1551 hours September 21, 2552 (Military calendar)
Outer Reach system
Task force Hannibal
The ten UNSC warships appeared in the outer Reach system in a series of slipspace ruptures not wanting to risk appearing too close to the planet and any remaining covenant forces. Commander Brian Robinson waited as the seconds slowly crept by….
"Commander no covenant forces nearby looks like they didn't notice our arrival way out here. We are currently four million miles from the planet. We can't see anything at this distance and at best speed" the navigations officer looked at her monitor "it would take seven days to get there." Robinson looked frustrated but shrugged "better safe than sorry I guess" he thought out loud "best speed toward the planet and everyone rest for the next four days we have been running ourselves ragged the last two months with salvage, repairs and SAR and when we get there we will all be working even harder to find survivors and repair the ships we can. If everything goes as planned, im hoping to have at least a month's work here before jumping to earth." After seeing to orders were sent to the others he staggered back to his cabin and collapsed the months of hard work with less than six hours a day of rest.
Over the next four days there was a noticeable pop in morale as sailors, marines and ODSTs got more sleep then they have since reach. On the fifth day light preparations was started as Robinson informed the fleet of his long range strike plans "the fleets fighters were to be loaded for a stealthy long range strike the fleets three Longsword fighters and twenty six older Nandao fighters were each loaded with a single fifty kiloton Shiva nuclear missile. Each fighter was to be made comfortable for the pilots to endure a day in the dark as they would be launched brought up to a high burn then shut-off to coast unpowered into the combat zone to power up and strike any unsuspecting covie ships"
The fifth day saw the entire fleet go to light alert as the fighter fleet was launched. Going with them were also the three seraphs to help guard them when they went active the thirty two fighters launched pushing their drives to the red-line. At three minutes after launch the fighter's shutdown and disappeared from the sensor suit. Across the fleet weapons were prepared the remaining thirty seven dropships and altered gunships were loaded it would take longer to prepare them all for SAR and salvage work but it was worth the risk if the fighters were unable to destroy any enemies that remained
This assault would use all but eight nukes available to them hopefully there wouldn't be a large covenant fleet still there Robinson thought as he got off shift for another full ships night sleep.
The sixth day arrived and they could now detect the huge mass of UNSC and Covenant wrecks still right where they had been gathered above Turul. But something was wrong the IDs appeared on several dozen UNSC ships but one structure just a few miles away had the same density return as Titanium-A battle plate. The structure was in orbit above Menachite mountain nearly a kilometer a side making it larger than the Cradle class mobile refit stations They were just in the process of doing a more detailed scan to find any enemy ships when little pinpricks of light blossomed and died first just one then four and then seven with no further flashes after that, nothing. Nine minutes after the last light the sensor tech reported that they were indeed nuclear detonations matching that of Shiva anti-ship nuclear missiles. With all indications the covenant were wiped out Robinson ordered the dropships to be rigged for SAR and salvage they were about eighteen hours from the tumbling wrecks.
0551 hours September 28, 2552 (Military calendar)
Reach system
Task force Hannibal arrived after meeting up with the surviving twenty-five fighters getting the full report that the ten that were killed ensured they got the kill by flying right into the side of the seven covenant ships before detonating their nukes. The other three were killed by the covenant patrol fighters.
From all they could find out there might be anywhere from a dozen to twenty enemy fighters left. And word from the pilots the ID malfunction was actually caused because the covenant were ripping chunks of battle plate from our ships to build whatever that massive structure was going to be. From what the pilots had reported two things had struck them as weird the first was with over a hundred UNSC and Covenant wrecks pulled into a stable area there were three ORS-class heavy cruisers cut in half and from the looks of it a covenant ship had done it or at least covenant weapons had… a hell of a friendly fire accident or maybe survivors had tried to board those three and the covenant had fired without trying to retake their ships…two more cruisers were siting disabled with a pair of holes the size of a pelican drilled through front to back, in the same area debris from at least two more were everywhere…. another ship a CAS- class assault carrier this time had suffered catastrophic damaged with another plasma round hit its hanger causing a mass of secondary explosions as fighter, munitions, and fuel went up violently. The six of them were at various locations in different orbits. And secondly the area beneath the station was the only part of the planet that hadn't been glassed a few dozen square kilometers of forests, lakes and the mountain siting at its center.
As they neared still two hours out the frigate Graveyard Sky came under attack from half a dozen space banshees taking three heavy hits port engine assembly less than a second later a dozen missiles flew out of one of the Archer pods just as the only remaining pair of Rampart defense guns returned fire swatting four of the small alien fighters out of the sky the last two in a bid to escape the Sky's missiles ran directly into the UNSC Paladins augmented AAA range a barrage of laser fire disintegrated them. At the same time on the other side of the formation a dozen more banshees this time with five Seraphs fired on the Broadside and were stunned to see just before impact the ships missiles and AAA opened fire stopping just as the shields activated claiming the space sorority fighters. The shields stopped the bolts of radioactive energy from the banshee's heavy weapon the pilots were shocked to see a human ship with shielding and using energy weapons.
Razorback and Odyssey moved to support the Broadside firing their AAA Ramparts and pulse lasers taking four more banshees out. The remaining eight seeing they have no chance of hurting the humans push their small fast craft to the red-line and move in on the only unshielded ship in reach, the Odyssey.
They came in dodging the shells and beams as fast as they could. Two of their number weren't lucky enough getting slapped by a missile the other six slammed home into the Odyssey at over a hundred miles an hour all six hoping to ram the bridge but a lucky last minute maneuver had them all slam into the flanking armor staggering the ship blasting craters and puncturing compartments.
Seeing one of their ships heavily damaged the entire formation changes bringing the damaged frigate to the center between Hannibal and Broadside. They arrive in orbit of Reach without further attacks.
Commander Robinson looks at the scarred and burning planet and at the massive floating junkyard and sighs "All ships secure from alert let's get to work."