Chapter 4
It had been hours since Joe last contacted Team Gamma. Team Alpha had taken the bridge relatively easily encountering only minor pockets of resistance. Joe wondered if Gamma was having any progress and if they had the same luck.
"Gamma, come in."
"I read you loud and clear Alpha."
"What's your status Gamma?"
"No serious casualty apart from a few bruises, over."
"Copy that"
Joe heaved a sigh of relief, Gamma was fine. Just then, the COM crackled into life with a little static. "Going down……taking heavy fire…….Milton, suppression fire…." Joe checked his tracker; Gamma was in Section 148-A on Deck 7. Team Gamma was obviously having trouble now.
So that's where they all went, Joe thought.
"Move Spartans, we gotta head down to Section 148-A to save their asses. GO GO GO!"
Joe's hands trembled with every step. His brothers, the Spartans, were being cut down by the Covenant. Fred's team consisted of three Spartans, himself, Geoffrey and Leofric. Three Spartans against the bulk of the ship's fighting crew were not good odds. Joe then knew why they were facing so little resistance- most of the Covenant were inside Section 148-A. Even three Spartans wielding Metal-Storm cannons were not much of a match against approximately 700 Covenant. The odds of survival were low, very low.
"How far to 148 Coralla?"
"1 kilometre, Sir!"
Joe knew they had to move faster lest Fred turn into sizzling meat. Joe increased his pace, his servomotors whining in protest because of the sudden and abrupt acceleration.
"Sir! Sergeant Johnson gave me this baby to play with." Said Spartan-302 brandishing a Fury Tactical Nuke and motioning towards it.
Fury Tac-Nukes had a blast radius of 1.2km and were the size of a football. It was the closest thing to a nuclear grenade.
"Would you mind giving me that?"
"No problem, Sir!"
Joe and his team of Spartans stepped into the large room. It was so vast that it could not be called a room. To be precise, it was more of a large compartment that could fit 100 M12A1 LAAV Warthogs.
He immediately came under heavy fire. Plasma bolts pinged off his luminous green armor. His team let loose with their Metal-Storm cannons massacring groups of brutes. Dozens of brutes charged at the Spartans but were mowed down before they could even go close. Bullets exploded out the furry hides of the brutes. Blood splattered everywhere.
"Coralla give me a scan of the surrounding and find Fred!"
"Done. Life-signs detected." Three additional health readings appeared on Joe's HUD and one had low vital signs. There were too many brutes and jackals and Joe could not hold them off for too long as they were running low on ammo.
"Dammit, Ok, everyone take cover!"
"Fire in the hole!"
Joe tossed the nuke into the middle of the room. The Spartans crouched outside the blast doors of the room. Suddenly, a brilliant flash lit up the room. The nuke was a powerful weapon destroying all in its path. The alien-metal bulkheads had taken most of the damage and were turned into great pools of red, hot molten metal. However, even with the bulkheads, the Spartans' shields were drained. The EMP had also fried most of their equipment making them useless except for the armor as it was protected by the shield from the destructive power of the EMP.
"Is everyone alright?" Joe called out.
"301 here."
"302"
"303"
"304"
"305"
"104"
"307"
"Where is 306? We lost him?" Joe said.
Spartans were supposed to be "invincible" but after seeing what had happened, they were far from that. The six remaining Spartans went back into the room to look at the aftermath. The Nuke had vaporized everything in the room leaving nothing left. The walls were coated with scorch marks that reminded Joe of the past battle.
"OK team, the ship is clear, let's get back to Earth!"
Joe brought his team back to the bridge. Fred limped with every step, he winced in pain as they slowly but gradually reached the bridge.
"Coralla! Download the information about the Covenant home world; we'll give them a little present."
Unlike her older sister, Cortana, that had followed the Master Chief on his escapades, she did not have a limited life span. She had an infinite amount of memory, allowing her to download as much data as she pleased.
"Set a plot for Earth, Caboose!" Bellowed Joe
"Affirmative."
Spartan-302 Caboose was the in-house techno-whiz and explosive expert. Give him a C-10 explosive and he could demolish anything short of Titanium-A wall.
"I had to unencrypt the files, for covenant files they were encrypted very well and they had worked hard to seal the files."
Coralla, like Cortana, had been loaded with every single dirty trick ONI had for cracking and hacking of files.
"Spartan-300, Joe, Sir! The ship will warp on your command"
"Warp at Will"
1904 hours, Slip space, (Military Calendar)\
Joe wiped off the beads of perspiration from his forehead. It had been hours since they left the Epsilon Eridani system. The Spartans had been sent on patrol duty to wipe out the last pockets of resistance. Joe checked the Holo-panel in front of his chair, on it read "ETA 13 Minutes"
Soon they reached the Sol system. Of the battered fleet they had left
Was just free debris floating around in space. Small and large chunks of Titanium-A cruiser-grade plating floated around in space bouncing off their shields. In front of them, the remains of the once proud Orbital Defense Fleet flew wildly around in space knocking into any ship that had the misfortune of crashing into it.
"What happened Coralla?"
"Hmm…seems that those cocky Covenant bastards took out our fleet while we were gone."
"Analyze the remains and see if you can locate the Unforgiving Mercy."
"Scanning….Passive Scanners active…..Active Scanners active…"
"Is it in there?" Joe inquired pointing to the newly created asteroid belt that was held together by the Earth gravity
"No...Not there…Passive Scans have concluded that the Unforgiving Mercy had escaped"
Joe heaved a sigh of relief. Jan was on the ship.
"Unidentified ship, identify yourself or be fire upon"
"This is Lance Corporal Joe Miller; we're here on level 10 security clearance"
"Copy that Miller. You may land on Highcom Bravo-6's Landing pad one."
"Roger that"
2104 hours, HighCom Facility Bravo-6 Briefing Room One, (Military Calendar)\
It was a few hours after the landing and Joe's stomach growled with hunger. "Miller! I heard of your apparent success on the ship. Well I have another mission for you and your team in light of your recent success. You are to support the last remaining Halsey "freak", Spartan-117 aka the Master Chief." Spoke Ackerson in a low, dark tone as he slipped Joe an envelope that contained the details of the mission.
Joe sifted through the thick stack information in front of him. Apparently, he and his team were to head down to New Freedom, the last remaining Human stronghold that had not been found by the Covenant, assist the Master Chief and their newfound "allies".
The new allies were named Roain. After much debate and argument, the scientists concluded that they were taken away from Earth millions of years ago by an extremely advanced race named the Forerunner. The Forerunners had disappeared leaving the Roain to fend for themselves. It seemed that the Roain were the guardians of the universe, genetically altered to be resistant to the flood but in all of aspects similar to the normal Earthlings. As they were once the Forerunners' pet race, they had highly advanced ships that were capable in tearing up Covenant fleets and were decades ahead in terms of technology compared to the Humans. The Roain had also been genetically altered to the point that some of them were potent telepaths and all of them could receive and transmit messages to each other. Although both the Roain and Humans were made by controlled evolution, the Roain were truly the pinnacle of the Forerunners' success. They had been "found" by a certain Captain named Wren who obviously was a Military genius. He was the captain of the same ship that had saved Joe from near-death, the UNSC RADEON.
"So the only reason they haven't wiped us out yet is because the Roain is giving them trouble?" asked Joe, trying to put it as eloquently as his beleaguered and annoyed mind could make it.
"Yes in a way and no, there is much dissension in the Elite High Council as our spies have shown us." Replied Ackerson.
"When do we leave?" Joe asked confidently.
"Now!"
Joe assembled his team."301,302,303,304,305,307,104" Joe called out. They were all present. He brought his team to the armory where he chose an S2am Sniper Rifle with 15mm Discarding Sabot rounds, the usual bandolier of grenades and his new favorite Metal Storm Canon.
The Spartans walked into the Reaver Transport ship. Reavers were the standard mode of transport for Higher-ups. They had enough space for 12 incredibly heavy-armed Spartans and their gear. They quickly stowed their gear by the side leaving only their Metal Storm canons on their hands. The Reaver accelerated rapidly and warped into space carrying the Heavy Spartans.
"Hang tight Spartans, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!" yell Major Rick over the Cabin Com.
Without the Magnetic Coils that functioned as seatbelts, even a Spartan could not survive the journey and transition into slip space. Joe hung on tight for his life. True enough, it was a bumpy ride but soon and thanks to the invention of the Shaw-Fugikawa slip space engines, they reached New Freedom safely.
Upon his landing. Joe was led to a vast underground chamber. There both Human and Roain worked non-stop to build ships. There were rows upon rows of unfinished frigates, destroyers, cruisers and the occasional flagship. There were also a handful of almost completed Thunderhead Platforms.
The platforms were designed for orbital bombardment and could function as makeshift orbital defense stations to guard important colonies. They were supposed to be towed by cruisers to the enemy colony and could rain hails of fiery death on enemies weakening their ground defenses. They had 8 MAGs, 18 Macs and a heavy archer rack of nearly 1000 missiles. MAGs were like MACs but exchanged firepower for accuracy, in other words it was a Machine Gun for a MAC.
There were also the new Manta-class cruisers. Those cruisers were equipped with carbon splitters which broke down armor from its inside by splitting the atoms one by one. It all happened and ended in a millisecond. They also were equipped with standard MACs and Ion cannons, two of each. They were not equipped with archers pods but instead had the new and untested Fission Drivers, which were missiles that had nuclear payloads designed to detonate when it hit the reactors. They were guided by special guidance A.Is that were extremely accurate and always preferred hitting the reactors.
Joe was greeted by a Marine wielding a Br55 battle rifle. "Sir, this way!" the Marine said leading Joe to a room. The room was obviously the Control Centre of the chamber. Two battle-hardened ODSTs were standing guard at the door, which happened to be a 0.8-metre thick reinforced Titanium-A door.
The marine slid a card through the sensor and looked at the scanner. The iris biometric scanner cross-matched his iris with the one in its records and promptly released the metal bars which then allowed the door to be slid open.
"Ahh...Joe I see you made it!" quipped a voice from the corner of the room. The stuff inside was fully utilitarian, made only for functionality not for aesthetic purposes. It was Captain Wren!
"Beautiful isn't it? That," said Wren pointing to the unfinished but still mighty fleet seen through the reinforced glass window. "It is," replied Joe. He owed his life to Wren and was prepared to do anything for him. "It has been only a few years and so much about you has changed," spoke Wren in his soft voice.
"You can come out now Jace and Toz" his voice ever so light but still stern. "How did you know we were cloaking behind you, Sir?" asked Jace. "Your breathing gives all away." Came the reply. "Now I want you to meet Joe, Joe meet Jace, Jace and Toz are both soltaris, the Roain equivalent of our Spartans."
Joe shook Jace's hand and swelled with pride. He finally met the Roain. Soltaris were trained from the tender age of four until they were 25. From 4 to 15 they were taught the basics of combat then from 16 until 25 they learned every method of killing the enemy as silently as possible.
"Now about the mission….." said Wren.
Joe, his team, the soltaris and the Master Chief were to assault a Covenant flagship that was currently controlled by a minor prophet. They would then download the coordinates for the Elite home world, the only planet that they still did not know the location, and destroy the Elites' by anyway possible. The only problem was the flagship's escort, an entire covenant armada consisting of 18 frigates, 10 destroyers and 3 cruisers.
Joe peered out of the glass window. The workers were like little ants, hurrying along in every direction possible. New Freedom was a splore colony meaning its main purpose was to make ships for ONI. It had a population of 8 billion, all workers and UNSC and ONI personnel.
Super-Flagship UNSC Char, in orbit over New Freedom
"Yes, Admiral, I will escort the Spartans to the Covenant flagship. Giles out," Admiral Giles said lightly. The holo-screen then flashed black. He had been speaking to 1st Admiral Yamato who was back on Earth and was in charge of its defense. Giles knew the mission would be wrought with danger at every turn but still, he took it. He looked at his magnificent ship. His ship was a tough 'bitch' to take down. It was the first of the new line of ships, the Ancillary class and had 7 MACs, 30 Archer pods, 10 MAGs and 3 ion cannons built from the technology that the Roain had spared. It also had new shield drives and massive reactors that were needed to power the insanely powerful shield drives. The shield drives were so powerful that it would take 40 plasma turrets 3 hours to drain it to 0.
"Admiral, the Spartans are aboard! Commencing reactor and shipwide shakedown, weapons deployment systems nominal!" said his weapons officer, Gyrull. "Prep slipspace drives and Shaw-Fugikawa engine!" spoke Giles to his engines officer, Altair. A portal opened in front of the Char and the Char disappeared into it.
"What's our status, Altair?" asked Giles impatiently. "ETA, 13 mins, sir!" replied Altair. Giles was bored. "Sir, I'm detecting a Covenant fleet waiting for us at the other end! Prepping all systems for combat!" said Palador, the sensor and communications officer. "General Quarters!" spoke Giles calmly. He was finally going to see some action!
A hole was torn open in front of the Char and the Char passed through. An entire covenant battle fleet was waiting for them. "Sir, taking heavy fire, shields holding at 89!" said Gyrull. "Fire MACs 1-5 at that Covenant heavy cruiser I want it limping! Save MACs 6 and 7 for the frigates! Aim and fire at designated targets now!" said Giles.
Every Ferric Tungsten Carbide shell flew true to its target as if propelled by an invisible hand. The 5 shells thudded into the carrier taking out its shields and breaching its decks. Holes appeared at where the shells went through and the carrier started to vent atmosphere. "That's carrier is disabled now. It is now dead in the water. Fire all MAGs and MACs at their respective targets! Fire the ion cannons at the destroyers, they're tearing us to bits!" yelled Giles his face writhed in anger.
"Sir! Shields down to 47, we're taking too many hits from the covenant!" said Gyrull. "We'll show them who's boss! Arm the NOVA nuke!" said Giles as he grinned. A NOVA was made out of ten nukes strung in a circle. The special arrangement increased the blast radius by 30-fold.
The NOVA sailed out the Char and towards the covenant fleet. It exploded in the middle of the fleet obliterating the frigates with weaker shielding compared to the other ships. The EMP from the blast fried pretty much every ship that was not vaporized by the initial blast including the heavy cruiser. It cleared off the left and right flanks. Of the 112 ships the Covenant had at the start of the battle, only 14 battered ones including the heavy carrier were left. The NOVA had cleared off over 80 ships!
Cool blue bursts of plasma flew past the Char. Its 'smart-screen' glass panels readjusted to compensate for the sudden blinding burst of light. "Time to test our new baby, deploy the Fracture-pulse drones!" said Giles with a smug smirk on his face. The Fracture-pulse drones, in theory, could crack armor like a nutcracker cracking nuts. They sent out waves of concentrated radio waves at ultra high frequencies, so high that they could crack and split armor open.
As expected, the Covenants' ships popped like balloons being stabbed with a pin. The ships vented atmosphere and the explosive decompression killed off the crew. Giles did not have to destroy the ships. He only needed to kill off enough of the crew to disable the ships.
The surviving ships fled from the scene without even looking back to check on the ships. The other Human ships appeared from the warp portal only to find smoking wrecks and carcasses. "Deploy the teams to salvage the Navi-drives of the covenant!" said Giles. Three pelicans flew out from the hangar of the Char. Not a moment too soon, they brought back two almost 100 intact Navi-drives. The drives contained everything they needed. The information inside was uploaded to the Navi-core of the Char, the Spartans and every ship in range.
A copy was also beamed back to Earth via E-M. Giles said with a look sadness, "Thaw the Spartans, they have a mission to accomplish!"
END OF CHAPTER 4