s0030 hours
Large vortexes started to appear in the large solar system of Maltiza, at least ten of them swirled in the vacuum. The noses of Covenant cruisers and carriers breached all but one of the vortexes; the last appeared as the tip of a heavy battle cruiser. The Covenant appeared just outside the scanners range of Azola, but soon one of the many satellites would show of their position.
The Covenant weren't planning on waiting, as they broke through the vortex they immediately headed at full speed towards Azola. The planet almost resembled earth but it was off a much smaller scale, only the size of Earth's moon. Azola was deep in space, unknown even to most of the human race; it was a secret base for research and the training of elites. This was a second planet that the Spartans were trained on, but still it had a very limited amount of scientists on it. ONI wanted it not to look too much like a research planet so they had limited amounts of scientists that were aloud to join. There were at least, 5 million marines on the entire planet; some being trained, others there to train, but many were for security.
Azola had a very powerful air force, made up of 10 cruisers, 5 destroyers and 3 heavy battle cruisers. Many of these ships had left to try and save Reach but they had all be decimated, but there still was 5 cruisers, 3 destroyers, 1 carrier and 1 heavy battle cruiser all that were getting repaired from a previous distress call that lead the fleet right to a Covenant cruiser that fought like a cornered rat. There weren't many casualties but still the engines on most of them had been hit by the random plasma blasts.
The Covenant cruisers closed in on the planet's position, their strange dark purple armour making them almost completely invisible. They needed to be stealthy until they were detected by the human radars, if they were spotted by a satellite. This tactic was foiled as one of many human satellites floated in front of a large cruiser; it was not detected by the scanners in time and the cruiser rammed it. The satellite was immediately crushed and pushed aside as the cruiser continued on its course.
1456 hours
Alarm bells rang throughout the entire facility of "Matolock"; which was situated by the large mountain of Falti. Men ran around the base, rushing for their stations; they had all seen this coming. After Reach had fallen, they knew they were next; they figured that if the Covenant forces new where Reach was they knew where Azola was. The marines ran everywhere; many looked like they didn't know what to do, this was their first red alert.
Admiral Robert Lindsey stood in the bridge of the Sword of Justice the only Heavy Battle cruiser that survived from the whole fleet. The Sword of Justice was like the Pillar of Autumn but it was about two times larger and hand more weapons lining the sides. There were large missile batteries hidden under large sheets of armour, ready to be deployed at a moments warning. Lines of large torpedo bays lined the bottom of the hull, making up about 50 in total; all already loaded with the heavy torpedoes. There were heavy Mini gun turrets lining the sides of the ship, for close combat and to take down the attacking fighters. Along the left side was the main heavy weapon; it fired a large sizzling ball of energy that would blow any ship with its shield down to pieces. This weapon had only just been perfected but it hadn't been used at reach, if it was the UNSC forces might have stood a chance. Robert waited patiently the go ahead to launch, he was to head out before the rest of the fleet and try to hold back the attackers as the planet was evacuated into the large colony ships that were used to first settle Azola.
Time pasted quickly as Robert paced up and down the bridge, the Covenant drew ever closer by ever passing second. On the screen next to the pilot, a message appeared showing that it was all clear to head out into the Covenant fleet.
"Ok men, get ready we're heading out. I want a system check and I want it now!" Shouted Robert taking his seat in the centre of the bridge. Lieutenant Jake Sanders sat in the pilots seat at the front of the bridge, two joysticks and long rows of buttons covered the consoles in front and to the side of him. He rapidly pressed buttons on the consoles, he paused his actions and looked to the computer screen in front of him.
The Engines flared and started up, the craft slowly gathered enough strength and slowly began to hover of the ground. Jake pushed the first of the two joysticks forwards while holding the second one steady. The Sword of Justice slowly flew out of the long hanger that was hiding its position from the outside world. As the ship cleared the hanger, Jake pulled the second joystick; which was for steering, back. The ship suddenly turned its nose towards the sky and it boosted up towards their awaiting enemies.
"Hold onto something, guys we're breaching the atmosphere." Shouted Lindsey as he looked over his computers. He was waiting and hoping for a change of orders as he had known all of the men and women under his command for now about 10 years. He didn't want to see any of them getting killed, especially not it the cold recesses of space where no one would tell their families that they had fought bravely but just lie and say they didn't in an accident.
This wasn't an accident, this was a mistake; sending young, brave soldiers to their death so some fat world leaders wouldn't get exposed to be shown as idiots who knew nothing of this war.
"Sir we have new orders!" Shouted Jake slowly the acceleration of the ship until it stopped just above the atmosphere. "We are to wait here for the Lustria, Shadow Blade and the Ark Royal.
Robert sighed quietly to himself; he wanted new orders, but these were only a little better than the last one he had been sent originally. They were all great ships that would fight effortlessly through the battle right to the end. Still this was not going to be an easy fight, without reinforcements that would let them out number the Covenant 5 to 1 they were probably going to lose this.
Soon the two large destroyers and the carrier, all looking basically the same as The Pillar of Autumn, about from the Carrier that was a long, wide and flat; slowed to a stop next to The Sword of Justice.
"Open hail with all ships, Jake." Shouted Robert leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. Jake immediately followed the orders and opened the hail with the other UNSC ships. "This is Admiral Robert Lindsey, I have a plan which I think could get us to take a few of those ugly bastards with us. You all with me?"
"You can count me in!" Shouted back, young Captain James Wesker his voice filled with courage and excitement, "What's the plan!" The young Captain of the Lustria wasn't new at this game, he had fought in many battles; he was a fine Captain and a great tactician. There was only one problem with his battle plans, something he would under estimate the enemies, but still he would fix that with a new better plan.
"With you to Rob, but don't except much from Shadow Blade we don't have most of our main weapons but we have a newly equipped 535 Fusion booster engine." Said Captain William Buffalo.
The Capt of the Shadow Blade was in his mid 30s, he had long grey hair that ran down to his shoulders. His bright blue eyes were full of worry; he like Robert didn't want to see any of his soldiers die.
The last ship stayed silent for a few seconds, Captain Joseph Field sat in silence; this was a carrier not a battle ship but still it had extremely powerful weapons.
"Count me in as well!" Said Joseph leaning back in his chair and looking at the titled ceiling. "I can't do much in this crate but we'll try like hell, anyway I have the best shield and a hell of a lot of Long swords and Eagles, also those new Flat fish so I'll try and keep you guys covered!"
"Good to hear Josh. Ok guys here's the plan, I'll go straight at them firing everything I have at them, I might get a few of those cruisers down. Ark Royal come in behind them and hit them with all you've got then pull out of there. Shadow Blade I want you to get in there at full speed hit the carriers with your Shadow 52 gun, then you get out of there as well. Both of you follow up on me then and lay down more fire; Lustria I want you to head straight for Luna ХХХХШ activate the main Super Mach guns then get back here and get the Heavy Battle Cruiser, by then we should have knocked out the shields. Ok men you know what I expect, I don't want any of you guys dead so when I say evacuate get to Titanius Х and wait there for further orders. Now move out!"
The ships quickly went their own separate directions, all needing to be in the right place before the Covenant arrived. This plan had a chance of working, even if the Covenant stopped the main attack, the other destroy and 5 cruisers would be joining them shortly to assist with the battle.
0550 hours
Field Marshall Karen McGuiness stood in the main command bay, deep underneath the plains of Folpi. The base was a main research centre; it was the place where Spartans were created and many new weapons had also been created. There were no soldiers authorized to be in the research base, only security guards that guarded high level areas and laboratories.
Karen looked over screens that showed many different scenes of the underground base, scientists and main leaders were beginning slowly escorted from the base by Security staff.
The security guards were some of the most elite marines, you world ever meet. Just being round them made the nervous scientists, slightly less jumpy and more secure. This made their work better overall and many scientists now refused to do anything against the law.
Karen sat down on a chair in the now deserted command bay; she brought her mouth up to a microphone. As she turned it on a low buzz was emitted from all the speakers around the base.
"This is Field Marshall Karen McGuiness, I am ordering the full evacuation of Azola, all non military personal immediately proceed to the nearest evacuation point. I want all marines to assemble in the main hanger bays, at 0800 hours. Good luck to everyone!"
Karen turned of the monitor and sat back in her chair looking to the many monitors in front of her. On a screen to the far left it showed the percentage of people who had already been evacuated and below it was the percentage of people who hadn't evacuated.
Only 5 % of all non-militants from the facilities were not evacuated, all of the others had evacuated successfully in the carriers that were always ready for evacuating. The others were being escorted slowly to the hangers to get sent to the of world ship station.
Karen sat up slowly and turned towards a control console, the screen was black and empty of information. Karen typed in her security code and the screen suddenly jumped to life, filling with messages from ONI and of the base information. She clicked past all of the messages and information that she had already seen on the monitors to a small box.
"Click ok to download all selected documents to the email, ONI final
message!"
Two buttons were underneath the message, OK and Cancel; Karen moved the mouse down and clicked the mouse onto OK.
"Karen its time for you to leave, I will self destruct the facility when the evacuation is complete!" Said Calti, "I have a hit team of marines waiting for you in the corridor. They are waiting to escort you away down towards the spaceport."
"Thank you Calti, I want you to send yourself to ONI before you blow the facility, I don't want you to be deleted as well." Said Karen.
Karen turned and walked slowly towards the door leading out to corridor FC12. She pushed the door opened and looked outside, 10 marines stood by the door. The marines all saluted crisply in the British fashion like all soldiers did and one stepped forwards to stand in front of Karen.
The marine was female; her long red hair was in a pony tail behind her head. Her bright green eyes looked over Karen quickly then locked eyes with her.
"Field Marshall Karen, my name is Lt Parker Adamson. I'm in charge of the team that have been assigned to protect you until we get you to the Ark Royal then we are to leave in a Pelican." Said the Soldier.
"Nice to meet you mam, why are you leaving in a pelican aren't you coming in the Ark Royal?" Asked Karen shaking Parker's hand.
"We are to head up to the Sword of Justice and dock in it, then we are to jump immediately to Malacar and rally their fleet and return to earth for immediate protection." Said Parker looking not so pleased. "Well now for introductions, my team is of 10. I am 1st IC, Morrison is 2nd IC, Nicholas is my heavy machine gunner, Rob is Demolitions, Sprey is my medic and Vade, Wayne, Obi, Stopps and Goon are all X-SAS, they are my infantry. These boys are my boys, they have seen basically everything so get used to them quickly it will do you good."
"Ok, hi guys!" Said Karen looking them all over, the marines all nodded their heads in response, they had all come from the same town in Britain and they had been friends for years.
"Lets move outtt...................." Parker slowed her last word and slowly had it fade away her mouth still opened. "Listen!" All the soldiers were quiet; none of them had said a word the entire time.
0600 Hours Three large vortexes appeared outside the atmosphere of Azola, the tips of Covenant carriers breached the vortexes. The Carriers appeared above the atmosphere, and suddenly many blue rays started to get shot out of the bottom towards the plains of Falti. The streams of blue were pods; they breached the atmosphere quickly and fell quickly towards the plains. There were hundreds of them all falling down towards the planet, they crashed into the surface and sat scattered around the plain waiting for the time to open.
The docking bay doors on the sides of the ships began to slid open and thousands of Covenant Drop ships began to fly out of the carriers and fly down towards the planets surface. It was like an endless swarm of Covenant Drop ships hurrying down towards the planets surface. The Y shaped aircraft accelerated towards the ground, they had the essence of surprise and knew it would take the humans, many minutes to scramble some Long swords.
The Drop ships slowed as they became within 10 metres of the surface of the planet, they hovered slightly then dropped to the ground. The large doors on the sides of the Drop ships slowly opened up and the Covenant force was released upon the world.
Large vortexes started to appear in the large solar system of Maltiza, at least ten of them swirled in the vacuum. The noses of Covenant cruisers and carriers breached all but one of the vortexes; the last appeared as the tip of a heavy battle cruiser. The Covenant appeared just outside the scanners range of Azola, but soon one of the many satellites would show of their position.
The Covenant weren't planning on waiting, as they broke through the vortex they immediately headed at full speed towards Azola. The planet almost resembled earth but it was off a much smaller scale, only the size of Earth's moon. Azola was deep in space, unknown even to most of the human race; it was a secret base for research and the training of elites. This was a second planet that the Spartans were trained on, but still it had a very limited amount of scientists on it. ONI wanted it not to look too much like a research planet so they had limited amounts of scientists that were aloud to join. There were at least, 5 million marines on the entire planet; some being trained, others there to train, but many were for security.
Azola had a very powerful air force, made up of 10 cruisers, 5 destroyers and 3 heavy battle cruisers. Many of these ships had left to try and save Reach but they had all be decimated, but there still was 5 cruisers, 3 destroyers, 1 carrier and 1 heavy battle cruiser all that were getting repaired from a previous distress call that lead the fleet right to a Covenant cruiser that fought like a cornered rat. There weren't many casualties but still the engines on most of them had been hit by the random plasma blasts.
The Covenant cruisers closed in on the planet's position, their strange dark purple armour making them almost completely invisible. They needed to be stealthy until they were detected by the human radars, if they were spotted by a satellite. This tactic was foiled as one of many human satellites floated in front of a large cruiser; it was not detected by the scanners in time and the cruiser rammed it. The satellite was immediately crushed and pushed aside as the cruiser continued on its course.
1456 hours
Alarm bells rang throughout the entire facility of "Matolock"; which was situated by the large mountain of Falti. Men ran around the base, rushing for their stations; they had all seen this coming. After Reach had fallen, they knew they were next; they figured that if the Covenant forces new where Reach was they knew where Azola was. The marines ran everywhere; many looked like they didn't know what to do, this was their first red alert.
Admiral Robert Lindsey stood in the bridge of the Sword of Justice the only Heavy Battle cruiser that survived from the whole fleet. The Sword of Justice was like the Pillar of Autumn but it was about two times larger and hand more weapons lining the sides. There were large missile batteries hidden under large sheets of armour, ready to be deployed at a moments warning. Lines of large torpedo bays lined the bottom of the hull, making up about 50 in total; all already loaded with the heavy torpedoes. There were heavy Mini gun turrets lining the sides of the ship, for close combat and to take down the attacking fighters. Along the left side was the main heavy weapon; it fired a large sizzling ball of energy that would blow any ship with its shield down to pieces. This weapon had only just been perfected but it hadn't been used at reach, if it was the UNSC forces might have stood a chance. Robert waited patiently the go ahead to launch, he was to head out before the rest of the fleet and try to hold back the attackers as the planet was evacuated into the large colony ships that were used to first settle Azola.
Time pasted quickly as Robert paced up and down the bridge, the Covenant drew ever closer by ever passing second. On the screen next to the pilot, a message appeared showing that it was all clear to head out into the Covenant fleet.
"Ok men, get ready we're heading out. I want a system check and I want it now!" Shouted Robert taking his seat in the centre of the bridge. Lieutenant Jake Sanders sat in the pilots seat at the front of the bridge, two joysticks and long rows of buttons covered the consoles in front and to the side of him. He rapidly pressed buttons on the consoles, he paused his actions and looked to the computer screen in front of him.
The Engines flared and started up, the craft slowly gathered enough strength and slowly began to hover of the ground. Jake pushed the first of the two joysticks forwards while holding the second one steady. The Sword of Justice slowly flew out of the long hanger that was hiding its position from the outside world. As the ship cleared the hanger, Jake pulled the second joystick; which was for steering, back. The ship suddenly turned its nose towards the sky and it boosted up towards their awaiting enemies.
"Hold onto something, guys we're breaching the atmosphere." Shouted Lindsey as he looked over his computers. He was waiting and hoping for a change of orders as he had known all of the men and women under his command for now about 10 years. He didn't want to see any of them getting killed, especially not it the cold recesses of space where no one would tell their families that they had fought bravely but just lie and say they didn't in an accident.
This wasn't an accident, this was a mistake; sending young, brave soldiers to their death so some fat world leaders wouldn't get exposed to be shown as idiots who knew nothing of this war.
"Sir we have new orders!" Shouted Jake slowly the acceleration of the ship until it stopped just above the atmosphere. "We are to wait here for the Lustria, Shadow Blade and the Ark Royal.
Robert sighed quietly to himself; he wanted new orders, but these were only a little better than the last one he had been sent originally. They were all great ships that would fight effortlessly through the battle right to the end. Still this was not going to be an easy fight, without reinforcements that would let them out number the Covenant 5 to 1 they were probably going to lose this.
Soon the two large destroyers and the carrier, all looking basically the same as The Pillar of Autumn, about from the Carrier that was a long, wide and flat; slowed to a stop next to The Sword of Justice.
"Open hail with all ships, Jake." Shouted Robert leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. Jake immediately followed the orders and opened the hail with the other UNSC ships. "This is Admiral Robert Lindsey, I have a plan which I think could get us to take a few of those ugly bastards with us. You all with me?"
"You can count me in!" Shouted back, young Captain James Wesker his voice filled with courage and excitement, "What's the plan!" The young Captain of the Lustria wasn't new at this game, he had fought in many battles; he was a fine Captain and a great tactician. There was only one problem with his battle plans, something he would under estimate the enemies, but still he would fix that with a new better plan.
"With you to Rob, but don't except much from Shadow Blade we don't have most of our main weapons but we have a newly equipped 535 Fusion booster engine." Said Captain William Buffalo.
The Capt of the Shadow Blade was in his mid 30s, he had long grey hair that ran down to his shoulders. His bright blue eyes were full of worry; he like Robert didn't want to see any of his soldiers die.
The last ship stayed silent for a few seconds, Captain Joseph Field sat in silence; this was a carrier not a battle ship but still it had extremely powerful weapons.
"Count me in as well!" Said Joseph leaning back in his chair and looking at the titled ceiling. "I can't do much in this crate but we'll try like hell, anyway I have the best shield and a hell of a lot of Long swords and Eagles, also those new Flat fish so I'll try and keep you guys covered!"
"Good to hear Josh. Ok guys here's the plan, I'll go straight at them firing everything I have at them, I might get a few of those cruisers down. Ark Royal come in behind them and hit them with all you've got then pull out of there. Shadow Blade I want you to get in there at full speed hit the carriers with your Shadow 52 gun, then you get out of there as well. Both of you follow up on me then and lay down more fire; Lustria I want you to head straight for Luna ХХХХШ activate the main Super Mach guns then get back here and get the Heavy Battle Cruiser, by then we should have knocked out the shields. Ok men you know what I expect, I don't want any of you guys dead so when I say evacuate get to Titanius Х and wait there for further orders. Now move out!"
The ships quickly went their own separate directions, all needing to be in the right place before the Covenant arrived. This plan had a chance of working, even if the Covenant stopped the main attack, the other destroy and 5 cruisers would be joining them shortly to assist with the battle.
0550 hours
Field Marshall Karen McGuiness stood in the main command bay, deep underneath the plains of Folpi. The base was a main research centre; it was the place where Spartans were created and many new weapons had also been created. There were no soldiers authorized to be in the research base, only security guards that guarded high level areas and laboratories.
Karen looked over screens that showed many different scenes of the underground base, scientists and main leaders were beginning slowly escorted from the base by Security staff.
The security guards were some of the most elite marines, you world ever meet. Just being round them made the nervous scientists, slightly less jumpy and more secure. This made their work better overall and many scientists now refused to do anything against the law.
Karen sat down on a chair in the now deserted command bay; she brought her mouth up to a microphone. As she turned it on a low buzz was emitted from all the speakers around the base.
"This is Field Marshall Karen McGuiness, I am ordering the full evacuation of Azola, all non military personal immediately proceed to the nearest evacuation point. I want all marines to assemble in the main hanger bays, at 0800 hours. Good luck to everyone!"
Karen turned of the monitor and sat back in her chair looking to the many monitors in front of her. On a screen to the far left it showed the percentage of people who had already been evacuated and below it was the percentage of people who hadn't evacuated.
Only 5 % of all non-militants from the facilities were not evacuated, all of the others had evacuated successfully in the carriers that were always ready for evacuating. The others were being escorted slowly to the hangers to get sent to the of world ship station.
Karen sat up slowly and turned towards a control console, the screen was black and empty of information. Karen typed in her security code and the screen suddenly jumped to life, filling with messages from ONI and of the base information. She clicked past all of the messages and information that she had already seen on the monitors to a small box.
"Click ok to download all selected documents to the email, ONI final
message!"
Two buttons were underneath the message, OK and Cancel; Karen moved the mouse down and clicked the mouse onto OK.
"Karen its time for you to leave, I will self destruct the facility when the evacuation is complete!" Said Calti, "I have a hit team of marines waiting for you in the corridor. They are waiting to escort you away down towards the spaceport."
"Thank you Calti, I want you to send yourself to ONI before you blow the facility, I don't want you to be deleted as well." Said Karen.
Karen turned and walked slowly towards the door leading out to corridor FC12. She pushed the door opened and looked outside, 10 marines stood by the door. The marines all saluted crisply in the British fashion like all soldiers did and one stepped forwards to stand in front of Karen.
The marine was female; her long red hair was in a pony tail behind her head. Her bright green eyes looked over Karen quickly then locked eyes with her.
"Field Marshall Karen, my name is Lt Parker Adamson. I'm in charge of the team that have been assigned to protect you until we get you to the Ark Royal then we are to leave in a Pelican." Said the Soldier.
"Nice to meet you mam, why are you leaving in a pelican aren't you coming in the Ark Royal?" Asked Karen shaking Parker's hand.
"We are to head up to the Sword of Justice and dock in it, then we are to jump immediately to Malacar and rally their fleet and return to earth for immediate protection." Said Parker looking not so pleased. "Well now for introductions, my team is of 10. I am 1st IC, Morrison is 2nd IC, Nicholas is my heavy machine gunner, Rob is Demolitions, Sprey is my medic and Vade, Wayne, Obi, Stopps and Goon are all X-SAS, they are my infantry. These boys are my boys, they have seen basically everything so get used to them quickly it will do you good."
"Ok, hi guys!" Said Karen looking them all over, the marines all nodded their heads in response, they had all come from the same town in Britain and they had been friends for years.
"Lets move outtt...................." Parker slowed her last word and slowly had it fade away her mouth still opened. "Listen!" All the soldiers were quiet; none of them had said a word the entire time.
0600 Hours Three large vortexes appeared outside the atmosphere of Azola, the tips of Covenant carriers breached the vortexes. The Carriers appeared above the atmosphere, and suddenly many blue rays started to get shot out of the bottom towards the plains of Falti. The streams of blue were pods; they breached the atmosphere quickly and fell quickly towards the plains. There were hundreds of them all falling down towards the planet, they crashed into the surface and sat scattered around the plain waiting for the time to open.
The docking bay doors on the sides of the ships began to slid open and thousands of Covenant Drop ships began to fly out of the carriers and fly down towards the planets surface. It was like an endless swarm of Covenant Drop ships hurrying down towards the planets surface. The Y shaped aircraft accelerated towards the ground, they had the essence of surprise and knew it would take the humans, many minutes to scramble some Long swords.
The Drop ships slowed as they became within 10 metres of the surface of the planet, they hovered slightly then dropped to the ground. The large doors on the sides of the Drop ships slowly opened up and the Covenant force was released upon the world.