Halo: Predator Lost chapter 17. In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it. Erwin Rommel.
UNSC Ghost, Bridge, Commander Young, Winter, Scythe, Captain Lipton, Lieutenant Owen, Specialist Mayweather, and Sargent Thompson attending.
One of the reasons for the larger size, when compared to other Paris class frigates, was to make headspace for the Predators. In fact, for all intents and purposes, it was less of a refit and more of an entire rebuild. Since when the ship first arrived it was little more than a block of engines with a slipspace drive strapped to it. Now on top of boasting better armor and firepower, The Ghost now has the facilities comparable to or better than her smaller cousins.
This came at a cost though, In order to better fit more ground troops and associated equipment. Zero longswords were added, along with zero tanks and no warthogs. That's not to say there weren't any vehicles just very few of them. This allowed more space for a new kind of DL-77TCS Pelican. Turns out the stealth features for the SPI were repurposed to better hide the Pelicans when in flight.
The bridge itself was loosely based on the Stalwart. In fact, in many ways it was identical with the only difference being the overhang that would hang unusually close to the holo table was now flush with the rest of the ceiling. While this improved things the space was still cramped.
Bringing up a system on the holo table Young began his briefing. "Okay people, since our mission is in effect anything we want. It also means we don't get specific orders, as such I thought we could start out with something simple. The system you see here is 111 Tauri, where the colony of Victoria is located."
"That's just two days travel from here, wait no sorry three days, what's so important about this system though? Sarah asked.
" Its importance is that no one has had contact with it since 2531. So six years ago Blue team led by Sierra 117 took on a group of rebels who stole three nukes in order to lure the Spartans into a trap. It failed, the rebel leader was killed and the nukes recovered. There hasn't been any word from the colony since then."
" If I remember right there was a heavily fortified base there that came under intense Covenant attack. Camp New Hope if I remember right. There might be some things we can salvage but then again for all we know the Covenant could either still be there or not at all. Simply put this will be a perfect test of the ship's cloaking system and allow us to do a recon op." Lipton stated, one hand resting under his chin as he stares at the system.
"Precisely, however, should there be nothing there then it would be a perfect spot to lure the Covenant into an ambush. Admiral Cole has had some success with this and so we will do the same."
"What if they are in the system commander?" Asked Mike.
Young half-smiled at this, as did Lipton. "Well Lieutenant, then we go about testing our new systems as discreetly as possible. Of which Winter can explain as to how to even our odds, Winter if you will."
Growling and clicking, Winter brought up a Covenant destroyer on a planet's surface using the holo table. In order to better talk to the humans, Winter enabled the mimicking feature in his helmet. Despite speaking their tongue fluently, his accent still caused hairs to rise and people often grabbed their sidearm or nearby knife. " From the data gathered thus far, the shield grids of the Covenant have a number of flaws in them. Flaws that can be easily exploited.
First, a considerable amount of the ship's energy is likely diverted from other critical systems in order to keep it airborne inside a planet's atmosphere. Meaning their shields should be weaker and thus easier to penetrate with the ship's magnetic cannon. Thanks to gravity the round will only move faster and the added heat should further improve its ability to penetrate. The reason why UNSC ships haven't tried this is that the Covenant has often already destroyed the fleet and will see any other ship coming.
Thanks to our technology, we should be able to test this theory" Winter finished
During this Scythe was trilling every now and again. The reason why was simple. Mike kept giving him an evil glare every chance he got. After that incident regarding the ooman females, the young man's hatred for Scythe had reached a fever pitch. This in turn led to an attempted prank war which in a way was still ongoing. Attempted being the keyword here since Scythe discovered that Mike sucked at being imaginative. The ooman was just too professional and instead kept trying to use his fists. While he lost every sparing match. The man still had heart.
"Alright if there is nothing else..."
"I have something, sir," Thompson said, as there has been something itching in his mind and he decided to not only say it but show it. Lifting a bullet out of his pocket with the tip painted blue he placed it onto the table. " I was running an inventory check and these bullets were listed as Oxygen. So can someone explain to me why there was a mixup?"
A loud bark and what sounded like laughter were heard, this time the voice modulation wasn't activated. " Those are Oxygen rounds with a tungsten tip and an ignition compound with Oxygen stored directly in the middle." This time Winter's voice while well-spoken still sounded like a big cat speaking tongue.
For once even Scythe was cynical only to finally piece it together. " You made grunt rounds?" Winter nodded from this.
Everyone looked at the bullet with renewed interest. Unggoy, grunts, breathed methane, methane by itself doesn't burn or explode unless oxygen plus heat is introduced. The predators had made what now amounted to a primer that could set off the grunts breathing source with lethal results nearby. If the rounds work. Then it would turn the Covenants greatest cannon fodder Into walking bombs.
"Okay then, with that finally answered everyone is dismissed until we reach Victoria" Young finishes.
Over the next few days, drills were done, normally a shakedown cruise would be initiated but thus far desperate times have called for desperate measures. Plus with as many as a hundred frigates produced for every one cruiser, it wasn't as if no one knew how the ship worked but with new systems upgraded with predator know-how. It meant a new learning curve.
Tauri system, timestamp 09:15.
Inside the goldilocks zone, the blue and white vortex of a slipspace rupture opens ups. Lighting flickers from the maw as if the mouth of hell had opened up. Instead, the Ghost comes flying out like a large silver bullet.
"Transition successful, setting a course for Victoria now"
"Engaged stealth systems," Young ordered.
Unlike other methods for cloaking which involves a shimmer, creating a temporary mirage. The Predator cloak acts more like a wave traveling down a line. In this case, the invisible wave started from the bow and ended in the stern.
"Stealth system is active, power levels well within the green, time to the planet is ten minutes."
At the radar station, something pinged, follow by further signals. " Sensor operator here, sir, we have covenant signals emanating near or from the planet."
Hitting ship-wide comes Young didn't hesitate. " All hands we are now going to combat alert beta, Covenant have been spotted near the planet. Lt Owens and Spc Mayweather report to the bridge."
Alarms sounded, all personnel went to standby positions, Mayweather and Owen quickly made it to the bridge. As much as they would hate to admit it, their specialty was not in the dirt but at a console. Though with attrition the way it was, it was debatable as to which was safer.
"Good, Lieutenant take the table, Specialist take the empty chair, and get all available scopes on those signals. Helm take us to full burn then cut the engines, we'll let inertia do the rest"
"Yes sir!" everyone replied in unison.
Within five minutes everyone's heads turned at the fleet of ships orbiting the planet
"We've got twenty-one ships of unknown design, but one of them is truly gargantuan, large signals emanating from the surface," Sarah said. the ships didn't match any type of Covenant vessel ever encountered.
"Winter, Scythe, get up here" Young ordered
"Boo"
Half the bridge crew jumped in their seats. Mike didn't even flinch and neither did Sarah as they were used to this.
"Frack me! don't do that, I get it you guys are stealthy but just, ah frack it, what can you make of these things?" Young was red and angry.
By contrast, Winter was barely holding in his contained laughter. After all, Wolf did something similar while Winter was getting his semen tested. The test was to ensure he was still able to have pups since he got hit hard in the nuts by a xenomorph. The thought alone made his balls hurt.
Still looking at the ships and a large number of smaller vessels going from them to the planet it was clear this was a massive operation but the designs didn't match Covenant warships.
"They're supply and support vessels, see the two domes on the smaller ones. that usually indicates a habitat space, the large one is likely designed as a massive cargo ship" Scythe answered, his English had improved somewhat but it still sounded gruff.
"That is putting it mildly, according to the scans each of those smaller ships is 1.5 kilometers long, but the big sucker dwarfs everything we have at twenty-eight kilometers long, twelve wide, and at least four high." Mike couldn't believe what he was even seeing, sure the Covenant built big ships but this was truly colossal on a huge scale.
Young whistles at this. " Okay then, that has got to be a record." Rubbing his chin he thinks for a moment. "Helm keep us clear of their lanes but get as close as possible if they are loading or unloading while in orbit it's possible they don't have the power to do it on the ground. It also means their shields are down. Which means they haven't detected us. Too bad ONI never approved that fusion drive missile, otherwise, we could take them all out here and now but as it sits, we'll have to find another way of destroying them without getting us killed."
Over the next few hours, scans were initiated, though passive, some observations showed the lack of weapon ports on all but the largest ship.
Looking over the data it was clear the Covenant were stockpiling weapons and armor in massive bunkers on the surface of Victoria.
A new meeting was called and this time Sierra 30O of the Alpha team was present. Like all spartans, the noticeable yet quiet thunk of their Mjilinor MK IV armor was a clear indication. Unlike all other spartans which were either in the standard green, grey, black, or blue depending on their specialty. The entirety of the twenty-four spartan threes assigned to Algolis had their armor and undersuit covered in Multicam. When combined with improved anti thermal and radar absorbing materials it enabled far better camouflage.
This was demonstrated to great effect during training sims on Algolis against those using the standard yet far cheaper forest green which stood out.
This time neither Scythe nor Sargent Thompson was present.
"Okay people, we need to find a way of destroying these ships, from what we've been able to locate so far the large one is the only vessel with weapons on it and thus needs to be destroyed first. Given its size, neither mac nor laser is going to do enough damage. Thoughts?"
"We could just call in the fleet or report it to ONI." Said Mike though if he was being honest with himself perhaps now was not a good idea to take the cautious route. Thus the more he looked at the array of ships. The more things clicked. Thus before the commander or anyone else could put in their own two cents he spoke up.
"Wait, aren't the new power armors rated for EVA?"
"Yea, why," Lipton said before it clicked, then everyone's eyes turned toward the spartan.
"Sir?"
"Tell us Spartan has anything like this been tried before and if so ever on this scale, ONI didn't exactly give us everything," Young asked.
"Sir, Blue team pulled off a similar operation on a disabled Covenant frigate, however, that was one ship, not a whole fleet."
Sheesh, and people thought Winter was a robot, still, this idea had merits and risks.
"Okay then, so what we do is simple, we deploy spartans and troopers to each ship, there they will get inside, plant havoc nukes then get out. Seems simple enough right"
"One problem with that Lieutenant, we have hundreds of smaller craft both patrolling and going in and out of those ships. It's possible we may be able to do that with the supertanker but not with the other ships." Lipton noted a good idea but there was the other issue of how to get inside without being noticed.
" How sensitive are there sensors to small objects." Winter finally speaking.
" Not very sensitive and likely less so with support ships. while I do agree that it is possible, the odds of getting in undetected are slim to none. We don't have a smart AI onboard so outside of jamming their comms we have very little to work with." Stated Young
"Then we plant them instead" Mike put in.
The others looked at him with raised eyebrows, Winter thou knew what the boy was on about and did a quick review of Covenant shield systems in his hud.
" Hear me out sir, the Covenant have to open their shields in order to fire and let craft come and go. A nuke on the outer hull would do minor damage or at least cripple the vessel but, if the shields are raised knowing that an attack is incoming. When the nuke goes off the shield keeps the blast in. All we would have to do is destroy the big fracker, the rest will raise their shields. At which point either through a radio signal, or a timer, boom, the rest of the fleet goes up. Leaving only the remaining ships behind for us to mop up." Mike finished, his nerves were shaking since this would require a very ballsy execution.
Winter was now quite impressed and judging by the looks, so was everyone else
" Captain, I recommend we put the Lieutenant here in charge of the operation"
"Agreed, sir, if the plan works, we'll name it after him."
"Alright, then, Lieutenant, you have one hour to get everything you need ready, after that, we'll have thirty minutes to get into launch position. At which point we'll begin Operation Suicide.
"Dismissed!"
"Yes sir!"
Okay for the record, the big sucker is a fan design with its own stuff but the smaller covie support ships are cannon and first seen in halo wars. I don't take credit for the big one as it's a design by TaydOgta on halo fanon, sad to say he has no art of it.
Next, wow, thank you for the reviews. Now for credits.
.Robert T. C. Thank you and by the way, your remarks were hilarious.
.GloGang214. Yes, it was and I do believe it fit quite well considering what Predators are known for. thank you.
.Mark1 I'm happy you are fascinated, usually I update once a week but work and my 2500 word count have slowed me down to at least once every two so far, if inspiration hits me, then it will be sooner but one thing is for certain, I always update on Sundays regardless if I have a chapter or two done long before. This gives me time to look over and fix mistakes. Plus posting a chapter on random days really messes with consistency.
Anyway, the door is still open for anyone to make a character out of the 24 SIIIs, Name, number, background, height, helmet, armor configuration, gender, skills, personality type, etc.
So Favs is at 35 and Follows at 40. Multiples of five I see now that is funny.
Thank you all, I look forward to reading your comments.