Ch.2 The Graveyard of Stars

"Man your stations!" thundered Timberlake as he headed to his control seat. With a space navigation system, links to each one of his personnel's computer, and a computer that had access to the main hard-drive of the ship he lived up to his name as a commander. Yet, even with that notion he still felt dread as he cleared all the data to execute the main protocol. In any given situation when the humans engaged with the Covenant, they were forced to erase all data to reduce risk of the Covenant discovering Earth. Then they were supposed to type in random coordinates for a slip space jump.

" What coordinates have you given for our jump Jacob?" the admiral inquired of his navigator.

" I just plugged in all the blanks with the number 69 sir, is that suitable?" Even with his calm demeanor as he faced the admiral, Timberlake could tell that inside the mind of this man was laughter and levity. No matter in what situation, Ensign Jacob Roberts always found a way to put a little humor when chaos reigned.

" Fair enough Ensign, though I shall be reporting this behavior to your girlfriend." With a grin, he turned around to the rest of his staff. " As they always say on Christmas, it's not the spirit of getting that counts but the spirit of giving. So boys and girls, I say that instead of GETTING our asses pounded by overlarge plasma from these ugly SOBs we GIVE them a little present that should ensure that they will see the God that they've been worshipping so much. Proceed with offense now!"

With much more fervor the crew commenced with their work. Soon, the MAC guns had been fully charged and the missiles armed. The rockets had had their programming remodified to fit in the new coordinates of the enemy ships. The carriers, with much heavier armor and a light shield that the technicians on Earth had "borrowed" from the Covenant, were in a "T" position with the battleship to provide defense. Both carriers were faced perpendicular from the courses of both the battleship and their enemies with given space in between for the Battleship's weapons. Once all the missiels and MAC shots had been fired, the carriers would close the space between themselves and cover the battleship from danger as it reloaded. This strategy was to make up for the battleship's lack of suitable armor and to put the available ships to good use. The shield that the carriers produced was technology that the technicians had copied from a fallen Covenant ship, Strength and Honor, that had crashed on Earth's surface during a rash assault of the Covenant on their enemy's homeworld.

" All weapons are fully functional sir!" replied a tech as he finished calculating the trajectory for each of the shots.

" All right then, give it to them good!" yelled the Admiral. All hell broke loose as all the weapons were released towards the Covenant.

The admiral had known that the shields of the Covenant ships made it hard for most weaponry of normal material to penetrate them. However, after reading files on Captain Keyes' battle tactics and the effect of the MAC guns on the Covenant in their first attempt to destroy Earth he had developed a small strategy of his own with his arsenal. He had calculated the mass and speed of his Mac guns compared to Keyes and the orbital guns and had discovered that only one MAC shot and two rockets were sufficient to render the Covenant shield useless. An addition of at least five missiles would be enough to damage the ship and make it useless or destroy it. The new strategy, called Timberlake's tidal wave, would unleash the two MAC shots accompanied by two rockets and ten missiles that would split evenly and destroy two of the ships. The extra rockets were the clean up crew that demolished any ship that had survived the attack.

The two combinations streaked for their targets. The first hit went perfectly as the MAC shot erupted on the surface of the shields followed by the high-powered min-macs. The shields flickered and died just as exactly five missiles collided on its side. The subsequent explosions blew chunks of the ship that destroyed another vessel and rammed into an adjacent ship, reducing its shields significantly. The second MAC shot hit home as it collided into the center of the ship, causing the shields to flicker and immediately die out. However, the supporting rockets both missed as the ship boosted to the side of their path. Only three missiles impacted on its nose, leaving the ship weak but still operational. That is, until the two remaining rockets from the battleship ended its existence.

" Carriers!" barked the Admiral, " Put all power into the shields and give us cover! Everyone else recharge the MAC guns and reload the mini-macs and archer missiles! Our carriers are close to exploding every second. And by God I'd rather be riding high in a Scorpion tank then have to be on foot patrol!"

Frantic operators began to set the program for recharging as navigators changed the coordinates of the heat-seeking missiles. Marines were using their strength to heave missiles onto the loading pad that would transport these deadly explosives to the archer pods.

The two carriers slowly overlapped each other, giving significant cover for the battleship. A shimmer of light formed on the ships as the energy shield began to activate. And just in time.

Two huge plasma beams erupted from the huge Covenant destroyer as three smaller plasma shots accompanied them from the smaller ships. The two huge shots slammed into the Carrier's shields and it immediately disappeared, causing the ship to get damaged by the aftershock of the second blast. The other three shots collided with the other Carrier and barely left its shield intact.

" Sir!" yelled a tech. "Damage report from Carrier Falcon! Two of the main engines have been damaged and a fire has started on the lower deck. Shield generator has been destroyed. Carrier Diehard has slight dents in outer armor plate. Shield is barely intact and recharging at maximum."

" Shit!" muttered the Admiral. There heavily armored Carriers were already heavily damaged just from the first assault. He needed to act quickly.

" What's out status with our arsenal?" he yelled to Jacob.

" Five rockets have been loaded on the mount and seven missiles have been placed in their corresponding pods. MAC guns are 78 completed."

" Fire a combo of a rocket and two missiles at each of the smaller vessels. We're going to save the two MAC guns for the Destroyer."

The battle pursued as the battleship fired its load upon the Covenant ships. Two ships were immediately destroyed by the explosives while the third vessel paid dearly for dodging the pursuing missiles. A rocket slammed into its hull and caused a small explosion on its surface.

" Admiral!" yelled a navigator. " The Covenant destroyer is charging up two shots. T-minus nine seconds before impact!"

" Dammit! Order the Carriers to boost out of the way! Now!"

With turrets glowing the Covenant ship released a huge stream of concentrated plasma that flew towards the carriers. With a thrust of its seven engines the two Carriers boosted away just as the shots reached their position. The plasma continued on its path until it hit a dead star. The star exploded into small dark pieces of rock and dust.

Suddenly, the particles began to swirl in a whirlpool shape. The particles slowly began to rotate around the point, and suddenly were sucked up by the mysterious hole that opened into space.

" Oh crud, " muttered Hanson. " That is not a good sign."

" Admiral!" yelled Robert. " It's a Kerr hole! The dead star's explosion has opened a hole in space. We're going to be sucked up if we don't get out of its radius!"

" Full throttle!" barked the Admiral, but the command came to late. In just one millisecond, the whole fleet of Covenant and human ships vanished into the portal. All was quiet on the Galactic front…