Ok as you most probably noticed there is soon to be a space battle I've been reading up on other Halo fics to make sure my strategy was entirely original when I noticed no one or barely anyone has written one, strange considering how awesome they were in the books anyway here we go Chapter 2!
Meeting ground
1847 hours, September 13, 2552 (Military Calendar)Aboard UNSC vessel Gettysburg, in Slipspace.
Cortana felt a pulse in her system and found the file sorting was finished. She reflexively accessed the files of highest encryption.
She found some logs mentioning the rendezvous at the 'Unyielding Hierophant'. She smiled. No wonder they hadn't shot them down at first sight, they had been expected.
She went through some other files not finding anything that really called out to her attention. She checked on the reactor and the crew.
As she kept checking on the files she started wondering about her own lifetime, how long will it take for her to 'die'?
From what she understood, which was a lot, 'smart' AIs like herself lived for seven years.
Since they were not programmed to remember those types of dates she simply checked on the very first data she had ever recorded into her memory.
She was shocked to see it dated to almost three and a half years. Not to mention all the data she had picked up on Halo, which had to have reduced her life span considerably.
She pushed those unsettling thoughts aside and focused on the task at hand.
Give me anything she thought. Anything that could change the tide of the war, something they would never expect.
And as if it had been meant to be, her prayers were answered.
She stood unmoving for a few minutes, and reread the title.
"Chief!" she spoke aloud from the bridge speakers. "Your not gonna believe this!"
0758 hours, September 9, 2552 (Military Calendar)Aboard UNSC destroyer Envoy, in orbit around Jericho VII, four days earlier.
Commander Mitchell watched intently at the main view screen as the motes of green light started growing into three kilometer wide holes in space.
Slowly the hull of a Covenant ship appeared from the rupture. Followed by the entire superstructure of a frigate.
Shortly afterward another identical ship bow appeared, and started accelerating.
Finally, another hull appeared, this one not quite the same as the other two, when it was entirely visible three interconnected bulbous sections of a Covenant destroyer Shone brightly in the dim light.
The commander felt his heart sink. Although on the outside he had merely grunted as to show to his crew he had acknowledged the threat, on the inside he was trembling. He felt his heart skip a beat as in unison the three battle ready ships turned to his newly appointed Envoy.
Lieutenant Beness get me my AI online. "Aye sir, making it happen"
"Weapons status?" he asked. "Sir MAC guns at sixty-seven percent" answered Anderson.
"Sir" called out Reynolds. "I can't seem to get a clear signal, there's some kind of interference, unless I'm mistaking they seem to be sending a transmission. It appears this is some kind of rendezvous point."
Just perfect, thought Mitchell. One versus three with no chance of backup and a couple more well on their way. Not an ideal scenario. Still it was no use thinking about solutions for another situation. He had to think and fast.
"Send the transmission groundside to Jericho, and have them relay it to every ship in range." He thought of a rough distance between them and the ground. It would take at least two minutes until the transmission would reach anyone up here.
"Lieutenant Beness get us into a tight orbit around Jericho VII." he ordered.
"Contact! Enemy plasma torpedoes away" Shouted Beness. Mitchell turned to the main view screen and saw the two frigates had both fired two reddish plasma bolts straight at them.
Normally he would have ordered to outrun them in the atmosphere of Jericho VII, but he still didn't know the Envoy's resistance, and didn't plan to find its breaking point out here.
"Lieutenant transfer thruster controls to my station!" at first instinct he thought he'd blow out of their way but they'd just keep coming back, becoming harder and harder to avoid. So he had to dodge them and get rid of them.
"Nineteen seconds to impact" said Reynolds.
The commander started reconfiguring the thruster systems to blow them into a safer position. The plasma it seemed, whether by luck or skill, was headed perpendicular to the Envoy in a way that the thruster would not be enough to move them to a safe position, at least not a lone thruster.
"Five seconds to impact" he heard Reynolds say in a more than slightly shaky voice.
"Two seconds!"
Mitchell closed his eyes and pushed the button. At that instant the Envoy had somehow turned ninety degrees. The commander had linked the system so that the top right and bottom left thrusters blew at the same time.
A moment later he saw the plasma starting to arc back but it was too late, the bolts were suddenly engulfed in the atmosphere of the planet hovering behind.
Lieutenant Anderson wiped his sweat drenched forehead on his sleeve and announced "MAC gun at full charge commander!"
There was a sudden pulse in the monitors and a calm female voice was heard "May I be of assistance?"
"You damn well can" replied the commander. "Baraka I assume?"
"Pleasure to meet you commander, I read your CSV it's a pleasure to be working with you" A beautiful woman appeared at the small hologram at the side of the commanders chair. At first she seemed perfectly normal dressed in a tight leather like material, but as the commander turned around her he saw she truly lived up to her name.
As he turned he could have sworn he saw a luminescent glow of the sea, as he kept turning the sea turned to a beautiful plain, a rainforest, then a sunset, then a cloudy sky finally a strong rainfall. It was like looking at the heart of nature through a woman shaped window.
"Well then" he finally said. "Get me a firing solution."
She stood still a moment. And then coordinates appeared at Anderson's station.
"Lieutenant fire when ready!" He did not need telling twice he hit it and a thud reverberated across the hull.
"Reposition Archer missle pods A through J" There was a moment's pause. And again the commander gave the order to fire.
As the frigate began to move the commander knew they had done so too late. The fully charged MAC hit dead on. For a moment the shields flickered then faded, rendered useless. Moments later the missle pods began crashing into the frigate and satisfying balls of fire surrounded the vessel.
As the Other two ships turned and began charging their weapons, Mitchell realized this battle could not be won the 'old fashioned way'. No, he would have to explore the angles and exploit weaknesses, using any of the elements at hand to his advantage, otherwise this battle was already lost. He thought back to the first lessons they taught him at Luna academy first day of class written large across the board 'Adapt or die'.
Authors note:
Hope you liked that Chapter but that "space battle" was nothing, I still have a frigate and destroyer and man do I have an idea for this battle. As you can probably already tell I love doing cliffhangers, so if u don't stop reading now. I'll update soon cause I actually know what I'm gonna write now…for once
Anyway keep reviewing