answers to reviewers questions or statements:
SmacksKiller: It'll be the last time we see Peter try that fort a long time, things are about to get dark.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Halo characters seen, mentioned or used.
It was 1000 hours on August 12th, two hours into the UNSC's counterattack against Covenant forces, when Reach's Fall was all but certain.
Years later many would argue that the Fall of Reach truly began with the Battle of Visegrád's relay between Noble Team and advance Covenant scouting parties. Others, who had the clearance to know such things, would say it began with the siege of SWROD Base on July 26th. But to Peter, he'll always argue that while the battle of Reach may have begun with either of those dates, he was more partial to Visegrád, Reach's fall began on August 12th...
After Peter and Jun were rescued from the Covenant Command Post and rejoined Noble, Colonel Holland had informed them that another Anti-air canon had been discovered and was shooting down what few of their aircraft remained.
Natasha and her ODSTs had already pulled out and last Peter heard, she was en-route back to New Alexandria, leaving the Spartans to continue onwards alone.
Safe to say, it was probably for the best given the amount of resistance they were encountering.
"So wait, your telling me that you openly said if the Covenant started to outfit it's Grunts and Jackals with the same sort of personal shielding system the Elites and some of the Brutes have, they'd be more effective against even the likes of us?!" Peter said as he remained crouched behind some cover, the shattered remains of a Wraith, while Jorge stood on the far end with his turret resting on the tank's hull, firing a steady stream of controlled bursts at the approaching Grunt platoon.
"I made sure all the Covenant present were dead when I made that statement" Jorge said as he aimed down a squad of rushing Grunts, all carrying Needlers, and fired on them, tearing through their bodies and igniting their methane tanks.
"Someone could've heard you on one of their still working comms or something Jorge" Peter groaned as he reloaded his DMR and shot out from cover and sniped two Jackals taking up positions behind the Grunt force before diving back into cover "UGH, now we're gonna have to deal with Grunts charging us with Elite Zealot level shields!"
"Better than Hunters" Jorge suggested with a grim chuckle before he ducked back into cover when several shots from a Covenant Carbine struck his head and upper torso, dropping his shields to zero and forcing the Spartan into cover.
"Jorge if you keep jinxing us, I'm gonna spit in your ear as you sleep" Peter threatened the elder Spartan with a glare.
"Oh, you Threes know about that do ya?" Jorge asked with a grin.
Spitting in someone's ear, or as it's become known to the Spartan Twos and apparently the Threes 'running cold comms', was a rather unique albeit childish thing created by Soren-066 during the Two's training as a alternative to 'getting back at people'. Since the Spartans were carefully monitored and received regular and sometimes random medical check ups, any discovery of physical harm outside of training was met with very severe consequences. So after another Spartan, Leon-011 had kicked Soren in the face over a petty matter during a training exercise that involved running commlinks, Soren responded by sneaking up on the sleeping Spartan later that night and spitting in his ear.
Kurt once mentioned the story to the Spartans of Beta company during a rare moment of down time in their training and a few of Peter's classmates decided to continue the tradition. Safe to say, Mendez was less than amused when the veteran Spartan trainer walked in one night for a surprised drill and saw it being performed.
"It won't be just some clear bubbly drool, it's going to be a full on, snot infested loogy" Peter said as he risked a glance over his cover to see if he could spot any more Jackal marksmen before ducking back into cover.
"Ehh, it's better than when Fred one upped that by pissing in my ear after I accidently pissed on him" Jorge said with a laugh as he watched his shields recharge and immediately resumed firing on the approaching Grunts.
"Maybe I'll do that too, help wash it down your ear drums" Peter snarked as he rose from cover and began shooting any Grunts that were getting to close to his and Jorge's cover.
"Oh my god, just kiss already and shut up!" Jun groaned from his perch a few hundred meters away from the two Spartans and further along the ridge, armed with a series two of the Anti-Matériel SRS99 sniper rifle.
"Ignore Jun, Jorge, he's just upset I chose a Grunt over him to be my prison butty" Peter snickered over the team's comm "See what I did there? I said butty instead of buddy"
"Passed up for a Grunt Noble Three? Now that is sad" Emile added with a snort before it was cut off by two distinct blasts from his shotgun.
"Blow me Noble Four" Jun snapped.
"I'd offer but I'm afraid that Grunts kinda ruined humans for me. Think I'm gonna give the Jackals and their Skirmisher buddies a try next" Peter said as he slapped a new magazine into his DMR and gestured for Jorge to cover him while he moved up further along the ridge "Maybe afterwards I'll try out some of that Big Brute Co-"
"Noble Team, how many times have I said to keep the channels clear when commencing operations?" Carter interrupted the three's banter over the team's main net.
"I don't know, I'm just the FNG sir" Peter answered as he raced across the ruined ridge, his shields flare from a few stray shots fired by a trio of Grunts' Plasma pistols.
"I lost count after two hundred and thirty four" Jun said as he put one of the trio of Grunts shooting at Peter in his scope's crosshairs and pulled the trigger "Though we're not actually talking over the team's main net, we're talking through our private channel"
"Which in lieu of the Covenant's jamming, is our main channel for the time being" Carter stated in a stern tone "So cut the chatter"
The four Spartans responded with a resolute 'Yes sir' before they fell into silence. While Peter, Jorge and Jun dealt with the Covenant infantry along the ridge, over a kilometer behind them, Carter, Kat and Emile were clearing out the Covenant troops surrounding and operating the anti-air canon. So far things were going well, aside from a few Elite majors, the three Spartans encountered little trouble in their assigned tasks. Kat theorized the battle below on the plains was going in the UNSC's favor thus whoever was leading the Covenant was committing more troops to the front lines, leaving the anti-air canons light on security.
But if one of them were to risk a glance at the battle below, they'd see the burning wrecks of dozens of Tanks, Warthogs, Falcons, Pelicans, Condors, Long and Shortswords. Jun, with the use of his helmet's advance magnifying and telescopic systems allowed him a closer view of the battle and saw thousands of UNSC Army and Marine personnel's bodies littering the battlefield. True the Covenant had suffered some serious casualties as well, and at least four burning Scarab wrecks could be seen, but it was obvious to all of them that if the UNSC strike force didn't get some much needed air support, they'll be driven back.
'Assuming the Covenant lets them get driven back, they'll just shoot them in the back' Peter thought as he slid into cover as a overcharged Plasma round struck his armor's shields, dropping them to zero and causing an alarm to go off in Peter's helmet "Jorge, Jun, just got hit by a overcharged plasma shot and my shields are down, see who made it? I'd like to pay them back"
It was Jorge that answered as he scanned the area for signs of Peter's attacker "I got eyes on a Elite keeping behind the remains of a Banshee at your "
Peter was about to risk a glance before he felt a flare at the base of his skull and pulled his head back just before a thin, pink crystal flew past the edge of his cover, chipping a piece off. It seemed the Elite overloaded his shields and was looking to take out Peter with a Needler or Needle Rifle. Peter hummed at this and waited for his shields to recharge, which did a bit faster than he remembered them doing, before he shot out from cover and brought his DMR up and aimed it at the Banshee Jorge said the Elite was hiding behind. He didn't have to wait long before a red armored Elite leaned out from cover to shoot Peter again before five shots to the Elite's head and torso dropped it's shields and a sixth blew it's brains clean out and sent it's helmet flying through the air.
"Bullseye" Peter joked as he scanned the immediate area for more hostiles "Jun, see anything? I got nothing"
"Area's clean of all hostiles" the marksmen stated as he used thermal to search for any Covenant still alive and moving.
"Copy that, let me know if you see anything, preferably before it shoots me" Peter said as he lowered his rifle.
True he'll more than likely 'sense' the attackers coming, but it'd still be nice to have a heads up on where they are.
"You sure? Maybe the next Covenant that sees you simply wants to fu-" Jun began before he let out a curse of annoyance and frustration as a shot from a Beam rifle struck the ground near his position and quickly receded back into cover.
Peter fell into a kneeling position and scanned the ridge for signs of the sniper before he noticed a brief flash of light at the far end of the ridge before another shot raced past him and struck near Jun's location.
"Eyes on a sniper on the far side of the ridge, eight hundred meters from my current position" Peter said over the team's channel "Looks like only one"
"I see him" Jorge said from his position "Looks to be a Jackal. Think you can hit him from where you are Six?"
Before Peter could answer, Jun responded to the second shot with two of his own from his sniper rifle. Peter could see the Jackal was struck in the head and chest, causing the alien to fly backwards.
"No need, Jun got him" Peter joked before he decided to check in on Carter, Kat and Emile "Commander, ridge is secured, need help back there?"
"We're fine Six" Kat answered in a slightly annoyed and strained tone as the sounds of Plasma Rifles could be heard going off in the background.
"The distinct sound of plasma fire in the background says otherwise" Peter grinned as he spared a glance towards the anti-air canon that was under siege by the other half of Noble only a kilometer away.
"We're fine. Now stay there and look pretty and try not to get captured again!" Kat snapped before she ended the conversation.
"Oof, someone's upset" Peter said with a low whistle "Hmm, maybe if I grab her some electronic cat nip she'll settle down... or a cup off coffee... or help her get laid"
Last one might be a bit of a tall order but he's pretty sure he can do something about the first two... maybe just the second one. Decaf at the very least, black with sugar and cream at the most.
...
Even before Natasha stepped off her Falcon with her ODST's on a landing pad extended outward from ONI's Olympic Tower, she knew she was in for a world of bad news and headaches. No fault of the man she left in charge of overseeing the final withdrawal of ONI from Reach, Lieutenant Commander Jameson Locke, it was simply ONI being... ONI.
'I swear when this war is over and I'm still alive, I'm quitting. I wonder if the Russian State Ballet's offer to join is still open' Natasha thought with a scowl as she and her men hopped of their Falcon and quickly made their way off the landing platform and into a small hanger of sorts where Locke was waiting for.
All around them Pelicans were still being loaded with terminals, hard drives, safes, files too important to risk being uploaded digitally and being copied or located, and highly experimental technologies that costed more than a battlegroup of Destroyers. Standing next to Locke was a man that Natasha never saw before, though his attire marked him as a ONI Agent.
"Captain Romanoff, how was the flight?" Locke asked with a salute when Natasha was close enough to hear him over the noise of the hanger they were in.
"The inflight mood was terrible and I had to stop Flash and Kong from joining the Mile High Club" Natasha said with a small smirk before it fell at the seriousness in Locke's eye "Report"
"Ma'am, ONI command sent word from Earth, it needs you and your team here to oversee-" Locke began before the man next to him stepped forward and cleared his throat, causing Locke to stop and scowl at him with annoyance.
"I understand this is a bit inconvenient given your current orders ma'am, but I'm afraid this takes precedence and it's coming straight from the top" the man said, unaware of the dark look growing in Natasha's eyes as he spoke.
"I'm sorry... but who in the fuck are you?" Natasha stared the man with a pointed gaze that her squad and Locke recognized as one of extreme displeasure.
No one interrupted when Romanoff was receiving or giving a report... no one.
The ONI agent straightened at the woman's gaze and offered a respectful salute "Apologies ma'am, Lieutenant Michael Horrigan, Section Three-"
"Shut the fuck up Lieutenant Horrigan or I'll personally make sure that you'll never leave this planet when the Covenant glass it, understood?" Natasha snapped at the man, causing his eyes to widen before the red head returned her gaze to Locke "Continue, Lieutenant Commander, please and thank you"
"Of course ma'am" Locke said with obvious amusement before he cleared his face and adopted a more serious expression "As I was saying, I just received information only minutes ago from Earth, ONI Command needs you and your team to oversee Doctor Halsey's work on a classified project she's been working on at SWORD Base. Didn't say what it was ma'am, too high above my paygrade and clearance apparently. The Admiral wants you to personally see to it, all other orders have been suspended... including our departure. Lieutenant Horrigan here was dispatched to oversee what was your assignment in sanitizing all ONI data and work that's unable to be moved from Reach"
Natasha rolled her eyes at this and muttered a very un-lady like insult aimed at ONI's Commander-in-Chief that left Horrigan gaping at the very open disrespect she just showed to their superior.
"Ma'am you can't just go around and say th-" Horrigan began before Natasha turned towards the man with a glare as cold as the tundra of her homeland back on Earth.
"Shut. Up. Standing Order" Natasha said in a low voice that promised pain if her command was broken "I don't care who you are, I don't care who you work for directly Lieutenant, because you've just jumped to the very top of my shit list"
"Thanks for that by the way... dipshit" Flash muttered as he gave Horrigan a very unimpressed look.
"Excuse me Staff Sergeant, what was that?" Horrigan's gaze snapped towards Flash and took a threatening step forward "Because I swear I just heard you disrespect a superior off-"
Whatever else Horrigan was going to say was cut off by Natasha's fist slamming into his face with enough force to shatter his nose and cause the man to slump tot he floor, unconscious. No one, not even the hanger's crew helping load up the Pelicans so much as even flinched at the assault, or say anything about it. Natasha meanwhile was glaring down at Horrigan before her gaze snapped towards Locke and she spoke in a cool, commanding tone, her Russian accent just a bit more pronounced than usual, a sign she was well and truly unhappy.
"Locke, continue to oversee our people's evacuation md find a ship to get OUR people off this rock. I'll handle the Halsey assignment myself" Natasha said before she glanced back at her ODSTs "Sorry boys, but your heading home"
"Ma'am, with all due respect, your just doing this because you don't want to report to Osman" Hobie had depolarized his helmet's visor and stared at Natasha with a dry expression.
"I will not confirm nor deny that" Natasha said with a grin before she spared a brief glance at Horrigan "As for this? I don't ever wanna see him again. I don't care if you throw him in a ship or toss him outside"
"On it ma'am" Flash gestured for Kong to gab the man's legs and drag him away from their upset Captain "You know he's probably gonna report you for assaulting him"
"Captain Romanoff gets a assault charge at least twice a month from a fellow ONI operative" Locke said with a snort.
"It's times like this where I think I should've just iced Parangosky and save us a world of headaches" Natasha sighed before she gestured for Locke to follow her.
The Acquisition Specialist nodded and fell into step behind Natasha as she made her way out of the hanger and torwads the tower's armory to restock on ammunition and retrieve any gear she may need for her new assignment.
"Locke, when at least ninety percent of all assets in the tower have been secured for transport, get the hell off this planet" Natasha said as they made their way through the tower's corridors, now much less crowded as it's workforce had either been already evacuated or were somewhere else helping with data sanitation and or removal.
"Yes ma'am" Locke nodded dutifully at this "But I can stay if you need assistance with Halsey. I understand that she can be... difficult"
"She's a bitch" Natasha said with a ghost of a smile on her face "I've dealt with her type before Locke, don't worry. I'll be fine on my own"
"And Spartan B-312?" Locke probed with a curious expression on his face "I heard he found himself in Covenant hands briefly"
"He'll be fine" Natasha said as the two reached Olympic Tower's armory "He even made a friend while in their care, believe it or not"
"Why am I not surprised?" Locke chuckled at this before his face grew more somber "You think he'll make it off Reach?"
"He will, Peter's nothing if not a survivor" Natasha said with a determined nod before she remembered something she asked Locke to look into while she was away "That reminds me, did you ever happen to-"
"Yes ma'am" Locke nodded as he pulled his datapad out and handed it to Natasha to see "She was arrested for... well doing indecent things in public in you can believe it"
"I can" Natasha said as she took the datapad and accessed it "You'll be surprised how many criminals are caught not because they were performing their typical criminal activity, but because they couldn't help but give into a vice of theirs. Does NAPD know who they have in their custody?"
"I don't believe so ma'am" Locke shook his head "And even they did, not much we can do about it since most of the facilities that can house her have already been scrubbed"
Natasha hummed as she stared at the picture of a young, beautiful white haired woman with almost emerald green eyes and a smile that was two parts sedative and dangerously cunning. This was a woman that knew what she was and made sure you never knew until it was too late and she was long gone. She's been a thorn in ONI's side for the better part of three years, a impressive feat considering ONI's habit of putting such thigs down with ruthless force, and now it seems that thorn may end up being removed... permanently.
"I hope you truly don't have nine lives my dear... ONI's going to make sure each one's end with be worse than the last" Natasha said in a quiet voice as she stared at the woman's name.
Felicia Sara Hardy.
...
Kat growled as the brains of a Elite Field Marshall splashed across her helmet's visor after she shot the alien's head into three distinct pieces with her sidearm after it tried to strangle her. She reached up with her organic hand and wiped away the blood, but only caused it to further smear across her field of vision. With a growl of frustration, she reached up and pulled the helmet it off and began to wipe away as much of the blood and bits of brain matter as she could.
"From now on I'm carrying a damn canteen" Kat muttered in annoyance as she considered using some spit to try and break up the blood and brain matter before she realized Carter was standing near her, looking at her with a pointed look under his own blue and purple blood stained helmet.
"You know if there was any Covenant still alive in here, it wouldn't take them much to put one in your head" he tapped the side of his own "Even a Grunt could make the shot"
"Than I guess it's a good thing that all of the Covenant here are dead, no?" Kat asked as she returned her attention to cleaning her helmet's faceplate the best she could.
With Carter standing there, she sure as hell wasn't going to start spitting on the damn thing and embarrass herself.
Carter stared at her for a moment before he shook his head and glanced around the small corpse ridden command center that made up the Type-38 Tyrant Anti-Air canon. Emile was on the canon's second level which also doubled as a sort of observational balcony, watching for any Covenant forces that may have slipped past them or Noble's Three, Five and Six's guard. With the canon's crew dealt with, they could plant a charge in the Covenant artillery's pinch fusion reactor and destroy it, allowing the UNSC to get it's strike force some much needed air support.
"Emile, how we looking out there?" Carter asked as he made his way to the Tyrant's power core and retrieved a small explosive charge from a pack clamped on the back of his armor's waist.
"So far so good boss, no enemy movements detected!" Emile shouted from up above even though he could've just replied over the team's comm channel.
Kat heard Carter chuckle at this before he yelled back "ACKNOWLEDGED!"
"You two are even worse than the others" Kat rolled her eyes as she managed t get most of the Elite's brain matter and blood off and placed her helmet back on.
"Least we're not talking about Big Brute Co-" Carter began before Kat turned on her heel and walked out of the Tyrant's command center and out on to the Grunt corpse ridden bluff the anti-air cannon was set up on.
It allowed the cannon to have a near overhead view of the distant battle below, something that Kat used her helmet's magnification to observe while Carter readied the charge to destroy the Tyrant.
Despite suffering significant casualties from the fighters launched from the three Corvettes earlier in the battle, the UNSC was able to advance across the plain and drive the Covenant out of what appeared to be a base of sorts that they built after their initial landing. Most of the structures in the base were only two to three stories tall with the alien's command center being only four, but it was heavily defended from what she heard over the comms. But the UNSC captured it, and were now chasing the Covenant army across the plain towards a barren plain where the UNSC's Frigates were planning to blast the Covenant force apart with MAC rounds.
Hugging the walls of a series of sheer cliffs that overlooked the main battle sight were a series of shielded Covenant canopies that would be their next target after the Tyrant was destroyed.
"What you being used for I wonder..." Kat said to herself as she gazed at the shielded fortifications.
What she found odd was that she couldn't see any signs of movement within or around the towering spires that were emitting the energy shield. If she didn't know better, she'd say that the Covenant had for some reason abandoned them. In reality it was more likely a small cloaked force was within or perhaps the Covenant had set up some sort of holographic projection that gave the illusion the spires were abandoned.
Noble Team would know soon enough-
BOOOOOM!
Kat glanced back over her shoulder to see that the Tyrant had just went up in flames, and Carter was casually make his way across the bluff to her location. Kat nodded at the approaching man before she returned her gaze to the distant battle below and was about to ask what their new orders were when something caught her eye...
"Commander, are you seeing this?" Kat said as she watched something truly bizarre happening upon the distant battlefield.
The Covenant forces... they were retreating, not being steadily pushed back, but actually pulling out!
While most people would've been over the moon with joy to see the Covenant retreating, Kat's long and brutal experience with the Covenant had taught her one thing... the Covenant do not retreat. They would occasionally pull back yes, offering up territory to the human only to use the human's advance against them and lead them into a trap. But what Kat was seeing wasn't even that, it was a full blown withdrawal of any and all remaining forces not directly engaged with UNSC forces.
"What the hell are they doing?" Carter said as he stepped next to Kat and observed what she was looking at "They can't be routing, the comm chatter made it seem like the Covenant were breaking through in a lot of places and were on the verge of flanking a few positions. If anything, it should be US running with our tails between our legs"
"Carter... I don't think their running" Kat whispered as a feeling of cold dread filled her.
The retreat, was far too organized to be real, the few Wraiths left operational along with a lone Scarab and a couple of squads of Elites armed with Fuel Rod canons and Jackal snipers were providing long range cover fire along with a few Banshees while the Covenant's Infantry pulled back behind their artillery and raced to what appeared to be landing zones for dozens if not hundreds of Phantoms and Spirits.
"Why the hell are the Covenant giving up that much ground?" Carter asked with confusion in his voice "Their leaders decide to bail out once they saw this fight wasn't going the way they hoped and saw we had re-enforcements in bound?"
"No... something else is going on we're not seeing" Kat shook her head as she tried to wrap her head around what the Covenant commander was thinking and hoping to achieve.
It could be he was pulling his forces back so his lone Corvette could be used to try and halt the humans advance if not outright break it, but the warship seemed to heavily damaged and Kat was certain that this specific ship class had energy projectors to be used for any sort of glassing. It was entirely possible the Covenant was going to simply crash the ship into the UNSC's forces and self destruct, the three frigates providing local fire support could potentially disable the ship before it got too close if not outright destroy it.
Maybe she was looking too deep into it, maybe the Covenant really were just pulling out and-
"Wait... where would they go?" Kat suddenly asked as realization hit her.
"Huh?" Carter sounded with confusion.
"The Covenant" Kat pointed towards the alien army as their drop ships began to rise into the sky "None of those ships are capable for slipspace travel, and far as we know, there isn't a Covenant warship in orbit to pick them up. so... where are they going?"
"They could be retreating to some other base they've set up" Carter said before he glanced back at the scene and narrowed his eyes in thought "Or maybe there's a cloaked cruiser in orbit we don't know about?"
"It's... possible, but we should contact Colo-" Kat began before she stopped as she saw something odd.
The dropships that took off earlier had suddenly vanished!
Not vanished as in they flew too far away for her to see anymore, or suddenly used some sort of teleportation device to flee, but rather it was flying and than it was gone.
Kat stared dumbfounded as more drops ships began to fly off into the sky for a few moments before they too began to vanish. For a moment she assumed they were using some sort of active camo to cloak their ships, but it didn't make sense for them to be used mid-way in flight, it would've been more sensible to activate them when they took off...
"Carter, we need to get the UNSC to pull back now!" Kat said as it finally hit her, why the dropships were suddenly vanishing from sight, where the dropships were going in the first place.
There was a Covenant ship there, cloaked.
Carter didn't bother asking why, given he was observing the Covenant dropships and noticed their sudden disappearance, he likely came to the same conclusion as she did. Cloaked ships weren't anything new to humanity, though it still boggled their minds on how the Covenant was able to render such large warships near invisible. The largest ships that humanity has been able to create that somewhat mimics the Covenant's cloaking technology were Prowlers, and even than the costs of such an endeavor made them very rare and far too valuable to risk utilizing except under the most important of operations.
And the fact the cloaking tech wasn't quite up to par to the Covenant's.
"Noble Actual, this Noble One, come in" Carter tried to raise Holland on the team's secure channel while the rest of Noble Team had finally arrived, having finished clearing out the immediate area of any Covenant forces trying to reclaim the anti-air canon.
"What's going on?" Peter asked as he placed his rifle on his armor's back magnetic clamps while Jorge looked at the battle below and frowned at what he saw.
"Are the Covenant retreating?" the Spartan-II asked with confusion.
"Their retreating to a cloaked ship over the battlefield" Kat said in a grim tone as she glanced back at the battlefield to see the UNSC was still advancing, having destroyed the Wraiths and lone Scarab that was providing cover for the Covenant's withdrawal "I think their about to perform a localized glassing with their ship"
"From that thing?" Emile pointed to the distant Heavy Corvette, currently being harassed by a few Longswords "I thought Covie ships that small didn't carry glass makers"
"No, but I bet the cloaked ship does" Kat said as she glanced up at the sky to where the last of the dropships had retreated to and waited with baited breath for the warship to appear.
She didn't have to wait long... and damned if the Covenant didn't deliver.
The warship that decloaked over the battlefield was the largest any of the Spartans had ever seen in their lives. At nearly twenty nine kilometers long elven and a half kilometers wide, several bulbous sections and a hook-like prow, it looked like a enlarged version of the Covenant's CAS-class Assault Carrier. But the CSO-class Supercarrier possessed enough firepower and shields strong enough to withstand anything the UNSC threw at it, that it'd take a literal fleet of it's smaller cousins to match it's sheer power.
And the massive ship's energy projectors were already beginning to glow with built up plasma energy for a localized plasma bombardment, or 'glassing'.
"Holy mother of god..." Peter whispered in horror as he stared up at the massive Covenant warship, it's sheer size allowed it's shadow to literally cover the entire battlefield.
In the distance the UNSC Frigates were already turning to flee from the underside of the Covenant Super Carrier, but before the could even fully come about, several plasma torpedo's fired from the Covenant Warship. Peter couldn't tell where they shot out from, but it was somewhere on the ship's underside towards it's massive launch bay and struck the three frigates and reduced them to falling piles of molten metal in the span of a second.
"Oh... oh that's not even fucking remotely close to fucking fair!" Emile shouted at the Covenant warship and flipped it off.
"C-Commander, what uh, what do we do now?" Peter stammered as he watched the massive warship begin moving into position, which wasn't very far, to fire it's energy projector at the retreating UNSC forces.
Before Carter cold say anything, a beam of energy shot forth from the Supercarrier and struck the very center of the UNSC's strike force. There was no titanic boom like a nuke going off when the beam struck the ground, instead, to Peter at least, it sounded very much like volcano erupting.
'Might as well be given the sort of damage that thing can cause' Peter thought with wide eyes as he watched the Covenant warship begin glassing the UNSC's strike force.
When the plasma beam made contact with the surface, the magnetic field that sustained and guided the beam collapsed, causing the initial zone of impact to be obliterated near instantly. The area outside of the initial impact zone suffered from the heat wave generated by the blast; the hundreds of UNSC troopers, Marines and vehicles closest outside of the blast zone were instantly killed by the intense heat while the metal of the tanks, warthogs and aircraft seemed to turn to a glowing liquid metal almost. Anything that was outside of that area seemed to combust into flames, be it people, vehicles or seemingly the very air itself, creating a cloud of smoke, ash and burning debris.
Than, just as quickly as the plasma bombardment began, it ended.
A part of Peter hoped that was the end of it, that what he and the rest of noble just saw was simply a last second strike at the humans, a bit of petty vindictiveness' at being chased off before the carrier broke off for orbit. But that hope was quickly crushed when he saw the energy projector warming up again for another plasma volley. This one wasn't didn't seem to be as intense as it was quickly fired from the ship's hull in half the time of the last discharge.
"Their getting fucking incinerated" Peter said as he watched the Super Carrier unleash another volley of plasma from it's energy projector towards the remaining human forces that by some miracle of God were able to stay ahead of the initial devastation from the first blast.
"Commander, what's Holland and the rest of Command going to do about this thing?" Kat asked as she glanced at Carter with a near panicked expression
Covenant Supercarriers were considered without a doubt the largest and most powerful warships ever deployed against humanity by the Covenant Empire. Their sheer size, unbelievably powerful energy shields and the ship's armor made it so that nothing less than a Supper MAC from an Orbital Platform, multiple Platforms at least, could ever hope to damage it in some way. Of the five that have ever been encountered during the war, only one was ever destroyed, and that was when the Late Vice Admiral Cole fired a hundred nuclear warheads into a Gas Giant and caused it to go supernova.
"Comms are dead, must be from the Covenant's glassing" Carter said in a grime tone before he glanced at his TACPAD on his arm and began to type a series of commands before a map was brought up "There's a small outpost eight klicks from here that might have transportation for us. we need to link back up with the rest of the UNSC"
"Oh sure, let's try and outrun a fucking mega ship that's currently glassing half the territory" Emile said with a shake of his head "Commander, just getting off this ridge before that thing turns it's sights on us isn't guaranteed"
"Unless anyone else has a better idea I'm all for it, or better yet, can pull a Pelican out of their ass for us to use" Cater said as he gestured for Noble to follow him back across the bluff and towards the other side of the ridge, away from the Covenant Supercarrier "Double time it people, now!"
Emile, Jun, Jorge and Kat followed after Carter while Peter remained standing at the edge of the bluff for a few seconds longer, taking in the raging inferno below with wide eyes. Peter had never seen a Glassing in person before that day, true he's seen it plenty of times through recordings or from a ship in high orbit, fleeing the doomed world being burned, but seeing the high intensity plasma being shot into the ground, burning thousands of UNSC personnel and reducing them to ashes in seconds, words could never truly describe it.
This, in Peter's opinion until the end of his days, was when Reach was lost.
...
And done.
Next chapter, Noble regroups...