Battle: Actium - (Redux!)

by Ian Otter

Before the Fall of Reach, the Battle of Actium was one of the bloodiest land battles of the Human-Covenant War. Experience the fighting through the eyes of those who fought, and died, in her defense. (Companion piece to my other story, Missing in Action) (Rewrite of an older story by the same name.)

11. Chapter 11: Operation: SCALPEL

This chapter is essentially a combination of chapters 17 and 18 of the original version.

---

Chapter 11: Operation: SCALPEL

Heliopolis Station, High Orbit, Actium
May 6, 2545
1107

Spaatz

" - and battleships Reşadiye, Fatih, and Lemnos were all destroyed with all hands lost. Other fatalities include the UNSC Liaoning, though search and rescue Pelicans were able to recover roughly seventy percent of her crews," Kanin recited to the room at large, a somber look on his furry face. "Casualties include: carrier São Paulo, who suffered damage to her cooling system resulting in an overload of all three of her fusion reactors, as well as heavy damage to her primary bridge, which disrupted her navigation."

"More casualties include Air Force carrier Iqbal, who was hit by a kamikaze Banshee on her forward bow resulting in thirty casualties and damage to her primary sensor and communications array. Air Force carrier Löwenhardt, who suffered an explosion inside one of her hanger bays resulting in hull breach and one hundred and thirteen casualties. Super-heavy cruiser Vanguard, who suffered massive damage to roughly eighty percent of her hull. Escort ships -"

Spaatz held up his hand, stopping Kanin before he could continue. "Did any of these casualties suffer from irreparable damage?" he demanded to know.

"No, sir. The Iqbal will require a replacement of her primary sensors, which can be accomplished within twelve hours although she is capable of operating with reduced efficiency on secondary systems. The Löwenhardt will require repairs for the hull breach, though work has already begun and the ship should be operating at maximum efficiency within twenty-seven hours. The São Paulo will need a complete overhaul of her reactors, though that will take, at minimum, seventy-two hours."

"The Kilkis, Salamis, and Vanguard will all require several days in the dry docks, though strictly speaking, as neither ship suffered damage to critical systems, both the Kilkis and the Salamis are capable of combat operations. Albeit, they would be operating at fifty percent operational status. The Vanguard, on the other hand, will require a minimum of seven Actium days of repair in the dry docks, though that time may be able to be reduced depending on crew availability and supplies."

"Priority number one is to get all battleships back up to within ninety percent combat operational status," Spaatz interrupted before Kanin could continue. "Priority number two is to get the reactors on the São Paulo replaced so she's able to use her MACs; that way, in a pinch, at the very least we can use her in an anti-ship role. I'm not particularly concerned about the Air Force carriers: they're not intended for frontline combat and besides, until we get more fighters, we're not going to be able to replace their air wings, making them nothing more than oversized anti-aircraft platforms."

Spaatz heard a slight cough and he glanced at the source. Aside from Kanin and himself, the chiefs of his intelligence departments, as well as Admirals D'Amboise and Amarchih, were also in attendance. The cough had originated from General Kendrick, the head of the Air Force Intelligence Command, so Spaatz turned to face him.

"You disagree, General Kendrick?"

"Not so much a disagreement, sir, but an inquiry," Kendrick corrected. "Could we not simply replace the Air Force carriers' air wings with the fighters from the Navy? After all, if you intend to use your carriers in an anti-ship role, then what would the point of having fighters be?"

"There aren't enough naval fighters to replace the air wings on both carriers," Spaatz replied. "Furthermore, I'm concerned about the size difference between the two different types of fighters, plus the difference in training between ground crews, the different logistic requirements of the fighters, etc."

Kendrick nodded and Spaatz waited until he fell silent before continuing.

"Let's move on. Covenant casualties. What do we know about them?"

Spaatz glanced at Admiral al-Cygni, head of Ambracia System's ONI branch, who took it as her cue to begin speaking.

"At the moment, my department is currently analyzing every scrap of data we've managed to obtain so far. Our current dilemma, however, is there is some confusion as to which ships were already in the system prior to this operation, and what arrived during the course of the battle. The task force that was hidden by the heavy cruiser for example: we're still attempting to determine whether or not they arrived at the same time as the cruiser did and have just been hidden this entire time, or they're ships that were already in the system and only moved into hiding once the Covenant realized what the situation was, or if they're a brand new task force that arrived as reinforcements and were immediately moved into hiding. The last option is probably the most likely, as the heavy cruiser was unaccounted for during much of the initial stages of the battle, and with most of our reconnaissance and surveillance grid having been damaged by the fighting, if the Covenant had emerged from slipspace around, say, Tenedos, we could have easily missed their arrival."

Kendrick leaned forward. "So, do we have a count of the amount of damage TF Whiskey inflicted on the Covenant?"

"We have an idea, but no specific numbers at this juncture," al-Cygni admitted.

"None of which matters because we know for certain we weren't able to disable, much less damage, any of those cruisers, making this entire operation a failure," Spaatz snapped.

"With all due respect sir, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a complete failure," al-Cygni argued. "Preliminary data does suggest TF Whiskey managed to inflict just as much damage on the Covenant as they did to us."

"Furthermore, sir," Kendrick added, "we are still receiving reinforcements. The No. 97 Strategic Airlift Group just arrived in system, bringing not only an entirely new carrier and air wings, but our first ground troop reinforcements: the Army's 222nd Airborne Division."

"Unfortunately, that's not as beneficial as it may seem," Harper interjected. "The 222nd was just rotated out of the Newsaka Campaign roughly a week ago and were on their way back to garrison for rest and refit before they were diverted here. As such, they're not at full strength.

"How bad is it?" al-Cygni asked.

Harper shrugged. "Not counting individual augmentations from the Air Force?" he said, tilting his head in Kendrick's direction. "The division is only at roughly twenty-four percent of their total authorized strength."

"That's still a little over seven thousand soldiers, is it not?" Kendrick pointed out. "Granted, most of that is probably rear echelon support troops, but still, not an insignificant number."

"Yes, but how many soldiers have the Covenant managed to deploy onto the surface?" al-Cygni countered.

"That hardly matters at the moment because while the Covenant cruisers continue to hold position over their landing site, they will be able to continue deploying ground troops indefinitely," Spaatz pointed out. "And with those cruisers in the way, we won't be able to deploy our reinforcements to where they're needed most. No, our focus right now is to figure out how to dislodge those cruisers. And what I want to know is how those ships manage to survive the full force of TF Whiskey without a scratch. Any ideas?"

"Yes, sir. We think we have a pretty good idea as to what happened," al-Cygni stated.

She called forth an image of a single battlecruiser, one that Spaatz recognized as target 1-Delta, the ship the Kilkis and the Salamis had been tasked with to destroy. Al-Cygni pressed a button and zoomed in on the ship's dorsal hull, specifically on the same structures Spaatz had noticed prior to opening fire.

"These structures attached to this ship are Covenant shield generators," al-Cygni reported, and suddenly Spaatz realized why they had seemed so familiar. "We've seen them in the past before: the Covenant generally use them to protect their ground installations whenever they set up a main operating base during their ground invasions, though this is the first time we've ever seen them installed on a ship before in this manner, as they would be redundant. We believe the Covenant were using these generators to supercharge the shields on all of their cruisers, a sort of overshield if you will, similar to what Elites have been observed using in ground invasions and ship boarding actions."

Spaatz frowned as he called forth an image of the battlecruiser in question he had captured himself during the battle. The use of extra shield generators would help explain some of the Covenant's actions, but not all of them. "This ship doesn't appear to have any extra power generators installed, nor did sensors registered any additional power sources aboard that ship."

"That is correct, sir."

"Then where the hell did the Covenant get all their extra power from?" Spaatz demanded to know. "Those extra shield generators would have required an absurd amount of power, especially if they were providing coverage for all four cruisers. That sort of power would require... an external source at the very least."

"You are correct in that regard, sir, the power requirements for such an activity would exceed that which the ship's onboard reactors would have been able to supply, especially if they also wished to fire their weapons. How they managed to accomplish that, sir… that's a little harder to answer as Covenant technology is still a bit of an unknown factor to us."

Spaatz sighed. "Give me your best guess."

"The Covenant were somehow able to interconnect their power generators. In simplest terms, the fusion reactors on all four cruisers acted as one, feeding each other power."

Spaatz blinked in confusion at that. "If the Covenant are able to do something like that, how come this is the first time we're seeing it?"

"Well, sir, aside from the fact that said modifications are usually frowned upon by the Covenant's Command – something about how all their technology has been 'perfected' already by their Ancestors and thus, it would be impossible and even hearsay to suggest they can be improved on – we believe there would be significant drawbacks to the Covenant's current tactic," al-Cygni explained. "The primary drawback would be that interlinking their generators means only the one ship that's receiving the power is able to do anything: power shields, charge weapons, or even move. The other ships are essentially reliant on the shield ship for safety."

"The upside to this tactic is that – as we've seen – the shields generated by the shield ship are absurdly powerful. Furthermore, it allows the other ships in the fleet the ability to focus on other tasks; for example, transporting and delivering massive amounts of soldiers and material needed in order to establish a fully functioning and operational base, as you've now got less room being taken up by things like weapons and munitions. Given what we suspected about the Covenant intentions here, it's entirely possible the Covenant had planned to beach one or more of their cruisers on the surface to create an instant forward operating base only, our unexpected occupation of this planet long before their arrival has thrown those plans out the window."

Spaatz took a moment to absorb everything al-Cygni had just told him, before speaking up. "So, what I'm hearing, Admiral, is our primary focus should be on target 1-Delta. If we're able to destroy that cruiser… the rest of the fleet will be left defenseless?"

"Not… entirely, sir," al-Cygni admitted. "As far as we can tell, the remaining cruisers still have their shield generators installed, they're just not turned on. If 1-Delta were to suddenly be destroyed, there would probably be a small window in where the remaining cruisers are defenseless, but it would only last until they restart their reactors and reactivate their systems."

There was a shuffling noise and Spaatz glanced over his shoulder to see D'Amboise leaning forward. "How small of a window are we talking about here, Jilan?"

Al-Cygni glanced at Kendrick, who gave a helpless shrug. "Best guess, sir? We're probably looking at a five minute window."

D'Amboise frowned. "That's not a lot of time."

"Again, sir, it's just a guess. We might have more time or! conversely, we might have less. It's… well, it's difficult to say for certain."

"As interesting as this is, I feel it's prudent to remind everyone that none of this really matters because we don't have any way of destroying 1-Delta in the first place," Spaatz loudly interrupted. "TF Whiskey is clearly in no shape to attempt anymore assaults on those cruisers and even if they were, we already hit them with everything we had and it didn't work. We need another solution." He glanced around the room. "Suggestions?"

The room was deafeningly and depressingly quiet for a few long minutes, before someone abruptly cleared their throat. Spaatz looked around to see Colonel Harper, deputy commander of the UNSC Army's INSCOM, climbing to his feet.

"Sir, I may have something that could prove to be a solution to our current dilemma."

He gestured at something off screen. At once, his hologram expanded to reveal two men standing beside him: one wearing the service uniform of the UNSC Navy, the other, Army. Both uniforms were completely sterile of all badges and identification markings, causing Spaatz to instantly be wary as that could only mean one thing: both men were from black ops.

"Colonel Harper," Spaatz began, and he found himself half rising out of chair, a move he immediately suppressed. "Care to explain yourself?"

"Apologies, Admiral Spaatz, for the interruption," the man in the Army uniform began before Harper could. "My companion and I were monitoring your situation here in the system, and we felt it was best to offer you our help."

"My name is Major Den Volkov, of the UNSC Army's Special Warfare Group Three," the man continued before Spaatz could question what he meant by 'monitoring.' "Sir, I'm sending you and your staff some classified files that I believe you ought to read."

Spaatz glanced at Harper, who gave a single nod of agreement, before glancing around the room at everyone else, all of whom seemed be as mystified as he was. Because of that, Spaatz decided to play along. "Alright…"

There was a mute ping from his console, and Spaatz glanced at Kanin, who blinked once before nodding, verifying the file was safe to open. Feeling rather confused and honestly a little bit worried, Spaatz accessed the file and quickly began to read. As he did, he could feel his eyebrows rising in disbelief.

"What the fuck…" he heard someone mutter, and Spaatz couldn't help but agree with the sentiment. If what was being said on these files was true, then… well, Spaatz in truth needed a few moments to work through the implications. Fortunately, not everyone in his staff was as slow as he was.

"Is this legitimate?" al-Cygni suddenly demanded, and Spaatz looked up to see her addressing the naval officer standing next to Volkov. "And if so, who the hell gave you authorization to share this information?"

"That's Admiral Parangosky's seal of approval, ma'am," the man quickly replied. "As for the legitimacy of the contents, I assure you, ma'am, they're real: I've seen them in action."

Spaatz glanced up at that.

"And who the hell are you again?" he demanded to know, not caring about how rude he sounded.

The man snapped to attention.

"Lieutenant Commander Stephen Luzader, sir, ONI Prowler Corps and captain of the UNSC Moonlight Sonata," the man rattled off. "Hull classification number PRO-41673."

He started to say something else, but Spaatz cut him off by lifting his index finger. He glanced at Kanin, who subtly shook his head: no ship by that name or hull number appeared in the registration, or the records. Which meant whatever Major Volkov and Commander Luzader had been up to, it had been kept off the books. And Spaatz hated being left in the dark.

He glanced at al-Cygni. "Did you know about this?" he demanded.

"No, sir," al-Cygni replied with a shake of her head.

"And why the hell not? You're the head of the local ONI branch. Aren't you supposed to know everything your department is doing in your AO?"

"Commander Luzader here reports to Section Three, sir, while I'm with Section One. Section Three answers directly to Admiral Parangosky, and no one else, sir. Commander Luzader was under no obligation to inform me of his presence here in the system," al-Cygni reported, her voice sounding strained, and Spaatz could tell she was just as unhappy about this development as he was.

Spaatz snorted. "You guys ever consider this is the reason why no one trust ONI?" he asked out loud as he started pacing the room (and when had he stood up?) "Your departments won't even talk to each other, much less anyone else."

Both al-Cygni and Luzader remained silent, more than likely picking up on the rhetorical nature of Spaatz's comment.

Spaatz abruptly paused in his pacing to glance at Harper. "And how did you know about this, Colonel? You're not even the CO of your department!"

"Due to multiple tragic and very public mishaps at the beginning of the Insurrection, Army Command mandated that both INSCOM and Army Special Operations Command take steps to ensure greater integration in order to prevent our black op units from running missions counter to one another," Harper explained. "As part of that integration, all ASOC field commanders are required to report their presence- if not their reasoning – to the commanding officer of whatever local INSCOM branch there might be. In this situation, that happened to be me."

Spaatz glared at him. "And you didn't think to inform me?"

To Spaatz's annoyance, Harper looked completely unrepentant. "With all due respect, sir, you didn't have the security clearance to know."

Spaatz gaped at him. "I am a four star admiral in charge of an entire military system and in command of one of the strongest military forces in the entirety of UNSC controlled space! How do I not have security clearance!?"

"Simply put, sir, you weren't 'in the know.'"

That temporarily put a stop to Spaatz's rant. The "need to know" aspect of security clearance was just another layer of security, a way to compartmentalize classified information. Not everyone with security clearance had access to everything, just the things they "needed to know" for their job. That way, in the event someone's credentials were ever compromised, a hacker or foreign agent would only have access to that one particular individual's files, as opposed to being able to compromise the entire system.

Spaatz understood the thinking, and normally he would have agreed with it. But under the circumstances...

"I think I would have needed to know there was a team of highly trained special forces operatives running operations in my area of responsibility," Spaatz bellowed. "It might have altered my plans, wouldn't you agree, Colonel!?"

"Perhaps. But you know just as well as I do, sir, that's up to the Security Council, not me," Harper calmly pointed out.

That answer didn't really mollify Spaatz in any way shape or form, but since there was nothing inaccurate about Harper's statement, Spaatz found he couldn't retort. So instead, he busied himself with the files Volkov had handed to him.

"And who's the fucking moron who decided to name this program after a bunch of ancient warriors, whose entire reputation has been vastly overblown by popular media and pop culture?" Spaatz exclaimed.

There was a silent cough that caught Spaatz's attention and turned around to see Kendrick leaning forward in his seat.

"Sir, with all due respect, I think we're losing focus of the topic at hand," he began. "I'm sure the 'Spartan' name was chosen at random, and not necessarily indicative of the organization's capabilities."

Spaatz abruptly stopped him before he could continue. "Did you know about them, General!?"

Kendrick visibly bit back a sigh. "No, sir. But then again, that doesn't really fall under the purview of the Air Force. While the Army is focused on destroying the Insurgency, the Marine Corps on developing homegrown technology, and the Navy on unlocking the mysteries of the Covenant, the Air Force has been exploring... alternative avenues of research."

The mysterious way Kendrick said that last part gave Spaatz pause and he immediately called to mind the classified program General Carter had worked on for most of her military career, and he couldn't help but wonder if they were somehow related. He knew better than to ask though. While AFIC didn't possess ONI's casually ruthless reputation, that's not to say they weren't dangerous in their own right.

"Furthermore, sir," Kendrick continued while Spaatz was distracted. "Even if I had known about these Spartans, I have to ask: would it matter now?"

Spaatz sighed. Truth be told, it ultimately didn't matter if he didn't know this information five hours ago or even five minutes ago, what mattered is that he was aware of it now. And as much as he would have liked to continue ranting and raving like an ensign fresh out of the academy whining about how he hadn't been saluted by the ship's master chief petty officer, he had other priorities to worry about.

"What exactly do you do, Major Volkov," Spaatz finally asked, noticing, out of the corner of his eye, the man in question snapping to attention. "I've never heard of Special Warfare Group Three."

"It's a joint military special operations unit under Army control, sir, though despite what Colonel Harper stated, we actually report directly to SPECWARCOM, not ASOC," Volkov smoothly replied. "We're tasked with missions that one individual branch would not be able to accomplish by themselves. Most of our assets are drawn from within the Army itself, however often times we work in conjunction with other elements: local law enforcement, Colonial Militia armored units, Air Force CAS and security elements, or in this case," Volkov nodded at Luzader, "Navy operatives."

"But according to these files you've given me, most of your support units have yet to arrive in system," Spaatz noted as he flipped through the documents. "In fact, if I've read this correctly, it would seem your ground team consists of a grand total of... three operators."

"That is correct, sir."

Spaatz raised an eyebrow. "Then, forgive me Major, but I fail to see how three... Spartans," he said the name with a bit of distaste, "could hope to destroy an entire battlecruiser by themselves."

"Without going into too many details, sir, I would like to point out, this is not without precedent," Volkov noted. "And furthermore, sir, on a more personal note, if you had seen what these Spartans have done, there would be no doubt in your mind of their capabilities."

Spaatz frowned. "So, you've worked with these Spartans before, have you?"

"Yes, sir. We've run a couple of counterinsurgency operations in the past with their assistance."

The mention of counterinsurgency operations abruptly rang a bell in Spaatz's mind. Wasn't there some sort of scandal involving Army special operational forces committing war crimes on an Innie held world a few years ago? He specifically remembered a Lieutenant Colonel Volk or Vulcan being involved. Was it possible this was the same man?

Of course, Spaatz couldn't remember. Truth be told, once the war against the Covenant had truly begun in earnest, he had simply stopping paying any heed to the Insurgency.

Shaking his head, Spaatz turned his attention back to the topic at hand. Three operatives destroying an entire battlecruiser by themselves? Seemed unlikely. But then again, it had been his experience most officers wouldn't dare make such a bold claim without at least some evidence to support it. Oh sure, officers, like all soldiers, enjoyed embellishing their accomplishments every now and then, but nothing to this degree, which made Spaatz slightly more inclined to believe it.

But still, three men? Or more specifically, two men and one woman? That didn't seem likely.

Spaatz glanced at his intelligence chiefs. "Well? Thoughts? Opinions? I'm open to suggestions."

"Sir, I'm free to admit that this is not the first time I've ever heard of Spartans before," al-Cygni began. "I'm also free to admit that I've even read some of their low clearance after-action reports. Without delving too deeply, there was nothing in those reports that would lead me to believe Major Volkov's team would be anything but successful."

She sat back and Kendrick quickly took her place.

"Sir, I hate to be the one to point this out, but whether or not Major Volkov is accurate in his assessment of his team is irrelevant to the topic at hand. The truth of the matter is, we don't have a lot of other options," Kendrick pointed out. "And while I don't want to minimize the personal risk for the operatives involved, in the grand scheme of things, utilizing these Spartans is the only option that possesses the lowest amount of risk to our forces, while offering the highest rewards."

Spaatz nodded in acknowledgement, then glanced at Harper.

"Personally, sir, I'm more concerned about the execution of the plan," Harper stated. "Major Volkov has given us a rough outline involving his team boarding the target and destroying it from within with a tactical nuke, however he hasn't explained how his team will be able to even make it aboard the target in the first place. Commander Luzader, will the stealth capabilities of your ship allow you to approach undetected?"

Spaatz glanced at Luzader, who grimaced.

"I'm afraid not, sirs," Luzader admitted. "While the Sonata is equipped with the latest stealth technology, those still work best from afar. If we were to close that distance, the likelihood of detection by the Covenant would increase exponentially with every kilometer we advanced. Maybe more, given there is nothing but dead space between us and Covenant positions. In order for us to maximize our stealth capabilities, we would need background clutter such as other ships or even debris to help mask our approach."

Harper nodded, as if that was what he expected.

"Furthermore, even if you could approach undetected, there's still the question as to how you would even be able to pass through the shield in order to get on the ship's hull," he pointed out. "You would need the fleet to disable the shield...but if we could do that, we wouldn't need your team, Major."

"Certainly seems to be a true Catch-22," Kendrick agreed. "We need your team to destroy that ship to disable their shield so that the fleet can advance, but in order for your team to board, we need that shield disabled."

"That's not entirely true, sir. Correct me if I'm wrong, but at the moment, the Covenant are continually reinforcing their landing site with troops via a gravity lift?" Volkov asked.

Spaatz automatically glanced at Kanin, who nodded in affirmation.

"Then, as I'm sure you're all aware, in order to accomplish that, the Covenant would need to weaken their shields enough to allow solid matter to pass through them. That's a window my men could easily exploit."

"You think the Covenant won't notice three small objected headed towards one of their ships at high velocity?"

"They won't if they're preoccupied by other targets."

Spaatz raised an eyebrow. "You're talking about launching a distraction attack? A feint like that will only work if the attack is coming from the same direction. Given how close the cruisers are stationed to the planet, that doesn't give our warships a lot of room to maneuver, even if I did have warships to spare for an attack like that, which I don't anymore due to the sheer amount of casualties TF Whiskey has taken."

"Could we use fighters, sir?"

Spaatz immediately shook his head as he turned to Kanin. "No, fighters alone wouldn't have the firepower to damage those cruisers, even if their shields were down."

"What if they were reinforced by corvettes, sir?" D'Amboise suggested. "I have a number of corvettes – about a dozen or so – that I've been using mostly as civilian evacuation ship escorts and search and rescue craft as they don't have the firepower or armor to stand against even the smallest Covenant warships. However, if they were reinforced by Broadsword and Wombat fighters, as well as Longsword gunships… if our fighters could screen them, the corvettes could then act as heavy fire support."

"Plus, because of their size,"a holographic image of Actium abruptly appeared in front of D'Amboise and he began pointing at it, "they could skim along Actium's atmosphere without too much issue, and then use the debris field of the remains of JTF Byzas as cover to mask their approach from Covenant long-range sensors. With that many ships, surely Commander Luzader's Prowler would get lost in the mix," he suggested, glancing at Luzader for confirmation, who nodded in agreement. "Once the task force gets close enough, they hit the heavy cruiser with everything they got. And if some of the 'missiles' were to 'accidentally' get fired at 1-Delta instead… well, Covenant ECM always did cause our missiles to head in random directions."

"That could be arranged, sir," Luzader immediately volunteered. "We are equipped with a number of booster frames that could be modified for a stealth approach. It could also provide useful as a vehicle for extract."

There was a moment of silence as everyone considered D'Amboise's proposal.

"Do we even have that many fighters left?" Kendrick finally asked.

D'Amboise shrugged.

"We'll have to pull from the surface garrisons," he admitted. "Probably deplete most – if not all – the fighter squadrons stationed on the planet."

"Ah. Then, what are the ground troops going to use for close air support?"

"Actium Air Force has plenty of atmospheric gunships and attack aircraft, and every UNSC Army division has their own rotary-wing air support," Spaatz answered. "As long as we can maintain air superiority – or at least, air parity – our ground forces will be fine. However, in order to reach that point, these cruisers haveto go."

He sighed. "Unfortunately, I don't see any other way to accomplish that besides relying on, this… Argon Team. Therefore…" Spaatz straightened, causing everyone else in the room to automatically follow suit. "Admiral D'Amboise, make the arrangements. Whatever you need, just get it done. Major Volkov, consult with Kanin to acquire the nukes you need, then prep your ground team."

"Operation: SCALPEL is a go."

XXXXX

Medium Actium Orbit

Zelda

"All pilots: we're approaching the debris field. Maintain your spacing and keep your radar pings to a minimum; remember, we're attempting to mask our approach to the Covenant as long as possible."

Zelda grunted to himself as he sat up straighter in his seat and stared out of his cockpit window at the small debris field that laid several kilometers in front of him. When the Covenant ships had settled into position over Actium, in order to protect themselves from random strikes as well as clear their fields of fire, they had taken the ruins of what remained of JTF Byzas and shoved them into a small section of space. And it was that debris field the aircraft of Task Force Whatever-the-fuck-they-were-called-now was now approaching.

"Can't believe we're actually going through with this stupid operation," Zelda muttered out loud.

"What are you worried about, dude? It's only a tactical air force's worth of fighters and a handful of Navy corvettes against four of the strongest ships the Covenant can build. What's there to worry about?" Odessa replied and Zelda snorted in amusement at his sarcastically jaunty tone.

"Don't forget: four ships that just kicked the ever-living shit out of the Navy, so now it's up to the Air Force to save the day. Again," Zelda replied with a sneer, before groaning. "But seriously: who's fucking brilliant idea was this anyways?"

"I know, right? I mean, the odds alone of our success are – "

"Cut the chatter, gentlemen!" Bellum unexpectedly snapped, and Zelda mutely swore as he realized he had accidently transmitted his complaints across the squadron's dedicated channel, as opposed to his and Odessa's private one; he must have been more tired than he realized if he hadn't noticed that minor detail. "This operation is direct from FLEETCOM HQ: you got a problem with it, bring it up with Admiral Spaatz. In the meantime, shut up and do your fucking jobs, pilots."

Zelda couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at Bellum's uncharacteristically snappish tone. Despite her call sign, even he had to admit Bellum was usually more calm and collected, if a bit stiffer than he would have liked. And it was because of that unusual anger, Zelda reflexively found himself shutting up and focusing on flying through the debris field.

"Speaking of doing our jobs…" Zelda heard one of the pilots from his squadron – he couldn't tell who – awkwardly ask, "Lead, any sign of movement from the Covenant?"

"Hard to say: the same debris field that's preventing the Covenant from picking up on our approach is preventing us from figuring out what they're up to," Bellum admitted. "We're piggybacking off sensors from other assets in the system, but they don't have the best view. Best they can tell us right now is the cruisers are still holding position, which suggest they haven't detected us yet."

"Any signs of picket groups or combat air patrols?"

"No idea," Bellum tiredly replied. Then, in a small voice that suggested she hadn't meant to broadcast out loud, she added, "Really hope not. Don't think our squadron can handle too many more casualties."

Zelda immediately grimaced, as it suddenly occurred to him the source of Bellum's distress. He resisted the urge to look around.

Even though it had scarcely been three hours since the Covenant first emerged in the system, roughly half the squadron had already been shot down. Not all were dead - some having been fortunate enough to not only have ejected in time, but also be recovered by CSAR and were simply awaiting a new Broadsword – but a few pilots, including Betros, had been killed outright. For Zelda, the losses bothered him less than they probably should have as, outside of Odessa and maybe one or two other people, he didn't really care much for anyone else in the squadron. But for someone like Bellum? Even he had to acknowledge that it had to be rough.

"It's why I don't bother making friends with anyone but the best pilots," Zelda muttered to himself. "Everyone else is a just a target, only they don't fucking know it."

"All squadrons, this is Task Force Leader: we're approaching the edge of the field. All pilots are clear to reactivate their radars. All aircraft, standby for combat; we're going loud from this point forward."

Zelda was snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of the task force leader's voice, and Zelda absentmindedly reached out to trigger his radar. It took a few seconds to reactivate, but then –

"Attention all aircraft, forward elements are picking up enemy warships a thousand klicks just outside the debris fields: two Covenant frigates, designate 1 and 2-Golf! They're launching fighters! All squadrons, standby to be engaged!"

Zelda couldn't help but let it a small sigh at that.

"Here we go again," he muttered under his breath as he began arming missiles and reached for his throttle.

"6, what are you doing?"

Zelda jumped and glanced around: he was the only fighter his squadron moving forward into battle formation. "Er…"

"6, we're on escort duty, remember?" Bellum told him, sounding irritated. "Get back in formation and stick close to the corvettes."

Zelda mutely swore under his breath. He had honestly forgotten what his squadron's role in this operation was, but aside from that, he hated escort duty.

With an irritated sigh, Zelda grabbed his stick and directed his fighter back towards his group even as Bellum continued to bark out, "All Omega Flight pilots, stay close to our corvette. 1st Assault Wing will punch a hole through the enemy fighters for us. Standby."

Settling back into formation, Zelda watched as elements of 1st Assault Wing – which including a number of Marine Corps Broadswords escorted by Air Force Wombats and reinforced by Navy Longsword strike fighters – separated from the main group and headed straight for the incoming Covenant Banshees and Seraphs.

"Sounds like somebody wasn't paying attention during the briefing," he heard Odessa taunt.

"Shut the fuck up, Odessa," Zelda snarled. "You hate escort duty just as much as I do."

"True," Odessa allowed. "But given our casualties, we're not exactly primed to do anything else."

Zelda gave a noncommittal shrug at that, even though he knew Odessa couldn't see him. It wasn't his problem other pilots couldn't keep up.

However, Zelda was saved from having to respond as the lead elements of 1st Assault Wing suddenly came within weapon's range of the Covenant and immediately open fired. The void of space was abruptly filled with contrails, tracers, and superheated plasma as the Covenant fighters promptly returned fire, and the two groups maintained their formation up until they reached within a hundred kilometers of each other before splitting apart into pairs in preparation for a dogfight.

As the two sides collided, Zelda found himself turning away from the spectacle, already bored: both because he wasn't participating in the fight so the outcome was less concerning to him than it would have been otherwise, and because at this point in his career, he'd been in enough dogfights – simulated and real – that he knew exactly how this was going to play out. There were so many ways for a fight to go, after all. Instead, Zelda turned his gaze towards the rest of the task force, all of whom were waiting for their opening to brush past the Covenant fighter screen and head towards their actual objective.

Unlike 1st Assault Wing, many of whose squadrons had been drawn from surface garrisons and thus were at full strength, the rest of the task force was made up of fighters and ships that had been pulled from units that had been fighting since WINTER CONTIGENCY had first been declared in the system. As a result, it was an interesting conglomeration of ships: Air Force Longsword gunships whose fleet carriers had been destroyed or damaged leaving them without an assignment, Marine and Navy strike fighters who had turned out to be superfluous for one reason or another, heck there were even a couple of squadrons of Shortsword bombers though whether they were Air Force or Navy ones Zelda couldn't tell as he was too far away to see their markings. All in all, despite himself, Zelda was kind of curious to see if this mishmash of ships would actually be able to accomplish what High Command wanted them to accomplish: the destruction or damaging of at least one of the Covenant's capital ships.

"Lead to all ships."

Zelda blinked as a voice over the radio cut through his thoughts.

"While 1AW is keeping the Covenant's fighter screen occupied, all remaining ships of the task force will proceed onward to the objective. All ships and fighters: assume attack pattern gamma six, and hit target 1-Echo head on!"

"Lead, what about those frigates?" Zelda heard someone else ask.

"Once we get within weapons range, 2nd Assault Wing with break off and keep them pinned down"

Zelda felt himself grinning as he reached for his throttle.

"Finally," he muttered to himself, but then paused as a thought occurred to him and he quickly reached for this radio. "Hey, Odessa: which wing are we part of again?"

Odessa let out a tired sigh. "You really need to start paying attention during our briefings, dude."

"Hey, fuck you: I pay attention!" Zelda protested. "I just… um… forgot, is all."

Zelda could almost hear Odessa rolling his eyes.

"We're part of 3rd Assault Wing, dude," he reported as the entire formation began to speed in the direction of the Covenant cruisers. On the very edge of his radar, Zelda could see two large red dots representing the Covenant's frigates moving to intercept. "Our job is to ensure these damn corvettes get within firing range of the objective. Everyone else is just window dressing."

"So… we're not attacking those frigates?" Zelda asked, even as a large number of Longsword gunships broke away from the main group and headed towards the Covenant frigates in order to intercept their interception.

"No, Zelda, stay in formation."

"Damn," Zelda enviously muttered. "How come everyone else gets the fun assignments?"

Odessa didn't bother responding so Zelda turned his attention towards 2nd Assault Wing which was rapidly speeding towards the enemy frigates. Zelda could see both ships turning towards the incoming fighters, but before the Covenant had a chance to do anything else, muzzle flashes began lighting up the hulls of the Longsword gunships as they sent scores of 110mm and 120mm shells in the direction of the enemy frigates. Almost at once, the Covenant's point defense turrets began to get to work, but with a much faster initial velocity than missiles, only a few shells were destroyed before they slammed into the Covenant's energy shields, causing them to visibly ripple.

Realizing the futility in trying to intercepting the fast moving shells, the Covenant hurriedly turned their turrets to the gunships themselves but, unlike Broadswords, Longswords were dedicated space fighters and were equipped with a larger amount of maneuvering thrusters, allowing them to dodge the incoming laser fire with relative ease.

Knowing that just watching the battle alone was only giving him half the picture, Zelda hurriedly switched his radio over to the channel the gunships were using so he could listening in to what the pilots were saying.

" – see if you can't keep 1-Golf occupied!" one of the squadron leaders – possibly the wing leader – was ordering. "Bayonet, focus fire on the frigate's plasma turrets, Dagger Squadron: kill the frigate's engines! Balisong, go after their reactor!"

"What about those shields!?"

"Napoleon Squadron is moving in from below – if those Shortswords are able to drop their entire payload onto the frigate's shields, it should be enough to knock them out! We just need to keep the Covenant distracted long enough for them not to notice Napoleon!"

"Understood, Leader!"

"Copy that, Leader!"

"Squadrons: attack!"

Zelda watched as nearly three dozen Longsword gunships swooped in and rapidly fire on the frigate. The Covenant attempted to evade, causing a fair number of shells to miss due to their unguided nature, but with the frigates being roughly fifteen times longer and nearly five times wider than the attacking Longswords, inevitably the vast majority of shells hit something, even if that something wasn't exactly what their pilots had been aiming for. Still, at this point, any damage done to the Covenant's shields was better than nothing at all.

The Covenant were of course firing back with everything they had - from pulse lasers to plasma turrets – and it wasn't long before explosions began ripping through the ranks of the Longswords as the gunships couldn't hope to evade forever.

"Taking fire, taking fire!"

"Watch out, watch out - !"

"Bayonet-9, break left now!"

"This is Dagger-2, I'm hit! Breaking off, attempting to stabilize thrusters!"

"MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY! Bayonet-12 is going down, Bayonet-12 is going down!"

"Eject, 12, EJECT!"

"Copy – EJECTING!"

Zelda looked around until he spotted a single Longsword gunship falling out of formation, engine's having flared out, and a smoking hole in its left wing. Even as he watched, a cloud of white gas suddenly squirted out from the gunship's cockpit before the canopy was abruptly blown out and an entire escape capsule carrying all four crew members of the gunship was ejected from the doomed ship, seconds before it exploded.

"Task Force Leader, this is 2nd Assault Wing," Zelda heard someone say over the radio. "I got birds down, and pilots in the open. Requesting immediate deployment of search and rescue birds to come and pick them up, over."

"Copy that 2AW, deploying CSAR now, break. Task Force Leader to UNSC Gladius: deploy your SKT-13 and extract those downed pilots!"

"Understood, Lead, deploying our shuttlecraft now, over."

Zelda glanced over to the Navy corvette his squadron was escorting in time to see their dorsal hull hangar doors opening, allowing a single SKT-13 shuttlecraft modified for search and rescue to take off. As a fighter pilot, Zelda cared very little for ground-based, infantry-type units the media always seemed to love as they were nothing more than distractions for the real war that was taking place in the skies and in orbit whenever a Covenant invaded a human colony. However, if there was one group that had Zelda's absolute respect, it was combat search and rescue crewmembers, Air Force or otherwise.

"Go get 'em Guardian Angels," Zelda muttered under his breath as the lightly armed shuttle took off in the direction of the fighting.

His radar abruptly let out a small ping and Zelda glanced back at the battle to see an entire squadron of twelve Shortswords approaching the frigate from its rear, attempting to use the exhaust from the frigate's engines to hide from the frigate's own sensors.

"This is Napoleon Squadron," the squadron leader announced over the radio. "We're beginning our attack run now."

The Shortswords swooped in. Distracted by the three dozen or so Longswords still swarming them, the Covenant crew of the frigate failed to notice the danger until it was too late.

"BOMBS AWAY, BOMBS AWAY, BOMBS AWAY!"

Immediately, nearly a hundred and forty four Mark 210 general purpose bombs - or roughly half of the entire squadron's payload – came shooting out from all of the Shortswords' bomb bays, the bombs having been ejected when the bomb bay was deliberately and allowed to rapidly decompress by the pilots. Ignoring as the Shortswords quickly pulled away, Zelda instead focused his attention on the bombs that were headed for the frigate. For a moment, the frigate crew failed to react; almost as if the Covenant couldn't decide whether they should try to shoot the bombs out of the air, or fire at the retreating Shortswords. Whatever the reason though, that delay proved to be costly as, before they could make up their minds, the bombs struck home.

A series of flashes erupted from the top of the shield, which was able to absorb the hits of roughly a third of the bombs before they completely failed, allowing the remaining ordnance to strike directly against the hull. As the bombs weren't designed to penetrate armor, the damage done to the frigate's superstructure was mostly superficial, however the fireball from the explosion as well as the shrapnel thrown around was enough to knock several systems offline.

"Shields are down! Bayonet, Dagger, and Balisong: TAKE OUT THE DAMN SHIP! Napoleon, standby to divert to 1-Golf! All other squadrons, with me!"

As Zelda and the remaining ships of the task force flew past the fighting, Zelda glanced over his shoulder to see the Covenant frigate slowly beginning to disintegrate as the gunships systematically picked the warship apart with a combination of anti-ship missiles and heavy cannons. Under his visor, Zelda grinned: despite the damage the Covenant was doing to the UNSC forces, by Zelda's count, the UNSC was doing just as much – if not more – damage to the Covenant.

Now if they could only take out those cruisers…

"3rd Assault Wing, lock all weapons onto target 1-Echo and standby to ripple fire on my mark," someone ordered and Zelda glanced forward at the Covenant heavy cruiser holding position in high orbit several thousand kilometers above him. Even at this distance, he could tell just how massive the ship was, and he found himself involuntary licking his lips out of nervousness.

"Jesus, look at the size of that thing," Zelda heard 303 mutter.

"Cut the chatter!" Bellum immediately demanded. "Lead to all pilots: anyone see any movement, any sign of reaction from the Covenant's end?"

"Lead, 5: I tally negative movement," Odessa replied. "Lead, I don't like this; it's a little too quiet around here. Even with the frigates, a ship that size should have its own compliment of fighters. And where's all the goddamn flak?"

"I agree, 5," Bellum replied and Zelda could hear her nodding. "We should- SHIT!"

Zelda automatically jammed his yoke to the side as the Covenant cruiser abruptly opened up on the approaching squadrons with everything they had. Pulse laser, plasma bolts, mortars, even a couple of torpedoes were hurtled in their direction, creating a massive firestorm of blue. A few planes were instantly hit, the orange glow from their explosions only adding to the kaleidoscope of colors.

"All pilots, evade, EVADE!" someone screamed as Zelda struggled to not only avoid getting shot down, but also doing his best to avoid colliding into anyone.

"The fuck do you think we're doing!?"

"Guess that answers the question of whether the Covenant had noticed us or not!"

"Ha! And it's not even my fault because I didn't even say anything this time!" Zelda couldn't help but crow to his flight.

"Now is really not the time, Zelda!"

Zelda gave a strained grin as he worked to obtain a lock on one of the plasma turrets on the cruiser's hull. According to his targeting computer, he was technically out of effective weapons range, making this a pointless exercise, but Zelda honestly didn't care: right now, he needed to feel like he had some chance of fighting back. "Fox three!"

A single anti-ship missile rapidly departed from the bottom of his fighter, but before it had even traveled more than a dozen kilometers, it promptly exploded as it was struck by plasma fire. Still, for that brief second, the Covenant were shooting at his missile and not at him.

"6, stop wasting ordnance! At this range, anything we shoot, the Covenant will have plenty of time to knock out of the sky!"

"Yeah, I realize that… now," Zelda snapped back. "But it's not like we've got anything else to shoot at!"

"Leader, this is 12! I'm getting a signal: Banshees! We got incoming Banshees! Target 1-Echo is launching Banshees from their aft hangars!"

Zelda swore and look around, but he couldn't spot the incoming bandits. "Where the fuck is aft?"

"Are you fucking kidding me, Lieutenant? You've been in the military for how long and you still don't know where aft is!?"

"I don't fucking speak Squid, Skeeter!" Zelda shot back. "I fucking joined the Air Force, not the fucking Navy!"

"Hey! Cut it out you two!" Bellum roared. "Aft is the back of the ship, 6!"

Zelda immediately glanced in the direction of the cruiser's engines, where he finally spotted the incoming.

"Finally," he cheered and started to turn in their direction, but then hesitated. "Leader, this is 6: are we engaging those fighters?"

"Yes!" Bellum snapped. "Keep them away from the corvettes! All Omega Flight pilots, standby to break formation and -"

"Negative, belay that order!" the voice of their wing commander cut through their comms. "Omega and Flanker Squadrons, stick with the corvettes. Everyone else, engage those incoming Bandits!"

"…! Are you fucking kidding me!?" Zelda bellowed in outrage as the rest of their wing abruptly turned and headed in the direction of the incoming Banshees, leaving Zelda and a handful of other Broadswords to protect just under a dozen UNSC Navy corvettes. "Odessa! Tell me that ain't some bullshit!"

"Never mind that!" Odessa snapped. "We should be in range of that cruiser: why the fuck aren't those corvettes engaging?"

"All pilots, this is the UNSC Gladius: we're locked on target and we're engaging. Stand clear."

Zelda glanced in the direction of the corvette they were protecting in time to see a brilliant flash of light as the ship fired its MAC. In the time it took Zelda to blink, the shell had already crossed the distance between the two sides and Zelda was able to watch with some mild satisfaction as fire shot out from the impact site located right next to the Covenant's gravity lift, where the shield was weakest.

However, as the fire was rapidly extinguished by the cold vacuum of space, Zelda was highly annoyed to see the damage done by the shell was fairly limited; Navy corvettes may have been armed with magnetic accelerator cannons, but they were the weakest models around, barely stronger than ground and station based Mark 2488 "Onager" cannons.

"Those things are having minimal effect on target!" Zelda crossly pointed out as the Gladius followed up with a volley of Archer missiles. "How the fuck were we expected to ever take out a ship this size by ourselves!?"

"If we all keep shooting at the same spot, eventually we should be able to punch through that hull and maybe hit something critical!"

"Oh, brilliant! And I'm sure the Covenant are just going to sit there and let us unload on them like we're at a shooting gallery," Zelda mocked.

"6, shut up! All fighters, when those corvettes fire another volley of Archers, fire with them!"

Zelda glanced outside. The incoming plasma fire had actually died down somewhat, if only because the Covenant were now targeting the corvettes, correctly identifying them as more of a threat than the fighters. And while corvettes were nominally classified as warships, in terms of armor, against concentrated plasma fire they were only marginally better than gunships.

Explosions were rippling across the UNSC Gladius' hull, the corvette's crew doing their best to evade however the incoming fire was just too much. Not too far away, another corvette completely disappeared right in front of Zelda's eyes as it was struck by a plasma torpedo, the massive projectile causing the corvette to not so much as explode but disintegrated. Nearby, a Broadsword from Flanker Squadron was struck by a plasma mortar, which ripped one of its wings off. The Broadsword continued flying, up until it was struck in the left engine by debris from said destroyed wing, causing the engine to explode. With systems rapidly failing, the pilot immediately ejected, however the now out of control fighter ended up spiraling straight into the corvette the pilot had been tasked with protecting. The corvette fortunately survived the impact, but Zelda could see the ship's dorsal hangar bay doors were now jammed shut, preventing her shuttlecraft from deploying.

All the while, the UNSC forces continued to fire at the Covenant, doing their best to do as much damage as they could before they were shot down.

"Gladius is firing her main battery! Omega, standby to engage!"

Zelda hastily dropped his crosshairs over the small hole that the corvettes were creating in the cruiser's hull.

"Fire!"

"Fox three!"

Zelda pulled the trigger, sending a couple of missiles downrange, joining the dozen or so Archer missiles the Gladius also fired. At once, Covenant countermeasures went to work, destroying roughly a third of the incoming with plasma, and sending another third of them flying in all directions - including towards their sister cruisers – as they jammed the guidance seekers on the missiles' warheads. The remaining missiles, however, slammed into the hull, and Zelda looked closely, trying to see what sort of damage had been done and- did the gravity lift just flicker?

He turned his gaze towards the bluish-purple energy beam that had been steadily depositing ground troops and equipment onto the surface this entire time. Sure enough, Zelda could see the beam had faded in color, as if losing power, and the diameter of the beam was no longer as wide, actually exposing some of the equipment that was currently being sent down to the vacuum of space.

"Leader, this is 6: you see that!?" Zelda exclaimed.

"Yeah, I saw it!" Bellum replied. "Looks like we're doing some damage to the gravity lift! Maybe another volley, we'll be able to knock that entire thing offline!"

"Might already be too late," Odessa interjected. "With as long as that beam had been active, Covenant could have already transported an entire Legion down to the surface."

"Well, let's make sure they don't send down another one! Omega Squadron, fire on that nav marker! Fox three!"

Zelda fired again. The time, he kept his focus on the gravity lift, so while he missed the sight of his missiles exploding, he was able to watch as the gravity lift flicker a few more times, before finally blinking out of existence, causing whatever supplies that had been mid-transport to be left floating in the dead of space.

"Gravity lift is down!" Bellum yelled with a hint of satisfaction. "All Omega Flight pilots, retarget the – "

Whatever Bellum was about to say next, Zelda never found out because at that exact moment, a message abruptly flashed across his screen. Distracted as he was, it took him a moment to realize what it said:

"ALL FIGHTERS, BREAK CONTACT AND FALL BACK."

"Omega-6 to Omega Leader, be advised I'm getting a retreat order from Command," Zelda called out. "Can you confirm?"

"Confirmed! I'm picking it up too! Omega Leader to all craft, break off the attack! I say again, break off the attack!"

"What the fuck!?" Zelda spat out even as he sharply banked to the left to turn around and start heading back in the direction he had come from. Plasma fire streaked by just above and below his fighter, but fortunately he was able to avoid getting hit.

Looking back though, Zelda could see not everyone was so lucky. He could see one Broadsword getting hit in one of its engines, throwing the vehicle into a spin, one that the pilot wasn't able to recover from before it was hit several more times, destroying it completely.

Checking his HUD, Zelda could see that only about half of the corvettes and fighters that had started off this attack were still left.

"God dammit," he snapped to himself. "Why the fuck are we bugging out, just when we started to do some damage to those fucking ships!? What the fuck?"

"Task Force Leader to Omega Leader: be advised, you've got incoming fighters!"

Zelda's head snapped up as his HUD lit up with the signature of several squadrons' worth of fighters coming straight at them, the Banshees the cruiser had launched earlier that the rest of 3rd Assault Wing was supposed to have been holding back.

"Shit. All craft, listen up! We're not out of the woods just yet! Looks like if we want to survive this, we're going to have to fight our way through! All fighters, accelerate to attack speed! Draw their fire away from the corvettes!"

Zelda swore again as he started arming weapons. As he worked though, he couldn't help but wonder what the point of this entire attack was. Aside from the destruction of a couple of warships, some fighters, and that gravity lift, they really didn't accomplish much and in fact, probably suffered from more losses in terms of overall tonnage than the Covenant did. If Zelda didn't know better, he would have almost thought this attack was a distraction of some sorts. But the question was:

A distraction for what?

XXXXX

UNSC Moonlight Sonata

Lieutenant Commander Stephen Luzader

"Commander? We're receiving a message."

Commander Luzader looked up from his display. "Put it on screen," he ordered.

"It's a text message only, sir," his communications officer informed him.

"Put it up anyway."

"Aye, sir."

The main screen, which had been displaying the fight that was unfolding outside suddenly flickered, before going black. In its place, a series of words began to scrawl across the screen.

…

INFILTRATION SUCCESSFUL.

…

That was all that appeared.

Luzader felt his breath catch in his throat, and he did his best to remain calm. Those were the exact words he'd been hoping to see.

Soft footsteps filled his ears and he turned his head slightly to see his Army counterpart, Major Volkov, coming to a parade rest stance beside him. Slowly turning his head towards him, Luzader raised an eyebrow. Without looking away from the words on the screen in front of him, Luzader saw Volkov giving a single nod.

Nodding to himself, Luzader activated his keyboard and began typing out a single, worded response.

...

EXECUTE.

…

---

General Notes:

Ships mentioned in this chapter:

UNSC Moonlight Sonata:this is not a canon ship. It's intended to be a Sahara-class heavy Prowler and is named after the piano sonata composed by Ludwig Van Beethoven.

UNSC Gladius: this is a canon ship. It is the lead ship of the Gladius-class of heavy corvettes that was first mentioned in Halo: Warfleet. The ship actually made a small appearance in chapter 2 of this story, where it was mentioned as being used to evacuate the civilians still in orbit around Tenedos. The ship and the class is named, as per Halopedia: "after the gladius, one Latin word for sword, which served as the primary sword of the Roman army until the Third Century CE."

Other Notes:

Covenant Shield Generators: these are canon Covenant buildings that are from the RTS game: Halo Wars, though I don't believe they've appeared anywhere else.

222nd Airborne Division: this is not a canon unit. It's actually an original creation from my other Halo story, Missing in Action.

SPECWARCOM: this is a canon UNSC command. Standing for SPECial WARfare COMmand, it falls under the authority of Unified Ground Command. As the name implies, it oversees special operation units that don't fall under the authority of Naval Special Warfare Command. So, for example, NOBLE Team was under SPECWARCOM's authority whereas Blue Team was not.

(In canon, this command is also known as "Unified Special Warfare Command," or "USW" for short.)

ASOC: as mentioned in the chapter, this stands for Army Special Operations Command. Unlike the example above, this is not a canon command and is actually the name for the modern day United States Army command in charge of all Army special operational units (which includes: the Army Special Forces, 75th Ranger Regiment, and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.) In the Halo Universe, I imagine it would be the UNSC Army counterpart to the Navy's Naval Special Warfare Command.

Major Den Volkov: this is an original character that first appeared in my other Halo story, Missing in Action. In that story, he was the temporary commanding officer of the main characters.

Longsword: in canon, Longswords are officially known as "strike fighters" however readers may have noticed I've alternatively been calling them "gunships." That because in canon, there are at least two variants of the Longsword: the C709 and the C712 (alternatively, the SS-110.)

The C709 variant is the larger of the two and is the one we see in almost all the official Halo media. It's armed with a single 110mm rotary cannon and dual 120mm ventral cannons (as well as hardware for missiles and mines.) Because of their massive firepower and four man crew, they always struck me as more akin to gunships (like the AC-130) as opposed to traditional fighters, so that's what I decided to go with. (UNSC Air Force would use them as escort aircraft for their carriers and transports.)

In contrast, the C712/SS-110 variant, is the much smaller version of the Longsword, and are only armed with missiles and 50mm coilguns. Because of their lesser firepower as well as two man crew, I felt these better fit the traditional fighter role. (UNSC Navy would use them as their fighters in lieu of Broadswords, whereas the UNSCAF would use them in a strike fighter role.)

(So, to use a real-world analogy: Broadswords are like F-16s, C712 Longswords are your F/A-18s or F-15E Strike Eagles while C709s don't really have a real world equivalent, but they would sort of be like if the B-1 bomber had ever been made into a gunship.)

*Note: supposedly there's a third variant of the Longsword, the C708, but Halopedia has next to no information regarding them, so I'm not sure how they differ from the other two.

Fighter Pilots: I don't know how true this is, but I've read assertions that during World War II, there really wasn't an "average pilot." That, generally speaking, you were either an ace, or a target.

I'm not sure how true this is, but I thought it was interesting enough to bring up, and the reason why I had Zelda assert that "Everyone else is a just a target, only they don't fucking know it" near the beginning of his section.

Guardian Angels: in the USAF, this is actually a specific unit. As per the Air Force website, Guardian Angel is a unit comprised of Combat Rescue Officers, Pararescuemen (enlisted combat rescue airmen,) SERE specialist (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape,) and trained support personnel dedicated to personnel recovery.

In this chapter, I'm treating it more of a generic nickname for any combat search and rescue team, whether it be Air Force, Navy, or Marine Corps in origin

Change Log:

Spaatz:

- This chapter essentially combines chapters 17 and 18 of the original version.

- Instead of intruding on the debrief, Major Volkov and Lieutenant Commander Luzader are invited in instead.

- Because the ground based power generators of Byzas Station are never mentioned in this version of the story, the explanation for where the Covenant got their extra power for their overshield has been changed to that of the Covenant interlinking their fusion reactors.

- There's a bit more of an explanation and supporting evidence for what the Covenant are doing in the system. In the original version, most of the information was not included in the story itself, but author notes and responses.

- More emphasis has been placed as to the importance of the timing of the Navy's attack post Spartan assault on the Covenant battlecruiser.

- The plan to assault the cruisers have been changed: instead of waiting for the Covenant to flick off their shields in order to fire their weapons, the Covenant shields are already weakened because of the gravity lift. In my original version of this story, I kind of forgot the gravity lift was connected to the cruisers, thus already giving me an explanation as to why the Covenant shields would be lowered.

- There's no longer some weird "Air Force gunship" class of ships that I was trying to invent, they are now just C709 Longswords (see note above for a more detailed explanation.)

- Navy corvettes are now participating in the attack. I realized I have yet to really use those class of ships in any of my stories and I felt they would fit here.

- The operation to insert the Spartans onto the cruiser actually gets a name.

Zelda:

- This entire section has been rewritten. The original version of the attack, in a word, sucked, due to some weird things I was trying to do but never panned out.