Struggle (The Cole List) Chapter 3: Tidal turn, a halo fanfic

I don't own Halo.

And… If some are wondering, I answer reviews privately, if someone has a comment that thinks should be posted here as an author note, I'll be glad to put it.

Aside from that, a small explanation of ranges on space fights and a response to the only review I couldn't answer privately:

Combats are usually broadside or on less than 20km, on Halo Wars 2 we see at most a 100-300km range. In The Fall of Reach, we have the one and only Sniper ship that outranged the MACs and it was probably based on human techs, like the AIs they had. Therefore I-m going for less than 10.000km reach for ships

Missiles are without air friction on space, thus, they can rely on accelerations, no loss of velocity, and quick turns. Plasma loses its heat, lasers dissipate, and solid rounds are only affected by gravitational pull.

And… 20mm guns are just plain bullet spam, that's the reasoning between the CIWS and the AK-130. Also, HEAT is effective against nanolaminate, the 'armor shattering effect' of the archers is good, like HESH against tanks, but get too much armor and they are useless, meanwhile, a HEAT is always going to destroy.

Oh, something, the next chapter will take place some time in the future, this is kinda written in an anthology way, but I'll say where this episode takes place; cuz I don't wanna go lineal to screw foreshadowing.

Also, thanks for your support. :D

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Consolidation:

The little manual written by Volkov and Cole, along with the Cole List, were sold as a book by the UNSC and quickly became the number one selling text in history by division Three of ONI as a way to let the normal populace know about what was going to happen, receiving mixed success whose most vivid detractors were shut off by drafting or showing them the fight to evade a civilian crackdown.

But it wans't perfect, the UNSC had lost all but ten of the colonies touched by the aliens, and had only really scored five systems as being totally reclaimed.

Meanwhile, the success of the deployment of the inner colonies' fleets and the reserve ones to evacuate the danger zone became a political tool for the UNSC to legitimize itself and its control over the CMA/CAA and the outer colonies; while making the 'innies' look better in the 'outties' opinion. Even greater news for making the populace jump in support of the armed forces was the victory at Redstow and the reconquest of Second base by a trio of destroyers killing the CCS stationed there made the average citizen forget about the loss of four colonies & outposts and the invasion of Persia and begin waving UNSC flags.

So big was the success of the application of the new tactics that on December 25th, 2526, in the UEG's congress, a motion was proposed to make Cole the de facto leader of humanity instead of Lord Hood, which famously was dismissed by him saying on an interview:

"Why me? I don't like administrating outside of battle. I might be in your eyes a hero, but Hood is the one that knows how to seat and send what ship to where and where the money for ships goes. Think it like me being the sword, and him the shield, he gives me a good chance, and I take it, exploit it, and win. Just imagine if he had gone to Auriage and his Punic was plummeted by an enemy battlecruiser, we would have lost the only one capable to coordinate admirals almost as efficiently as an AI" - Then, he chuckled a bit.

Those words marked Hood's stability as the leader of humanity even further, making his plea for insurrectionists and everyone trying to make a profit in mischievous ways on this war to stop and join the efforts, successful enough that technically separate entities like the republic of Gao joined the UNSC under the 'National and Coast Guard' the new name of the CMA, and the rebels on the outer colonies presented themselves to join the before mentioned organization, or at least that's what the ONI written articles said.

And the UEG was mocked for trying to interfere with the military command chain with a civil motion.

….

In that context, the announcement of a new line of ships during the second week of 2527 wasn't a surprise; the so-called 'Freedom line of ships' and reintroduction of old equipment to the production lines; were presented to the public in great fashion after being revised by a military committee along with the description of the new technologies for understanding to the public and the military.

All products were built using the honeycomb-style armor reinvented by Reyes-McLee and hints of titanium A-2 between the meshes of other materials, with promises of it enduring two times as the old armor with the same thickness; and allowing a ship to endure punishment never seen before outside of the Halcyons.

The other surprise was the 'Add-on packages of armor' any ship could use, as explosive reactive armor was dangerous for the user to say the least. It was presented as a reinvention of the medieval shields, but for naval usage; and they'd be used in the newly reformed 'Coast guard' that was the CMA, and the mainline navy of the UNSC, all to further the survivability of humanity's defenders.

Then the name of the ships came to be known, but not their real loadout, possibly to not distract from the fact these were planned vessels to be entering service shortly as their swift construction was based on the unfinished hulls of other ships:

-Modular 'Hope'-class Parasite ships: An engine with a spinal mounted Mark III 005BC Medium MAC gun with 80 rounds, with a token AA battery and the capability of adding missile loadouts; all controlled by a dumb AI coordinated by the 'Carrying vessel's 'smart' AI without more than 5cm of aluminum alloy protecting it nor a slipspace-drive; made to just be a flying battery to make out for the lack of numbers that the UNSC had to use to defeat the covenant.

-Kovalic-class Corvettes: Made to replace all corvettes and local protection vessels, they were 300 meters long with two Trebuchet-B 'Super-light-MACs', a small dropship hangar, anti-air & anti-vessel capabilities.

-Troyez-class Frigates: Screening ships, made for reinforcing planetary defenses and be protectors of destroyers and replacing the three main frigate lines of the UNSC with emphasis on Anti-Air capabilities armed with the gun of the Charons on them, configured in a fast firing configuration.

-Hood-Class Destroyers: A change of configuration of the Musket-class, with the biggest change being the ability to carry three Hope-class ships; and a lesser input on carrying for more weapons like a dual medium-MAC battery instead of the usual light-medium one.

- Cole-class Cruisers: A compromise between a Marathon, a Vindication, and a Musket. A one-point-five kilometer vessel carrying two Heavy MACs and a fast-firing light one from the Epoch class; and six Coilgun batteries; aside from the massive missile loadout and a token aircraft and assault force. Capable of bringing 6 Parasite vessels.

-Harvest-class Carriers: A Super MAC carrying ship with a 250 craft-sized dedicated combat air wing and a brigade of troops, minimal armor but massive recoil dampers; designed to coordinate battlegroups, capable of carrying 14 Parasite vessels.

-Endurance-class Battleship: No info aside from it being capable of attaching 20 Parasite vessels was given.

-Liberty ships: Series of lightly armed transport ships made only to ferry big amounts of materiel and troops to the ground or resources for construction all around Human space, ships that would be the first to be seen in early January.

That, added to the information about strike craft being now able to be attached to the hull of most warships was the surprise of the navy to humanity, with the notice that other ship classes may be procured too to make up for losses before the new ships could act and the old ships being refitted came to quickly respond, alleviating some of the shipayrds' preocupations of being left aside for not being able to produce the new models.

Inland, there was another line of change, but it wasn't so publicized, after all, they had to try their ideas now.

But they had just won on Persia and Etalan for now with a naval push from some inner fleets, with another 3 colonies being successfully glassed by the covenant after humanity evacuate; so what place was the one to prove their doctrinal change on land? Well, in the heart of the propaganda campaign, Harvest.

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September 30th, 2527, 1800 hours.

Tarrare sector, Harvest, Epsilon Indi System:

Twelve minutes before the start of Operation Siege.

Cole meditated on his ship. His thoughts making the bridge of the Valiant seemed ominously silent as no one dared to interrupt him.

Everyone just looked to the Admiral that was silently taking notes on a pad, his ship remaining in formation with three Stalwarts and two Vindications, all the while seating at 16.000km from the planet they orbited, but why was he like that?

Well, the Fleet of Glorious Interdiction and the one of Righteous Vigilance was eerly quiet. It's once 82 ship strong fleet was now converted into a ragtag 13 ships from varying classes on the fringes of the system without being able to neither coordinate nor help their stranded 130 thousand troops inland due to their constant vigilance of wolfpacks that strikes from above the newcomers, or the SuperMAC from Volkov's Flagship.

But now they had to end this, the 78 human vessels atmosphere would help the CMA 'ground pounders' as they were preparing to destroy the main enemy resistance before they had to either run or deal with the newcomers that the prisoners said would come, carrying 'The orders of a hierarch'.

The controlled sector of the covenant now was divided into sparse areas and the so-called 'Sanctified Discovery', an area they had defended even with suicide attacks committed by Sangheili just to stop the humans to get even near it. It was on the North Pole where a battlecruiser along with two destroyers and a CAS, all surviving of the 'Cole's orbital wipeout'; fanatically glassed; probably just to cause damage or discover an artifact as the ONI's little play monkey Rtas'Vadumee said they tried to uncover most of the time with this localized glassing. What were they trying to get from the planet if this elite was telling the truth? Humanity didn't know. The only way to know this was to get one of the leaders of the operation; High Chieftain Thrallslayer, the arbiter Ripa'Moramee, fieldmarshall Re'gish Wamik or Shipmaster Thon'Talamee; and so, they were going to liberate the planet, and know what they wanted, in just, one, movement before those pesky aliens came with the so-called Prophet of Regret.

And for that, his thoughts really only were prayers that their own reinforcements came fast and that the guys on land finish the enemy fleet and get the arbiter quick; because he had lost already a hundred and twenty ships on this system, and he did not want to waste more human lives, even he and Senior had a limit.

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Harvest's North Pole:

Five minutes the start of Operation Siege.

On-orbit, Captain Allaire, thanks for his display of tactical proficiency in land and air; was now in charge of the CMA ground pounders, a battle group of destroyers, corvettes, and frigates to deploy, support and retrieve troopers on the ground and kill any alien ship near them. They were divided into three groups of ten ships each, one on-orbit as slowdown if the covenant decided to try and scape; another patrolling the 'oriental' side of the Greenwich line, and another on the 'occidental', this was clearly the most important fight of the year, no matter the current naval conflict on Sansar or the enemy new efforts to capture Persia.

The plan he'd devised along with the Major General Tesalico was based around striking along the road made by the Harvest militia, during the initial phases of the campaign when the area was under the UNSC control, towards the enemy's main outpost outside the one under the wing of the CCS. It was to be a coordinated assault of two army mechanized and one armored division not shown to anyone outside the higher-ups on this operation and the soldiers of the hidden formation, alongside a marine attack on all sides with four main piercing points made by marine motorized regiments and lesser distraction movements of the light infantry; while at the same time a special operation to take out a covenant spire protected enough to be immune to artillery strikes took care of it and prepared it for the second phase of the operation, while the ships are to deploy a token force against the enemies heart base where they'd kill the CCS from space before, hopefully gaining enough covvie tech to satisfy ONI and the doubts about what was happening. At the same time, the main attack is supposed to scatter the rest of the enemy vessels to attack the armored formation, letting UNSC forces immobilize it from space with a clean shot using a special lithium-tungsten PEM slug and then Spartan teams will board them and hopefully capture the not destroyed ships using the spire for safe transport. Then they would have captured the Arbiter supposedly on the CAS or the CCS or at least one of his representatives.

The night before the start of the operation; the head of the land-based and naval-organic aircraft component on Harvest; Sir Crystal Speakman, had advised everyone not to use nukes, and had laid out the plans for every mayor group though, so the navy wasn't going to act until the artillery sounded with reconnaissance made by wombats carried by the Ground pounders; so the responsibility of starting the campaign depended on the Redstow born captain who now was discussing with the other commanders, lieutenant commanders, and captains about when to begin.

"Just send them already, we've got Nandaos circling the 15th armored and I have a salvo of AA missiles." - Spoke a commander of an Electronic warfare Paris-class frigate, the Gettysburg.

"I'm waiting for the word of the 155-mil guns being ready." - Replied Captain Allaire with a slightly annoyed tone.

"We already got news about the 105s being ready, and if not, the marines have some Cyclops to use until their mortars are set up near those freaks." - Another captain spoke, the leader of an 'Assault-refitted' Hillsborough.

"Mate, you got control of this operation; but we need to strike fast before the night comes or else the troops on the ground are dead, I say five minutes more." - Advised a commander from a Mako.

After these words, the 'Hero of Tomoe' and 'In-system-jumper', Mr. Allaire, said: "Miss Hartman, get those birds inbound, attach our 2nd Nandao flight to them and have them search along the way to the citadel." - Then he looked at the projections, looking at how the 2nd in command, another Redstow born officer of a Halberd Destroyer; was clapping at him, an action that made him snicker. - "Now prepare, I'll be ordering the marine parties to advance and I want you scanning every single second, the aliens might have hidden something in the area."

"Lieutenant Keyes, prepare your 'special load' and keep behind my ship when I give you the signal you go and sprint towards the ground." - Said Allaire to the last man on the comms, a good corvette commander that had fought on Tau Ceti's reconquest who commanded the Mako Column of Hope.

After that, comms were closed, and from the hangar of the destroyer the 12 Wombats got out. Followed by 5 fighters attached to the port hull of the ship and went north at subsonic velocities, all controlled by the ship's AI.

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"Cherokee's Platoon":

One minute before the start of Operation Siege.

The marines on the ground were on their temporal camps, tents just put to be abandoned soon and make enemy scouts believe they are semi-permanent garrisons inside technically covenant territory, but they got their orders that they needed to start advancing just as, birds were helping the armored ones, now they needed to start moving so they could begin attacking enemy defenses and mark the positions for the Army's heavy and the marine's light artillery without this... Object's interference. And this was going to be the first mass ground real tactic and deployment of artillery in years, as since the Luna insurgency 11 years ago no one has amassed more than just one battalion of those support weapons, and in that situation, the guns were fielded by navy men in a desperate defense because the Marine Corps had abandoned their arty-battalions in 2489, he'd seen when they disposed of them after all; now it was time to use them in-masse. Was the flash training enough? Had they gotten real training on Reach or Alluvion?

Those were the thoughts of a Gunnery sergeant leading a platoon on the 'Ranger' operation of the soon-to-be battle. It wasn't meditation, no, it was coping with the mere image of them going against an enemy without scorpions nor warthogs in these climates were craziness and the status of the military now was one of the few things distracting him from that. Who cared about these 'Cyclops? They needed scorpions, but nooo, they were relegated to the 'Colonial National Guards ', just the motorized guys had armor in form of grizzlies and some other shit, the commoners now had to just trust that these machines; they didn't even receive more than this weird ONI marked ODST plating for this supposed special operation.

[If only these cocksu-]. But the train of thought was stopped by the intrusion of a marine, the second in command, who behind the masked helmet was a preoccupied and eager face.

"Sir! Comms says the armored column is moving and has already engaged the enemy at Point Ground!" - Well, they had to move quickly, they were behind schedule. The identified Sergeant Johnson dismissed all thought from before and just stood up from his folding chair.

[Fuck, fuck, fuck!]- He thought before reaching for his equipment.- "Call everyone and meet me in two minutes, we're sprinting now and assaulting so we can go home!" - Yelled the sergeant who soon proceeded to take his brand-new BR55 and walk with his backpack and snow-climate armor towards the 'exit' of the makeshift camp.

The 40 other members of the marine load of one of the UNSC Halberds in orbit were soon seen moving things, the light mortar crew along with the medic and the Alpha squad was the first to arrive. The Beta squad, the platoon's sniper team, and HMG team arrived 15 seconds before the announced time of the sergeant who watched every single one of his anxious soldiers; he had to admit, even if a whole squad was missing and they didn't have any 'real' armor protection like the 'armored warthogs', these soldiers made him think that they'd survive. After all, the marines and militiamen in the first battles on Harvest looked like teens with weapons, these men and women actually seemed to be able to shoot at a brute without hesitation; maybe it was the ODST armor covered in clothes and loads properly of Army pioneers, or maybe it was because he had confidence on the equipment and training of these guys after the reforms; either way, the leader stood beside the Beta squad and then signaled towards the road that led to the tundra-covered mountains where they'd hunt the enemy. Then, he opened his mouth to speak, fully knowing his voice would be heard by everyone remaining or outside the camp.

"Now we're making double time, I want two men per squad with IR on his helmet after the two-kilometer mark and if someone sees something we are going to shoot it into oblivion unless you are sure it's human; if what we just gunned down was an animal; we will eat it, if it is a covvie, we'll scavenge and continue. Any questions?" - Said the leader of this platoon that had been entrusted to him by the captain of the ship that had carried him during Silent Storm.

"Sir, what do we have to expect sir? Like, aside from Xenos on the one-kilometer mark." - Asked the designated marksman from Beta squad's 1st team; with an obvious nervous tone.

"A 'makeshit' covvie Anti Air position in point Phi, we are to take it as it might interfere with the air battle or impede the movement of troops to Point Exit in the final stage of this operation. But we might encounter a covvie patrol and we are to engage it and try to make sure more aliens come here. I'm not going to lie, we might die, but if we distract enough Xenos from Point Exit you will all be remembered as the liberators of Harvest." - After saying that he looked at his phone, fully knowing what was about to happen, they were really assigned along with some other platoons to hit the only covenant spire unreachable for the motorized regiments and detrimental to the operation if shot from space as it'd give info about where to they were on-orbit for their lances, he hoped they'd be all right and this wasn't just a suicide mission and that the covenant being able to shoot off artillery rounds from a spire wasn't false; and, he prayed that his men weren't cannon fodder sent as human shields for the Spartans-I on this operation.

"Sir, another question sir!" - Shouted an eager 'Assault' marine grasping hard to her M45 Shotgun and shaking the holster of the M7, receiving a nod from his superior who got out of the trance that had been plaguing him. -"Where is Gamma squad?" - Asked a curious young woman after noticing the nod as a 'go' signal.

"We're just in time boys!" - A lightly muffled voice was heard along with heavy footsteps, soon, the four Cyclops that conformed the third squad were next to the 7 men from the mortar team, causing jealousy from them at the mere sight of the armor cladded soldiers bearing a 14cm recoilless rifle, a 14.5 Machine gun, and a 80 shot 40mm grenade launcher, all added to its jackhammer; as it was enough to make their mortar useless in an assault.

"Next time you get here so late you'll get demoted and sent directly to Rubble! But for now, as a punishment, Cherokee platoon, let the Gamma squad carry your luggage!" - After saying that, the white-painted armored marines were covered in the heavy equipment of their teammates.

Yes, this was going to be a fun walk into death.

...

An hour and a half after the start of Operation Siege:

"Sir! Please remember me of why we aren't on warthogs?" - Asked the marine carrying the Mortar's baseplate, clearly mad that his spot for storage at the Cyclops had been replaced by the Sniper team sitting on it while surveying the boreal forest with their thermal sight.

"Because our ship wasn't a frigate to have those fancy things, and because this is a real military operation, did ya' think the marines at Fallujah had to sit comfortably?" - Responded the sergeant trying to act tough, as the tradition dictated.

After hearing that, the spotter of the sniper team remembered the history lessons on the academy and spoke without much hesitation as to what was he saying.

"But sir, weren't the marines stuck on AAVs or Humvees?" - The 19yo volunteer asked with curiousness.

"Kasanga, get the fuck out of the Cyclops." - The serious tone of the sergeant meant that he had screwed, and he wasn't going to try and comment anymore, and so, the sighting-equipment-carrying marine kept walking in the middle of the forest on his own feet, much to the delight of the baseplate carrier as someone else suffered just like him.

"Still, even if we had something, we couldn't drive it through this area, the Cyclops almost and don't fit and you think a warthog could be droved here. Hell, it'd make even more sound than these two metal chunks with your loud mouths." - Snickered the leader.

"Sergeant Johnson, look up." - Spoke a grenadier from Alpha squad just as Johnson finished mocking the marines, he proceeded to indicate above the tree line to a pinkish sight slowly moving east of them, the direction of the 'center' squad for the attack.

"Get the fuck down everyone! Del Rio, get your sorry ass with the Tailbreaker and get that bird out of the air." - At the first words of the sergeant everyone obliged by crouching and getting their weapons sighted towards their surroundings or the dot, even the Cyclops that let their comrades' bags fall into the snow as they put themselves on a triangle around their mates to protect them as the tactics book said.

Del Rio then went into where 3rd Cyclops had been and dropped their stuff, he reached for a case containing a Tube with some bulbs and a glass on the side. The Sergeant leader of the Beta squad then gave it along with a weird con with fuses to a corporal who set the cone into the tube while Del Rio got a pad out of his pocket and looked at it. Soon the corporal pointed towards the slow-flying machine and when Del Rio said 'Get him' he pressed a trigger and a flash came out of the weapon. Soon the flash accelerated into speeds that got it near the banshee and then made a hard turn, getting to strike the wing of the aircraft, then it exploded and produced a smokescreen where only a falling purple machine was seen going down. The silence after the relatively small explosion ensued, they had gotten down an enemy aircraft with a simple MANPADS, this war maybe could be won; is what all thought, but were interrupted by a Beta squad marine.

"Wasn't that bird flying near where the platoon from the Circinius Revenge is supposed to be?" - A quick 'shit' from Sergeant Johnson ensued from the commentary of the rifleman still over the Cyclops and then another explosion, this one different than the one from the crash of the aircraft, followed by a faint shout on the distance was heard.-"Was that air support?" - Asked rhetorically the platoon's sniper.

"Everyone shut up and keep walking to. Calinack, get me a line with Circinius' marines." - Avery ordered and immediately his troops began moving, the sniper team, accordingly, went with the HMG team a bit farther to have a flanking position before meeting the enemy while the mentioned marine got a pad from his vest and handed it to the sergeant.

"Gladys, what the fuck is happening there?"

But there was no answer.

"Sergeant Gladys, are you under attack?"

Five seconds passed and there wasn't a response either.

"Glady-''- The Orion operator was going to keep asking before his former program teammate spoke in return with a faint voice.

"Shut up Johnson, we have been engaged by a wraith and an enemy squad. We've lost our Cyclops in exchange for almost all of them, but two elites got 'invisimode' and are quite possibly trying to ambush us." - Replied quickly the former ORION operator.

The relieved sergeant now looked to his fellow marine who had brought the pad, without asking the soldier began walking north towards the objective even as his soldiers were still crouched.

"Gladys, remember to use thermal. Don't get your ass beaten." - The black Sarge said before looking at his platoon and moving his arm as a signal to them to start moving again.

[Why are invisible elites here? Aren't they supposed to be special operations and… Zealots?] – [Nah, it couldn't be. The Zealots were being engaged by the new UNSC armor; and the special operation guys should be defending the spire, unless… They know we are going]- That's what the Sergeant thought before looking to the mountains near him while he tried not to think about that; if the aliens really knew what they were trying to do, they were fucked.

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45 kilometers from there; Point ground:

The Covenant didn't know what had struck them.

The outer citadel, the signal of the commitment of the aliens to a campaign, was razed and all occupants either captured or dead.

Most importantly: Thrallslayer was dead, he, as commander of the principal outpost of the covenant forces and those stationed on the 'occidental side' of the North Pole; was found defending his troops against armor that they had never seen before. Machines that roared and exploded with energy twenty times greater than those of the Scorpions.

The UNSC wasn't certain if this was a tactical victory and a strategic loss, but the words of Preston Cole about this brute not being a candidate for interrogation due to their 'stupid' nature; made the human tacticians think they had indeed dismantled the outer layer of defense without setbacks to their objectives, a sentiment confirmed by the on-foot marines breaching the outposts and holding them in case the covenant tried to reclaim their equipment, using plasma weapons to hit their previous owners.

Both the Grizzly and the new UNSC IFVs were successful. The debut of the Cyclops on Harvest had made their fame gained on Persia be confirmed as a reality; this seemed too good to be true.

But it wasn't.

Humanity had lost 4.000 of their 85.000 men destined to the operation; 370 vehicles laid wasted along with 170 aircraft, but they had managed to kill at least ten thousand of those bastards. This was a victory that indeed had forced the enemy fleet to go into Point Exit, running from the catastrophe that had just ocurred.

The Ground pounders then acted. The UNSC Red fist got the honor of getting a 20% powered shot of it's two MACs into the enemy vessel, the CCS, on Point Exit. The acceleration due to the gravity of Harvest helped the drop kill the middle of the ship without much struggle. Then two other shots from the corvettes came, shattering the reactor of the ship and the prow, killing its plasma lance. Then the Battlecruiser fell into its troops, flattening the ground near the citadel and letting the drop of 4250 ODSTs of the fleet, 40% of all the shock troopers in Harvest; to that place.

A minor setback occurred as a Spire activated it's shields, killing 80 ODSTs as they smashed themselves into the hard surface, but they soon got help from coilgun shots from orbit to disable it, allowing the hordes of shock troopers to start raining lead over the covvies.

The human forces were seen flying for a moment along with archer salvos that impacted the ground beneath them, cleaning the landing zone and letting the human forces suffer 300 casualties before they regrouped and marched to the interior of the citadel while just 10 minutes from them were the marine motorized regiments.

Twenty minutes from that was the UNSCA division currently facing the remains of a 12.000 strong covenant force that impeded them from going to the main enemy force 18km from them and stalled them for a probable attack from the enemy ships scheduled to arrive above them in some time...

...

"Everybody out, Captain's order!" - Shouted the driver of a Bison APC

Soon the backdoor of the machine opened up while the sound of constant firing of the 25mm caseless gun was over the heads of a squad of army troopers. Urban Holland had to take his BR55-B and get out first to the battleground where two other near Bison unloaded their troops while their fast-firing and hard-hitting guns flared as a cover for the 55ton machine in front of them pointing its gun towards a Covenant Wraith. Its long barrel then let out a small flash before the wraith exploded, taking the lives of two Unggoy near it when it was struck by one of the tanks from the 2nd Cavalry battalion.

A shame that the others were now unloading, unable to see the majesty of a 125mm shell just melting the enemy armor.

The Sergeant saw how in front of them was the highway to the old research station that now was occupied by a covvie citadel, and how it was infested by at least a thousand Xenos with a low estimate of thirty vehicles covering the massive retreat of soldiers that were expelled from the citadel and the near areas. Maybe this was a good day to die; maybe if he survived he'd try to become an NCO, but in any case, this was a good sight to be in.

"Sir, what are our orders?" - Asked an anxious corporal carrying an M6J carbine and a weird-looking tube on his back.

The Sarge asked himself what is happening, but the obvious answer is to fight, though, in intercom the Lt Colonel, in the 2nd Alacran, spoke:

"Theta, two sections, the snipers and the mortar team is to set up with the engineers on the 'Verge' hill, the rest is to get behind the tanks and follow us until you start deleting the enemy trenches understood?"

The ensuing barrage of 'understood' that ensued in the local comms was overwhelming.

The 90 men of the infantry component of the company then got fast into movement, their vehicles tanked plasma-like champs, the costly MJOLNIR Heat-resistant coat when combined with ERA made the fronts of the tanks quite literally impenetrable by the covvies, with the only kills made by the covenant coming from precise plasma shots into the top before the 125mm projectile annihilated the covvie vehicle with a single shot; but they weren't enough to cover the entire front. The shier mass of aliens was so abundant that the troopers on the ground had to go 'jumping' between barrages of enemy fire to evade the plasma bolts whose heat caused mild heatstrokes on the unfortunate soldiers near them or even 1st-degree burns.

When the troopers had reached the base of the snowy crest that invited them to begin going upwards while the Alacrans and Bisons were seen advancing slowly, Holland got in the back of the Alacran, right beside the exhaust where the heat coming from the Hydrogen engine radiated, his BR was on his hands, resting, his men joined him and the others walked while crouched to not get bodied by a plasma shot, a few seconds of waiting ensued, as they heard the artillery raining down on the aliens; a small gift that would allow them to push without much enemy reprisal.

Over the heads of the troopers son came some banshees that had managed to slip by the Nandao-Drone Fighters but pair of flashes coming from the rear, probably the Division HQ, struck the flying machines with an explosion similar to one coming from the cannon of the Alacran. The SAM systems worked just fine it seems.

The smile produced by seeing the aliens losing important assets came down as a plasma bolt fell right at the port side of the tank; a wraith had disabled the Alacran they were in, the plasma soon heating the soldiers and the air near them, causing non-tangible damage to them.

A voice came from the intercom, the Betsy's crew was talking to the squad on their back.- "Sorry people, the ride is over, we will cover but you will have to get moving."

"Copied Betsy."- Said Holland while dismounting, getting a soldier with plasma burns to the ground before marking with his VISR the enemy armor.- "I want a Javelin on them! If someone has a good view shoot with your Ravagers!"

A pair of soldiers understood, one dropped his MA5C and got a weird looking tube out, the second grabbed a rod with fins; a moment later a 180mm rocket was seen slamming a wraith by the top, the explosion dispersing plasma on the battlefield, burning some grunts and a lone marine.

Later, a few rockets could be seen flying towards enemy makeshift positions and other behicles.

After that, they finally got out of the protection of the Tanks as the orders from the captain of the platoon came.

"Get ready for the strike and move!" - And ten seconds later a 102 shell-sized artillery barrage struck the enemy line. The infantry got out of the tanks, around 1200 UNSCA infantrymen were seen rushing the covvie positions alongside the Bisons while the Alacrans just advanced by the highway towards Point Exit.

The Sarge then decided what to do, he signaled his squad to follow him, and accordingly a grenadier got at his side while the others followed in-line. Then they pierced the sides of the road where they were engaged by an injured jackal that managed to get a lucky shot at the body of a soldier, killing him instantly, the response was a 12.7mm bullet from the anxious corporal.

``Fuck, two teams, get searching for bodies to kill, Takeda, get his dogtags.``- Said the Sarge now crouching and looking to his surroundings, quickly picking a grunt on his sights, then a few rounds to the scared soldier got the alien silenced.

The infantry movements quickly devolved into a search and destroy for wounded or fleeing covvie soldiers. The squad of sergeant Holland wasn't the exception on the matter of executing or knocking out the aliens for ONI usage, but the dispersion of troops was one of the few mistakes of the operation.

The covenant was mining on the north pole as to search for the Holy Site where they'd found a key to the forerunner arsenal on Ethran Harborage, and as such, deployment of mining units wasn't a surprise, but it was, for the humans who'd get the first sight of something majestic.

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Exaltation:

20 minutes before the final step of Operation Siege

"Arbiter, do not get anxious, we are soon to arrive, you must delay the humans, just that."

"Prophet, with all due respect, the main citadel is down, Humans are for some reason not striking at our ships; I do not know what to do, that's why I ask you for guidance."

"My son, destroy these new human machines with whatever you've got and try to recover your forces then; after that, escape, you have done a good job, but I prefer you alive than in the hands of these wretched heretics."

The bridge of the CPV-class heavy Destroyer Proclamation's Tithe is where this weird conversation between a fragile-looking alien and an armored one. One was clearly a Hierarch and the other a warrior, The Prophet of Regret and The Arbiter.

"Noble Prophet, please, before you go, what should I do with the ships of my fellow dismembered fleets remaining on this system?"- The voice tone of the alien seemed this time more curious, maybe sad, when compared to the one from before.- "Are you to take them into your wing?"

"Nay, they've failed in their mission; you stayed here even when faced with the odds of this human world eating you alive, while them couldn't even regroup into a formation to punch the heretic's lines and help you."- The prophet sighed. - "We will destroy them upon arriving at the system in some units, meanwhile, act for the survival of the information you carry and your honorable men."

The Arbiter nodded and bowed before the holographic image of the San Shyum waved its hand and disappeared.

"Sir, the Impending Judgment has been downed and human troopers are attacking the main base." - Spoke a Sangheili in golden armor, a Fieldmarshall, and Re'gish, the second hand of the Arbiter, both looking clearly dumbfounded by the human exploits so far.

"Hm… Humans have clearly evolved to deal with us; maybe these wretched rats are intelligent." - He then signaled a sailor Kig-Yar operating the navigational system- "Change course, we are to retrieve the troopers on the ground at the middle ground between our two now-defunct bases. Stop the excavation."

"Sir, but what about our base? "- Inquired the maxim of the ground troops.

"What can we do about it? Glass our own troops? No, we have to survive, we'll ascend into space and try to evade humans after recovering what troops Chieftain Thrallslayer still has, if he's even alive." - Answered the Arbiter.

"But…. What about sending the excavation armies into the enemy while we retrieve both bases' troops?"

The idea now flared up on the arbiter's mind, his officer clearly was capacitated for his role.

"You speak with wisdom; I'll send our remaining phantoms and banshees to recover whatever is left from our main citadel. But I expect you to drive our scarabs and harvesters… And our Kraken to the enemy armored columns."

"I excepted nothing else; I'll be on my way on my seraph to command." - After that, the old warrior got out of the bridge, leaving the 14 menials and the arbiter alone.

Silence ensued while machines were touched by the operators, this kept the same for many minutes, but after the deployment of craft and troops, the leader of the operation opened his jaws again to speak.

"Brothers, if anything happens, I expect you to fight until death."

After saying that, he set his eyes on a projection of the Elevated Piety, the Kerrel-Pattern Spire that allowed them to probe into enemy territory and kill important human officers. Hopefully, the Zealot unit he had posted there was to hold until the hierarchs came.

But then, he got an actualization of what was happening, some people, no, armored humans, were seen entering it with soon a message flaring up on perfect covenant cursive.

'Stupid aliens, get fucked, you fell two times for the same shit.'

After seeing that, the lights on the ship went dark, the CAS on the formation, the Radiant Valence, fell to the plain ice under them, the two destroyers lost all energy but managed to stay afloat while they saw how the ship that the arbiter had refused to use as homeship as it'd be an obvious target was now laying silent.

"Get me contact with the Radiant! Now!" - Voramee demanded, but the operators didn't know how to react as their machines were powerless to even start acting.

"Sir, the systems save for antigravitation are not online." - Stated a Kig-Yar, prompting Ripa Voramee to get desperate, making him reach for his personal communicator with the shipmaster of the Assault Carrier.

"Ori'Sumaiee. Answer." - No response from the leader of the capital ship.- "Shipmaster. This isn't time to not react." - He pleaded with desperation.

``There's a demon on the ship." - Is all that he heard. But before he could ask again, a PEM slug came down from the sky, piercing the destroyer's prow and making it land, the same fate was what destined the other CPV, but the lone being commandeered by the arbiter was to land on the mountains, getting their future secured as dust when the ship were to be eviscerated by the crash against the land.

[When did we fail the gods?]- Is what the arbiter thought before getting knocked out by his vessel falling to an ice-covered mountain.

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Point Exit:

10 minutes before the final step of Operation Siege.

The ODST Halifax team, coming from the homonymous ship, went into the remains of the CCS crashed in the middle of the Citadel. They had suffered five casualties trying to enter by the broken middle half, but they had successfully inserted a 2nd Gen AI to a console on the ship, gaining access to its communication's nexus and remaining weapon stations.

The Humans quickly decided to order the Ai to decimate covenant troopers. And it obeyed by sending plasma torpedoes to the mass concentration of troopers, five torpedoes were enough to tip the balance unquestionably into ODST favor, but it got a special encrypted communication between one of the covenant ships excavating the surface of Harvest and some unknown source, that got the attention of the operators on the ground; thus they relayed the information to the UNSC Red Fist, where it was immediately decoded by the AI, or at least, she tried to.

"Why are you taking so long?" - Asked Captain Allaire.

"It's in a format and source that I cannot identify, it's like its format emulates the waves made to rip a hole to the 11th dimension…" - Then she goes silent for a minute, thinking.

"Uh… Ain't that slipspace?" - Said a seaman in charge of the control of the ammo management, sparking the idea into the 11th most advanced AI on the domain of the system.

Soon the 'woman' began working in conjunction with its Shaw-Fujikawa Translight engine, she sent a single pulse with the coded information in a contained micro-black hole outside the ship and then opened instantly another one, the result was a string of code on binary that quickly was discovered as being an FTL transmission between none other than the Arbiter and a Prophet, the biggest data uncovered? Three fleets were coming to smash humanity with a 3 to 1 superiority on numbers.

The information was relayed directly to Vice Admiral Cole who dictated that a field of nukes is to be planted 10km from where the fleet is positioned right now and that all ships are to scatter around the planet, leaving only the Everest to face impending doom, and also, the operation on the ground was not to be terminated, but rather, it was to be pressured into a quick resolution; they would not

The resolution was rash, but they weren't in a position to defy Humanity's hero.

Soon though, in a few hours, they'd see if their maneuver was effective.

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Point Ranger:

15 minutes before the Final step of Operation Siege.

Sergeant Avery Johnson saw how his troopers were eager; those smiles on the new M60 BDU were the signal he'd seen on the fight for Biko on ODSTs. Their weapons were ready, every round counted, and even better, the mortar team had told them about having a clear view of the outer layers of the defenses. The Sniper team besides them also got a clear view on weirdly ornamented covenant warriors; especially red-coated elites with mostly just swords, weird-skinned Kig-Yars like the body found in Redstow, and white cladded Unggoys. There was an appreciable armored resistance but there were four platoons with almost minimal casualties there.

"How many have you marked Kasanga?" - Asked the black man preparing his BR for the assault whose importance had made him put a helmet on.-"And don't come with your bullshit, they are in the middle of a valley between snow mountains, you should have a clear view, the other teams have told me a number, but I wanna hear yours."

"Uh… Sir, I've got fifty elites, thirty Unggoys, twenty jackals of whom seven are holding sniper rifles, I count twelve ghosts, seven wraiths, and five turrets… Also, Four Lekgolos and an NCO on golden armor occasionally show on the Spire. Ahem, so… There is no brutes either; Sarge." - Answered with an unclear tone.

"Well, you're off by two grunts, but it's okay, we all make mistakes that could led us to death. Just focus on the elites and we'll be ok." - Snickered Johnson.

After that, the other platoon leaders got ready, their units were to coordinate, a simultaneous attack was the best approach, the mortars are to sound first as they were inside the shield projection of the Spire, then snipers would take care of the most important thing: High ranked Sangheili, the ones with armor different than the standard red of these apparent Spec op Xenos. Later the Cyclops are to advance, the armor not killed by the Mortars are to be killed by the recoilless rifles of the said machines, infantry reduced by them too, the marines are to advance behind their armor and mop up and eliminate any kind of possible danger for the Cyclops, like the turrets or grenade-armed enemies.

The only thing the 153-man strong UNSCMC force was waiting for was the green light from the Shuringan's sniper team about their objectives being targeted.

But after five minutes response never came, the operation was compromised; they had to act quickly.

"To hell with this, we are going to rush it, mortar team, give 'em some of that composition-F and let's hope that Glayds' lost elites don't fuck us on the back." - Said Johnson.

"No we have to wai-" - Was the leader of the Shuringan's platoon saying before getting cut off.

"We are under attack!" - Screamed the voice of a corporal, but it wasn't through radio. No, it was heard, a human voice and then plasma bolts.

Soon mortar teams began firing and snipers took out the Jackals first instead. The covvie forces attacked the humans relentlessly until they got amassed by the three mortar teams that flooded the valley with 34 shells in just one minute, giving the Cyclops opportunity to use the recoilless rifles to blow the wraiths up, and the grenade launcher to disable the ghosts before getting destroyed by the covenant concentrating fire on them; a move that let a human grenade barrage catch the unsuspecting covvies, reducing the famed warrior's into a force that while still capable in close quarters, was weak to a .12 Gauge buckshot into its body along with series of 8mm fire when getting near the humans.

Avery personally got the opportunity to mount an MG position with two SAW carriers where he discovered the effectiveness of the rifle at picking enemy heads, something that in the first battle here he couldn't exploit so much; maybe because of the experimental nature of that rifle or maybe because of the new bullets made for the weapon.

The Lekgolos on the other hand just wrecked the humans, they died after two fires from the new SPNKR-C but when they could, their cannon made scores by exploding in the middle of white-clothed marines and being able to kill a squad with one shot.

Either way, the Elites slowly faded into the Spire, with their support killed; their turrets dismantled by human snipers; they hadn't got more than killing 93 humans in exchange for 63 of their forces. The remaining 40 went into hiding inside the 5 story-tall edification; but the human assault took place when they got the weapons from the now-defunct Cyclops, allowing them to breach the main door and raining 20mm HE grenades on the hallways, cleaning opposition as they went.

Then the close-quarters combat. Room after room, using Thermal vision to place breach-charges near heat signatures on other rooms to kill Sangheili on cloaking mode they were able to mitigate deaths, but a sword armed elite could easily tear through 4 marines in one slash; and proximity isn't something they enjoyed; their ODST style armor while more resistant to plasma and certainly superb when dealing with needler pistol's shots, it wasn't enough.

"Alright, the second floor cleaned. What is next? How many men do we still have?" - Asked the 2nd last corporal remaining on the operation; with a plasma burn on his vest and a disgusted face behind the helmet visor.

"Shut your bitch ass up, we ain't finished yet. This is for humanity, just take one of their guns and stop whinin'" - Arcadia-born sergeant who already had taken a Plasma rifle from the enemies' bodies.

"What is your problem? We are assaulting an entire position by ourselves; give me some rest man." - She replied.

A private watching the stairs to the third floor; where some rumbling probably made by the covvies still alive was sounding; decided to throw a case of a 12 gauge shell to the Meridian-born corporal arguing.

"Hey, at least you've got promotion assured because of this, and you'll be remembered as heroes after all this is the only Spire not destroyed by artillery and see-" - The soldiers were to keep speaking but he was detained by Johnson arriving on the scene with the other 3 Orion operators near the stairs.

"Shut up private, we are to keep going; you can be proud for helping billions of people later. Now we've got some alien ass to kick."

"Yeah, we might be twenty ignoring the ones still on the nests, but those assholes ain't got a shot on us." - Replied an old-sounding totally ODST dressed man near Johnson.

"Now people, come here." - Said Avery. -"We send grenades, we jump, then you get in and kill everything in sight, if we are lucky, we'll survive, if we are not, you'll have to make us proud. Understood?"

"Aren't you a bit suicidal Sarge? Asked an anxious Assault marine, the second in command of the Cherokee's platoon. -"Cuz it sounded like you wanted to throw yourself into probably ten elites and some twelve grunts."

"Yeah, I might be crazy, but your sorry asses won't do better than me, and… You've still got a lot to live."

"Not really." - Spoke a voice coming from behind him with a weird, unorthodox tone. The flash of a blue sword came right in front of Avery's eyes. Soon he was facing a Zealot, they had cleaned the floors before, and this was the group that killed the snipers… Fuck.

A swing came, but it wasn't Avery who was cut, but he couldn't see who, instead he was shocked as a series of shots came and went, the blurps of plasma rounds being ejected blinded his senses as he fell to the floor unable to comprehend the information that his eyes sent him. Soon everything calmed down.

"Sarge! Wake up!" - Sounded the voice of a feminine soldier from the Wonderland's platoon who moved him. After that, the sounds of more shots were heard. More and more, casings falling into the ground, the sounds of more plasma, and then, the voices of those pesky split jaws and no other human sound.

Soon his eyes went wide open, the room leading to the third floor was now littered with human corpses and alien ones, before him, seven red-armored elites and a gold cladded one, as it seems, Glayds' lost elites indeed fucked them.

"Reinforcements are incoming" - Sounded in the dead soldiers and Johnson's radios, followed by a grunt of the now woke man.

The elites then turned to see the alive human, his faces showing anger, but the anger inside the black-skinned man added to the adrenaline injection from the recent events made him act almost unconsciously.

His hand reached for his knife, he then stood up, looking at his enemies with killer intent, he was no match for them, but he wasn't going to die without a fight, no sir.

The golden armored one spoke a few words, whatever he said made the other ones walk a few steps behind them and look in awe at their commanding officer and the human.

"Come at me you freak!" - Growled the human Orion officer struggling to keep totally in control of his actions as he saw how everyone was dead, including his old teammates.

The Sangheili obliged by sprinting to cover the 7 meters that separated the two of them, his plasma sword was already lit up so he prepared it for a strike to the center of gravity of the marine; but Avery just got in kamaete, his eyes set on one thing, the arm of his enemy.

His left arm moved quickly to slam the right arm of the Sangheili while the Bowie on the other hand moved towards the small portion of skin showed by the armor of the officer's arm. This was going to be an encounter decided by strength and swiftness by Sangheili standards, but a human was a wild card; so, his knife struck the bone of the alien, and the movement managed to make the arm of the attacking enemy move enough as to get the tip of his sword impaled to the wall instead of the human, whose armor took a little bruise by the heat emanated by the weapon.

But the collision of the two bodies was something to expect, they slammed together into the wall, falling one above the other in what quickly devolved into rapid punches to the enemies exposed areas, they rolled over the corpse-filled floor until the human pushed himself back from the alien and managed to stand up. But for some reason he didn't reach for his weapons, he just stood with his fists up, maybe it was the nervousness, maybe it was… Something else and whatever the aliens thought it was it rewarded him a bow from the gold-cladded officer after it got into his feet prepared for continuing the fight.

"As you have shown yourself to have honour, the Fieldmaster wants to show you respect, human." - Spoke the same voice that had tried to kill him before; the surprised Johnson wasn't going to argue, he had to defend himself from a punch coming from the enemy, but it was clear that the covenant didn't teach hand-to-hand combat, and instead relied on swordsmanship; because the sloppiness of the punch left the mandibles of the alien clean for a quick jab from Avery who at the same time crouched his body to the left to evade the attack from the alien. The metal gloves managed to break the bone of the 3rd mandible, getting the officer to spit blood before looking at the soldier and moving his heads to grab him and then trying to head-butt him; but Johnson acted on instinct and he delivered a quick kick into the pelvis of the creature.

The officer screamed of pain, letting Avery deliver another jab to the throat of the enemy, who stopped squelching due to the sudden cut of oxygen and then was stricken by other punches to the same areas, not allowing him to regain energy; something that the resourceful human used to his advantage by tackling the alien into the ground, where he sited over his laying body and just began head-butting the alien's face with it not being able to counter as it had no energy left to spare.

Soon, the alien stopped moving, it still breathed, but his blood covered the floor and his battered face was almost unrecognizable. And… the Sarge started to cry as the adrenaline suddenly stopped rushing through his systems, but the tears were not accompanied by any other sign of suffering, nor did his mind really shined with thoughts about all his subordinates being dead.

Some mumbling then came from the alien, but the marine did not understand a single word, he just tried to regain himself.

"He's asking you why you don't kill him."

But Avery did not answer, he preferred to sit beside the alien and just look at his hands and then his dead soldiers.

"The Fieldmaster wants you to be kept alive, and we shall oblige and respect you per our traditions; but if you interfere, you'll be killed instead of getting imprisoned like the heretic you are. Also… Impressive skills at fighting, human trash." - Said the Zealot, Merg 'Vol, who approached the marine and inspected him, now knowing if those tears were real if these humans had sentiments other than anger, something unthinkable according to the words of the prophets.

"Sorry, but he's coming with us."

Johnson just saw how a familiar body entered the room; a green-painted walking armor that armed just with an M37 ICWS had all but Merg 'Vol and the Fieldmaster. Soon, another11 figures similarly sized entered the room.

"Demons. And you have not killed me nor my commander, I ask you why. Am I not worthy of your demonic skills?" - Asked the zealot that because of his proximity to Johnson wasn't killed.

"Sangheili zealot, surrender." - Was the response he got from the green demon.

"I'm not permitted to do so, the hierarchs will not tolerate this, and for my honor, I sha-" - But just as he was re-igniting his energy sword, the Fieldmaster stopped him, prompting him to store his weapon.-"But, seeing you may share the honor of the soldier, I'll oblige your and my superior's orders, until you show your true face."

The Spartans, ready to kill the hostile just believed the enemy as Johnson made no attempt to counter this, and a prisoner was a huge win for the UNSC, so they instead reached for the bodies of the fallen marines, getting their dogtags after saying 'Rest' to their passed away fellow humans; then, the green demon walked towards the still crying Avery, who looked at him and smiled.

"You ugly metallic bastard, I thought you'd never come." - Then the soldier wiped his tears and proceeded to reach for some handcuffs that he used in the neutral-looking Vol and the now knocked out Fieldmaster. -"Why are you here? I thought this was a clean-up mission."

"It technically is John-son, but the difference it's that you were supposed to clean it so we could use it, but apparently it's clean, the sniper got the roof when your fist-fight began, the teams are getting here for security, we should be on the pelican going into their CAS." - Answered Fred while the Master Chief looked strangely amused if his teammates could decipher his 'relaxed' stance.

"Fred, I think we should not deliver that kind of information when there's… The enemy nearby." - Said Li.

"And I think we should move quickly, that's a zealot and he hasn't attacked, he is clearly not going to do so, for his honor." - Replied Kelly.

"You can take care of this, sergeant?" - Asked John.

"Sure… Just… Let me say my goodbyes to the people here. And go capture the ship." - Avery then proceeded to sit near his deceased Spartan-Is and grabbed Gladys' BR-55.

"Johnson, they're on a better place, and they sacrificed themselves for humanity." - Said Linda; but that wasn't enough. Seeing his soldiers die and not him was a recurring theme, but he wasn't ready for so sudden action, and when the Spartans got out of the room, letting the surprised marines join in; Merg decided to sit beside the curious human that had managed to lever his honor into a way to make him disobey the orders of his majors; Avery said"Fuck it" and he hugged the alien.

"Sir, is that?" - Asked Kasanga, the sniper from the Cherokee's platoon; who was indicating to both the corpses and the aliens alive near the NCO leading the operation now.

"Yes, now sit down corporal, we ain't getting evac in a long time."

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Final phase:

The Spartans had arrived not too long ago, they were supposed to link with the assault on the spire, but it seemed like the marines had gotten ahead of schedule and now only some 30 remained of the 150 that went into action. It was a victory, but one that maybe had a lot of unforeseen consequences, maybe having sent the Spartans alone would have been better, but it could've brought more attention, or they could have lost a Spartan in such an early stage of a war that promised to last more than a generation.

Either way, they had saved Avery Johnson or also the other marines too even if most of the supersoldiers present wished they'd gotten there earlier, but it wasn't time for that.

Lieutenant Commander Keyes waited for confirmation on the clean-up of the spire, the Corvette entered space near it and dropped the pair of Darters that was supposed to be boarded by the Spartans and flown into the 'portal' of the spire where they'd be transported to the Main Hangar of the alien ship. And they went, the Dumb AI of the corvette activated the mechanism and...

There was a single second when almost the entire craft was dismantled by the energy surrounding it; the sheer force of this made the Spartans tremble, as it seemed, their human vessels couldn't use the teleports, but then… They appeared above a Seraph. Some Spartans slid into the ground, everyone had suddenly lost their shields, the prototypes reverse-engineered from the intact models they had gotten on Redstow were depleted, a bad thing to happen when you're surrounded by Sangheili and Unggoys now pointing their guns towards you; unless you have your own weapons and were as eager to kill as their enemies.

The ensuing gunfight wasn't a contest. Master Chief alone rushed to drop elite, grab his gun and use it to melt the grunts near him before another elite came and was smashed by a 14.5mm round from Linda. Then, the chief reached for a terminal, the ones used for reporting on craft deployment were enough, he then got an AI chip and inserted it into a slot for special covenant 'data crystals that were similar to those used by the UNSC. Then, the ship lost all of its lights, and the Spartans prepared their magnetized boots.

The crash was groundbreaking (pun intended), and the lightless ship now was at the mercy of the human soldiers that now rampaged through it, rushing to the bridge, where they just killed everyone in sight. But… The arbiter was nowhere to be seen. This was just a regular shipmaster, and the other elites were majors at most. The search began while UNSC/Coast Guard ships began getting near the crash sites, trying to find the famed symbolic leader of Xeno troops on the planet.

"It doesn't matter, I think we might use this ship for something else." - Spoke Lieutenant Keyes in the Spartans' comms.

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14km from Point Exit:

10 minutes after that

Sergeant Holland didn't know what to do. He had never seen such a force before, reports of giant machines were not uncommon, but the air force usually dealt with this. Now they did not have air support as it was on Point Exit or currently engaged with helping the marines in the mop-up; even the few ones they had outside of the light rotorcraft was totally useless against 15 Scarabs and three Harvesters nicknaming it just screeching while they shot their lasers towards the formations.

The cannons of the tanks could easily damage their legs, hell, the Lima platoon actually made a Scarab fall to the ground and killed it with just HEAT shells, but a single beam-sweep just erased from existence any human armor. They had to get artillery quick, but the screeching from the Kraken covered all radio frequencies.

What was a group of infantry going to do when faced with such odds?

It was all worsen by the sight of a massive machine, easily two hundred meters in height; a true squid-like machine that sent a flying pink-colored projectile that produced an explosion in the rear of the UNSC frontline only comparable to a light-nuke-tipped archer missile; surely killing thousands of UNSCA personnel and the Kodiaks/SPHA carrying their artillery.

The Sarge was about to surrender when he saw the beam of a mortar-struck scarab hit the tentacle of a Harvester with its beam after being moved by the said explosion. They had to get in motion to capture one of those things.

"Platoon! Let's move! Just run following me, do not ask, and act!" - He screamed to his troops before dropping his rifle in favor of a covvie plasma pistol and then sprinting towards the machine 50 meters from them.

The infantrymen/women did not know how to react, some followed, some didn't, but it was clear that this was suicide, but staying quiet was a death sentence too as evidenced by an infantry platoon running from the scene getting demolished by the rays of a Scarab.

While there were now 12 of those machines instead of 15, the magnitude of the damage made the soldier question if they could even kill them at all; and why wasn't the Navy helping them. But it didn't really matter at that point, his legs wouldn't stop running towards the nearest purple machine that was gunning down a tank squad. He was lucky the one near him was one of the 'low hanging' kind of scarabs, instead of those tall ones, but still, he had to climb, his hands tried to get a grip in the nanolaminate, but he couldn't.

"Do I help ya' Sarge?" - Asked the assault marine; one of the few that had followed him, the girl, Mitokade, was smiling, clearly knowing what his NCO wanted to do.

"I-Thank you, yes, please help me." - He awkwardly answered before seeing how the girl was now holding both her hands at the height of her waist, inviting the foot of the Sarge to step in. With an impulse, the Sarge jumped into his subordinate's hands and was pushed by her, making him take a grip on a spike on the Scarab leg that helped him escalate before the machine began to walk again; then he saw the girl and the other marines with distress.

"Don't worry, we'll try to copy you, Sarge. Finish the fight!" - Said a marine who then began to run into another scarab. The pride on the man was astounding, his unit really was special, maybe he had been a good leader on this mission; huh, what a pair of hours can do to a group of twelve people.

Still, the soldier now had a mission, find the place where this machine was controlled, and use it to kill the main concern; the Kraken.

His feet were trembling due to the movement of the machine, but he did not care, he had to move, this wasn't such a big machine; there wasn't even infantry aboard. He searched the upper level, then the lower, and he found down there a weird-looking creature, gooey and unpleasant to the eye for its colors and the tentacles it carried from the weird floating center. Those made Holland reach for his scavenged weapon and point It towards the weird alien.

"What do you want?" A robotic voice sounded in his back, but when he turned, he did not seem to find a single enemy, so he turned again to the thing controlling the scarab.-"Again, what do you want?"

The human NCO then looked at how when the voice sounded the alien touched a console; and when it stopped, the voice did too. The alien was communicating.

"I've come to reclaim this machine for the UNSC to kill those split jaws." - He stated as he quickly came with the answer.

The Huragok seemed pleased as it made a cheerful noise and backed away from the console and indicated it with a tentacle. Why a creature just gave him access to a Scarab? He didn't know, but the engineer had something activated inside of him when reclaiming and the human figure was shoved to its weak psyche.

But while the hand of the human was about to touch the console, a roar came; a Sangheili major was with a plasma pistol looking with anger at the two occupants of the supervision room.

The human fired a bolt first, hitting the shield of the elite. The Covvie shot one in retaliation while he charged at his enemy, but the plasma bolt just impacted the front plate of the armor and made the sarge fall to the ground instead of killing him. There the human shot a series of 3 bolts to the alien, getting its shields down just as it jumped to the human; who was defended by the Huragok boding the split-jaw to get him out of the human that had exploited the easily manipulable mind of the engineer.

Holland couldn't even respond to this situation, he was on the floor seeing the two aliens fight, or rather the elite punching to death the cyan-blooded alien. But he knew what to shoot, he retook the plasma pistol and then he just instinctively charged a shot; and sent it to the alien, eviscerating its left side of his body and even melting the wall behind him.

The human thought the engineer would come to help him; but no, the creature was on the floor, covered in goo and moving its heads with spasms. Holland decided to take its tentacle in desperation, not knowing what to do, but the weird creature touched the console a few times and then looked at him while in the background the voice from before said.

"Make my creators proud."

Then the creature signaled the machine where the supervisor could manage the machine. Not wanting to lose any more time stood up and felt a shiver down his spine when touching the console; the same he felt when charging the shot of the pistol, and he just touched holographic buttons.

The hands of the human soon acted by themselves while his eyes had no idea of what kind of information his brain was processing at seeing glyphs of unknown meaning pass on the console, and just like that, he was in control, the engineer next to him letting out harmonic sounds as it bled.

The scarab soon turned to face the Kraken that was trying to shoot the aircraft still alive, not giving the enemy-led scarab any attention until a point-blank beam was shot from the back of the traitorous machine, penetrating the strong armor and eventually going as far as cutting the affected section in half; killing the Fieldmarshall there producing at the same time an explosion that made the Harvesters shiver and get vulnerable to the continuous attack from the human-controlled Scarab that soon was followed by another of those machines engaging the other excavators, which only could mean that the marines had managed to climb other machines, a relief that filled the soldier with determination.

"Nnrah kahwah ahkeeteh yoh-uh yoh-uh." - Is what Sarge heard on the intercom, his mind decided to just press a random button and speak.

"Listen here you alien freaks; I'm not in the mood of hearing your despicable voices, I just want you out of my planet, and I will get that either by killing each one of you or making you flee to your mud huts. So shut up and see how I send to hell your troops using your own tools."

Following this strange connection to the machine made the sarge just smile and frown as he knew he had to do, keep killing the enemies of humanity.

Humanity then pushed forward, the remaining of the division kept pushing along the captured scarabs, the mass of men and women with the ragtag of surviving armor routing the enemy forces that lost all morale after seeing the massive siege platform fall to one of their own.

Tanks roared, using their over piercing projectiles to blast through the flesh of enemies and hunters; the New and old APCs used their machineguns to hit and run enemies, while infantry cleaned and swept the remaining people alive, all happening for kilometers, until a CMA corvette arrived, launching archers to eliminate the rest of the enemies with the 3kt missiles exploding over the heads of the enemies of humanity.

Celebrations ensued, the UNSC soldiers grabbed the equipment of fallen enemies, brawled with Jackal shields, and piloted abandoned enemy materiel, blowing up things like ghosts for mere entertainment before their NCOs and ONI attached personnel came to reprimed them, but all their jovial shouts disappeared just to see how in the dusk of the sunset, a mass of lights appeared in space, and the normally orange light permeating their faces turning purple.

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Cole's last stand:

The Everest was silent. The news of covenant troopers dying, the Special operation elites being hunted in the main continent, the triumph of a unit of troopers getting a hold on scarabs and even the 'capture' of covenant ships but the apparent disappearance of the Arbiter which had the information about what the aliens were searching on the planet; all that flooded the screens of the crew.

But Cole was preoccupied with just one thing. The Covenant was coming with a combined fleet. Yes, there were two fleets aside from the ones they got in Harvest operating on the Danger Zone, but battlegroups of ten ships could usually be fought off by the colonies and dealt by the outposts. The only exemption was Persia, the only colony attacked two times by the covenant for some reason. But a combined fleet wasn't something they've heard, pessimist estimates, the ones chosen by the admiral, ranged from 120 if they based the forces on the ones found on Sigma Octanus to 350 ships when counting the presence of a Prophet and the mass of ships that were on Harvest and the capacities of the covenant based on the info known about them.

What did the humans have to defend against this behemoth that at the very least equaled the fleet they had destroyed in 2526 with a risky maneuver they were imitating now?

Well, as stated, a repetition of so-called 'Cole's appeal for honor'. Almost all ships from a heavy destroyer and above were Sangheili led, and thus the minor ones too. A field of nukes was planted where the enemy was supposed to arrive, only a few ships were to be present as a bait that 'should call the elites into an honorable battle with one against one combats' while the rest of the human ships prepared salvos while they circumvented a near stellar object so the arriving fleet was first depleted of its shields and or destroyed by the nuclear weapons and then barraged by MACs and missiles.

Now Harvest was the stellar object, and only the Everest was present 10km from where the fleet was to arrive according to the intercepted comms.

Now he had to wait.

He had to trust that the extra batteries feeding his MACs would help.

Now he had to know what to do.

An hour and forty minutes after the final step of Operation Siege and Ranger:

A slipspace rupture was felt on all sensors, a big one, reckoning had come to Harvest with 45 CAS assault carriers, 50 CCS Battlecruisers, 10 ORS-Heavy Cruisers, 126 Destroyers, and a myriad of about a hundred lighter ships, all lead by an Assault carrier of an unknown pattern, showing battlescars and a blue-paint coat instead of the purple one her sister ships shared.

A hologram quickly appeared on most holo-capable systems on the area, it was an Elite, one with not yellow but white armor, with a purple cape and overly-ceremonial addons on his suit, denoting his stance.

"I am Colore'Lokarree, Supreme commander and acting Imperial Admiral of the Exploration sector."- The alien started.

While he presented himself, inertia-moved objects began traveling through the lines of the enemy fleet, seemingly debris or asteroids from the constant fighting that had been occurring there for nearly two years.

"The ire of the hierarchs will be harsh on your souls, pitiful hu-" - Sounded the transmission of the apparent leader of the fleet, just to be shut down by an AI enabling the sound of another person to come by.

"Sorry for interrupting you, honorable Sangheili, but let's have a duel, your ship against mine, one on one; prove that the hand of the hierarchs is strong enough to deal with a human hand instead of relying on shitty numerical superiority, or you can just prove that the selected hand of God is nothing but a kid playing with ants and glorifying itself for it." - Cole answered fully aware that this Sangheili understood English, his smirk decorating the message as what seemed like a frown instantly came from the hologram of the warrior.

The two ships saw each other for a moment, in the bridge of the Everest, everyone could see how the enemy fleet suddenly became alive with purple lights that almost surpassed the illumination given by the sol of the system only to get shut down as quickly as they got lighted.

In the enemy Assault Carrier, the only vessel registered until now that could resist a quick-fired Super MAC shot,

"You dreadful human! I need no superiority save for our god-selected fate, my ship, the Glorious Sunset, will destroy your tiny vessel without any help!" - Shouted the supreme commander, seeding a problem in Cole's mind; there was no prophet to stop the obviously stupid action that distracted the whole fleet from the nukes slowly placing themselves near the formation.- "And all of your stupid brethren shall see how I bring the execution of the Prophet of regret's plan into fruition!"

An Assault Carrier sprinted through the front of the formation to the enemy ship thousand kilometers from itself. It was obvious what he was going to do, he'd try to broadside the human-like the old Sangheili naval tradition dictated.

"Prepare yourself human! For your death will be remembered on the record of kills of this ship as the first unholy creature to be killed by this vessel!"

In the human battleship/SH cruiser everyone got nervous, save for one man, who smiled, swept off some sweat from his brow as he saw dots between representations of the enemy ships, and then opened his mouth to talk.

"Bartholomew, give me an ETA for that ship." - Said Cole to his shipborne Ai.

"Sir, a minute until they arrive."

"Guess that will be enough. Ramiro, tell the guys to charge the two 'one sixty tons' and to fire on my mark, I want our ' pulse' archers to intercept their torpedoes when I saw so."

"Understood Admiral." - Replied a Petty officer in charge of the coil-based weapons.

The enemy vessel flared 24 torpedoes that went accelerated to its relativistic speed to catch the enemy ship directly, trying to get a shot on the front face of the human command vessel.

"EMP archers out, a cloud a thousand clicks from us or a second before contact with them."- Spoke the admiral.

The crew slowly lost its nervousness but they nevertheless directed the orders and soon enough a salvo of 230 missiles went to cover the area to protect the ship.

"Now, you wretched fool. This is what you get for underestimating humanity." - Cole stated when the petty officer from before gave him a nod.-"Turn the ship 5 degrees to port and act now!"

The 450 500- kiloton-and-above nuclear mines and missiles stationed between the enemy ships suddenly activated, lights that illuminated the present face of the planet, the radiation making the shields shiver for a moment before surrendering to the thermal radiation that dissipated them, allowing the energy to then move and hit the hulls of the ships, crushing, pushing and breaking them as the forces from multiple directions enveloped the formation, containing most of the enemy vessels and disabling the rest due to the massive amount of radical particles just slamming themselves against the electronics of the covenant warships.

At the same time, Admiral Cole's ship fired 24 coilgun-based rounds and 2 High-powered Heavy MAC rounds along 1600 50mm rounds towards the enemy carrier present and just the two remaining shivas that had not been committed to the nuclear trap; the slugs thrown were the first to arrive, and they proved to be as strong as a quick shot from the SuperMACs for the first one managed to deform the Shield enough as to make the event of a hypervelocity round exploding at impact visible with the second just striking the same area and slipped through the exterior defenses, plummeting the armor at the front and keeping it's .02c speed while trashing the innards of the CAS; in the meantime the 50mm shells entered thanks to the massive hole the round had created on the enemy, letting it disrupt almost every major weapon system there; a good strike.

Words were about to come from the enemy naval officer who was apparently focused on this fight instead of the explosion happening at his back, but the next event shut him off:

The Shivas slipped through the laser-less zone at the front of the ship, exploding in the prow, condensing themselves inside the now regenerated shields of the Carrier, destroying the ship from inside.

The Everest wasn't unscathed though, the archers managed to either dissipate the plasma sent to them or disperse its mass with explosions, but five went and struck the Valiant, its automated defenses gunning one down before they let the human capital ship be mission killed due to complete sections to be flooded with incandescent plasma the ones next to those sections being melted off, and finally, the kinetic energy that broke the ship in half, venting a lot of the surviving crew into the void of space, but that wasn't the worse.

A tear came from a man looking at a photo of a woman and a kid. Cole hugged that man, smiling, proud; getting his crew to rejoice, ignoring the fact that impending doom was coming "Oh god. At least we did it."

Said Cole as he now tended to the expanding blast from the nuclear explosion that he hadn't calculated too well as it seems.

The effect of so many explosions eventually reverberated into what could only be described as a small star exploding, unexpectedly erasing all human or covenant ships on the vicinity and pushing the remains with a force that let her smaller sister on the battle of harvest as a mere joke and the shockwave then impacted the broken Valiant, who was utterly demolished by it, leaving it only a midst of molten metal in space and with its middle section cut in half.

As it seemed, the sheer number of nukes produced the cores of the explosions to merge in an event that ONI would study for years. But destroying the covenant fleet wasn't enough apparently to spark joy on the UNSC, because all human comms went silent, and not only because of the PEM effect, but because they didn't receive any signals from the UNSC Everest, nor Preston Cole; Humanity's leader was dead.

Immediately the so-called '1st liberation Fleet went into the wreckage, pelicans were sent by all ships to get to the bridge of the vessel. But it wasn't found, and the remains of windows and human corpses decorated the space far away from it.

Not even clothes or recognizable pieces of flesh remained in the space that now devoured the sacrifice made by the humans.

Humanity had lost Preston Cole in battle.

But before his loss could be mourned; another slipspace rupture was detected, and this wasn't another fleet. It was a lone ship that at first seemed like a CAS-class Assault Carrier.

"What the actual fuck is that!?"- Shouted a Navy men on a prowler seeing the rupture vomiting something unheard of.

A Captain on a ship, the Pillar of Autumn, looked to his old body and then to the sight that replaced the old menace with something worse and said..: "Shit."

A behemoth, a twenty-kilometer long one that at the mere sight of humans, just five minutes after Cole's demise; started attacking.

At one hundred kilometers from the bulk of the human formations was the Regret of the Sins, the personal ship for the Prophet of Regret, who had expected his fleet to have cleared the pests, no matter thought the hierarch, as he could take on their little ships with minimal effort as proven by the ship's 11 energy projectors tearing through human frigates and destroyers with ease, just twelve vessels were lost in a single second.

Screams were heard on every ship in the vicinity.

"Turn and just shoot!"- Screamed Admiral Volkov from the UNSC Hellenic, a Supercarrier that soon let out two low-charged SuperMAC shots, making the shields flare, but not disappear.

Rear Admiral John Senior did not know how to react, with Cole dead and Volkov not being clear he was the main person in charge of the system, so he just tried to direct fire from his ship into the enemy one that was destroying them at some ten thousand clicks. But even the two low-powered 'Mini-SuperMAC' rounds hadn't scratched the enemy, in response, the Supercarrier turned to Volkov's Punic-class Carrier and flared the Super-Heavy beam, deleting the ship from existence and leaving a crater on the ground of Harvest under it.

"All ships launch all available ordnance to the enemy!" - He screamed without much thinking while he saw how just a single sweep from just one plasma lance ripped apart five frigates.

Almost 50.000 Archer missiles and 780 nukes were deployed against the enemy vessel, but it began spinning while moving towards the human formation; its thousands of point-defense lasers tore through the missiles and made the nukes explode without much effort, and the coilgun shots against it weren't of much help. But then, a nuke hit the ship inside the shield after it slipped through a hole ripped by the firing of a laser. And it successfully downed the shield; permitting thousands of missiles to impact the holy vessel… To no apparent progress.

Seconds after that a message came from the now not attacking enemy ship.

"Humans, you are very interesting. You've managed to strike my ship and actually kill many of my hangars. If you were not the lowest of scum you'd make a great addition to the covenant. Now, perish."

The figure, the feeble creature on a seat with robes spoke, and smiled at the sight of human death, again demoralizing the crews to the point where the AIs were the only ones manning the guns of the ships.

Then the CSO-class Supercarrier proceeded to advance even faster, sending now hordes of plasma torpedoes towards the ground where liberty ships rested while the lasers dealt damage to the sixty remaining human ships.

"Where is your tactical advantage now, wretched lowlifes?! WHERE ARE YOUR GODS TO SAVE YOU!?" - Screamed the Prophet while the CSO now was just ramming human ships and going to strike at the Prinz Eugen after just slamming a Vindication-class battleship.

"Here." - Spoke a masculine voice, a Hologram of an armor-cladded person with a 117 mark on his chest, followed by a 087 marked figure with an EVA helmet hand-waving to the 'camera', leaving the prophet in dismay.

And after that, two flashes tore the enemy ship apart. From one side was a CAS-class Assault Carrier on the fringes of Harvest's orbit still attacking the enemy ship with their plasma lance. And in the other, seventy human ships with designs never seen before by anyone on the planet, but reminiscent of the ones already there, the front of the group being led by a 4.5-kilometer vessel that was the only not to fire a MAC slug against the now dead on the water ship.

"You lost; to the worst then." - Spoke a male voice coming from the Lead ship on the formation.

After that, a near-instantaneous flash passed through the ship's middle section, piercing everything on its path and eventually going into harvest, where its strike produced a 340 megaton explosion that produced earthquakes in the planet.

Soon the CSO exploded, killing another seven human ships with the release of energy and debris to space that permeated a sizeable amount of space.

Many minutes came where silent was the rule, the 43 ships surviving from the 195 from the liberation feet rejoiced, prayed and celebrated as they were alive.

Humanity had won the Harvest campaign.

Vice Admiral Stanforth from ONI section three assumed command of human forces on the Outer Colonies with his ship, the UNSC Endurance, and demanded a Nationwide mourn for the loss of Vice-Admiral Preston Cole, only to it last for some hours before sending his ships to keep fighting along the shellshocked survivors and him to go clear the zone of Utgard, with hopes of lifting morale.

Now it was time to consolidate, and strike the covenant; the 'Struggle' phase of the war had started.

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Ire:

Ninth age of reclamation.

Thirteen cycles after the Disaster on Harvest.

(Somewhere, in early 2528)

High Charity.

The High Council was shouting. News of an Intrusion-Corvette, also known as de DPV-Class Corvette, had brought the covenant the confirmation of their Prophet of regret as well as the fleet of the now called 'Expeditionary sector' being destroyed on the battle against the humans on 'Harvest', leaving the mentioned zone of space entirely free for pirates and rebels to dominate the few light-ships that remained there as the Prophet had rallied the bigger vessels to accompany him in a crusade after the defeat the Arbiter's fleet.

A mourning period for the loss of the Prophet and the Arbiter was declared; with the hierarchs really worrying only about the loss of the knowledge of Ethran Harborage and the impossibility of gaining the Artifact that should lead them to it in the human planet.

But that was on the civilian and military side, the political spectrum was divided.

"Why would a prophet risk himself so much against a race that has effectively razed Zhoist, the capital of the Expeditionary sector?! I say this was a plot to dispose of him!" - Accused a Jiralhanae, the Vice-minister of the Ministry of Preservation.

"Those are menial accusations, its clear that the humans are much stronger than we had anticipated, he was a prophet with one of our five Supercarriers! There is no way he could have lost if these were just rats!" - Shouted the Minister of Discovery, a High San'Shyuum.

"Or rather, these humans are resourceful, and we should change our ways to deal with them!" - Replied an Imperial admiral, Xytan'Jar Wattinree.

"Never! Our ships are sacred designs made by the Prophets when the situation required so, with the inspiration of our Gods! Our tools are good, so are our people, adapting would be to get nearer to those filthy rats!" - Inquired the Vice-minister of the Minister of Sacral Assembly.- "We should be just worrying about making more!

This whole debacle made the two remaining High Prophets anxious, they had expected the younger of the three to be rash and irrational, but his death had thrown the covenant into a problem bigger than losing the ships alone would be. Now they had many views to try and suppress or implement as reforms.

[Why couldn't we just include them in the covenant? We could have said they indicated 'reclaim' just because they were a race sent by the gods to help us, like the engineers!]- Thought the prophet of Mercy, taking a more sensible look on the situation than his companion; Truth, who now was bashing against the Sangheili.

"Your warriors are at the fault! We sent the Arbiter and then a fleet to conquer the human homeworld but the generals probably couldn't act as the plans of a holy man like Regret requested." - He interpellated with one of his few shows of real affection to what he considered the least important of the hierarchs.

But to evade a Sangheili High Councilor's shouts, Mercy interceeded:

"My brother is making a good point even if it is a bit misled by the pain of losing someone so close to him; we need to change our military ways, start making more ships to replace the losses of so many souls, after all, a fifth of our empire is defenseless as their most powerful defenders followed our brother into a crusade that could have meant victory for us, but the gods decided to not give us. I think we are to stop harassing humanity, for now, get stronger, and then strike at them. And if they repel us again, maybe we should consider the option of the Ministry of Etiology and investigate the humans; maybe reclamation was a sign of us needing to absorb them."

The words of Mercy, while more intelligent than the ones of Truth, made the discussion continue with fervor.

Truth was impacted by the words of Mercy, he reached to his companion and spoke to him with whispers.

"{Are you sure about this whole 'not eradicating humanity'?}" - The Hierarch asked with true curiosity and disbelief.

"{Yes, or at least we are to learn about our enemy and get a better reason to not include them immediately as some Sangheili and grunts are starting to claim we should do. Or even, think about what we could do with their acceleration technology, you have seen how our battlecruisers fall when facing just some of their frigates, or when they use their small craft to kill our ships. It's something not seen since the war of beginnings or the Kig-Yar inclusion.}''- Mercy answered, prompting truth to think about it.

Soon, a Sangheili entered the room.

Someone with golden armor one sent by the prophets to the so-called 'Persia' with a battlegroup to try and take a human colony that had a Forerunner artifact according to a map encountered long ago. And he was Thel'Vadamee, the protégé of Watinree, brother-in-arms of the 'defunct' Rtas'Vadumee.

The Council got silent after seeing him.

"Thel'vadamee, such a joy to have you here, have you brought personally news about the campaign?" - Asked Truth wanting to shift the minds of the council into preoccupying about this newcomer.

"Noble hierarchs." - He said while kneeling. -"I do, I am to tell you that Special operations Commander Zuka'Zamamee has discovered a human secret that he thinks all should know."

The Hierarchs gulped, as the face of the favorite fleetmaster of the prophet of truth spoke; as the train of thought they were on before indicated to his consciousness that he may be speaking about humans being, in reality, forerunners or the ones selected by them, it was a crazy thought, but he couldn't think about that until Vadamee spoke.

"As it seems, Harvest is not their capital. It's an 'Outer Colony', and they have evacuated the near systems and booby-trapped them, save for some selected ones; Persia for example was an 'Oil-producing' mining colony that wasn't evacuated, and Harvest an 'Agricultural' one."- The warrior then breathed, proud, but slightly nervous as he was in front of the whole council.

A grunt came, carrying a projector, where the image of the known human-controlled territory laid, the knowledge of around 32 human systems flared, with an outline going as far as points of other near arms of the galaxy.

"Noble people, you now can see the fact that we have notice of how much human-controlled space there is, but we only know the location of planets told by the recovered nav computers of some ships, or by following their slipspace jumps."- Vadamee then nodded and the grunt showed the overlap with the Covenant space.

Gasps were heard soon, they knew so little of them, but the Kig Yar home system was near Harvest, reachable by just a simple one-unit jump.

"Yes, they are our neighbors, but please do not jump to conclusions yet."

"Why!? We should be striking with all our force against them NOW!"- Screamed a Matriarch furious that the humans could make an 8-day trip to their homeworld and attack.

She was looked with disdain by the Prophet of Mercy and delight by Truth, but no one dared to say anything as an Honour Guard made his spear sound against the floor, making silence reign.

"Because albeit we've got notice of some of our ships having been captured on the Harvest Disast-." - He stopped for air then, knowing what was about to come

The revelation shook the council, they began shouting with claims to try to talk to humanity, send all fleets to kill them, and just ignoring them for now, with the Sangheili being divided into the three, San'Shyuum between the last two and a minority of lesser races for the first one.

"Silence people. Let the Supreme Commander speak." - Spoke the Prophet of Mercy with the hint of the new rank to gain some influence over the Sangheili with it.

"I agree with Truth, he is to tell us all, and then, we shall continue." - Added Truth, noticing the intent of his brother.

"Thanks... For the promotion, noble hierarchs, I'll be sure to drive my fleet into victory." - The now-Supreme commander stood up, as his new position allowed him to do so in front of the hierarchs.- "But what I was saying, is that we are weak right now, humans have evolved from when we engaged them two years ago, we should wait, ten years should be enough to purge them from this galaxy without suffering from lack of resources."

Sounds of heresy also were heard now, it was moronical to think; Truth was about to dismiss it, but Mercy interceded after looking with negation to the other High hierarch.

"Why is that? Why do you think our forces and production as they are right now are not enough?"- Mercy asked, surprising most of the council with a consideration that most had ignored, save from the military sector.- "Are five thousand battlecruisers, four thousand carriers, and thousands of other ships not enough to defeat them?"

Thel'Vadamee felt the pain of doubt over him, questioning the hierarchs would have been heresy, but he had expressed consideration, and now the Prophet was just questioning him, the Prophet trusted him; that gave him enough security as to speak again.

"Because of those cruisers most are moving goods through the empire, the carriers are dealing with pirates, the rebels of the frontier, ferrying resources, exploring our territory, guarding and being transports of deacons and San Shyums, while the smaller ones are patrolling, policing, extracting materiel and in the hands of colonies lost to the time."

Truth nodded, Mercy smiled, as he had now a plan.

"You are as smart as your ancestors; but, Vadamee, you still haven't answered, why our current forces aren't enough?"

The newly appointed Commander gulped, his ideas were quickly shocked by the question, but he waited some seconds of shame to come up with something.

"Because, as I said, the humans are different, some of their imps now seem to have armor that can withstand a single blow from our pistols before surrendering to a second in the same place; and their demons apparently have our defense gauntlets implanted into their carapace, as the report of a sniper shooting it with a needle rifle and the shot being deflected followed by a flash of light proper of a shield depleting proves."

This time Truth decided to intercede, waving his hand and adopting a more harmonious tone to talk to one of the few Sangheili he did think were working in the good of the covenant, or better, the power of the San Shyum.

"But that could easily be explained by them just recycling our metals, do you have any substance to back up your claims?"

Vadamee actually smirked at this one, as he had the perfect example of it, so he whispered something to the grunt with the projector, showing his CAS above a human city.

"Now I'm to tell you about the betterment of human weaponry. My personal ship, the Coming of Jubilation and Solace, was struck by a land force when glassing a resource-producing city on Persia. They had guns like our wraiths, that managed to pierce into the compartments of our front and middle sections, killing our dorsal lance. And in the ground, our troops are seeing less and less successful attacks, at the sight of a single human craft, explosions ensue the forces sent to annihilate the heretics, like the floor they were stepping in was filled of mines, or that they had a weapon that could strike like a plasma torpedo."

Before the Sangheili could continue, a San Shyum High Councilor, the minister of Inquisition spoke.

"And have you gotten any information about what these guns are in reality?"

The image now showed large tubes with rare bases, with humans manning them and loading casings into them.

"Our scouts have told us about steel rods shaped in the form of a cannon that is reminiscent of the human guns, they send fire, and seconds after, an explosion can be heard; and it's capable of killing a few wraiths with just one pound. But this is only one sighting, a tube was almost captured by a trio of grunts, they said the object could send little pikes into the air to kill entire lances, information about them indicate their names being 'Artillery'; a concept much different from our Revenants, Wraiths, and Scarabs as it seems." - Answered the 'man'.

A Sangheili this time added a comment, none other than Xytan and the other two Imperial admirals who voiced their ideas through the Hero of the elites.

"But what about the hand weapons of the humans?"

"And have you learned something on the humans' way of government?" - Asked the Prophet of mercy with Truth nodding as if to support that doubt, and this prompted the Imperial Admirals and some of the council to look astonished as they just ignored what was said by the military officers. But no one dared to make objections to what happened.

"I-…"- Vadamee began without knowing what to say in reality after what happened, but he soon regained the guts and formulated an idea.

In the meantime, felt the need to say: "Sorry Admiral, but I think this is more important for now."- Just to see the reaction of the man.

After that, to quell possible shouts, Vadamee spoke quickly.

"News of their champion, Preston Cole, dying on Harvest seem to indicate that they do not differ much to us in the sense that their admirals are leaders. This man is also the one responsible for the death of the Prophet along with another so-called 'admiral esteinfor'. But also I've learned about them having a civil government and a family concept not so far from the Sangheili one."

This revelation though caused another tremor of people screaming heresy, but they were calmed by the waving of the hand of the prophet of mercy.

"Tell us, Supreme Commander, do you think these humans can be reasoned with?" - Asked Mercy, causing gasps and silent questions to flood the room or at least half of it, confirming the fear of the Prophet of truth, the sudden victories of humanity had divided the covenant somewhat

"Yes, they seem to care about their lesser ones and their injured ones, and when fighting any save for drones, brutes, Lekgolo or T'vaoans; they tend to even treat us with a degree of respect, as shown by many knife fights between my troops and them, with humans giving an honorable death to my troops or them being killed defending their fellow ones. They are despicable, unruly, loud, disrespectful when speaking and of lesser technology than us, but they may be able to be reasoned with, or at least some seem to show that."

"Heresy!" - Shouted the Minister of Infidels, followed by others.

"He's being pragmatic, we did the same when we encountered the brutes!" - Shouted the Vice-minister of Preservation followed by another section of the chamber.

"Please calm down." - Said Mercy, closing his eyes, but smiling on the inside.

"Stop, this is no moment for the debate; we are asking a model Sangheili that has brought us only victories about his opinions, not if he has faith on the great journey, as that is plain to see." - Followed Truth who then decided to add a little something.- "Vadamee, You've given us precious information, thank you."

"Either way, we expect a report soon about all of your findings, now you are to return to the campaign where your objective is not to win, but to discover more about humanity." - Ordered Mercy, with a nod from Truth, who now saw an opportunity too in that event.

"And for that, more resources will be assigned to you, but due to the shuffling of ships that currently is happening after the disaster at harvest and the new building effort; you may be able to take as many ships from Xytan'Watinree's fleet as you might want. And I'm sure that the supervisor of the fringes of our Glorious empire will be more than happy to aid you."

A growl from the three Imperial Admirals present followed, especially the leader of the three, Xytan himself.

"I'll oblige, but I'll advise my fellow Sangheili to try to imitate the human style of combat to understand it, as both our prophets have accepted that our ways are failing to deal with them."

Joy erupted from most of the Sangheili present, and a scowl formed in the prophets that represented now Realism and Idealism as this was clearly an affront that they couldn't but accept, even if copying the humans could probably lead to... Undesired situations. But after all, they could still make Xytan the Arbiter and send him into a suicide mission if they wanted, so this was only a minor setback.

"You are right. Now leave, and continue; but don't risk your ships, as we will take our time to recover our losses. And Admiral, please contact Thel'Vadamee about the ships at your command." - Said Truth.- "The only fleet that is to exit our borders to attack the humans will be the one of War Chieftain Tartarus, as it is already prepared to enter voyage.

The San Shyum and Jiralhanae council roared, leaving the Sangheili disgusted, prompting new waves of discussions as Thel'Vadamee began to just walk towards the exit, being followed by the small grunt and the Holoprojector.

"Thank you, Yap Yap."- Said Vadamee after they left the room.

And with that, the shouting began with new purposes. The covenant was going to be a lot different from now on.

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AN: Yeah, maybe human losses seem now pretty on pair with covenant ones. But I learned that just a Marathon in 2531 defeated 'several vessels' which in my opinion meant either destroyers, light cruisers, or CCSs. Either way, it's an accomplishment that a more 'down to earth' UNSC could pull off on a more regular basis using its home advantage and general competence compared to Covenant Officers. Not saying UNSC is invincible, just that they 'won' because of the uselessness of its enemies. This will change though.

Sorry for not overextending on the usage of vehicles and tech, but I just wanted to have this part finished so we can now go into a further evolution of humanity and the war instead of just having to come up with each time bigger and better tactics to make a ragtag group into somehow a group of titan killers.

And… Because some might want to know the ship specifications, the next chapter will be all about those descriptions and a 'mini story' about Admiral Hood and other secondary plots.

If you have any reviews, comments, I'll be happy to read them, I get genuinely happy to see when you leave a like or a review. Thank you and I hope this was of your liking. :D

Also yes, I based myself on First Contact and First Strike to do this.

Another disclaimer, Xytan Watinree was the hero of all Sangheili, rivaling the prophets in power and fame; and he controlled a combined fleet that only numbered about 300 ships (And that's when reunited with other Sangheili Fleets) So I think the Covenant has at most 40.000 ships ships capable of waging war, with 23.000 being a good estimate of real war-dedicated ship numbers and the majority being small craft dedicated to patrolling, frigates, cutters and corvettes are indeed the most numerous ones in the covvies arsenal; as shown by Silent Storm. And they control ten times more territory than the UNSC. Thus, losing around 400-500 ships in one year with most of them being the newer and heavier ones; is indeed a blow equivalent to losing Unyielding Hierophant; but at that moment they already were building their navy even more; here they are just dealing with what's left of the Unngoy rebellion. The humans on the other side had around 2800-3100, with 4000 being the utter max at the start of the war, but numbers are different in this timeline.