Just a little story I might or might not continue
0625 Hours, January 11th 2570 (UNSC Standard Military Calendar/Time)
Liberty Cluster, Dynamix System
In Geosynchronous orbit of Crystal
UNSCDF 8th Air Force; Crystal Defense Force "66th Fighter Squadron"
Onboard Block-III FSS-1000C Sabre Anti-Ship Spaceplane
Lieutenant Stanisław Gorecki, Aeres Leader
The endless black void of space was what some consider a beautiful sight. The twinkle of distant stars lighting up the black sea, each one that could have any number of planets home to all types of life. Many different races found the void to be the next step in their evolution as a species, a new frontier where they could reach their full potential. Unfortunately for other races, it was another place that brimmed with new ways to wage war.
Breaking through the black curtain, a pair of Air Force Block-III FSS-1000C Sabre's tore through it, their hybrid fusion-ion drives pushing them to such speeds that could even give the F/A-604 Kunai's and prototype YF-691 Cutlass' of the Navy a run for their money.
These craft weren't alone however. Flying alongside them were hundreds of other aerospace craft, more Sabres, FQ-99G Wombat and FQ-104Y Capybara UCAV's, and F/A-410D Broadsword EMSFs.
"All UNSC units in sector one-zero, we have twelve ships inbound! Battlegroup Dawn can't make an interception, all of their ships are tied up with the rest of the fleet! Prepare for immediate combat!" The voice of Iris, the 5th generation AI of the Moncton-Class Orbital Defense Platform Tachi Station, filled Lieutenant Gorecki's ear's.
Gorecki fixed a hard glare at his scope, sure enough, breaking off from the main Jul'Mdama Storm fleet were a DDS-Class Light Carrier, two CCS-Class Battlecruiers, three SDV-Class Heavy Corvettes, and six CRS-Class Light Cruisers and they were burning hard towards Crystal, their repulsor drives blazing with pinch-fusion generated light.
In the distance, a 24-ship strong UNSC Navy battle group was dishing out with the Storm fleet, each ship slinging high velocity slugs, missiles, lasers, and torpedoes. The Storm were responding back in kind with their own lasers, plasma cannons, needler turrets, energy projectors, particle cannons, and plasma torpedoes.
The UNSCN were holding their own but it was obvious that they were going to fall sooner or later.
Dumping out from the incoming Storm ships hangers were a shit ton of fighters, gunships, fast attack craft, and interceptors. Banshee's, Seraphs, Phantoms, and Giga's, all no doubt loaded up with plasma cannons, fuel rod launchers, and all other types of DEW's. Tachi station rotated towards the ships, its barrel specifically turning in the direction of the light carrier.
Its powerful coils and twisting rails flared, the space dust at the end of the muzzle and around the barrel ionized into plasma due to the immense electromagnetic power, creating a purple halo around the ODP, then it fired. A flash of light and a 1800-metric ton blunt nosed ferric-tungsten carbide slug tore away at 56,000 kilometers per second.
The light carrier's shielding might as well have not been there, the slug easily punched through and the armor didn't fare any better. Its ventral armor caved-in and the slug unleashed its energy inside the ship. The DDS shattered into a trillion pieces, shards of nanomalite plating that glittered in the light of Dynamix's star.
"Ares leader to all fighters, lock-up targets, prepare to engage on my command!" Gorecki said, flipping on the Sabre's Multi-Dimensional X-Band Radar. The spaceplane's CI armed his weaponry, while at the same time his Sabres ventral weapons bay opened, revealing two rotary launchers packed with ASGM's.
His HUD indicated that his two targets were a pair of unfortunate Banshee's. The battlenet that the HUD was integrated with showed the other Storm craft that were being locked on to, with each two craft being locked onto by a single UNSCAF fighter and a combat drone.
He glanced at the range meter as it rapidly dropped. 20,000 kilometers, 17,000 kilometers, 15,000 kilometers, 9,000 hundred kilometers
Then there was the shrill tone of a target lock emitting from the cockpit, indicating a positive target-lock.
Taking a deep breath, he barked into the radio. "Weapons free! Fox three! Fox three!" With a press of the firing studs, a pair of Minotaurs dropped from the weapon bay and their micro ion drives activated, kicking them away. All along the line similar scenes occurred as more missiles were launched from other UNSCAF craft.
He watched as the enemy fighters' well organized formation scattered, the craft throwing themselves into wild maneuvers, dropping decoys, blasting ECM, focusing forward energy shields, and even filling the space with plasma bolts. It worked, to some degree. Some missiles were thrown off by the ECM and decoys, others were destroyed by the plasma bolts, but the rest effortlessly followed their movements.
Banshee's were ripped apart like tissue paper against the tungsten cylinders launched by the missile explosion's, Seraph's were able to survive the first hits though their shields went down and some suffered hull damage, Giga's were a similar result, and the Phantoms with their more powerful forward shields were able to absorb the hits and not suffer any damage.
In the time it had taken the missiles to impact, the wave of human fighters and drones had closed the range on the storm fcraft. Which promptly powered forward, their plasma cannons blazing. The smaller blue streaks from the fighter grade plasma cannons added to the already impressive display of firepower.
"Ares team, break formation but try to keep each other covered!" Gorecki barked as the two fighter formations merged. As his Sabre was only a dozen kilometers away from a Phantom gunning right for him, he activated the thrusters while yanking the control stick. Four micro-thrusters built-in to the dorsal hull of the Sabre came to full power in a milli-second. The ASSP shot 'down' relative to the Phantom, and the moment that his crosshairs were on the belly of the dropship, he fired.
The autocannons barked and spat magnetic perpetrators that punched through the unshielded ventral hull. And at the same time he fired two Medusa's. The missiles leapt away from their launchers and the moment that they entered through the breach, they detonated. The Phantom failed to contain the intense pulses of electric ionized gas and its fuselage exploded open in a purple-blue light.
"Splash One!"
Gorecki cut his thrust and reversed it, flipping the 58-ton fighter around one-hundred eighty degrees on its central axis in a split second. His body was slammed with G's though his G-Suit and the Sabres inertial dampeners were able to mostly protect him. Turning quickly, he spotted his next victim, a Banshee. He slid the acceleration stripe forward and the Sabre bounded forward racing, towards his quarry.
The enemy fighter saw him and, using its advanced propulsion systems and light weight, it flipped fifteen degrees on its central axis to face him. Its dual plasma cannons blazed, hurling energy bolts towards him. He reacted on instinct, having his fighter sidestep to port and he promptly brought the crosshair on target and then hit the firing studs. The Sabre shook as its twin rail-autocannons roared into the void, streams of glowing white-hot magnetic metal streaked to the Banshee which side-stepped itself and fired again. Plasma rounds this time connected with the Sabre, the fighter quivered under the impacts of the rounds and dropped the fighter's energy shields by a quarter.
Snarling, Gorecki slid the acceleration strip back, activated the ventral thrusters, and brought the Sabre around hard, the G's pressed him into his seat and he quickly spotted the Banshee. It was coming at him again, this time the fuel rod launcher sitting in-between its plasma repeaters was glowing with sickly green energy. He brought the sights back onto the target and fired again.
This time the burst was on target. The slugs tore through the light energy shielding with ease and shattered the lightly armored strike fighter apart. "Splash two!" Gorecki announced over the radio.
"Pick up the pace boss! Some of us are already on our third or fourth kills!" Ares Five replied.
"I got three on my tail and I can't shake him!" Ares Three yelled, the momentous beeping of the energy shield nearing depletion alarm audible in the background.
"I am coming, hang on Ares Three!" Gorecki said as he altered course and flicked the acceleration stripe all the way forward, the F-I drives went to their full power and rocketed Gorecki toward the Sabre in trouble. As he did so, a Wombat from the looks of it, one belonging to the Richthofen-Class Heavy Carrier, UNSCAF Trenchard, streaked past his nose, the entire back end of the UCAV in flames. He quickly spotted the Seraph responsible which was peeling away going after another Wombat, in the process shredding a Broadsword. Locking onto the thing, he fired a pair of Medusa's, which rocketed away from the Sabre's 'shoulder' launchers.
The electro-plasma pulse warheads jumped upwards and effortlessly tracked the fighter. The first one slammed into shields and exploded with a cool blue light, though it did nothing more than shatter the energy shield. The second one however, hit the hull directly and the resulting blast turned the back-end of the tear-drop shaped craft into melted slag, the detonation sending the rest of the Seraph helplessly flying into far space.
He sweeped in, dropping in the negative z-direction at the sametime behind the four Banshee's that were behind Ares Three. Their plasma cannons spitting out energy bolts that splashed against Ares Three energy shield.
It only took a few seconds, a quick burst of 30mm turned the first fighter into scrap before it could even react to the threat coming in behind them. A missile turned another fighter into shrapnel and another quick burst of autocannon fire turned the other fighters pilot into a purple mist. Ares Three suddenly spun his fighter on its x-axis and sprayed the other fighter with rounds and it simply disintegrated.
"There's so many of them! They go down easily but numbers are -" Echo leader started to say before he was suddenly cut off amid a strangled burst of static.
"Holy crap! Enemy light cruiser charging! It just vaporized Echo leader!" Bravo Two shouted.
Gorecki glanced at his radar display and swore. Sure enough, a CRS was charging, trying to close the range. It's hull blazed with light as its point defense arrays shot away at the human forces, quickly sniping down the rest of Echo squadron while others were high-tailing out of it's weapon range. This was going to complicate matters greatly as he swung upwards towards a pair of Banshees with Ares Three right behind him.
The fighters were chasing a Greatsword bomber, which was trying to evade their fire for all of their worth. To no avail, the entire port engine assembly on the wing exploded, sending the big and bulky bomber into a wild spin.
The two enemy fighters broke away from their quarry and then dove towards him and opened fire. Plasma rounds streaked forth, blue streaks across the blackness of space. Suddenly both Banshee's were punched into lazy balls of vapor as a singular green beam pierced each one, thanks to a nearby Point-Defense Satellite
But almost immediately Gigas fighters came from the side, their cannons blazing. Gorecki brought his fighter around ninety degrees so that his nose and guns were facing the enemy. He sighted one fighter up and Ares Three sighted a different one up and they fired, streaks of bright hot light were birthed forth from the cannons on the Sabres.
The energy shields flared and died, allowing the rounds to rip the crescent shaped crafts to ribbons. Another Storm craft appeared and this time it was chasing Gorecki. He threw his fighter into a spin to avoid a burst of plasma fired from the pursuer, though half of the burst slammed into his shields, taking them down to 28%.
He spun away but couldn't get a bead on the Seraph as it learned not to try and play his games of getting into an outright dogfight and instead using hit and run tactics.
"Aeres three, requiring assistance! I can't get this Seraph off my ass!" He said over SQUADCOM.
"Roger Aeres One, Fox Two!" A Medusa shot away from his wingman while they fired a long burst of SAPHE. The rounds hit first, breaking through the energy shield and the missile hit next. The EPP warhead detonated, ripping right through the Seraph's spine. The resulting explosion sent the fiery remains drifting off into Crystal's gravity well, where it would later burn up in reentry.
"Thanks for the assist."
"Anytime. Watch out! You got a bogey coming on your six!" Aeres Three called out.
Gorecki cut his throttle, letting the Storm fighter pass over him. With a quick switch to Lancet micro missiles, he slammed the enemy fighter with four to its spine. A brilliant flash and the Gigas was now nothing more than a fireball
0930 Hours, January 11th 2570 (UNSC Military Calendar/Time)
Liberty Cluster, Dynamix System
Near orbit of Crystal
UNSCDF 8th Sector Fleet; Crystal Defense Force "Battlegroup Dawn"
Onboard UNSCN Promise of Dawn CVA-021, Flight-I Orion-Class Assault Carrier
Commander Robin Aurey
"VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! Plasma torpedoes inbound portside!" A sensor officer yelled out. True to his word, a salvo of two heavy-wieght and three medium-weight plasma torpedoes were streaking in on the carrier's portside.
CWIS autocannons and Point-Defense pulse lasers opened up, spitting out flak and terrajoule grade green beams at the balls of plasma while ECM/ECCM jamming bands blasted in their direction. Two dissipated and/or prematurely detonated from the fire, another veered off course and instead slammed into one the Assault Carriers escorting Charon-Class Light Frigates, the Perfect Flame. With the shields being disabled from an earlier energy projector strike, the Flame was helpless as the torp snapped it in half when it melted through its ventral hull and filled its interior with plasma fire.
The remaining two plasma balls slammed into the Dawn's dispersal shields. The bridge crew felt the ship shuddered as someone called out. "Shields down to 23% and falling!"
Commander Robin Aurey bit back a curse. This wasn't supposed to be happening, Crystal was a Mid-Rim colony, one of the closer ones to the Inner colonies and most of the fighting against the Covenant splinter groups was in the Outer colonies. Yet somehow, a Battlegroup of 14 CRS-Class Light Cruisers, 10 CAR-Class Light Frigates 8 SDV-Class Heavy Corvettes, 16 CPV-Class Heavy Destroyers, 6 CCS-Class Battlecruisers, 5 RCS-Class Armored Cruisers, 2 DDS-Class Light Carriers, 1 ORS-Class Heavy Cruiser and a god-forsaken OSS-Class Battlecarrier all belonging to the Jul Mdama's Storm managed to slip through sensor stations, sector fleets, patrols and early warning radar stations that would've caught notice of the battlegroup and were now invading the colony.
She wasn't even sure why they were even targeting Crystal in the first place. There was nothing special about it, no Forerunner artifacts, no large amount of important resources that could be helpful in a war, and Crystal wasn't even a major naval base, just a simple agriculture colony with a orbital station, a few attack satellites, small orbital weapon platforms and a space elevator, all protected by a 26, now 24, ship-strong battlegroup mostly made up of aging warships.
It didn't matter now though, now she had to make sure her Battlegroup could hold off the Storm ships, or atleast long enough for the evacuation ships to escape.
"Report on the MAC guns?" Aurey asked as one of the Dawn's escorting Stridents, the Redfist, brought its MAC to bear on a CAR. Its MAC boomed, and a ferric tungsten slug was hurled through space and smashed into the frigate. The shields flared before shattering, leaving it open for the Refist's secondary and tertiary batteries to pound it with slugs, lasers and missiles, the frigate's hull crumpled and shattered before secondary explosions ripped it apart.
"Coils are at eighty percent charged." The carrier's fourth generation AI, Kant, quickly answered.
"Target 7-Delta. Fire." Aurey commanded. Said 7-Delta was a shieldless CPV engaging the Vanguard. Inside of the Assault Carrier, the pair of magnetic coils flared with energy as the two 125-metric ton shells were loaded into the barrels. The coils accelerated and with a thunderous boom, the slugs were thrown from the MACs and zoomed down range.
The CPV was shaken as the two slugs punched through its starboard nanolaminate plating, and still carried enough speed to punch through the other side and slam into the SDV next to it, shattering its shields. A full spread of fusion Archer missiles fired from the Vanguard promptly finished it off. Flashes of nuclear plasma jets fired from the Archer's Casaba-Howitzer warheads carved deep into the corvette.
"7-Delta is disabled and Vanguard is finishing up its escorting SDV, we have lock-on 7-Delta with the SABER." The weapons ops said, referring to the Promise of Dawns recently installed energy projector.
She grinned. "Target the hull breach. Fire." At her command, a titanium dome sitting in between the muzzles of the MAC's open, revealing a focusing matrix. Plasma flowed from the magnetic containment chamber and to the projector, the space dust around it ionizing into a purple halo, before firing. A blue-white beam of ionized particles lashed out from the Orion at lightspeed and filled the CPV with its energy.
The plasma boiled the inner workings of the ship, and the following secondary explosions ripped the destroyer apart.
"That's a hard kill." Kant said with a grin.
The comm ops yelled out. "UNSCN Dominion is dead in the water, I'm detecting multiple hull breaches across her length and she appears to be venting atmosphere." On the real-time display, Aurey could see that the LCS was being picked apart by a pair of CRS's unloading their plasma torpedoes into its hull.
"The Song of the East is taking heavy fire from the heavy cruiser and is requesting assistance and….emergency transmission from the Corsair! The captain reports power loss to their main fusion reactor and is switching over to secondary but he's also reporting the loss of nearly over half of their weapon batteries!" Kant quickly said.
Dammit
Aurey turned to the AI. "Order Corsair's crew to slav control to the Promise of Dawn and abandon ship, prepare rescue Pelicans to pick them up! And order the Strike Eagle, Redfist and Black Sea to make a tactical jump to Song of the East location and give support!"
Krant nodded and quickly sent out the commands. A moment later someone yelled out. "Corsair is slaved to us! Rescue Pelicans are on their way." Outside, the Strike Eagle, Redfist and Black Sea disappeared into slipspace portals before quickly reappearing next to the East.
The moment that they dropped, the ships unleashed MAC and missile salvos, while moving into screen the battered Autumn-Class Heavy Cruiser.
"VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! Starboard flank, plasma torps in the ultra-heavy weight! Launched from that battlecarrier and its escorts!" A technician yelled out. On the display, a salvo of five cherry-white orbs of plasma hellfire covered by twelve others were streaking towards the Dawn, and from their speeds, they were hauling ass.
"Focus CWIS and Point-Defense batteries on them and launch starboard decoys! Helm, left full rudder, all ahead flank!" Aurey yelled back
Aurey gripped her seat as the carrier swung left, all the while a spray of star-like magnetic plasma flares shot from the starboard prow. Sentry and Rampart autocannons along with pulse laser arrays swiveled towards the incoming torps before unleashing a storm of flak and lasers towards them.
Quickly, the torps began dissipating as they entered the storm of fire, over half of the regular torps were shot down, but only one ultra-heavy weight was destroyed. Kant tried to increase the counter fire, succeeding in destroying two of the ultra-heavy weights, but the remaining five plasma torps were able to hit their target.
The shields flared as the three heavy-weights slammed into them, before shattering when one of the ultra-heavys hit. Without any shields to deal with, the last torp was able to slip through. Titanium-Tungsten/Vanadium armor, nanocrystalline polymer, shock-hardening fluids, and various other composites melted away, letting ultra heated plasma fill the interior.
Promise of Dawn heaved violently and the deck bucked angrily. "Shields down, we're holed! Deck twelve through twenty, section nine through seventeen! Sealing! Archer missile pods six through fifteen are destroyed and sixteen and eighteen along with two sentry batteries are disabled from heavy damage! Multiple casualties are being reported!" A ops shouted over the sounds of metal rending, tearing and explosions echoing through the assault carrier.
Kant let out a curse. "Ma'am, over half of the coils in the starboard MAC are either heavily damaged or outright destroyed! We only have one MAC left to use." He said as a holographic screen showing red and orange covering the starboard side of the Dawn popped up.
Aurey cursed, Orion-Class Assault Carriers didn't have much in the way of anti-ship firepower, at least compared to their successor's, the Hera-Class, besides their heavy MACs. With one gone along with nearly most of their weapons batteries, Aurey knew that the Dawn wouldn't hold much longer.
She turned to the comms ops. "Contact Tachi station, have them bring their SMAC bare on that battlecarrier and its escorts!" The young Hungarian woman operating the comms nodded before sending out Aureys commands to the Moncton-Class Orbital Defense Platform, which itself just fired an 1800-metric ton ferric-tungsten slug towards a pair of CPV's moving in to flank the heavy cruiser Ecliud's Anvil.
The round punched straight through the first destroyer as if its shields and armor were mere soggy paper and shattered the second one. Both ships exploded in a flash of light thanks to the detonation of their pinch reactors, and sent trillions of nanomalite shards flying into the void.
"ODP Tachi, this is Dawn-Actual. Target enemy Battlecarrier and its escorts, location is sector niner-three-seven." She said,
"Roger Dawn-Actual, bringing SMAC to bear!" Iris responded as the station rotated its barrel towards the battlecarrier, a purple light forming around its immense SMAC barrel.
"Target locked, commencing fire!" Like a ripple in a pond caused by stone, Tachi fired. An incredible amount of energy was discharged, so much that it caused the Dawn's sensor's to spike. The slug fired was so hot that it glowed brilliant light as it screamed away from the barrel in a red-shifting blur.
The unfortunate CCS that was Tachi's first target didn't see it coming. Its shield's instantly gave way and the slug unleashed nearly 500 gigatons of TNT into the battlecruiser. The ship shattered like a glass jar dropped from the Empire state building and the slug still had enough velocity to punch through the two frigates behind it before finally slamming into the battlecarrier, its shields flaring but nothing else.
The station fired once again and another slug was sent screaming through the void and slammed into the battlecarrier. The energy shield flared brightly…but still held.
Aurey blinked. What
She knew that OSS-Class shielding was tough but, not even that should be able to resist a slug capable of shattering a large asteroid. The sheer shield generation capability to do that must be insane.
"Tachi station, requesting another shot-" The comms op said before being cut off by sensor's
"Ma'am, that battlecarrier is making a slipspace jump! Right off our port! Vanguard and the cruisers are too tied up to stop it!" The sensor ops shouted out, on the display, the large red dot that represented the OSS disappeared off the display…before reappearing barely a couple kilometers off the Promise of Dawn's portside.
"Bring the MAC around, order non-essential crew to escape pod-" Aurey said before being cut off by a salvo of ultra-weight plasma torps that slammed right into the section under the Promise of Dawn's bridge.
Aurey and the bridge crew were thrown in their seats, in fact some were thrown so hard that their crash harnesses snapped and they were thrown into the ground, including Aurey. The following sound a nasty snap and the explosion of pain in her left leg did not help the situation.
" 'Made to handle the strongest of pressure's' my ass." Aurey muttered as she brought her self back up to the main display, the pain in her leg becoming even worse. Thankfully her spinal implants injected a dose of painkillers, while it didn't make the pain completely go away, it did reduce it to much more tolerable levels.
"Kant, confirm my last orders and ready a Calamity, authorization code five-two-six..." She said before trailing off. Kant's avatar stared back at her blankly, through the bridge's transparent titanium-A windows, she could see a rapidly approaching plasma torpedo salvo streaking right towards the bridge.
"I'm sorry ma'am." He said as his avatar flickered off.
The red stars of blue-shifting plasma would be the last thing that Robin Aurey and the bridge crew would ever see.
0942 Hours, January 11th 2570 (UNSC Military Calendar/Time)
Liberty Cluster, Dynamix System
Near orbit of Crystal
UNSCDF 8th Sector Fleet; Crystal Defense Force "Battlegroup Dawn"
Onboard UNSCN Vanguard CLC-043, Flight-III Valiant-Class Large Cruiser
Commodore Liam Hellies
"Promise of Dawn is down! I repeat, the Dawn is down!" The comms ops yelled out. On the tactical display, the gold-yellow arrow that represented the Promise of Dawn blinked off.
Turning towards the real-time display, Liam Hellies, captain of the Vanguard, grimmed as he stared at the remains of what was once a proud Orion-Class Assault Carrier.
Its bridge was completely gone, all that was left was glowing red and melting titanium, large chunks of its prow were torn off, leaving hull breaches with objects of various sizes floating out of them, its starboard hangers were now burning holes, an icy trail created from fuel being exposed to space made it appear as if the ships lifeblood was spilling from its grievous wounds and the rest of the ship was just battered and melting grey gunmetal.
Of course, the situation on the Vanguard wasn't going well either. Most of its armor plating was molten slagged, hull breeches covered nearly the entire ship, half of its weapon batteries were disabled and/or fully destroyed, nearly most of the crew were dead, including the Marine and ODST complement aboard the Vanguard, its fighter complement was down to eight Kunai's, and the lower heavy MAC was melted apart.
"Salter, what's the status of the rest of the battlegroup?" He asked. A holotank next to him flickered briefly before the golden-orange form of a Sphyrna Mokarran hammerhead shark, the Vanguard's 4th generation AI.
"Perfect Flame, Dominion, Strike Eagle are down with all hands, and Ecluid's Anvil's crew is reporting 86% of them is dead including the Captain, all of their stryker batteries are down, half of their Bastions are destroyed along with 63% of their Archer and Javelin ammunition is expended, all of their squadrons are gone and the reactor is only three minutes away from going critical, the rest of the crew is abandoning ship. The Song of The East is still operational though they've lost one of their main fusion drives along with 23% percent of their armor plating and their AI datacore is destroyed." Salter reported, his avatar flickering as he did.
Liam frowned, that meant he only had seventeen ships left to fend off the Storm with, which still outnumbered his battlegroup. As much as a valiant fight he could put up against the Covenant ships, Liam knew that the battlegroup wasn't going to last much longer, he needed to warn HIGHCOM and hope that they could dispatch reinforcements.
"Sir, the Invictus, is opening a channel with us." Comms op said, erupting Liam's thoughts. He raised his eyebrow, the Invictus? The destroyer was originally performing hit-and-run attacks on the left flank of the Storm Battlegroup when the engagement first started but as it prolonged, the destroyer had gone off somewhere and Liam hadn't got a moment to search for it.
"Bring them up."
A moment later, instead of the face of Invictus's captain, Lieutenant Commander Basile Blanchett, the face of his XO, First Lieutenant Marie-Naëlle Labelle appeared in the display instead. The woman had certainly seen better days, a bloody gash ran down her cheek, she was covered in swell, blood, oil, and her naval hardsuit seemed battered. In the background, Liam could make out sparks coming from a tile loosely hanging from the ceiling of the bridge, smoke in the air, and a motionless body near a blackened console.
"Lieutenant Labelle? Where the hell is Blanchett and more importantly where is the Invictus?" Liam asked stunned
"Dead sir, I've assumed command. As for where the Invictus is, we're currently in low orbit over the city of New Salamis. We won't be able to hold for much longer, the evacuation transports have got to go now. I've positioned the Invictus in such a location that we will be able to protect the transports as they make way." Labelle said
Liam sighed. "Labelle, the moment that those transports jump. I want the Invictus to jump as well. So that HIGHCOM can send reinforcements and that everyone back home knows how hard we fought to protect the colony." He ordered grimly.
"Yes sir!" Labelle barked as she saluted. Liam returned it and watched as the connection cut.
He turned back to Salter. "Contact the rest of the battlegroup, tell them to ready a slipspace jump right there." He said, pointing towards the space around Tachi station on the tac display, which itself was still slinging slugs towards the Storm ships merry way, killing another pair of cruisers and destroyers.
The AI nodded. With a spike of radiation, a hole was ripped open in the void in front of the Vanguard. Its fusion drives plunged the large Cruiser forward into the hole's maw, before it snapped shut behind them, with the remaining combat functional UNSC ships doing the same.
The wisps of slipspace surrounded them, the Vanguard prowled through the elusive 11th dimension as her reactor's thrummed. "Recycle our CWIS, Naval gun ammo blocks and reload their magazines, keep our Bastions and SABER warmed up. Start rearming Archer and Howler pods too. Contact the rest of the battlegroup, Calamities are authorized, authentication codes five-two-six-six-niner-papa-tango-niner-three-seven." Liam ordered.
Salter suddenly had a bloodthirsty grin. "Yessir!"
The Shiva and Hyperion class nuclear warheads used in torpedeos were formidable weapons in the UNSC's WMD arsenal, each capable of unleashing 200-megatons and 180 megatons respectively. But the Calamity was an entirely different beast, capable of unleashing a 3-gigation worth detonation, or a 300-megaton worth particle beam if equipped with a Casaba-Howitzer based design. Such destructive firepower could even hurt a CSO supercarrier.
A rippling tear erupted in front of the cruiser-battleship hybrid and it burst out of slipspace, and next to Tachi station. Alongside with a Autumn-Class heavy Cruiser, four Midlothian-Class Heavy Destroyers, five Strident-Class Littoral Combat Ships, and seven Charon-Class Light Frigates. In front of the station and the battlegroup was the OSS and the rest of the Covenant fleet stormed right towards them. "Safeties removed from our Calamities and MAC, secondaries and tertiaries are reloaded, all ready to fire on your command!" The chief weapons officer announced.
Liam merely nodded. Across the display, a web of trajectories, that represented the firing lines belonging to the UNSC battlegroup, spread across it like a spider web to each Covenant ship that was targeted.
"This is Tachi station, we got a lock on targets." Iris reports, the Tachi's SMAC glowing with energy.
On display, Liam watched as the Invictus and the rest of the Evac ships jumped into slipspace, their signatures winking off. Bringing his eyes back to the Covenant fleet, he gave one simple order. "All ships, FIRE!"
Kinetic slugs, missile, torpedoes, nukes, lightspeed laser, relativistic particle beams, and DMW's screamed down range towards the Covenants merry way, which they kindly responded back with salvos of energy bolts, plasma torpedoes, pulse lasers, particle beams, and purple crystalline daggers.
It was obvious who would win, but the sailors and pilots of the UNSCN and UNSCAF would be damned if they didn't go down without putting up a hard fight.
Criticism is welcomed
Notes:
M7066 Calamity Degenerate-Matter Warhead: With the massive military building effort in 2568, came with it a whole slew of new weaponry for both ground and Aerospace forces. One of these was the Calamity. It's a unique design, one that was the effort of not only some of the best weapon technicians and scientists, but also Dr. Catherine Halsey herself. Calamities didn't use an antimatter catalyzed nuclear fusion warhead but instead magnetically contained degenerate matter carefully mined from a neutron star, meaning that these WMD's can unleash a detention equal to a 3-gigation blast or a 300 megaton particle beam. In the two years since they've been introduced, they have been bane of any ship that opposed the UNSC, not even a CSO-Class Supercarrier shielding or armor can resist multiple impacts from these warheads. Another advantage that the Calamity has is that its standard design can both act as regular torpedo and as a Guided Kinetic Kill Vehicle (GKKV), meaning that it can be fired from a MAC gun. This delivery system is the main one that most UNSCN Commanders use. Its main flaw however, is its ruinous cost. The price of the materials needed to construct the warhead and the price of the mining station and the equipment it needs to mine the neutronium necessary to power it, are ruinously high. Despite this however, the Calamity overall is considered to be a representation of how far human creativity and weapons tech can go.
YF-691 Cutlass: A prototype Navy aerospace Multirole Strike Fighter design that would later become the F/A-700 Tantō