Commander Robinson ordered the fleet to prepare knowing Earth herself might be under attack as they worked. Seeing there was not much work that could be done called for salvaged and repair work to stop. Knowing there was no other survivors on any wreak, their might be on the planet but they would survive.
"To all units in Assault Fleet Hannibal we have grown strong enough to help Earth we have rescued our people we were forced to leave behind and now with intelligence showing our home may already be under attack it is time to go and help the rest of the fleet and protect Earth. I know with almost two thousand former covenant solders spread out among our ships not to mention five former covenant ships you all were able to repair it will be a severe violation of the Cole Protocol so don't worry about it ive entered it into the logs under my authority. But I feel time is running out so sync your jump drives and lets go home"
The Hannibal Assault Fleet of a single Cruiser, thirteen Destroyers, three of them covenant, seventeen frigates eleven human, six alien, nine corvettes, all together synced their jump drives and jumped all at once for Earth
0951 hours November 15, 2552 (Military calendar)
SOL star system
Earth
Assault fleet Hannibal
Commander Brian Robinson sat in the command chair of the UNSC cruiser Hannibal watching the last minute tick down hoping Fleet Admiral Harper's home fleet and over three hundred Orbital MACs would hold off the covenant bringing his force of thirty-nine ships even as heavily augmented as most of his Human built ships were hopefully they would be able to turn the tide of the batt…."Emerging from jump space in fifteen seconds" the navigation officer called out suddenly shaking himself out of his inner thoughts "Set condition One throughout the fleet as soon as we arrive launch all fighters and give me a sit-rep."
The fleet of almost forty ships dropped out within the orbit of earth and mars as the sensor officer didn't start started calling out anything Robinson looked over "Well what do you see son?" in a hushed tone the sensor officer called out "Friendly forces detected one cruiser and nineteen frigates in orbit looks like they are preforming SAR and repair and salvage work. In orbit just above the equator four Cradle repair stations with every dock filled with cruisers and destroyers, fifteen Defense clusters primarily over the pole areas as well massive debris field detected….everywhere" the young man paused as confusion spread "No enemy forces detected." Several voices spoke up across the bridge
"Did we win"
"where is the covenant?"
They were all cut off when Fleet Admiral Hoods weathered face appeared "attention UNSC Task force with covenant shipping Identify yourself or be fired upon."
Commander Robinson stood and had a channel opened "Sir!" he said saluting "Commander Brian Robinson former Commanding officer of UNSC Razorback be advised the nine class covenant ships with me are under human control."
Hood looked up from his own sensor screen "Commander Robinson where have you been according to our records most of the ships with you were reported lost during the battle of Reach almost a month ago."
Robinson replied "long story short sir, we were after the covenant destroyed reach they towed all ships to a single area. We as in the Razorback spent almost two weeks repairing battle damage preforming SAR and salvage from the ships around us. When the time came we jumped away from reach when the covies weren't looking we had five ships stuffed to overflowing with personnel. However we were still not in any capability to fight almost a hundred and fifty covenant ships. After some deliberation and research we jumped to Viperidae in the hopes that the CMA dockyard I served on from before the war was still intact and to our surprise it was. We were able to recover three Mako class corvettes and a pair of Charon class light frigates that were still stored inside after preforming salvage on an assault carrier that dropped out ahead of the five of us taking prisoner a hundred grunts who surrendered without a fight after some back and forth they agreed to work for me since then they have been preforming maintenance and repair on covenant tech. Which confirms how badly they were treated by the covenant. They showed us how their ship weapons and shields worked and we were able to adjust them to our ships with our…."
Hood interrupted him "Wait commander do you mean to tell me that your ships have both covenant origin weapons and shields as well as compliant grunts that willingly assisted you?"
"Yes sir, their leaders truly treat them like trash sir. When we showed them the slightest bit of compassion when we didn't have too they were practically eating out of our hands and yes sir almost every one of these ships have been augmented in one way or another Hannibal, Broadside, Paladin, and Razorback are all shielded and have some form of Energy weapons installed. All of them have a mixed compliment of smaller craft we don't have a single tank or hog here sir we are stuffed to the gills with fighters and dropships. We also have just over a hundred Jackals aboard sir after using one of the grunts that actually speaks decent English translate we found out before they were absorbed by the covenent they were mostly pirates and mercenaries. After some thought I agreed to trade them for their services in exchange for a lot of the vehicles and weapons we wouldn't need tanks hogs and pure aircraft primarily sir, I will transmit our full inventory in a moment as well as the location of a storage area for ground and air craft they I promised to the jackals for their services sir."
Nodding to the communication officer she compiled the list of ships, personnel, augmentations, and additional salvage ranging from additional shield generators and covenant ship weapons down to the thousands of small arms of both human and alien and tab for the GPS location of the jackals stash on Reach.
Robinson pulled up his own copy incase hood had any questions
Ships;
1 cruiser -1 tab
13 Destroyers -13 tabs
17 frigates -17 tabs
9 corvettes -9 tabs
Fighters UNSC Covenant
Small arms UNSC Covenant
Salvage UNSC Covenant
Crew Human Alien
Jackal salvage depo
The coms and tactical officer had done a great job on this compiled list Robinson thought out loud however he asked the burning question "Lord Hood Sir, what happened here did we win the war?"
Hood paused glancing through the tabs on the list as he also gave the short version
"The covenant had arrived wiping out most of the home fleet and orbital guns out then something happened the majority of the covenant turned on the elites faced with extinction we forged an alliance with the elites and the others that joined them then a parasitic life form that's called the flood landed and started infecting the entire continent of Africa weakened from the covenant we couldn't stop them but the rebel elites did by glassing almost half the continent you actually missed them by a day. They chased a prophet through an ancient alien device they uncovered in Africa. Since they left we have been working all out doing what salvage and repairs we could but until you arrived it wasn't looking good."
Robinson nodded and said" Yes sir where would you like to position my ships to help?" looking around Brian was already looking at the wrecks they would concentrate on after dropping off the civilians on the surface. And with that the UNSC fleet almost doubled.
1651 hours November 22, 2552 (Military calendar)
SOL star system
Earth
SOL defense fleet
It had been a back breaking week since the Hannibal assault fleet had arrived eight Destroyers and four frigates had been fully repaired thanks to the cradles never ending work their docks now filled with a pair of cruisers and a carrier almost fifteen thousand survivors had been pulled off wreaks and escape pods. To augment the slowly growing number of UNSC ships a dozen moderately armed Phoenix class cruisers from before the insurrection were reactivated and crewed with surviving naval personnel. They had also been able to pick over the wreckage of almost a hundred ODPs and using them as a source of parts were able to rebuild and activate eighteen stations doubling the number of defenses to just over thirty.
The rebel Elites had also returned from the Ark carrying the survivors of the frigate Forward Unto Dawn they had left shortly after the arbiter had crash landed in the forward half of the Dawn. Human and Elite had joined in a ceremony to remember the dead of this long war but departed shortly afterward to liberate their homeworld.
As the elites and their battles against the Covenant loyalist raged most of the Covenant ground and aircraft captured in the battle of Earth were sent to them. As were nearly a million hand weapons of various kinds ranging from plasma pistols to fuel rod cannons mostly to ensure they keep fighting each other while the UNSC races to rebuild and rearm. To `help the humans rearm plans were made as cradles emptied their docks task forces would be dispatched to battlegrounds and the most massive salvage operation in the Galaxy's history would begin hundreds of battles over the last thirty years thousands of ships from both sides lost.
This ends my little salvage arc of Halo I never understood as the battles raged corvettes serve no real purpose in the line of battle I would have paired them removing their vehicle bays for storage of salvage or rescued personnel