Struggle (The Cole List) Chapter 1: Prologue, a halo fanfic

People, I re-arranged things a tad!

"Side story" (The old Chapter 4) is now chapter 5, and it has been replaced by "Echoes of the void", the 6th chapter is still the latest published!

I'm sorry for the confusion, and thanks for entering my story, mates! :D

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I don't own Halo; it would be weird.

Also, thanks to Brokenlyfecircle for advising me to fix this, English ain't my first language and rewriting helps with my learning of it; I Hope this is clearer :D

And thank you so much babble631 for your note on quotations!

I'm aware that this needs a lot of rewriting, so if you have any ideas, tell me! I want to make a good story for you, but be sure, I'm working on it!

Also, dialogue and thought is separated from actions and context-reflexions by ' - " (text) " - '. that way it has some room to be discerned from the other parts of the story, hope it makes it clearer uwu

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November 28th, 2526, Epsilon Indi System, Harvest

1600 Hours over the South pole of the Planet. In the UNSC Everest.

VADM Preston Cole:

"Log NH-07, the third day of naval battle against the self-identified fleet of Glorious Interdiction is raging, they are at least three CPV class Heavy Destroyers, along with a pair of support vessels, designated SDV class Heavy Corvettes all operating in the south pole of Harvest. And in that note, a pair of Charon-class light frigates were able to strike a salvo of missiles to the corvettes this morning, confirming my fears that using just explosives against those ships, while effective in the masses that were used against one of the Corvettes; proved ineffective in causing enough damage as the shield-less ships were basically unscathed; all the while an AGM-6 Anti-Tank missile fired from a land-based CMA-property BTR-4A Tank Destroyer provided enough firepower to blow an approximately 2.04 meter hole on one of the vessel's bow, thus, proving my resolution about what weapons should we use, HEAT."

A small rest on his narration ensued, taking notes on maybe a tandem HEAT warhead for the Archer series that could deal more damage to the enemy's hulls; the logistics would be an issue, but the explosive mass may mean that they still could be used in ground attacks; again, problematic at first hand, but that's how wars were.

Soon after finishing his drawings, the admiral coughed and resumed on his normal tone.

"After that engagement, where the enemy ships retreated, my Valiant was engaged by one lone Destroyer in a rear Assault to our formation where it managed to kill three Sharpfin corvettes and two Diligence-class Destroyers that covered my vessel while it was turning to face the enemy, then the entire non-nuclear missile load of my ship was able to overwhelm their defenses, allowing me to kill it with a low-powered shot of our left MAC."

Saying that took a tad of effort making the Admiral take a long breath, suppressing the emotions after remembering the cries of loyalty and wishes for Cole to jeep defending humanity coming from the crews of his subordinate ships. Then, he reorganized his thoughts and kept speaking to that Holocomputer in front of him.

"On another note: a third of my battlegroup has been again destroyed, I'll be going into space with a pair of frigates as Screen if the enemy decides to sneak." - He said while moving some representations of the ships on a screen.- "Then I'll resupply my ship and present to the UNSC High Command a reform based on the experience of my battles and the overall data obtained during this year and almost a half of war. I hope that if I get the thumbs up from Hood and Speakman, I'll be able to swing all the other votes towards the approval of my incentive, otherwise, I fear we may well be facing or true d-."

Before finishing those words, a contact entered the UNSC Holodomor's Early detection Aircraft wing radar: a 1.6-kilometer vessel was raging against the Command section of the formation while the other ships were on the ground recovering covenant scrap, another ambush intent presumably made by a monkey alien, more commonly known as Jiralhanae or Brute. The VADM was instantly warned about this menace going at full speed against the human vessels trying to go into space.

Cole instantly went into the bridge of the ship while it was ordering its crew and the two Stalwart escorts what to do, directing them to a head-on interception of the ship and to charge the MACs.

Three minutes after the warning of the specialized variant of the Baselard, Cole gave the order to get two half-charged shots from its ship's MACs to the enemy vessel and then a solution of 200 Archers from the accompanying ships. The destroyer managed to defeat one of the Heavy caliber slugs with its shields but the other impacted cleanly on the shield of the stern side, deleting their outer protection and leaving them open for the impact of 90 missiles into the whole CPV, leaving it vulnerable after destroying the forward-facing point defense weapons; providing space for the autocannons of the Valiant to pierce and destroy the enemy vessel.

And so, the Admiral rested, knowing his assumption about this being a Jiralhanae ship instead of a Sangheili ship saved their lives and ammo, after all, any competent slipt-jaw would know that they had to send torpedoes first. And sure enough, that ship could still have killed them thousands of kilometers away, but thank god for the idioticy of some of their enemies.

After that encounter, the Admiral in his ship went to the UNSC Mother, one of the repair and refit stations cousin to the larger UNSC Cradle, there he decided that the UNSC could handle the small frigates and corvettes that plagued Harvest, with just some CCS to protect the bastards.

His mind though was impassive, he knew a change of doctrine and especially equipment, was needed to end this enemy that obviously surpassed the UNSC in everything but apparently tactics and automatization. After all, sacrificing colonies to the ships that were not in the Epsilon Indi system would not attrition them enough, not to win the battle, not nearly to win the war.

So?

So he went to keep writing, Martin Luther also had to sacrifice himself to create all the thesis.

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His Opus Magno was to include a plan on how to drive humanity maybe not to a victory, but rather a stalemate that could make the aliens consider a peace deal in the future. And he would write it on the sight of the half-burned planet where a few nukes could occasionally be sighted from one of the windows of his personal quarters.

First, he would divide it into sections, the civilian oriented, to make things cleared between the Colonial Administration, the Earth government and the Space command. Obviously, he was no politician, but he had seen clearly how things were going to go if they did not start to work seriously against this menace:

-Total war should be declared.

-Every man and every woman working, unemployed people go directly to naval and aircraft manufacturing, this was going to be a war decided by control of space with land being an important second, but one that couldn't decide the outcome of the war as demonstrated by the battles of Second base and Green Hills.

-Dissidence to work in collaboration with the UNSC is to be treated as treason against humanity, this is not a ruse against insurrectionists, this is a war against a technologically superior enemy that wants to exterminate us.

-Outer and small colonies should be evacuated and used solely by UNSC/CMA to extract resources before they are attacked, and a 'Danger zone' to mark those planets to be evacuated or fortified to evade more civilian casualties should be drawn 15 Light years from Harvest, marking 145 colonies and outposts (Colonies with less than 100 thousand humans) as endangered by the covenant, that should become just 50 colonies in the fringes of the space being attacked by the alien pact.

-Any 'needed' mining or resource-oriented operation in one of the soon-to-be-abandoned colonies, should be conducted by CMA personnel and be prepared to leave as soon as one unidentified signal enters the system

Then into the more military-oriented changes:

-All CMA combat ships equal or higher in displacement than a destroyer is to be sent into the UNSC's arsenal, all the while their military ships labelled as corvettes or frigates are to lose their slipspace drives and given to UNSC for the build-up effort.

-The UNSC is to create a new line of ships based on the armour of the Halcyon line of cruisers and with a payload of missiles based on the ARCHER series of varying warhead projectiles to be used as a multirole strike platform and a pure anti-ship HEAT missile.

-The MA Series of rifles is to be either converted into a more 'punch packing' calibre, like the .338 and use the famed SAPHE bullets or to be scrapped altogether and replaced for a platform able to dispense de SAPHE type of projectiles. I recommend the BR series of rifles for an intermediate solution.

-The old style of combat, with MANPADs, ATGMs and SAMs is to be reinstated, this is not an insurrection, it is a real army whose advantages can be cut in half if we just had artillery and land base air protections in our formations. Following this, during the battles on Harvest, some old 'Tarantula' explosive-reactive-armour-equipped tanks were able to shrug off plasma bolts better than the Scorpion series tank, which is also at a disadvantage due to their high profile and inadequate cannon. The old military stocks and should be used for something among the lines of the tanks of the great wars of the 21st century.

-Results of the war are to be showed and every adult citizen is to be taught how to use weapons and to prepare in case of an invasion.

-The UNSC Army is to put in every planet at least a division for a quick response with armour; the Marines are not a parallel army; they are a light infantry formation to be sent until the army can respond or their organic armour/fire support units can act.

-The UNSC is to research how to make something among the lines of a Mako class corvette, slipspace incapable, anchorable to any ship bigger than itself, with no crew, AI-controlled and with a MAC comparable to at least those on the Halberd-class destroyers. Accordingly, 'Parasyte craft' is to be employed, Baselards are a good enough option to be manned by 'dumb' AI, latched onto a ship on the hull and sent into combat as only shuttles and dropships are to use the hangars, aside from these crafts replenishing their payloads.

-Marathon class cruisers are to stop their production and any ship above the displacement of the Vindication-Class Light battleship/Heavy Cruiser is to be used as a Command ship, sniping and deploying craft.

-All ships are to be refitted following a guideline to be discussed with HIGHCOM. Those ships unable to be changed are to be converted into makeshift OWPs for the Danger zone planets not evacuated per my previous command.

-Any ship with a slipspace is to backup all their data and delete navigation records upon entering a new destination or traveling to one.

-The Spartan program is to focus only on producing more members and the MJOLNIR series of products, Yggdrasil and HRUNTING are to be put into the frontlines soon as an intermediate between ODST forces and a Spartan team.

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And that's what he had written in the datapad, it wasn't a true manifesto, but rather a list of things that in his mind, were the ones that would change the course of the war ever if so, slightly into human favour; and he knew the brass at HIGHCOM would tweak it, as they always do, but it was better than leaving men to die effortlessly in the future, hell, he soon would write a manual with other admirals and generals to alleviate deaths too; but space, space was first.

Then, as he prepared to send it to Reach via the quantum computer of the UNSC Mother, an ONI prowler received the orders from their men inside the repair station; they needed a distraction to make it so that message never reaches HIGHCOM, otherwise, the higherups at ONI can't get their... Experimentation, nor information.

And so, the human vessel not bigger than two pelicans went near a CCS Battlecruiser re-glassing a part of the equator of Harvest and sent a 'communication between two officers' with the position of what was 'the human home ship'. The Sangheili on the bridge of the ship had no doubts, he had to engage what his engineers told would be a supreme price, something for which the arbiter would reward him with maybe even the control of one DAS carrier, and even if he died after damaging them, the honour would probably elevate his keep further than it already was, so he ordered his crew to prepare for a full-on assault into the enemy space outpost; abandoning the ground forces they were now defending in favour of accelerating towards the general direction of the enemy; sending waves of torpedoes to soften enemy resistance; and charging the plasma cannons; due to the lances not being suited for the angle of the attack he'd try.

But in the fleet, there was something else happening, a staff sergeant stopped Cole in his walk towards the machine that could send the messages to Reach, the Admiral drew his magnum in answer to this, but then the copper-skinned man spoke

"Sir, an attack is coming to the station, we need you at the bridge." - He said while the alarm began to sound listing an approaching attack and an enemy vessel surging from the atmosphere about 750km away from them.

"Tell the Rear Admiral Zhao that he is to manage the situation, I need to get this fast if my death is a possibility." - Cole countered as he kept walking, dismissing the marine's hand.

"Sir, the orders came from above; we need to keep you safe and the fleet safe!" - Shouted the marine, sounding a tad desperate if his tone and now fast walking towards the admiral was something to base conclusions off, like someone making things up on the fly.- "You are not allowed to enter that room."- He concluded after nearing Cole, being separated by just a few meters.

"There's no mayor authority on this system than me." - A simple answer came from him, making the man doubt of what really was happening.

He started reaching for his magnum, it was impossible that Hood had sent a message, and Volkov was occupied with the 14th Destroyer Squadron, and even then, they both were the same rank, and if it was ONI, as he suspected due to the clearance this gave to anyone to access things like the knowledge of this manifesto's existence that could change the actual United Earth Government's Status Quo and the 'Agency's operations in the Outer Colonies; he would not knee for them, neither would he change this transmission that might be in his eyes, the much-needed basis for the survival of Earth; and, why would an ONI member try to tamper with him? It doesn't matter, if he's adamant he'll have to menace him or prepare against a very possible... Confrontation.

The soldier tensed, his visor polarizing, his rifle resting now on the ground; all in a few moments which Preston did not fail to interpret, so he prepared himself, trying to stiffen his stance.

"I'm sorry sir, but you're not allowed to continue." - His stern voice warned.

After saying that, the marine directly tackled him, and as there were no people aside from the guard in front of the Slipspace Communications Launcher room just around the corner where these two people were fighting; no one tried to stop him, leading to Cole being thrown to the floor and his pistol being thrown off from his hands, Cole's thoughts were almost confirmed, the Colonial Administration was stupid, but they'd never try to do something like this it was the intelligence office doing this, but now he had to defend himself, later he'd retaliate against that organization.

The Admiral was no pushover even when attacked by obviously someone that has been fighting a long time, he demonstrated that his bones were still capable of launching a fist charged with the intent of just stopping the man and effectively getting him to get a blank stare as he probably thinks about his now broken nose and tries to cope with the pain. Aside from that, the admiral reached for his already unholstered weapon, moving its barrel towards the marine's chest. The Sargeant responded by snaping out of his unable state and headbutting Cole's brow with the impulse given by his fast-moving torso and expanding his arms to seize control of the extremities of the NCO.

"Help!" - Cried Cole, instantly getting the Marine preoccupied, he had to kill Cole and himself or otherwise it would all be fucked.

And so, as he heard the heavy footsteps of the guard rushing towards them, he started struggling harder with Cole before using his helmet a little bit creatively by starting to mash it against the Admiral's face. So again, and again he struck his 'boss', slowly getting him to get weaker on their arm fight while the expressions of the genius' were getting into a diversity of colours due to the impacts with red dominating the sector just above the nose bridge; just then he tried to reach for the almost defeated man's right hand, where the M6 Magnum resided, the weak, the grounded admiral was unable to stop both hands of the man taking the pistol and pointing towards his head.

*Bang*

That's all that's heard after just 10 seconds of fighting, it ended abruptly, now a lifeless man was on the ground, with a 7.62 round on his head, under him was a battered UNSC officer that lied with a hurt face and rapidly recovered his strength thanks to the late adrenaline rush. Soon he looks at the private, probably the guard to the FTL COMMS room, the marine looked like he joined months ago after the massive propaganda campaign in honour of the victory at Auriage, he was very young and seemed startled, like he had committed a massive error.

"Thanks, son... Without you I might be joining those poor bastards at Alpha Corvi." - The Admiral chuckles after saying that. At the same time, he pushes away the body of the lifeless traitor that attacked him.

"It was nothing admiral, just... Wait, why are you here instead of on the bridge?" - Asked the perplexed marine with a partially aggressive undertone that did not go unnoticed, but it was probably due to his fame as a naval hero and the correlation it carries to be on the frontline; something almost debunked by the stoic stance the soldier took, getting it's facing now centred on the admiral.

"I have an urgent message to UNICOM, and this 'man' tried to stop me, and do not worry, the leader of this battlegroup can lead the battle, this is more important to me right now." - After explaining himself he stood up, taking the hand of the marine and stretching it, after that he retook his weapon and began walking to his destination; were sounds of surprise were already coming, apparently a shot inside this facility doesn't go unnoticed, there probably was a team coming here to see what happened but the admiral just thought that he'd explain it later.

"Sir, please, give me the datapad and go to fend off those aliens, please. "- He asked himself how did he knew of the message, then he noticed the rather inquisitorial tone; that was all the admiral needed to just raise his arm after giving 180 degrees turn and just get three bullets in the marine's body, he is not going to risk having another traitor.

He wanted to throw up as he saw the disfigured face of the soldier begin to splash on the ground, decorating it next to the other soldier, but Cole knew he'd later pray for atoning the sin of not giving at least the benefit of the doubt to the soldier; after all, in war, all what was needed to be done, would be done.

Six seconds after this, the sound of a door opening gets everyone in the FTL Comms room anxious. The multiple people there just look with surprise to the door and the light coming from outside that now bombarded the scientist's eyes.

"Who shot a moment ago?"

"What happened?"

"Who is there?"

"Who were the hearable voices that sounded just before that last shot?"

All answers the five people responsible for maintaining the only way to communicate with the Earth and Reach instantly got their answers a pair of seconds later, a wounded Vice Admiral Cole looking at them with a tad of anger. They immediately rushed to help him but his hands waved them off and pointed to one of them, a Juno-born woman that manned the directions of the slipspace rupture where the message would go through.

"Si-ir, are you ok?"- The woman asked, feeling nervous at the sight, but she got a head movement from the man, a negation.

"Please, send this message to Cairo Station." - The man said handing out the datapad, trusting these men and women to not be like the ones he just killed, but not enough so to make him leave his weapon holstered, letting it rest on his palm. A wise decision given the circumstances, as outside something important is happening.- "And please, do not try anything funny."- He finished.

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Outside there was a fight, the torpedos were detected just 200km away from the formation, their radars directed the information to the shipborne AIs who then passed it down to the gunners of the two Anti-Aircraft oriented Stalwart-class frigates that immediately launched a salvo of 20 missiles each one and a barrage of 50mm shells to destroy the projectiles, but four managed to slip by. The prow of the leftmost UNSC Heavy Corvette, the Atahualpa, exploded, soon the rest of the ship became a fireball that sent remains at high speed towards the other 6 combat ships present there. Another one reached the UNSC Castilla, a Halcyon-class that almost fully shrug off the attack if it wasn't for its port side's naval guns exploding and letting most of the ship unable to operate further. The other two were tanked by one of the two destroyers of the formation, the UNSC Will of Fire, who exploded just a mere hundred meters from the hull of the repair station that was giving aid to twenty human ships.

Three seconds after Will's explosion, coming on the horizon of the planet was the after-mentioned CCS, the Flash of Fury, who soon began expulsing energy from its heavy plasma cannons, weapons that couldn't hit the UNSC Mother as the Castilla got in the way, facing her port towards the plasma and taking it all while the other 4 ships on the formation got their MACs just ready to send 4-60ton and 2-120ton ferrous slugs at the tens of kilometers per second into the enemy vessel. The hit took half the enemy shots due to a quick turn to starboard; depleting its shields and getting most of the bow port side's armor peeled off, along with damage to the ship's energy connections due to the shockwaves rippling after being plummeted by those weapons.

During the time the aliens tried to turn, bringing all their weapons to bear instead of the little lasers that lacked the punch to kill most human ships thanks to the distance between them; the Admiral in the repair station sent an order, a Nuke in a Hyperion missile should be controlled by an AI and sent with the next salvo of missiles; at the same time, he gave the order to all projectile-based guns, even on the docked ships; to open fire. Twenty seconds after the order, while the covenant was sending another wave of plasma torpedoes to the UNSC Mother, hundreds of different kinds of 5-10-50 and 150-centimeter shells going into the Sangheili led cruiser, impacting before the enemy's attack even reached half of the journey towards the enemy fleet. The shield-less vessel got barraged to the point that their frontal weapons were totally disabled. The Sangheili leading the ship then decided to rush towards the enemy, launching every dropship and infiltration craft on the Cruiser to try and make damage to the enemy lines while desperately trying to get its 14 operational plasma cannons to shoot in a general direction to the enemy, a prideful move that would prove to be his doom.

The plasma torpedos were this time detected by all the ships present and the newly launched Pelican Dropships going to scout ahead; giving the Anti Air frigates enough time to spend half of their missile load and eliminating all but one plasma torpedo, which ended being taken by one of the destroyers, tanking it with its inclined armour, evading a certain death and instead of getting its small ventral hangar smashed. The plasma projectiles though were unable to be stopped, they disabled the MAC of an AA ship, and dealt serious damage to the other ships; but they wouldn't let themselves be killed, a salvo of 340 Archer missiles was launched to the enemy, along a bombing run of the six pelicans; the hull of the shield-less alien vessel was totally broken, leaving the few coilgun shots coming from the docked ships to definitively kill the Battlecruiser that had sent to hell three ships and damaged the rest.

Rear Admiral Zhao, who was smiling at the fact that they destroyed one of the 5 surviving Battlecruisers of the enemy and that they survived at all; a sentiment that was shared by everyone on the bridge of the station; received a notice, an FTL message was sent just now. Sender? Vice Admiral Preston Cole.

...

A week later, in the OWP-056, London; on the Earth's Orbit, within a room were the control of over one hundred and seventy of these orbital cannons capable of obliterating the famed CAS carriers that they fought on Alpha Auriage with just one shot laid: was Lord Terrence Hood, the newly promoted Rear-Admiral lower-half surrounded by the projections of other four persons all wearing distinct yet similar BDUs, representing ONI, the Army (UNSCA), Air Force and the CMA; all of which who along with Hood, conformed the 2526 emergency HIGHCOM; and, one of the figures said 'Dismissed', leaving the reunion.

"Now that we are alone, I thank you for approving these changes, I'm sure you want to know why I asked you to stay before Parangosky came... But the Vice-Admiral told us, to latch ONI, and I think we need to start correcting their... 'Purposes'." - Told the officer.

After saying this, it seemed that the future was going to be different from what he thought. At least, Hood hoped to die of old age, with humanity still fighting instead of being killed defending his home in a massacre.

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A/N: First of all, this is a ¿Navy focused? Fanfic. Expect to see large battles instead of just single Spartans going into impossible missions.

OH, and yeah, it will be a more ¿Realistic? UNSC and Covenant; yeah, ignore the cartoonishly villainous ONI, but I'll try my best to give a good explanation :D

Also, after this, there will be a time skip where some important events will be touched, but after chapter 3 the storytelling will get in-depth with something.

If you have a recommendation, an idea, or even something bad to say, please say it, if you have something good to say, say it too. This is my first time publishing fanfic so everything you have to say I'll be grateful... Just try to not be disrespectful.

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