Chapter Twenty Two: Chokepoint Pt. II

"Close air support covereth a multitude of sins."

- UNSC Marine Corps Handbook (Unofficial)

UNSC Sahara-Class Heavy Prowler Jericho

Despara, Julta System

A thermonuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon that uses the energy from a primary nuclear fission reaction to compress and ignite a secondary nuclear fusion reaction. The result is greatly increased explosive power when compared to single-stage fission weapons. The fission stage in such weapons is required to cause the fusion that occurs in thermonuclear weapons.

The concept of the thermonuclear weapon was first developed and used in 1952 and even some 600 years later has been employed by most of the UNSC's nuclear weapons. The essential features of the mature thermonuclear weapon design are split into three steps. One: separation of stages into a triggering "primary" explosive and a much more powerful "secondary" explosive, Two: compression of the secondary by X-rays coming from nuclear fission in the primary, a process called the "radiation implosion" of the secondary. Three: heating of the secondary, after cold compression, by a second fission explosion inside the secondary.

The radiation implosion mechanism is a heat engine that exploits the temperature difference between the secondary stage's hot, surrounding radiation channel and its relatively cool interior. This temperature difference is briefly maintained by a massive heat barrier called the "pusher", which also serves as an implosion tamper, increasing and prolonging the compression of the secondary. If made of uranium, as is almost always the case, it can capture neutrons produced by the fusion reaction and undergo fission itself, increasing the overall explosive yield.

All of that techno-babble that ONI Captain Nathan Drake recalled from his Academy textbooks filtered down to more or less one thing: You really don't want to get caught in the blast radius when one goes off.

"Sir, mine fifteen is away, ordinance is maneuvering to its predesignated position," his weapons officer said quietly.

Good, only five more to go, thought Drake. "Nav, course change towards the next target location, coordinates 15-31-144. Helm, keep at max S-speed."

"15-31-144, aye," parroted the Nav officer.

"Max S-speed, aye," came the Helmsman immediately after.

"Sensors, give me an update on those fighters."

"Still closing quickly, bearing one-zero-three mark oh-two-five. ETA until SoD break: twenty seconds."

Drake pursed his lips, looking between the data readouts being streamed to the holoconsole in front of his command chair. They wouldn't make it in time to their next drop point before the Reaper fighters entered into their SoD, otherwise known as the Sphere of Detection.

No Prowler Captain wanted to bring his ship close enough to another to potentially break the SoD, lest they be detected and most likely subsequently destroyed. As advanced as the Jericho's stealth technology and fusion reactor were, the former reverse-engineered from the Covenant and the latter containing a few Forerunner components added in here and there, the chance of detection increased exponentially the closer that a ship approached within the SoD, even with the optical camouflage active.

The main reason why beads of sweat were starting to snail their way down Drake's face wasn't due to the increasing internal temperature of the bridge as the overflow-energy produced by the drives was dumped into secondary ablative heat sinks. No, he spent the majority of his life in Africa and the Middle East back on Earth, they would have to keep running the drives at their maximum stealth rate for another thirty minutes or so before he would start to feel the heat.

Instead, the perspiration was caused by the idea that a large amount of Reaper fighters were predicted to pass well within their SoD, and their wasn't anything that he could do about it.

Now Captain Drake wasn't a stranger to high-risk missions. When the Ur-Didact had attacked Earth with the Mantle's Approach, it had been the Jericho that had gotten the closest of any other UNSC ships in order to give FLEETCOM advanced sensor readings on what they were dealing with to try and form a counter-attack strategy, which proved mostly for naught as the Master Chief blew the thing to kingdom come with a nuke shortly after.

When HIGHCOM had decided to return to the Forerunner shield world of Requiem, the Jericho had played pathfinder for the main Infinity-led battlegroup, identifying Storm Covenant ship types, numbers, and deployment positions. After that six-month deployment they had been tasked with shadowing ships believed to belong to M'dama's inner fleet, with an ultimate goal of discovering his flagship where the captured Doctor Hasley was theorized to be held. That mission had been cut short as well with the news that the Infinity had gone missing, and since the Jericho happened to be the closest Prowler able to respond, it was her that CINCONI Osmin decided would be sent to shadow Skyheit's Battlegroup Yorktown.

Of course, Captain Skyheit wasn't informed of the Jericho's reassignment, as per ONI protocol. A Prowler should not be revealed to mainline UNSC forces until the highest-ranking ONI officer in the theater deems it absolutely necessary, he recited from memory. A Prowler's game was information gathering while in complete stealth. Giving his ship's position away to Skyheit and Lasky would have defeated that purpose, and could have possibly even led to their own destruction if records of their position had been somehow captured from the UNSC ships. Staying quiet had allowed ONI to gather it's own information about this entire fucked-up situation, but despite that, when Dare had ordered Drake to accompany her to the Infinity he had been nervous. The fact that ONI protocol was to keep UNSC commanders unawares of such a strategically and tactically important resource as a stealth information vessel until the ONI officers deemed it necessary to do so justly created a lot of animosity between the two branches.

That was why when Admiral Lasky had gotten right down to business and explained his plan Drake had been both relieved and a bit uncertain. The ONI officer knew that he would have to push his ship to her absolute limits if they were going to have a chance of pulling a fast one on the Reapers. For one, the plan was based more or less solely on predictions that the AI's made on the Reaper's expected movements when they had jumped to the edge of their artificially-created asteroid cloud. Second, the timeframe was bordering on the side of ludicrous. They would have to attempt to lay all twenty of their Hornet nuclear mines in the optimal detonation deployment pattern before the Reapers passed through the point of minimal effectiveness where the minefield would be little more than a radioactive firework show.

That meant running the Jericho at its highest possible speed while still stealthed to attempt to make each individual mine deployment in time. The Reaper fighters complicated things, and it was just Drake's luck that the thousands of strike craft deemed it imperative to pass directly through his field of operations on their way to whatever their objective was. He took another look at his holoconsole. They weren't going to make it to the next deployment point in time.

"Fifteen seconds until SoD break," the sensor tech warned them.

"Set Condition Black, now," ordered Drake. He watched his eight-person bridge crew, all veterans of his command since the Jericho had rolled off of the production line and was assigned to him, execute his command quickly and precisely.

It wasn't a surprise that almost nobody knew the exact specifics on how a Prowler achieved total stealth, just like ONI wanted. A majority of people were under the impression that in order to achieve total stealth one would need to turn the entire ship off completely by shutting down the reactor. The truth was though, the stealth systems required very little power. Active-sensor absorbing materials to defeat radar and LIDAR systems, adaptive camouflage to defeat visual detection, thermal sinks for IR stealth, and baffled fusion drives with negligible emissions. The main power-hogs were shields, weapons, drives, and the slipspace generators, three-out-of-four of which were currently offline to minimize their footprint.

So, they wouldn't be shutting down the reactor at all. Even if they were, doing so the standard way would take almost forty-minutes of safety measures, systems checks and rechecks, and coolant management. Doing it the unsafe way, i.e. an emergency shutdown, would be near instantaneous, but would then require hours to bring back online while the reactor warmed itself up from the secondary battery nacelles. Both amounts time they didn't have.

Instead, the reactor output was reduced to the minimal threshold that would still support only the most important systems when it came to absolute stealth: The active stealth systems that required that little-bit of power to function, the passive sensors, and life support. Before the drives shut down completely, the Jericho's Helmsman performed one of the more impressive pieces of pinpoint navigation Drake had seen from him yet. In a virtuoso display of his craft, he dropped the ship behind one of the larger asteroids passing by and matched its orbit perfectly; leaving the majority of the drifting Prowler in the shadow of the rock with only a few dozen meters of hull peaking out to clear their passive sensor arcs.

Station console information was reduced to a minimum as their respective systems went quiet. The lighting didn't need to shut off or dim, as the amount of power needed to keep them on was negligible at best. There was no forward viewport that needed polarizing, as ONI didn't believe in windows.

It became deathly quiet. No one dared do anything more than breathe, even though it impossible for anyone to hear anything they said anyway. All eyes were glued to their display, watching as the Reaper fighter swarm came closer and closer. They soon broke their Sphere of Detection, and a red warning signal came over the sensors display which the attending officer quickly swiped away.

Drake struggled to breathe calmly and evenly. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't nervous. In fact, he was downright terrified on the inside. Despite being the seasoned ONI Captain that he was, no ship had ever broken his SoD, nevermind hundreds of ships at once. However his intelligence training meant that his outward features were as solid and unreadable as a rock. A thought crossed his mind that there was a very real possibility they could be rammed. If a Reaper fighter couldn't detect them, then it wouldn't know to get out of the way if it was on a collision course either.

Wave after wave of Reaper drones and dropships passed by them, one particular pair passing not four hundred meters to their starboard, a scant hairsbreadth in terms of space distance. However, much to everyone's relief their stealth measures came through once again, and the last of the Reapers exited their SoD.

"Power up," said Drake, exhaling loudly. "We've got a schedule to keep."

The Jericho finished laying her mines just as the Reaper fighters and troop transports broke through the Allied defensive line and headed towards their objectives of the planet Despara and her driveyards. Drake breathed a sigh of relief as his ship quickly yet stealthily moved clear of what would shortly become a very unhealthy region of space. The Jericho had done her job and had no business whatsoever in the upcoming slugfest.

The main Reaper Capital ship group began their move forwards, and Drake watched as they approached their nuclear killbox. As the largest cluster of Reapers entered into prime position, Drake gave the order to jump to slipspace. A small purple-white portal crackling with energy opened up in front of the still-invisible Prowler, and a massive burst from the drives shot the craft forwards into the twisting maw of FTL.

A nuclear hell burst forth not a second later.

UNSC Infinity, Flag Bridge

Everyone who crewed a warship knew that nuclear weapons were amongst the deadliest in the UNSC arsenal. High-yield vacuum-enhanced nuclear weapons had proven time and again to be extremely effective in destroying Covenant warships during the Great War, producing enough energy, heat, and radiation to atomize, liquefy, boil away, or severely scorch entire vessels.

However, there were two main disadvantages to their use. The were expensive to make because they required very specialized production facilities guarded by large security forces to produce, and their effective destruction power had a severe drop off range due to the peculiarities of detonating a nuke in space. For these reasons, despite their strategic value in their ability to turn the tide of a battle, UNSC commanders were taught to be extremely wary of using them in anything but the most important of situations.

To Admiral Lasky this was, without a doubt, one of those important situations. He could see through the dimming forward viewports the twenty startlingly bright miniature suns bursting forth amongst the Reaper formation as his command to detonate reached the hidden nuclear mines. He would admit that guessing what was happening to the Reapers trapped in that deadly maelstrom of energy gave him no small amount of satisfaction.

What would cause him even greater satisfaction was that Reapers were actually MORE vulnerable to nuclear ordnance than the Covenant had been. While Covenant energy shields were moderately effective, even at close range, kinetic barriers offered weak protection against the hard radiation released by each of those miniature suns. It was a shame that the Alliance and the rest of the Citadel races had banned nuclear weapons, Lasky thought. They sure could use a lot of them in the near future.

Those capital ships closest to the nukes were vaporized into dust. A little beyond the 'vaporization' threshold were Reapers that had been turned into large blobs of molten metal, their new states of matter forming strangely elongated spheres in the vacuum of space as the thermal shock expansion bled kinetic energy into the debris. As you got further still, Reaper capital ships might have maintained their basic shape, just in the form of somewhat-solid, somewhat-liquid slag.

Another layer of distance away and there were still-whole Reapers that had suffered critical damage to either their suprastructures, internal subsystems, or both. Some of those Reapers would follow the expected paths of violent implosions, but others would just shut off, floating through space on their current vectors as lifeless as the vacuum around them. Lastly, at the maximum effective range of the nuclear weapons Reapers lost power to their kinetic barriers as the emitter arrays along the hulls fried under the radiation, along with some internal electronics disruptions.

As the light cleared the total casualty count was made evident, calculated and checked numerous times by Roland and Venus. Out of sixty-eight Capital ships, twenty-seven were either outright destroyed or mission-killed. The Destroyers suffered the most from the nuclear surprise, no doubt due to the lesser armor plating afforded by their smaller size. Of the original one hundred and two, only forty-five remained. All sixteen of the Reaper carriers survived due to their position at the rear of the formation, but Lasky wasn't concerned about them in the current strategic sense as they possessed no weapons.

So that left eighty-six Reapers still active in varied states of capability. Stopping the Reaper advance into Turian space cold looked achievable.

Lasky could hear through the audio feeds being piped up into the flag bridge that Captain Micheals was wasting no time. "Gunnery, I want missile salvos targeted on those Reapers. Use Time-on-Target Pattern Gamma."

Lasky nodded in agreement with his choice of Pattern Gamma. Micheals had based the missile assignments on their speeds. Archer missiles had the largest payload, but were the slowest travelling. The Howlers were middle of the road, while the Rapiers had the highest speed, yet lowest comparable payload. Pattern Gamma would have Archer missiles going straight in, Howlers vectoring on up and downwards curves, and Rapiers on long burns to the left and right before arching back inwards. This way, all missile salvos would arrive near the same time, and from different orientations.

In a massive burst of smoke and fire thousands of missiles burst from their launch tubes on the Infinity, the Yorktown, the Dresden, and the Ghost of Onyx and raced towards the Reapers along their given paths.

"Tell our HK groups to jump in and drop the hammer, Roland," ordered Lasky

"Aye sir," confirmed Roland.

"All ships, priority targets are Sovereign-class Reapers. Start on the edges of their formation and work inwards, cull the ones who escaped the nukes. All weapons systems are free save for our nuclear ordnance. Coordinate fire via fleet AIs. Execute," he added.

He heard Micheals relay his orders, and the enthusiastic affirmative that the Hernandez responded with upon being given the one order that weapons officers treasured above all others: Fire at will. He already had firing solutions targeted, he simply selected one that would would fit within Lasky's prerogatives. "EP-1 firing!"

One of the Infinity's two energy projectors spun-up, producing a pure white, pencil-thin beam that lanced towards its Sovereign-class Reaper target in an instant. The beam of pure energy completely ignored the kinetic barriers and sliced deep through the hull and out the other side, devastating any internal systems it touched, igniting secondary explosions as it severed power conduits and volatile systems as well. One of those internal systems happened to be the central drive core, and the Reaper exploded in a massive orange-red fireball. The Infinity's bow shifted a few degrees to let the second energy projector fire, and a second Capital Reaper met the exact same fate.

"Captain, they're burning hard towards us," alerted Lewis.

"They're trying to get within weapons range as quickly as possible," Tibrinus correctly deduced. "All Turian fleets are to move forwards and screen the UNSC ships. Focus fire on Destroyers and Reapers without barriers."

As Lasky watched the Turian ships speed forwards to take up defensive blocking positions in front of the much more valuable UNSC vessels Hernandez said, "Reaper formation crossing into effective MAC range in five… four… three… two… one. Firing MAC-1."

The deck shook underneath Lasky's feet as the one-thousand ton depleted uranium slug exited the barrel at a velocity roughly two percent of light. The streak of yellow-white barreled towards its intended target and slammed through it with devastating effect, the kinetic force of the round absolutely shattering the Reaper into hundreds of thousands of individual pieces.

The first MAC rounds of the dual-barreled Yorktown, Dresden, and Ghost of Onyx impacted their targets around the same time as well, and although the slugs weren't as powerful as the Infinity's they still sheared severe sections of Reapers clean off, or punched gaping holes straight through them.

As one the Reaper formation took evasive action, spinning, juking, and jinking in dozens of different directions in an attempt to throw off the aim of the deadly UNSC vessels. In some cases it worked, the second MAC round from the Yorktown barely clipped its target, taking two of the Reaper's legs off at the lowest joint, while the Dresden's shot missed completely.

Unfortunately for the Reapers, the UNSC's main anti-ship weapons were just targeted too accurately and traveled too fast. Their weapons officers were too good at what they did, and their AI's were too quick to find patterns and trends in their enemy's maneuvers.

"Course prediction for MAC-2 target has been finalized," alerted Roland.

"Roger. MAC-2 firing." The intended target-Reaper saw its rapidly approaching depleted-uranium death, tried its damndest to get out of the way, but was unable to generate the required delta V, and was promptly obliterated. The Turian main line joined with their own mass accelerators, peppering the kinetic barriers of Reapers that still had them and blowing chunks off of the ones that didn't.

"Tibrinus to all HK attachment groups, initiate your predetermined burns now." On cue, two hundred and forty Turian Frigates and destroyers split off from the main defensive line and peeled off in full speed burns that would have them skirt the edges of the theatre and attempt to get 'above' the Reaper formation.

Lasky watched the smaller Turian ships bob and weave throughout the asteroid fragments that littered the space around them, noting how about a dozen Reapers had changed course to try and intercept the faster allied vessels. "Admiral, the HK's are arriving," alerted Roland.

He looked to the main holotable and saw the same thing. When the Reapers had first arrived, the UNSC Frigates and Destroyers had jumped away from the main formation. Their destination was just outside the local system, where they had turned around and made ready jump back through the asteroid field and attack the Reaper formation from its unprotected upper flank. Upon exiting from their return slipspace jumps high above the advancing Reaper formation, the twenty UNSC ships quickly oriented themselves to face the enemy and began bearing down on them.

Originally brainstormed during the War Council between races held on the Infinity following the aftermath of the Cerberus attack on the Citadel, the idea was that these groups would be fast enough to dart into a fight, damage or destroy a single Reaper, then dart back out before they could sustain too much concentrated return fire. MAC rounds from the UNSC warships would serve as the first step of a two-hit KO, disabling Reaper kinetic barriers and allowing the Turian mass accelerators to pick the vulnerable targets to pieces.

The final MAC rounds from the UNSC's first salvo impacted their targets, taking down another four Reaper Capital ships. The missile barrage fired earlier converged on the Reaper mass as that time, and hundreds pinpricks of red point-defense lasers tore into the huge salvo. More than half of the missiles were destroyed, but Lasky wasn't banking on the damage from the Archers, Howelers, and Rapiers to win the day. They were more or less a distractionary measure to allow the HK groups to get closer to their targets and an attempt to take down the most vulnerable of the remaining Reapers.

The foremost Reapers let loose with their crackling red magnetohydrodynamic mass accelerators as they got into range of the first few Turian ships, destroying most and crippling the rest. Lasky watched as the HK groups approached their optimal firing range, then glanced to the weapons readout on his datapad to confirm that it would be a little while until the Infinity's energy projectors and MAC recharged. The Turians would have to shoulder the weight of the Reaper assault until then, and Tibrinus knew it, barking concise orders back-to-back-to-back to his communications team, which were working frantically to transmit the commands to their respective Captains.

Lasky had to give him credit, Tibrinus knew his stuff. His orders were clear, easy to understand and covered all the bases needed to press the assault against the Reapers. They were the consummate professional soldiers of this universe, responsible for more than just their own race's protection but all of Citadel Space. Previously this was something Lasky didn't quite appreciate, until this moment when the Turians swung resolutely into action.

The Turian Frigates and Destroyers labelled as Hunter-Killer attachements had reached the endpoints of their burns, the just-arrived UNSC Frigates and Destroyers. Quickly and expertly the Turian vessels maneuvered themselves to match the UNSC warships' advance towards the Reapers, ten to twelve Turian ships accompanying each UNSC warship, guards protecting royalty. Magnetic and mass accelerator rounds shot forth as the Hunter-Killer groups engaged the Reapers that had been attempting to intercept the smaller Turian ships, coordinating their firepower through AI datalink between them for maximum effect as they pressed their assault.

Now, the battle was joined in earnest.

UNSC Infinity

MAC-3 Gunnery Station

Warrant Officer First Class Hans Schwimmer was giddy. Was he giddy about the fact that thousands would be dead by the end of the day, maybe even him depending on how things went? No.

Was he giddy about the fact that right now he was participating in what likely would be the deciding battle in this entire war? Nope. Perhaps he was giddy that so soon after the end of a galactic war against the Covenant that nearly wiped out all of Humanity, he was being forced to participate in yet another one that could result in much the same fate?

Of course not. In fact, all of those petty concerns were as far from the front of mind as they could be. No, what was making him giddy were the six block letters that had just taken up the majority of his control console.

FIRING

He braced himself. The feel of a CR-03 Series-8 MAC was not something that you could avoid. Not like Schwimmer wanted to avoid it anyways. The electrical tingling of the currents that ran down the rail/coilgun accelerators and made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up even through his hardsuit was nice. But the following ziiinnggg-CRACK that echoed through the deck into your very bones when the thousand pound depleted uranium slug fired was the most badass, awe-inspiring, absolute fucking coolest thing that Schwimmer had ever had the pleasure of experiencing in his life. Forget sex, this was the best feeling in the world.

From his vantage point in the gunnery station he watched as dozens of pieces of massive machinery worked in perfect tandem to haul the next depleted uranium slug out of the ammunition storage bay and onto the loading slider. As the round was locked into place, the cannon's breech door opened wide and the mechanical slide guided the round into the barrel proper. The mechanical locks disengaged, leaving the MAC round on the firing rails and slid back, the breech door closing behind it.

Another series of whirs and clicks, soundly muted in the vacuum of the weapons bay as they traveled through the deck plates and into his suit boots, and the word CHAMBERED popped up on his display. Now came the boring part: waiting for the capacitors for the magnetic coils to fully charge up, which took some time given how powerful the Series-8 was. The average was around forty-five seconds, give or take a couple based on the current power distribution throughout the rest of the Infinity's systems. Now forty-five seconds may not seem like a lot of time to wait, but in space combat where a second could mean the difference between life and death it was a long time.

Schwimmer busied himself checking and rechecking the readouts from his instruments, and finally the capacitors for the coils reached full charge, signified by the CHARGE: 100% on his screen. Schwimmer grinned, pressing and flipping the combinations of buttons and switches that replaced the charge level with his second favorite word.

ARMED

He started bouncing on the balls of his feet in anticipation, as much as one could inside of a sealed gunnery hardsuit, knowing that soon whatever was on the business end of this MAC would be in for a world of hurt. The screen flashed.

FIRING

Schwimmer literally punched the nonexistent air in excitement. There was only one thing going through his mind right now. Yes.

Turian Destroyer Justiculus, Combat Information Center

"Fire!"

The mass accelerator round leapt from the barrel that spanned the length of the Turian Destroyer, slamming right into the midsection of the Reaper Destroyer and destabilizing its drive core. Buried deep within the ship, Captain Cabus Caepnis watched the CIC video displays with barely concealed triumph as catastrophic detonations traced along the vile enemy warship's hull.

Ever since he had enlisted in the navy he had been of the opinion that emotions had little place on a warship. A cool, level head was needed to properly assess a combat situation and take the required action without hesitation. The entirety of his twenty-two year career he had taken that lesson to heart, but suddenly he was finding that keeping a lid on his feelings was nigh impossible.

They had just killed a Reaper. Killed. His ship had dealt the final blow. These same monsters had devastated his homeworld of Palaven and the fleets protecting it, destroying dozens upon dozens of Turian ships, killing tens of thousands of crew, many of whom he had personally known or been friends with. That wasn't mentioning the civilian casualties once the Reapers had hit the surface. Estimates had put the death count at six million in the first day. He still hadn't heard anything about his wife and two children. He feared the worst, when he allowed himself to think about them.

Each shot they fired today was a message, one that said 'We won't back down.' Each Reaper they took out was revenge for the millions that they had killed beforehand. This was more than a war. This was a battle for galactic survival, and everyone knew it. So when they destroyed one of the most fearsome enemies the Turian civilization had ever faced, did the higher-ups really expect them to follow standard Turian Naval Doctrine?

Of course they did, that wasn't even a question.

Captain Caepnis kept as stony-faced as he could, despite his body's wish to spread his mandibles in a wide-open grin. He had to set the example. If he lost his discipline and focus then so would his crew, and that kind of attitude led to mistakes that had the potential to get them killed.

"New course telemetry received from the Dauntless!" one of the comms officers said loudly.

"Plug it in and execute," ordered Caepnis. The Dauntless was the UNSC Frigate that they were attached to, along with nine other Turian ships that made up Hunter-Killer Group Fifteen. They had just destroyed their first target, a Sovereign-Class Reaper that had been heavily damaged from the nuclear explosions earlier. The MAC round from the UNSC warship had taken out the remnants of the Reaper's kinetic barrier, and apparently also its fire control systems, given that the machine didn't return fire once the Turian ships closed into range.

The first part of their Hunter-Killer doctrine completed, their group was now in the process of 'tactical repositioning,' using their superior speed to escape the pursuit and return fire of other Reapers while waiting for their UNSC heavy-hitter's MACs to recharge. As the hum of the inertial dampeners got louder because of their increasing acceleration, Caepnis allowed himself a couple of seconds to enlarge his holomap to show the entire theatre.

Things were going... well. Half of the surviving post-nuke Reapers had already been destroyed. The three UNSC Dreadnoughts and that behemoth of a ship Infinity were laying waste to Reapers left and right and forwards, and in a couple of minutes the twenty Hunter-Killer groups would start maneuvering for their second attack runs to finish off the stragglers.

Something caught his eye. Caepnis zoomed the theatre map inwards again, enough so that he could see his HK group and the three others closest to it maneuvering through space. Twenty-two years of training, exercises, pirate skirmishes, serving through the Relay 314 Incident, fighting Sovereign and the Geth, all of that meant that he was able to identify what was out of place rather quickly.

A Reaper Destroyer that had started pursuing them was firing both its magnetohydrodynamic mass accelerator and many of its close-in GARDIAN laser equivalents. But why? Their HK group was well out of range….

It dawned on him suddenly. The Reaper wasn't trying to fire at them. At least, not yet. It was trying to clear a corridor. The Destroyer's targets were the pieces of rock and asteroid in front of it that had previously prevented it from going to FTL. That bad thing was that Caepnis' HK group had inadvertently been helping the Reaper with their 'tactical repositioning.' Instead of attacking through the asteroid debris, keeping enough in front of them to prevent Reaper FTL, the wakes of their drives were pushing that debris away from them as they repositioned.

The Reaper Destroyer was five kilometers behind the UNSC Dauntless a second later, its main weapon splashing crackling red energy across the Frigate's energy shields. The UNSC vessel didn't even attempt to slow down, instead firing maneuvering thrusters that would flip the ship about to face its attacker.

"Engage that Reaper! Now!" yelled Caepnis. Disruptor torpedoes launched from their tubes as the Justiculus oriented its bow-facing weapon to the Reaper. The Destroyer fired again, the UNSC ship just over halfway through its maneuver to bring its MAC to bear. This time the Frigate's energy shield barely absorbed the shot, the blue hexagonal envelope visibly breaking.

Mass accelerator fire and Thanix Cannon projectiles impacted all over the Destroyer to no effect, and Caepnis came to the dreadful conclusion that they weren't making a dent, and that if the Reaper fired again the UNSC Frigate might not survive.

That couldn't be allowed to happen. 'Protect the UNSC vessels at all costs', that was the order that had come directly from Admiral Tibrinus. He quickly glanced at his holomap and confirmed what he had thought: The Justiculus was the closest ship to the Reaper.

Protect the UNSC vessels at all costs, he thought.

"Helm, come to bearing zero-one-three mark zero-three-zero, maximum acceleration!" he ordered.

To the credit of their training and discipline his crew did not hesitate in the slightest, even though most knew that such a vector would put them on a collision course for the Reaper Destroyer. Caepnis didn't bother issuing an evacuation order for the bow-most decks, they would only have enough time to take a few steps before they hit. Instead, he opened a ship-wide comms channel and shouted, "Brace for impact!"

The Justiculus shot forwards at an alarming speed, approaching the Reaper just as its main weapon started to charge again. Secondary laser fire from the Reaper bypassed the Turian ship's barriers, carving glowing-hot rents into the armor plate, but the warship didn't sway from its course.

The Turian Destroyer slammed into the Reaper with the energy of several kilotons of TNT, the kinetic barriers of both ships flashing azure as they struggled with the massive amounts energy bleeding into them. The Turian ship's flickered out almost instantly while the Reaper's noticeably dimmed from the effort. With the barriers gone the bow of the Turian ship crumpled like paper as it glanced off the Reaper, which shuddered drunkenly as it was bodily shoved sideways from the impact. The Reaper's main weapon still fired, but due to its sudden 'repositioning' the shot went wide.

Such was the force of the impact that even within the CIC, buried deep behind layers of hull armor and multiple decks, and secured by top of the line crash-webbing, the results amongst the bridge crew were devastating. Necks were snapped, skulls were shattered upon violent impacts with consoles, bodies were broken as bolts and rivets failed and chairs were thrown around the room and into bulkheads like ragdolls.

Caepnis didn't remember blacking out, but he did remember waking up. He opened his eyes to pure chaos, the CIC bathed in red emergency lighting, alarms screeching in his ear. It was difficult to breath, and when he tried to move his left arm his entire upper half lit up with pain. Mandibles back, teeth bared, he managed to undo the crash webbing in his still upright, attached command chair. He looked around the room, grimacing, noting how none of his other crewmembers were moving.

One of the many repeating warning alarms caught his attention above all others, even over the subtle hiss of air escaping through the various breaches in the hull: Warning! Mass Effect Core Containment Failing!

Caepnis probably wouldn't get to an escape pod in time, given that they were on the outermost decks of the ship and he was in the very center, as far away as one could possibly be. His second, and likely only, option was to don one of the several emergency pressure suits reserved for the CIC crew in the event of a depressurization situation or loss of life support and pray that he wasn't instantly killed in the core explosion.

Pausing as he struggled out of his chair, Caepnis reached for a small cover on the arm of his command chair, one he hoped he would never need to use. Flipping up the protective cover, he closed his eyes briefly before hamming down the red button the cover had exposed. Immediately a new alarm sounded over all ship speakers and suit coms, replacing all the previously broadcast warnings or messages. An alarm that had only one meaning aboard any Turian vessel, military or civilian; Abandon Ship.

Caepnis' final duty as a Captain complete, he staggered to his feet and made his way unsteadily towards the compartment containing the emergency suits, trying his best not to trip over the debris that littered the deck and the prone, twisted body of his former Helmsman.

Caepnis winced as he raised his arm to hit the compartment control and what felt like red-hot knives stabbed into his side. He stepped into the chamber and picked a suit, beginning the process of putting it on. In practice drills he could have been in the suit and have attached his oxygen canisters in under thirty seconds, but with several broken ribs and what felt like a shattered arm it was taking longer than he would have liked, as he happened to glance again at the flickering engineering status console across the bridge and his eyes widened.

Warning! Mass Effect Core Containment Failing. Core breach estimated in forty-five seconds!

That got him moving. With some cries of pain Caepnis muscled his way into the suit, relieved as he heard the hiss of pressurization as he secured his helmet. Now to grab his supplemental oxygen canisters and -

The entire ship vibrated violently enough for the Turian Captain to be thrown off of his feet. Agonizing waves of pain rushed throughout his torso as the vibrations continued to worsen, and as Caepnis turned his head he found that most of the CIC was just… gone.

He was sucked out into space not a second later.

As he spun uncontrollably he caught a momentary glimpse of the Justiculus breaking apart as the Reaper Destroyer sliced the ship to pieces with its Guardian lasers, only to be itself cracked into pieces when the UNSC Frigate finally brought its MAC to bear.

His gaze was soon forced away from the scene as he continued spinning, just in time to witness a ball-sized piece of asteroid hurtling at his helmet. The space-debris hit his visor with a sickening crack, and for a second Caepnis thought it was all over.

After a second he opened his eyes and saw that he had indeed not suffered the effects of explosive decompression. But his heart sank when he saw the large crack in his visor, and heard the high pitched hiss of air escaping his suit. He activated the distress beacon on his chest, but doubted that it would do any good. His air would likely run out before any rescue/recovery ships managed to make it to him after the battle.

The impact and slow loss of air had somehow mostly stabilized his spin. He was now witness to one of the most spectacular displays he had ever seen as the air from his leaking helmet gently rotated him around in the cold, harsh vaccuum. At this distance, he couldn't make out any individual ships, but what he did see, and with amazing clarity, were the visual effects of the massive battle that was taking place above the ashen grey surface of Despara.

Brilliant yellow streaks of MAC rounds and mass accelerator projectiles, sparkling blue Thanix shots and those pure-white energy beams that he knew from his briefings only the Infinity could create, the fiery orange-red exhausts of missiles and the smoky trails of expended propellent they left in their wakes, the crackling red of the Reaper main weapons and the almost invisible flashes of the various GARDIAN systems being employed as they scattered off of dust or debris.

Caepnis could do nothing but float in space as his air continued to escape, thinking how beautiful it was. For a Turian who had spent most of his life in space, defending his people, he thought it was a good way to spend his last moments. His thoughts again drifted to his wife and kids. He hoped that he could find them on the next part of his journey.

Above Despara Driveyards

"Fox-Three!"

The Medusa active radar missile shot forwards from its underwing mount, undergoing hundreds of G's of acceleration before slamming into the tailpipe of an Oculus drone seconds later and turning it into scrap metal.

"Good kill 1-2, time to burn out."

Captain 'Maverick' Mitchell pressed his throttle as far as it could go and his Broadsword responded in kind. His radar showed a pair of Oculus drones attempting to pursue them only to be blown apart by a pair of missiles from Andúril 2-1 and 2-2.

Mitchell glanced at his squadron status, frowning when he saw that with those last two launches from 2-1 and 2-2 each Andúril had expended their missile compliments.

"FlightOps, this is Andúril 1-1."

"Andúril 1-1, FlightOps. Go ahead."

"Andúril squadron is Winchester on Medusas. Request permission to close with bogeys and engage with guns, how copy?"

"Wait one."

Mitchell had counted to three when the comm crackled again.

"Andúril 1-1, new squadron orders."

Mitchell switched the comms frequency so that the entire squadron could hear.

"Marked Turian squadron is at two-thirds strength and is outnumbered. You are authorized to close to gun range and assist. FlightOps out."

"Alright Andúrils, you heard him. Lock in on my flight path and let's bail out some birdbrains," said Mitchell, keying in a course that would get them to the distressed Turian fighters as quickly as possible while avoiding passing too closely to the major major dogfights taking place.

During transit Mitchell swiped to the visual observation data of the Turian squadron, pursing his lips as he concluded that they would be entering into a right and true furball. The Reaper drones outnumbered their opponents handily and they knew it, doubling or even tripling up on the Turians, who were busy evading for their lives.

Mitchell assigned squadron targets quickly and once he transmitted them to the squadron said, "I want gun runs straight through that mess for these targets that I've assigned. Afterwards, peel off into your wing-pairs and engage at your discretion. Good hunting."

The twenty-four Broadswords sliced through the Turian-Reaper dogfight like a hot knife through butter, 35mm tungsten rounds piercing into Oculi armor and wrecking internal systems. Twenty-one Reaper drones were turned to scrap, and eighteen Turian pilots were left spinning their heads and wondering what in Spirits' name had just happened.

Maverick yanked his stick and spun his Broadsword around, Goose copying and maneuvering to stay on his wing . He picked his first target, a Reaper Oculus who had decided to follow him as he shot through their dogfight and was now barreling down on him head-on. Mitchell lined up his reticule and pressed his trigger, feeling the buzzing vibration of the 35mm rotary cannon as it poured rounds downrange.

The Oculus let loose with its own ruby-red beam, and Maverick grimaced as it impacted his shields and brought them down to nearly fifteen percent. Mitchell's rounds impacted a couple tenths of a second later, transforming the Reaper drone into nothing more than a hunk of metal ridden with holes.

Maverick and Goose angled around the dead Oculus' path, and Mitchell let 1-2 take the lead so his shields could recharge. His wingman picked out a pair of fighters closely pursuing a Turian fighter a little too closely and laid out a long, sweeping burst took them both out.

Mitchell highlighted a trio of Oculi who were maneuvering to pursue another wing-pair, but all of a sudden, the Reaper fighters just… stopped. Their red central eyes faded to black and they just continued to drift on whatever vectors they had been travelling in. Some pilots, UNSC and Turian, put some rounds in the seemingly lifeless husks just to be sure, but for the most part it seemed that for whatever reason the dogfight had ceased.

The radio crackled, and soon everything was explained. "All fighter elements, this is FlightOps. Major enemy ship presence in the theatre has been eliminated, coinciding with shutdown of drone-controlled bogeys. All squadrons report status to your assigned carrier ships and prepare for possible ground support strike assignments. FlightOps out."

"Anduril 1-1 to Infinity FlightOps, stand by for status telemetry upload."

Maverick reached down to his instrument display and toggled a command. Immediately his fighter, and all surviving fighters linked into the squadron tactical network, uploaded their ship status to the Infinity's FlightOps status board. Fuel, shields, ordinance, consumables, everything related to the functioning of the ships was sent via coded databurst.

"Infinity FlightOps to Anduril flight, return to base, repeat, bring it home."

"Would you look at that," said Mitchell. "Alright Andúrils, time to RTB. Good work today."

"That was easy," remarked Goose on their wing-pair channel.

"Yeah, a little too easy if you ask me…" responded Mitchell. He took a long look at the planet that they had been fighting to defend, then banked his Broadsword back on a course to the Infinity.

UNSC Infinity Flag Bridge

Lasky could hear the cheers being piped up from the bridge, and for good reason; the last Reaper ship had just been confirmed destroyed. The battle was theirs, they had won. Tibrinus' communications officers were exchanging handshakes and pats on the back, while he saw a couple of the Marines that made up his guard bumping fists, smiling.

As Tibrinus walked over and personally congratulated each of his officers on a job well done, Lasky took a look at the final after-action report generated by Roland. One-hundred and eighty-six Reapers had arrived in the Despara system, and exactly zero would leave it. However, while this truly was a monumental victory, it wasn't one without cost.

It had taken the lives of forty-six Turian warship crews, eighty-seven Turian fighter pilots, nine UNSC pilots, and who knows how many dead on Despara proper to halt the Reaper's advance into Turian space.

As Tibrinus turned away from his communications team he shared a look of understanding with Lasky, one that said he as well knew that this was the only beginning, and likely the easiest that it was going to get. Their allied forces had had the clear advantage of being able to prepare a defensive position, complete with a nuclear trap that had severely reduced the combat capability of their enemy. From now on, they would be the ones having to take the offensive, and Lasky had a strong feeling that the Reapers would only learn from this encounter and adapt accordingly.

There had already been a moment where Lasky had almost lost a ship; were it not for the heroic sacrifice of the Turian Destroyer Justiculus the UNSC Paris-class Frigate Dauntless likely would have been destroyed. The Admiral feared what kind of tactics the Reapers would start utilizing against his people next.

Yes, they had won the battle, but the war was just entering its stride.

Special thanks to my betas JonHarper and Bearmauls