over to the window. A console sat nearby, one set up specifically for his use...to contact the Fleet gathered in orbit, along with the smaller force covering Mars. Activating the communications system, Hood looked out at the fleet. His tight face was broadcast to every single UNSC warship, and every ground based headquarters on Earth and Mars.
Hood turned his face like he was scanning the faces of everyone watching the broadcast, before facing fully forwards.
"The Covenant has arrived," the old admiral bluntly spoke, "Io has gone dark, so it is only a matter of time before they arrive here. I don't need to tell you how important it is that we hold the line here. Earth is our last stand. You all have your orders, I expect everyone to give it their all."
Pushing more buttons on the console, Hood changed the communications to where he was only in contact with the leaders of the various segments of the Home Fleet. The Second Fleet, holding formation over Mars. The Seventh spread in close formation with the S-MACs to prevent the Covenant from jumping in close like they had attempted at Reach, and the Sixteenth, the largest of them all, holding at the 'frontline'.
The last orders had barely left Hood's mouth when the first Covenant forces arrived.
A swarm of portals opened in orbit of Earth, spitting out hundreds of alien warships. Even the veterans of Reach felt their eyes widen at the sight. At least twice as large as the force that had been beaten back there...and ships were still coming. Carriers, destroyers, frigates, cruisers, corvettes, every type of Covenant ship ever encountered.
"All ships engage at will," Hood ordered, as he watched the Covenant ships continue to enter realspace.
For all the shock at the sight of so many enemy warships, the Human forces were the elite of their military. And they operated exactly as expected of them...MAC shells flew from ships and platforms alike, while blue and gold beams joined the barrage. The vanguard of the Covenant fleet was blown to pieces...but the second line merely pushed those ruined vessels aside, and charged their plasma lines.
A volley of hundreds of plasma torpedoes lashed out into space, burning towards the UNSC fleet. And behind that, a group of Super-Cruisers targeted the ODPs in range. A dozen white beams flashed out...and a dozen platforms died, their shields unable to take an Energy Projector beam. The torpedoes impacted next. While the ships with shields could take a hit or two from Covenant plasma...a dozen hits per ship was too much, even for the mighty Trafalgar, the supercarrier splitting in two after being blasted by two Assault Carriers.
In the first barrage of the battle, both sides lost nearly a hundred ships. Losses the Covenant could afford...but the UNSC could ill-afford.
USNC Valiant
Aboard the bridge of the most powerful UNSC warship in Earth orbit, Fleet Admiral Harper clenched his fists. Intellectually, he was well aware that the losses were light compared to what they could have been, with that many Covenant warships firing at once. It still burned to see so many ships and, more importantly, so many ODPs burning. Earth's 300 platforms was a misnomer...that was 300 platforms scattered around the entire planet. If the Covenant could punch a large enough hole in one sector, it wouldn't matter that the other platforms existed, since the damn aliens could just hit them from below before any could be moved to close the gap.
And they had just lost a dozen of them. Warships moved to cover the gap, but there was still a large portion of Earth without its defense net, and the Covenant were moving to ruthlessly exploit that gap. There was no playing with the human defenders this time...the enemy was determined to end the UNSC, once and for all.
"Admiral, the Second Battlegroup is requesting assistance!" one of the crew called out.
"Stalingrad is on fire! Admiral Patterson is falling back!" another man shouted.
"Iroquois is moving up to cover Stalingrad!"
And so it went...the flagship of the Home Fleet was besieged by message after message as the UNSC and Covenant battered away at each other. Harper stood on his bridge, anger filling his body. As a crippled frigate drifted past the Valiant, the Admiral made up his mind.
"Move us forward!" his commanding voice barked out, silencing the cacophony of voices.
When the cruiser didn't immediately start moving, Harper strode forward and stood next to his helmsman. The woman seemed to be shocked by the order, and looked at the Admiral with wide eyes. Harper merely stared down on her, before turning around and looking at his crew. The men and women stared at their commander, who merely stared right back.
"Did I not make myself clear?" Harper asked, "We are taking the fight to the Covenant."
The crew's faces showed real fear at that. For all that the Valiant was the strongest UNSC warship, they knew that going against the Covenant directly was...if not suicidal, very likely to cripple even the mighty warship. Harper knew that as well as they did, but something had to be done. Just fighting a slugging match with the Covenant would end with the UNSC fleet destroyed by sheer numbers. Aggressive tactics were needed to win this fight...
And by God, Admiral Carl Harper would give the Covenant a beating they would never forget.
"Sir yes sir!" the crew chorused, setting to their jobs with a grim determination lining their faces.
The Valiant's block of powerful engines flared to life, pushing the massive warship past the debris of wrecked UNSC ships and ODPs. Flanking it on either side, golden shields flaring from the debris, was a battlegroup of sixty assorted frigates and destroyers, with the Marathon class Say My Name holding formation 'above' the Valiant. All of these ships angled towards the gathering of Covenant supercruisers. The modified warships were the bane of the Home Fleet...unlike the more common CAS Assault Carriers, the supercruisers didn't need to angle their hulls to fire their energy projectors...a fact driven home as Malta Station went up in a massive fireball.
Harper glared at that sight, and barked out new orders. The Valiant turned its ponderous bulk, and weapons ports opened along its flanks, as the three MACs mounted in the Heavy Cruiser's bow spun up. One of the Covenant warships turned too, the energy projectors on its bow gathering light for another volley.
"Sir?" the helmsman asked, her face going progressively paler as the Covenant weapons grew brighter.
"What are you doing Admiral?" a male voice asked, as the image of a Roman Centurion appeared on the holopad.
"Trust me on this Loginus," Harper replied, the AI looking distinctly bemused, "and hold course Lieutenant!"
The Valiant's powerful thrusters continued to push it towards the Covenant warships, the escorting battlegroup spreading out to make a smaller target for the other Covenant ships still battering away at the UNSC defenses. The one supercruiser that aimed at the Valiant battlegroup continued to grow larger in the viewport. The five energy projectors were growing brighter and brighter as they charged...and yet Harper refused to change his path.
Loginus watched and waited, his 'hands' in the systems of the mighty cruiser...ready to react faster than any human could do. Something that was a good thing, as Harper finally barked out a single order as the supercruiser's weapons reached the apex of their light.
"Fire starboard thrusters!"
The AI didn't even take a millisecond to process the order, before the massive warship was thrown to the side, as racks upon racks of emergency rocket thrusters physically pushed it off its original trajectory. White hot beams of energy passed through the position the Valiant had previously occupied, one cleaving through its shield and cutting a long gash through the old warships hull. The other beams continued on into space, inadvertently hitting an Assault Carrier, splitting the ship into pieces before its reactor detonated.
The Valiant, wounded by the beam, continued to approach the Covenant formation however, along with its large escort formation. Alarms rang through the bridge, as damage control tried to figure out how bad the hit was. Harper himself had a small gash on his head, where he had been thrown off his feet by the sudden jerking of his flagship. He didn't even seem to notice however, as a grim smile adorned his young (for his rank) face.
"Plasma cannons five through eleven are damaged," one of the crew called out, "emergency thrusters are gone, along with the starboard armor belt."
"Are the MACs still operational?" Harper asked calmly.
"Yes sir."
The grim smile remained on the Admiral's face, as he looked at the Covenant ship attempting to move behind its comrades, two of which were turning away from the Home Fleet, and towards the Valiant Battlegroup. Loginus' avatar bore a disapproving look, though one end of his aged face did twitch up slightly.
"That was quite possibly the dumbest move I have ever seen Admiral," the Centurion stated calmly, "weapons are ready, including the mines you have placed to be beamed. Say My Name reports they are ready to beam the weaponry on a moment's notice."
Harper nodded, "Fire everything we have at those bastards. And have the Say My Name beam the nukes inside their shields...give the bastards a nasty surprise."
Loginus gave a Roman salute, and his avatar winked out as the Valiant shook from the force of its three MAC cannons shooting out three shells. The Autumn modifications had been given to the few remaining Super Heavies, and that included Harper's command. Each of the cannons fired at a different target...the nine massive tungsten-carbide shells impacting on three of the supercruisers. Each of the vessels targeted by the Valiant lost their shields...providing the perfect opening for the Say My Name to beam the nuclear mines onto their hulls. White flashes of light announced the death of three of the Covenant's five supercruisers.
The rest of the battlegroup, from the lowly frigates to the Say My Name fired their own MACs at the remaining two supercruisers, along with a veritable swarm of golden plasma. The Staff Cannons blew through the, relatively, light hull armor of the supercruisers, detonating the last of the ships in a massive fireball.
The destruction of their most powerful warships sent a ripple through the Covenant lines, as vessels turned their bulk towards the Valiant group.
"Sir...perhaps now would be a good time to try the hyperdrive?" the XO spoke up.
Harper nodded, "Yes, yes it is. Helm, get us on the other side of that fleet. Comms, get a couple of those new Mark II Halcyons with us if possible."
The crew took to their tasks with a small spring in their steps. While the Valiant was wounded, they had managed to take down five of the most powerful Covenant ships outside their massive supercarriers. It was a small blow to the massive Covenant armada...but it was a blow nonetheless. And as the first wave of vengeful Covenant plasma approached Harper's battlegroup, hyperspace windows opened in front of the large formation. The ships lurched forward, vanishing into the portals.
When the battlegroup emerged a few seconds later, they were joined by a pair of newbuilt Halcyon-class cruisers, one of which had a small fire blazing on its flank. Nonetheless, both cruisers were battle-ready, and formed up with the Valiant. With three cruisers in addition to the swarm of smaller vessels, the group forced the Covenant armada to split their attention between two flanks. While the majority of the fleet continued to bombard the defenders of Earth, a not-insignificant number of vessels charged headlong at the Valiant battlegroup.
Their Brute captains were out for blood after the destruction of the rare supercruisers, and they weren't going to be denied their prize by any fancy tricks this time. A dozen CCS-class cruisers, and two CAS-class Assault Carriers lead the charge, with an equal number of smaller ships to the UNSC numbers. If this were a pre-Sigma Octanus battle, the UNSC forces would be screwed.
Luckily for humanity, it was not.
"Starboard shields are limited to 60 percent," Loginus reported, "don't expose that flank."
"MAC charge?" Harper asked.
"Thirty percent and rising. Luckily the capacitors were not damaged."
The Admiral nodded, "Have the Berlin and Tokyo move forward."
The two smaller cruisers moved ahead, to take the Valiant's place at the front of the line, while the larger warship recharged its weapons. Because of this, they were the first to be hit by the vengeful Covenant forces. The already damaged Berlin began to drift to the side, the fire on its hull growing larger. But both of the vessels still had power for their weapons, and six MAC shells flashed out, with Staff Cannon fire joining the heavy physical blows.
Two of the CCS-cruisers were shattered, while several corvettes were obliterated by concentrated Staff Fire. In return, the first of the Assault Carriers fired an energy projector beam, bisecting the Berlin, and knocking out the Tokyo's shield. Harper frowned at that, as the Say My Name moved to take the Berlin's place, with the various escort vessels covering their approach. Two Covenant cruisers and at least six corvettes for one cruiser would normally have been a great exchange rate...but right now, every single vessel was needed to counter the overwhelming Covenant numbers.
"Loginus, prep the Shivas for launch. Helm, plot another hyperspace jump above this battlegroup...make certain we are oriented to where we can use the MACs," the Admiral ordered, as a plan began to form in his head.
"Shiva's prepped for suicidal plan number two," the AI replied, gaining a glare from Harper as the Valiant jumped into hyperspace a second time.
Not even a second later, the ship dropped back into realspace over the Covenant formation. In a similar move to what the Odyssey had performed at Sigma Octanus, the massive cruiser began to fire every weapon it had at the Brutes, who scattered in an attempt to mitigate the damage. The MAC fire, instead of impacting on the CCS cruisers, instead hit one of the Assault Carriers. While the six-kilometer long vessel dwarfed even the mighty Valiant, its shields were unable to take the impact of nine MAC shells hitting simultaneously.
The shells punched clean through one end of the ship to the other, shattering armor and blowing apart plasma lines. Purple fire belched from the impact sights, providing an easy target for the secondary volley of Archer missiles and Staff Cannons. As the crippled ship drifted powerless, the Valiant fired its forward thrusters to arrest its momentum, and began to turn to show its undamaged port side to the Covenant warships that had started to further split, to focus on the Super-Heavy Cruiser and the remaining members of the battle group.
"One carrier down, one to go," the Admiral stated, a grimly satisfied look on his face.
A look that slowly slid off his face, as a truly enormous slipspace portal opened up...engulfing the Covenant ships, and the drifting Tokyo alike. The rest of the battlegroup barely avoided the portal, and the Valiant was only spared due to quick reactions on Loginus' part. And out of this portal came the one sight that had given the planners of this defense nightmares ever since the report from the Odyssey had come in...High Charity had come to play.
And it was not going to take any mercy, as weapons mounted on the station lashed out, vaporizing the Valiant and its battlegroup...
Cairo Station
As Admiral Harper died, Lord Hood watched on. His face was bandaged after Cairo took several hits early in the battle, but the old Admiral remained at his post even as the station was evacuated, its Marine detachment heading to the surface to provide support where Covenant ships had broken through the UNSC lines. And still, Hood watched. He watched as High Charity took shots from several ODPs, the massive station's shields holding through the first barrage.
Even when the shields failed after the second barrage, the massive size of the station allowed it to absorb the blows. Nor did it just take the blows and sit there...High Charity bristled with weaponry, energy projectors and massive torpedo launchers lancing out, blowing away ODPs and warships alike. The previously stalemated battle had tilted towards the Covenant, and there wasn't a damn thing that Hood could do about it.
"Lord Hood, we need to evacuate now," his aide said, as Athens Station was blown into a million pieces.
"Earth is our last stand," the Admiral repeated his words from earlier, "and we are losing."
Turning away from the window, the young woman saw her superiors face for the first time. Hood was not a young man, but he seemed to have aged even in the short span of this battle. As another hit impacted on Cairo's overtaxed shield grid, the golden light just brought the lines on the Admiral's face into stark relief.
"Everything is in SG-1 and Commander Keyes' hands now," Hood continued, "we have to hope they can gather enough reinforcements."
With that said, Hood keyed a code into the console beside him, rings shooting up around the Admiral and his aide...transporting them to the UNSC Iroquois...right as Cairo Station was blown apart by another barrage from High Charity.
Humanity was losing, and it was only a matter of time until the Covenant broke through the remaining lines...
AN: A couple things to note...
1. High Charity is twice the size of the fricken Death Star. If the Covenant didn't put a massive amount of weaponry and shielding on it, I'd be depressed with them. So yes, it took two S-MAC barrages to down the shields, and its basically an unstoppable juggernaut at the moment. Of course, it does have weakness' that can be exploited by a sufficiently clever team...like say SG-1... ;)
2. I liked writing Harper, but people have pointed out that nothing has really gone wrong. So time for some deaths.
3. Again, I hope everyone enjoyed the chapter! :D