"Forget the frigate, we aren't gonna hurt it! Break and engage fighters and dropships!" Hennet ordered through the flight channel. "Repeat, break and engage!" David watched as Hennet pulled away from the V and flew after one of the fighters emerging from the Covenant frigate. The rest of them scattered, and David went banking toward the frigate. He shifted his HUD and put small PIP images of his aft, port and starboard cameras at the side of his view, so he could watch his own back. His targeting computer scanned the battlefield and put small red triangles on all the Seraphs. He picked the closest to him and swooped downward, putting his finger on the 40mm trigger.
He followed the Seraph as it dipped near the Orion, and David took a glance at it. The Orion was completing it's turn but the Covenant frigate was faster, and it pointed toward the destroyer as it finished charging it's plasma weapon. David watched this, knowing it spelled doom for the Orion, but he couldn't do anything about it. As the burning plasma torpedo fired the frigate suddenly bucked wildly sideways, shields flaring and dying. The shot went way off. Stunned, David looked for a cause and saw the Winter Moon tearing free of her moorings, readying another MAC round as she sent hundreds of Archer missiles at the frigate. They blew craters in the frigate's hull, and the Orion faced the Covenant frigate and fired Archers, too. The frigate was ripped into pieces by the powerful HE missiles and secondary explosions wracking it's hull. In seconds it was so much drifting junk.
David only then heard the chatter over the com channels from his wingmates. He realized he was staring at the capital ship battle instead of his fight; he had lost the Seraph he'd been trailing. He scanned his view and saw one tailing a Longsword, harassing it with strange, blue-white lasers.
"Somebody get this bastard off my tail!" the pilot yelled.
"Help's on the way," David assured him, pulling up to track the Seraph. He lined up the targeter with the teardrop shape and got a missile lock. In training it had taken one direct hit to disarm their shields. He armed three Argent S missiles. "Missiles away!" he said. The Argents shot away through space, but as soon as they got near the Seraph, it rolled out of the way. One Argent turned to follow it but the other two detonated in space. The Seraph took a glancing impact from the last Argent, but its shields stayed up.
"Damn, they're fast!" Nitoka exclaimed, engaging a different fighter. "They're dodging the seekers a lot, I'm gonna try the Cobras." David looked the firing controls and remembered about the Cobra II rockets. They weren't terribly powerful but they could be fired en masse at a single target. Perfect. If he could get close enough.
He picked the same Seraph and sped toward it, firing chainguns. It shot upwards, shield flaring. He followed, and it moved into a banking half-loop. He felt like he was training with Nitoka again; this pilot was good. He duplicated the maneuver, with some trouble, and waited for the Seraph's next move. It hesitated, only for a moment, to fire at a Longsword. David seized the opportunity and punched the afterburners, holding down the trigger to launch the Cobra rockets. He blew toward the Seraph, firing rocket after rocket. They blared out, lightning-quick, and exploded like a string of firecrackers. David kept the trigger held until the Seraph blew into bits. The whole maneuver had lasted about three seconds.
"Yeah! I got one!" David cheered, but his face fell when he heard a beeper go off in his helmet. The aft proximity warning. There was one behind him. Just like in training. And in training, he had died here.
"Pasley you got one on your tail! Evade! Evade!" Nitoka commanded. David barely heard her. He felt the events around him slow down. He felt as if he was outside himself for a moment, no longer in command of his limbs, just watching. On it's own, his hand touched the thrusters, pushing the engine to critical levels and venting it's output through attitude thrusters on the front and side of the Longsword.
At the same time, his other hand balled into a fist and smashed the emergency thruster controls. The emergency thrusters were small chemical tanks, and when the chemicals mixed it caused a violent explosion, blasting his ship onto a new course. A blast went off below and to the left of him, and the world was thrown sideways. His ship flung itself down and sideways, and his head hurt like an egg in a vice. The G's were incredible even as far from a planet as he was, and he couldn't move, he could only feel triumphant when he saw the blue-white laser blast go past him into space.
David was stunned, and he couldn't have fought the Seraph off if he had wanted to. His wingmates--the ones left--came to his rescue and engaged the Seraph. Under fire from four 40mm cannons, it's shield burned for a moment and died, and the 40mm rounds filled the Seraph with holes from nose to tail. It bulged weirdly as its reactor overloaded and it exploded.
David only sat, puzzled that he still lived. His gut wrenched and he thought he would throw up, but he subdued it. His head ached. An insistent beeping annoyed him. He let it beep.
"Pasley, are you all right?" Nitoka asked. She waited a moment. David sat. "Are you all right!" she got louder, more commanding. "Answer me, Lieutenant! Are you alive!"
David finally spoke. "I'm fine, I think." He didn't move, kept staring at the stars.
"Thank God! I was beginning to think you were dead!" she responded.
"I'm wondering how I'm not," David said, looking into space. Finally he snapped out of it. He moved his hand to a button and the beeping stopped. A schematic of the interceptor came up in front of his eyes. The engine and frame flashed red. Apparently he had been hit, a little. "That was close. I'm okay, but the Longsword's not so well. The frame's stressed, and my reactor's damaged. What should I do, Lieutenant?"
Nitoka didn't have time to answer, because one of the wings spoke, "Lieutenant, look alive we got more action coming our way!" All eyes went to the capital ships battling. The Covenant, the frigate and destroyer left, were approaching quickly and almost at the Station. David looked to the Orion. She had been hit, a large hole was burned in her port side. The metal was white-hot. Apparently she could still fight, though, as she launched twin MAC rounds at the Covenant frigate. The Winter Moon, seemingly undamaged, fired her MAC also. Of the trio of rounds, two struck the frigate, the first set it's shields blazing, the second shorted them out and punched a crater in her prow. Atmosphere vented out of the hole, sending the frigate into a lazy spin. The destroyer came on, returning fire with a plasma torpedo. The torpedo rushed toward the Winter Moon but at the last second she jumped upwards with a bang. The torpedo curved upwards to strike at the frigate, but barely missed.
"They used their emergency thrusters. Clever move," a pilot remarked. The plasma torpedo continued past the Winter Moon and began to turn back but went into the atmosphere of the nearby planet, Girandihar II, and soon dissipated. As this happened, the Covenant frigate righted herself and her flanks began to glow. The Orion sent two more heavy MAC rounds her way with resounding thumps, and this time the frigate tried to dodge, but one MAC round struck and hurt the already weakened ship. The sheer force of the impact ripped a hole clean through it, and smaller explosions dotted all around the hull. It listed to the side, floating.
"Yeah, they got another! We might even win this one!" the same pilot burst out. The Winter Moon readied another shot and fired a MAC round at the only Covenant vessel remaining, the destroyer. As the round shot toward it, however, it dodged nimbly and sped up, moving toward the UNSC vessels at top speed and loosing a plasma torpedo.
"What are they doing?" Nitoka wondered. "We'll just hit them easier if they're closer." The torpedo streaked toward the UNSC ships, a smear of blue-green light, and this time neither vessel moved. The shot was aimed at the Station. It splashed heat across the repair docks, burning much of one section away. The Covenant destroyer accelerated even more and was wreathed in electric blue light, and disappeared. The Covenant's intent became all too clear. They were making a last effort to destroy the station.
Blue motes of light appeared and collected right between the Orion and the Winter Moon. They converged into a bluish shaped and the huge, purple Covenant destroyer materialized. Like the last Covenant ship to try this maneuver, though, this one was dead in space for a moment. The UNSC ships took advantage of the time. The Winter Moon thrust upward into space and launched her remaining Archers, while the Orion moved to get between the enemy frigate and the Station.
The rest of David's wing rushed toward the enemy ship, hoping to help. David couldn't hope to be of much help with a damaged reactor. He pushed his engines to 20 and faced the Covenant ship, firing his 40mm at it in frustration.
The Covenant ship began to gain power back, and it's shields enveloped it before the Archer missiles hit. They impacted on the shield, which easily absorbed the explosions. Blue pinpoints of light appeared all over the hull, and blue-white lasers fired at the two UNSC vessels. Pulse lasers. Where they struck, small splashing explosions scorched and burned away some of the hulls of the ships.
The large, red glow built up along the destroyer's side with startling speed and it launched a boiling plasma torpedo at the Station. It impacted with the control section and much of it was melted by the immense heat. David wondered how many had just been burned to ash in the space of a second.
The Orion, seeing it had failed to block the shot, fired it's two MAC cannons on the destroyer. At point-blank range the tungsten MAC rounds would be terribly powerful, but the shield deflected one and all but stopped the other. It dug a small hole in the side of the destroyer, which turned to face the Winter Moon, firing more pulse lasers. The Winter Moon, however, seemed to anticipate this and blasted the destroyer full on with a MAC round. It punched a hole through most of the Covenant vessel, from nose to tail.
David was sure the destroyer was dead, but it kept up a barrage of lasers on the Winter Moon. The deadly charge built up again along it's sides, flowing, almost a liquid. If it fired a plasma shot straight into the Winter Moon, the crew of the Moon would not be likely to survive it.
The Orion came to the rescue, firing the rest of her Archers and putting two MAC rounds straight into the destroyer, shorting it's regenerating shields and putting a hole through it's midline. The Archers slammed into the destroyer, blasting small pocks into her hull and rushing into the hole to explode inside. Still the Covenant ship survived. The Orion accelerated quickly toward the Covenant ship, pouring all it's energy into speeding forward. She impacted with the destroyer right at the gaping hole, where it's hull was weakest. The destroyer was shorn in two, and it's ends went floating into space, still attacking the UNSC ships with pulse lasers. It shot out it's plasma torpedo, which carved a ragged arc, winging toward the UNSC vessels. The Winter Moon finally recharged her MAC and fired a round straight into the spinning front half of the enemy ship, blowing it to bits. The plasma dissipated in space.
David let out a breath, not realizing he'd been holding it. Who would have thought it? Two UNSC ships beat three Covenant ones. They had been very lucky. Lucky or not, though, victory was theirs. A ragged, bloody victory but a victory nonetheless.
Some time later David was able to cruise into the launch bay on the Orion, leaking coolant the whole way. The beaten Longsword was in sad shape, and not just from David's maneuver.
"Looks like you took a hit or two, sir," a mechanic told David as he stumbled down the entry ramp at the back. The mechanic pointed to three large pocks on the hull, which looked somewhere between melted and scorched. David was too exhausted to care. He somehow made it to the elevator where Nitoka spoke to the pilots:
"Pilots, we did good today. Though we lost some comrades," she sighed, "some friends, in the battle, their lives were not wasted. Our actions helped save millions of people, those on the station and those civilians on Girandihar II. We all performed well, especially the new men and women, and I'm proud of you. Now let's go get some sleep." They all shuffled to the elevator. David was asleep on his feet, snoring, before it reached their rooms.