Chapter 6
UNSC Trenchard,Somewhere in Slipspace
May 6, 2545
0850
Zelda
"Attention all call signs: we are t minus thirty seconds to re-emergence to real space."
Zelda excitedly sat up in his seat. He and the rest of the squadron had been sitting idly in their Broadswords for the last fifteen minutes and it was beginning to wear on him. It was always surprising to him, given how large his Broadsword was, how little room there actually was in the cockpit. So any extended amount of time spent sitting in there, not doing anything, was usually enough to drive him crazy.
"Alright Omega Flight, you heard the music," Bellum announced over SQUADCOM as a light over the hanger doors turned red. "Stay close to your partners and get ready to dance. You all should know by now what we're gunning for, so let's get out there and get it done."
Zelda absentmindedly nodded his head as he prepped his landing gear to release the moment the hanger doors opened. Apparently there was a crippled Covenant destroyer out there that was just begging to be destroyed. It had positioned itself in a fairly dense debris field which, while preventing the UNSC from destroying it with long-range indirect strikes, allowed for plenty of avenues for small, one man fighters to get in close and finish the job. Furthermore, according to reports, half the destroyer's weapons had been destroyed, including ninety percent of its point defense guns.
It was almost a shame, really, how easy this mission was going to be. Zelda had been hoping for more of a challenge. But then again, blowing away Covenant was always fun, so he would take what he got.
"T minus ten seconds," the announcement came over their headsets. "Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One."
Zelda could feel the entire carrier rapidly deaccelerate as it dropped out of slipspace and back into real-space. At the same time, Zelda watched as the hanger bay doors open up all the way before the light turned green.
"All squadrons: launch, launch, launch."
Zelda punched the button that released his magnetic clamps and immediately floored it. By default, he was confined to using his maneuvering thrusters as he was too close to the other fighters and the exhaust from his main engines ran the risk of damaging them, but as soon as he was clear of the hanger doors, they automatically kicked in. Zelda rocketed away from the ship until he was about half a klick away, before conducting a series of acrobatic maneuvers. This, this is what he loved about being a fighter pilot. Not necessarily the speed or the bragging right, though admittedly both were very nice, but the absolute freedom to do pretty much whatever he liked. He was his own man, in control of his own destiny.
"Zelda, get your ass back here right now," Bellum snapped at him over the radio.
Zelda smirked to himself before executing an Immelmann turn. Throwing himself into a barrel roll, he punched his right side thrusters and spun around, drifting into position behind Odessa's fighter. "Sorry boss," Zelda said, completely unapologetic. "Just stretching my wings."
He heard Odessa snort over the radio.
"Now that Zelda is done wasting fuel," Bellum said, somewhat sardonically, "everyone form up on me. We need to fall into formation with the rest of Trenchard's fighter squadrons."
Zelda scoffed, but nevertheless did as he was ordered. He followed Bellum as she led the squadron around to the top of the Trenchard where the nearly two hundred and ten fighters that made up the carrier's fighter compliment were gathered, as well as all the other fighter squadrons from Actium's surface the Trenchard had managed to pick up before leaving. It should have been an impressive sight, all these jet fighters gathering in one spot, except for one thing: roughly ninety percent of the fighters gathered there weren't Broadswords, but F-99 "Wombats." AKA, unmanned drones.
That was the biggest change the Trenchard-class brought to the table when compared to its predecessor: full integration of artificial intelligence to ALL aspects of a ship's functions, most notably its fighter compliment. AIs could always control certain aspects of a warbird, but only with permission from the human crew, and only limited access at that. The Trenchard was the first class of warbirds within the entirety of the UNSC where AIs not only had full access to everything, but were in the fact the primary operators of the warbird, with the human crew being used to supplement the AI as opposed to vice versa.
As a fighter pilot, Zelda was strongly opposed to the change. He understood the reasoning of course: the Air Force had been suffering from a massive personnel drain in the last two decades, not only due to battlefield casualties, but to individual augmentations to other services, the Navy primarily, as well as low recruitment numbers. The Air Force needed some way to make up for the shortfall, and Department of the Air Force had decided AIs were the way to go.
But the risk involved...
Zelda was not a Luddite, nor was he one of those guys who believed an AI uprising was about to occur any time within his lifetime. But the idea of allowing a single entity access to so much firepower just didn't sit well with him. What if the AI got hacked? Or jammed? Or went rogue? Or, the most likely scenario, became rampant and decided to defect? What then? Who could stop it then?
Plus, if this trend of using unmanned drones for fighters continued, Zelda would see himself out of the job soon enough, which honestly might be his worst nightmare.
"ZELDA!"
Zelda jumped at Odessa's unexpected shout over their private channel.
"What," he irritably snapped.
"Wake up. Bellum is calling for you."
"What? Fuck."
Zelda hastily changed channels in time to hear Bellum saying, "Omega-6, do you copy?"
"Yeah this Zelda. I mean, Omega-6, standing by," Zelda hurried announced. He could hear a collective sigh sounding over the radio.
"Omega-6, when I say sound off in sequence, I mean sound off!" Bellum snapped.
Zelda shrugged. "What can I say? I was busy enjoying the view," he told her flirtatiously, looking in her direction and making sure to waggle his wings. "Nothing sexier than a woman wearing a flight suit."
Bellum was close enough to Zelda, he could see her face palming.
"Focus, Zelda," she barked. "This is some serious shit, okay? I need all my pilots ready to bring their A game. We need to rendezvous with the fighter squadrons from the Pégoud, so stay focused."
"Copy."
They broke away from the Trenchard's orbit and headed in the direction where the Pégoud had emerged from slipspace. A massive asteroid was all that stood between them and the Pégoud's fighters. Flying around the giant floating rock, Zelda and his squadron emerged from around it to see -
"Um, this might be a stupid question but: where's the rest of the task force?" Zelda heard Betros politely ask over the radio.
Under normal circumstances, Zelda might have cracked some joke about Betros being a puss for being so polite. But truth be told, Zelda was having a hard time comprehending just exactly what he was seeing: there were no UNSC ships present at all on the other side. The Pégoud, the Navy destroyers that were supposed to have accompanied them, even the Trenchard's own gunship escorts. None of them were here. In fact, aside from the fighters that had arrived with the Trenchard, there were no friendlies within a hundred kilometer radius.
"Where the fuck are the rest of our ships?" Zelda demanded to know as he checked his air radar. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we leave Actium with two carriers, seven destroyers, and like, forty gunships? Where the hell did they all go?"
"I have no idea," Bellum admitted, sounding worried.
"Hang on, I got them!" Odessa exclaimed. "Zoom out your air radar. Friendly IFFs, about fifty thousand klicks away, direction three seven five."
"What are they doing all the way out there?" Betros nervously asked.
"Fucking slipspace jumps," Bellum replied, sounding exasperated. "We missing the emergence point by at least twenty-five thousand kilometers."
"I thought we were locked onto a guidance beacon?"
"Yeah, which is why it's twenty-five thousand klicks, not twenty-five thousand megameters. Or inside an asteroid. We got close but, even with guidance beacons, our slipspace engines still aren't that accurate," Bellum explained with a sigh. "The real question is, which direction did we fall short: did we emerge closer to the target, or further away?"
"We must have dropped out of slipspace further away because I don't see -"
Zelda's next words were caught in throat when his radar abruptly lit up with hundreds of red dots. Nearly ten thousand kilometers away, an asteroid had shifted orbit, revealing their target, surrounded by two very intact CRS-class light cruisers, as well as over two hundred Covenant fighters, all of which immediately began heading in their direction.
"Ah shit," Zelda heard Odessa sigh.
"CONTACT!" someone else yelled.
"Attention! Incoming enemy contacts bearing seven zero six one three three! Count, two hundred plus fighters and three warships!"
"Well, that ain't good," someone glibly noted.
"No shit," Zelda muttered to himself.
"What are we doing? Falling back to the Trenchard?"
"Too late for that. Look! The Trenchard is spinning up her main thrusters! She's falling back!" another person reported.
Zelda glanced at his rear scopes and, sure enough, the Trenchard was pushing it's way further into the debris field, towards Tenedos proper and away from the incoming Covenant. The sight didn't really surprise him as it was standard operating procedure: while carriers were equipped with all sorts of missile and gun turrets, they were intended to be more of a last ditch defense. A carrier's real defensive power came from keeping their distance from the enemy, while their offensive power come from their fighter compliment and escorts.
But if none were around...
"Crap crap crap! Captain, what are we doing?" Betros could be heard asking.
Zelda couldn't help but laugh. "What do we do? We grab our ankles and bend over cause we're about to get fucked."
He had meant that as a joke, but clearly someone else had felt that way as, even as he spoke, a number of red zones appeared on his HUD.
"Alright, Omega Flight, listen up!" Bellum snapped, cutting through the chatter. "Forget about that destroyer, we've got to defend the Trenchard! The rest of the task force is making their way towards us at max burn, but until friendlies can arrive, we've got to keep those fighters away from our ship! If the Trenchard goes down, then we're stuck out here. See all those red zones on our HUD? Stay out of them unless you want to get hit by gunfire from the Trenchard otherwise, everybody, spread out!"
Even as she spoke, Odessa abruptly peeled away and Zelda hastily maneuvered to follow him. They moved away from the rest of the squadron until Betros and Bellum were hidden from visual contact by a bunch of asteroids, but not from radar.
"Arm all weapons and prepare for a dogfight," Bellum ordered. "We're going straight in, and it's going to get messy."
"We're not engaging with missiles?"
"Can't get a proper lock at this range because of Covenant ECM and even if we could, there's too much stuff in the way. We need to get closer."
Zelda felt a grin spread across his face as he pushed down on his throttle and felt his engines respond in kind. "Now this is where the fun begins."
"You and I have very different ideas as to what constitutes as fun, you know," he heard Odessa reply. He hadn't realize he had said that last part out loud.
"Uh, I suppose now would be a bad time to ask for some tips on how to deal with these guys?" Betros asked over TEAMCOM, sounding nervous.
"Tips? Yeah, don't die," Zelda sarcastically pointed out.
"Zelda, shut up," Bellum snapped. "Betros, stay close to me, but not too close you can't maneuver. It's going to get really tight in certain places. Whatever you do, don't try to solo these fuckers because you will get swarmed."
"Yeah, and if you happen to get behind one of those big fighters, the Seraphs, whatever you do, don't stop shooting until you see it blow up. Between their shields and their armor, those things are like MBTs: they can take a surprisingly insane amount of damage and still keep flying," Odessa added.
With everyone else giving advice, Zelda decided to add his two cents. "Your big problem is going to be Banshees, Betros," he warned. "There's a lot more of them, and they're all over the place, and you're going to be tempted to try and dogfight them: don't. Because our Broadswords aren't dedicated space fighters, we lack some of the maneuvering thrusters required to pull off some truly epic maneuvers needed to take these guys out. A Banshee has no such restrictions and will out turn and out maneuver you every time." Zelda paused. "Unless you're a master ace pilot like me."
He heard Odessa let out a derisive snort, which he ignored.
"One weakness Banshees have is their weak armor and slow acceleration, so all you really got to do is zoom in, hit them with a burst from your 30mil, and keep moving. Got it?"
"Got it," Betros replied.
"Good. Above all, like Zelda helpfully pointed, try not to die," Bellum told him. "In fact, consider that a blanket order: none of you have permission to die today."
Zelda laughed. "You don't have to worry about me boss: that's not on the books for me!"
"Right," Bellum said, sounding unimpressed. "Good luck everybody."
The radio went silent.
Zelda glanced at his HUD. From the moment the Covenant had appeared on his scopes, his targeting computer had been compiling data non-stop, calculating firing solutions and other tactical data, to determine the most effective range to engage, which it displayed as a countdown timer in the top left hand corner of his HUD. They were thirteen seconds away.
Seven seconds.
His HUD highlighted a trio of Banshees closest to his position and he quickly armed two Medusa missiles and dropped his crosshairs over one of them, obtaining a lock. Already, there was an orange circle around one of them, indicating Odessa's lock. Behind his oxygen mask, Zelda licked his lips out of nervous habit.
Three seconds.
Abruptly the Covenant open fired! The entire Covenant line just opened up, sending a wall of plasma in their direction.
Zelda felt his eyes involuntarily widen as the Banshees sent three fuel rod cannon shells in his direction, but he ruthlessly suppressed the urge to panic. With an understanding born out of countless hours of flight time together, both Odessa and Zelda non-verbally agreed to wait until the last minute before punching their thrusters and throwing their fighters to the side behind a nearby asteroid.
The fuel rod cannons arched in their direction as they began track them, but weren't able to turn fast enough and slammed into the asteroid, which exploded into a thousand fragments. A TOCK TOCK noise, like hail hitting a tin roof, filled Zelda's ears as his Broadsword was bombarded by these fragments, but they weren't enough to distract him from reacquiring his lock.
"Fox one!" he yelled into the radio and pulled the trigger.
Two missiles, one from each wing, immediately launched off their racks and sped towards the Banshee, leaving a visible white contrail in their wake. The Banshee pilot immediately threw himself into a roll, while at the same time emitting a visible pulse which caused the incoming Medusas to lose their lock and miss. But Zelda had predicted something like that would have happened and had already followed up with another two missiles. The missiles slammed into the Banshee, which disappeared in a short but violent explosion.
"Ha!" Zelda triumphantly crowed. "I got one! Planted two missiles up his fucking ass!"
"Great. Is it over then?" Odessa distractedly replied.
Zelda winced as a plasma bolt splashed against his armored cockpit, but fortunately doing no damage. "Um, no?"
"Then shut up and keep flying!"
Zelda grinned. Odessa always got a bit bitchy when fighting.
His HUD let out a loud shrill, indicating an incoming projectile.
"Chaff!" Zelda spat out while at the same time, throwing himself into an aileron roll. The fuel rod cannon came streaking in, just missing his left wing as it arched at the last second towards his decoys and exploded behind him.
"Banshee, left flank!" Odessa yelled and Zelda glanced to his left to see a Banshee, plasma cannons blazing, coming straight at him.
Unexpectedly, the Banshee stopped firing and ignited his gravity boost. He rocketed towards Zelda on an intercept course, as if he intended to ram him.
"5, dive!" Zelda barked even as he banked then yanked back on his stick and began to climb.
Odessa and Zelda quickly crossed paths to confuse the Banshee, and Zelda glanced up in time to see the Banshee shoot by in the space that had formed between them, missing his Broadsword by a meter or so. Zelda moved to follow the Banshee, but then a trio of Wombats passed by in front of them, pursued by two Seraphs. Obviously, there were no pilots in the Wombats so it was no tragic loss if the three of them were destroyed, but the chance to kill a couple of Seraphs was too good for Zelda to pass up, so he banked to pursue them instead.
"6, focus fire on the one on the right," Odessa ordered. "I'll burn out his countermeasures with AAMs, you take out his shields, then we both follow up with guns."
"Got it," Zelda said even as the Seraphs fired and one of the Wombats disintegrated.
He watched as an orange circle began to pass over the Seraph, but at that point the Covenant were aware of their presence and were beginning to evade. Zelda could see Odessa struggling to maintain a lock.
"Anytime now sweetheart," Zelda said impatiently.
"Shut up!"
Odessa fired a spread of five missiles. The first two immediately veered off course as their targeting computers were jammed by the Seraph. The third one went flying off to who knows where, following a series of decoys. The last two managed to get close, but were then destroyed by the Seraph's hard-kill APS.
"Shoot it!" Odessa demanded, but Zelda had already fired four missiles. He hadn't bothered wasting time by trying to obtain a lock, so the first two missed entirely, but the second two slammed home, causing a blue bubble to appear then disappear just as quickly as the missiles exploded.
"Guns, AP!" Zelda barked, then laid into the trigger.
Chunks of armor began flying off the Seraph as the 30mil armored piercing shells ripped into it, and the Seraph began trailing smoke. But before Odessa or Zelda could finish it, the Seraph's wing mate banked to the right, placing himself between his damaged friend and the Broadswords' guns. The new Seraph's shields lit up, stopping all the gunfire cold.
"That's not going to help very much," Zelda taunted, then banked to the left to go wide in an attempt to shoot around the undamaged Seraph. The undamaged Seraph reflexively moved to intercept, but in that moment, the pilot had forgotten there were two Broadswords chasing them. In the split second the target was clear, Odessa had fired.
A Medusa slammed into the damaged Seraph, blowing off one of its articulating tails. Blue flames began shooting out of the rear, but unsurprisingly, the Seraph continued flying. The undamaged Seraph quickly began juking back and forth in front of them, trying to block both Odessa and Zelda, but he wasn't fast enough and Zelda was able to plant another two Medusas into the crippled Seraph. Annoyingly, the Seraph wasn't destroyed and instead, continued to fly.
"God damn, fucking die already," Zelda spat, firing another missile which was intercepted by the other Seraph.
"6, stop wasting ordnance and break off," Odessa barked. "I don't think they see that meteoroid in front of them."
"Fuck," Zelda swore. He really wanted that kill, but he nevertheless did as he was ordered.
The split-lips flying the Seraphs must have been too busy searching for where Zelda was going because they didn't even try to stop or evade the meteoroid. The crippled Seraph slammed into the rock at high speeds and exploded while the second flew right into the debris and disappeared. It didn't seem likely he would have survived that, but Zelda went ahead and put a missile into the mess, just for good measure.
"Hey, that still counts as my kill, right?" he asked Odessa as they headed to where the heaviest fighting seemed to be taking place.
"That hardly seems important right now."
"Maybe to you," Zelda petulantly replied. "But I did most of the hard work; I should get at least partial credit for those two."
Before Odessa could respond, a voice cut through all the noise on the radio.
"This is Tango Charlie Tango to all call signs! A squadron of Banshees have broken through our fighter screen and are headed for the Trenchard! All available fighters, move to intercept! I say again, all available fighters needed at the Trenchard, over!"
"This is Omega-5 and 6," Odessa smoothly said over the radio. "We're en route, over."
"Copy that Omega! Hurry! Trenchard, out!"
Without saying another word, Odessa and Zelda punched in their afterburners and headed straight to the last known location of the Trenchard, linking up with a flight of Wombats that seemed to be headed in the same direction.
"Hey, you see these guys anywhere?" Zelda asked, glancing at his radar then looking around outside. "You'd think a kilometer long ship wouldn't be that hard to spot."
"Should be able to see it around this next meteoroid."
They sped around the meteoroid and there, several dozen dozen klicks in the distance, was the Trenchard. The ship was making its way through the field toward Tenedos where, Zelda could only presume, they could hide among the gas dwarf's atmosphere. For now though, the entire ship was ablaze with anti-aircraft fire; missile contrails, 50mm tracers, and chaff was getting thrown around in all directions. Most of the fire was directed upwards, towards the edge of the field where Zelda spotted a squadron of Banshees darting between the rocks. In this area, Tenedos' rings were only five klicks wide so by the looks of it, the Banshees had gone up and out into open space where they could race at full speed to catch up to the Trenchard without worrying about crashing into anything.
"Banshees, up high, top of the field!" Zelda warned. "Must be the squadron the control tower was talking about!"
"That's funny," Odessa commented. "I was about to say the same thing, only, I was going to point out they were below the field."
"What?"
Zelda looked around and when he couldn't see what Odessa was talking about, he inverted his fighter. Sure enough, there was a second squadron of Banshees approaching the Trenchard from below.
"Huh," Odessa commented. "You know, I don't think the Trenchard has spotted that squadron; they're not firing on them."
"Good," Zelda grunted. "More kills for us. See if you can't get these Wombats to deal with that squadron up there, free us up to deal with the guys down there."
"What the fuck? How do I even talk to an AI piloted plane? What do I even refer to these guys as?" Odessa complained.
"I don't know, I don't speak in ones and zeros. Try calling them by their plane number."
Zelda watched as Odessa climb until he was parallel to one of the Wombats.
"Echo Tango four one six," Zelda heard him call out into the radio. "Do you copy?"
"Affirmative, Omega, Five."
Zelda involuntarily shivered as a robotic voice filled his headset. He always hated the voice of dumb AIs, they were so emotionless and cold. It was kind of creepy.
"Hey! You focus on that squadron the Trenchard is shooting at! We're going after the ones down below, you copy?"
The was a moment of silence and Zelda could almost hear the gears turning on the Wombat as it swiveled its camera around to see what Odessa was talking about.
"Affirmative, Omega, Five," the AI finally said, and the flight of Wombats quickly pulled away.
"Fucking AIs," Zelda muttered.
"Forget about them. Follow me in Six, I'm thinking we give these guys the one-two punch. I'll go in, draw their attention, you follow up and taken them out. You with me?"
"Yeah, just waiting on you."
"Good. On my mark... mark!"
Odessa immediately dove straight down. Zelda counted up to three in his head, then quickly followed suit.
Bursting out of the field, Zelda nearly flew into the Banshee wreckage Odessa had left behind in his wake, only missing it at the last second when he reflexively jerked to the left. Recovering, Zelda began searching for targets. He was behind about a dozen Covenant Banshees, all chasing and shooting at one Broadsword that was flying in front of them: Odessa. They hadn't spotted Zelda yet, but he knew that could change at any second so he hastily passed his crosshairs over every single Banshee, armed a handful of missiles, and fired.
WOOSHWOOSHWOOSH!
A dozen missiles launched from Zelda's bomb bay and wings, each Medusa hunting its own individual Banshee. The Covenant pilots began to react but for most of them, it was simply too late. It was like watching fireworks on Unification Day. Instantly, nine blue fireballs lit up the area.
But Zelda wasn't done yet. Zipping behind one of the survivors, Zelda began matching the split-lips' every move until his crosshairs turned red.
"Guns, HE!" Zelda commanded, then pulled the trigger.
BRRRRRTTTTTTT!
Zelda could see white flashes as each 35mm shells exploded upon impact. The Banshee took maybe six hits before the pilot ejected, his plane exploded underneath him. Unfortunately for the Elite, his ejection put him right in Zelda's path. Zelda didn't even try to dodge.
SPLAT!
The sound of something soft hitting his hull filled his ears and Zelda grinned. Maybe after the battle he could talk Bellum into letting him keep that as his nose art.
In the meantime, the remaining two Banshees broke away from Odessa and began circling back to the asteroid ring where the tight quarters would give their planes' agility and maneuverability the advantage.
"Oh no you don't," Zelda hissed. "I didn't say you could leave."
He was beginning to line up his shot when suddenly, both Banshees flipped their aircraft backwards in a somersault. As Zelda whipped by underneath, he looked up in astonishment as both Banshees passed by overhead, mere meters from his cockpit. Then the Banshees were behind him and suddenly, the dynamic had changed: instead of the hunter, Zelda was now the hunted.
"Zelda, you got two on your tail!"
"No shit!" Zelda yelled as the space around him exploded with plasma fire. Under normal circumstances, Zelda would have just punched his afterburners and run away, but they had reentered Tenedos' rings, and Zelda needed his maneuvering thrusters to avoid crashing into an asteroid.
"Hang on Six, I'm coming!" Odessa yelled but glancing at his radar, Zelda knew he would be atomized long before Odessa could acquire a lock. If he was going to get out of this, Zelda needed to save himself.
"Don't worry fam, I got this," Zelda said as confidently as he could.
"At least I think I do," he muttered more quietly to himself.
Dodging a fuel rod cannon shell, Zelda quickly prepped his engines.
"Okay my dudes," Zelda said out loud as soon as he was ready. "Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay! Say hello to my little friend!"
At that, Zelda shunted all his power from his rearward thrusters to the maneuvering thrusters on the underside of his plane, causing it to do a backflip, similar to what the Banshees had to him only moments ago. But because he was in space and he hadn't bothered canceling out his forward motion, Zelda found himself flying backwards.
Without bothering to wait for a lock, Zelda started lobbing missiles as soon as he saw the Banshees appear in his HUD. He got lucky with his first missiles, clipping the left gravity pod on one of the Banshees and sending it spiraling out of control and into a nearby meteoroid. The other though, proved to be a far more difficult target as he actually began shooting down Zelda's incoming missiles. Zelda was about to switch to guns when the Banshee abruptly broke away, pursued by a Medusa missile. Seconds later, there was violent blue explosion.
"Zelda, watch out! Meteoroid. Meteoroid! METEOROID!"
Zelda glanced behind him and swore. He was on a collision course with a fairly large meteoroid.
"Full power, main engine!" Zelda yelled, and he could feel his Broadsword responding. His main engines roared to life and he could feel himself slowing down, but not fast enough. He had been going way too fast and he was just too close to the meteoroid. There was no doubt: he was going to hit.
"LINK!"
"Ah fuck!" Zelda yelped, then did the first thing that came to mind: arming two missiles, he ejected them from his racks on the top of his wings, counted up to two in his head, and then remotely set them off.
KABOOM!
As there was no atmosphere in space, Zelda couldn't actually hear the explosion as the missiles detonated, but it didn't matter as his brain automatically filled in the gap. Shrapnel sprayed the topside and cockpit of his Broadsword, one of which hit hard enough to leave a crack in the outer layer of his windshield, but the shockwave was just enough to push his Broadsword out of the way of the meteoroid. Zelda nearly pissed himself when he saw the lumpy surface of the asteroid pass within millimeters of his canopy. Then he was clear, and moving slow enough to reorientate himself.
"5, what you yelling for? Don't you know I gots this?" Zelda arrogantly said as best he could, glad Odessa couldn't see his entire body trembling, which would have revealed the lie for what it was.
"You know, one of these days I'm going to die," Odessa conversationally began. "But it's not going to be because I got shot down or something silly like that. No, it's going to be because of ALL THE FUCKING HEARTATTACKS YOU GIVE ME!"
"That's cause you're too high strung Five. You need to get laid," Zelda told him with a nod, then slyly added, "Maybe we can find you another Odessan 'girl.'"
"Whoa, okay, hold up. I told you we don't talk about that."
Zelda laughed, feeling the relief of actually being alive wash over him.
"Omegas-5 and 6, what's your twenty?"
"We're in sector sixteen, heading back up to thirty-three," Odessa responded.
"Negative, stay where you are! I've got fighters coming out of my ass! My right thrusters are bent… I can't shake 'em! Need backup, ASAP!"
"Copy, we're on our way! 6, you got eyes on?"
"Negative, searching now," Zelda reported as he glanced around the area. "Wait – I got visual! Sector thirty seven, bearing four seven three heading right towards us!"
"Yeah, okay, I got them. Well, that doesn't look good. How do you want to handle this?"
Zelda studied the scene on his radar. Bellum and Betros were weaving in and out between the meteoroids, being pursued by five Banshees and one Seraph. Betros' Broadsword appeared to be fully intact, but Bellum's bird was trailing a lot of black smoke.
"That Seraph is the biggest threat," Zelda announced. "Got to take him out before we do anything else."
"Yeah, I know. Any ideas?"
Zelda shrugged, even though he knew Odessa couldn't see him. "I say we flying straight at him, head on, see who blinks first. Might be able to get those Banshees to split."
"Pretty dangerous."
"Meh. What's life without a bit of danger every now and then?"
"… Why do I let you talk me into doing these things? Okay, well, let's not stand on ceremony then. Let's do this! Follow me in!"
Zelda grinned, then punched in his afterburners and fell in line behind Odessa. As they sped through the field, Zelda could hear Odessa over the radio.
"Omega-Leader, Omega-2, this is 5 and 6, we're coming straight at you, head on. On my mark, I want you to crisscross, then split up off in opposite directions. We'll take out the threat on your six, then rendezvous in Sector 12, copy?"
"Copy that Omega-5," came Betros' immediate and nervous response.
"I hope you idiots know what you're doing," was all Bellum said.
"Oh, ye of little faith," Zelda muttered to himself as he began arming weapons.
In the distance, he could see Bellum and Betros, plasma exploding all around them, flying straight towards them. Zelda waited for Odessa to give the signal, but he had better nerves than Zelda gave him credit for, because he waited until they were almost a klick away before yelling, "MARK!"
Betros and Bellum immediately banked, crossing paths before splitting in opposite directions. Their Covenant pursuers started to react, but they were just a bit too slow. Dropping his crosshairs over the Seraph, Zelda opened up with everything he had.
"Fox one! Guns, AP!"
Zelda fired a spread of five missiles, then laid into the trigger for his main cannon. Just ahead and slightly above him, Zelda could see Odessa following suit.
The Banshees scattered as the space directly in front of the Seraph lit up with explosions as his APS went to work, but the unexpected nature of the attack meant the Seraph's countermeasures couldn't intercept all the missiles, and his shields quickly lit up as some of the Medusas managed to slip through his defensive screen, sapping them of their strength. Zelda and Odessa's combined cannon fire finally disabled them. Despite this, the Seraph continued to barrel forward, without a care in the world, putting himself in a direct collision course with Zelda.
'WARNING, COLLISION ALERT!'
"Shut up!" Zelda snapped at his computer, eyes locked on the incoming Seraph. He noticed while he could have, the Seraph pilot wasn't firing his plasma cannons and instead, was focused on flying straight at Zelda, clearly intent on ramming him. At that point, Zelda knew exactly what he had to do.
"6, break off! That Seraph will be able to survive that collision, you won't!"
"Shut up, I know what I'm doing!" Zelda yelled as he maintained his course.
"Do you really Zelda? Do you!?"
"Come on you fucker, come on! You want to play? Let's play!" Zelda yelled as the Seraph quickly began filling his windshield.
"ZELDA!"
"GAH!" Zelda screamed as the two ships rocketed towards each other.
Mere seconds before impact, Zelda yanked his stick to the right, throwing himself out of the way of the Seraph. But not before arming two missiles and ejecting them right into the Seraph's path. At that distance, the Seraph pilot had absolutely no warning, and slammed right into the Medusas. Zelda could see the two missiles impacting the area where the cockpit would have been located on the Seraph before detonating.
BOOM!
The Seraph erupted into one giant blue fireball.
"Seraph down," Zelda reported as calmly as he could.
"Fuck! Alright, we'll talk about this later 6, but in the meantime, we still got those Banshees to deal with. Omega-6, you go support Omega-2, I'm going to go cover Leader, copy?"
"Copy! Omega-6 en route!"
Zelda quickly broke away from Odessa. According to his radar, Betros wasn't too far away, although he still had two Banshees on his tail.
"Omega-2, this is 6," Zelda said. "Betros, I tally two bandits on your tail. I'm coming in to support, hang in there!"
"6, please hurry up! I can't shake these guys!" Betros pleaded, and Zelda could clearly hear the fear in his voice.
"2, are you hit?"
"What? No, not yet!"
"Then calm the fuck down," Zelda ordered. "Break contact, head out to open space. If your bird is intact, you should be able to outrun these guys."
"No, negative! I can't go out to open space, I'm bingo on chaff!"
"How the fuck are you out already?" Zelda muttered to himself. More loudly, he said, "Shit. Alright, hold on!"
Zipping around a large meteoroid, Zelda finally came within visual contact of Betros. He was flying as fast as he could through the field and while he had managed to avoid getting hit, Zelda knew it was only a matter of time: both Banshees were throwing plasma all over the place like it was going out of style. Plasma bolts and fuel rod cannons were exploding all around Betros, shattering meteoroids and sending fragments in all directions, making the area a bit cluttered to fly through, as well as compromising Zelda's ability to obtain a lock.
"Ah great, we're going to have do this the old fashion way," Zelda told himself.
Putting his Broadsword into a dive, Zelda emerged right behind the two Banshees. Quickly, before the split-lips could react to his presence, Zelda put his crosshairs over the leftmost Banshee.
"Guns, HE!" Zelda barked and pulled the trigger.
The Banshee he was targeting coincidently moved just as Zelda fired, so his first dozen shells missed entirely. Zelda quickly adjusted his aim and his next burst was dead on. The Banshee didn't exploded, it just sort of… fell apart. Dodging the rapidly expanding debris cloud, Zelda placed his crosshairs over the second Banshee and pulled the trigger.
BEEP BEEP BEEP.
"What the -"
Zelda glanced at his instrument panel to see what the problem was. "Out of ammo?" he exclaimed. "How the fuck - !?"
"Zelda, I still got one on my tail!"
"Fuck!"
Switching back to missiles, Zelda dropped back a little so he wouldn't get damaged by the Medusa's explosion. Then he began searching for a lock, but unfortunately the Banshee pilot was the best one Zelda had seen yet because he began evading and weaving, making it extremely difficult for Zelda to acquire a lock. All the while, the Banshee continued to rain plasma down on Betros.
"Come on you fucker, hold still for like half a second!" Zelda urged.
"6, where are you!? I can't lose this guy!"
"Hang on. Hang on Betros! I'm working on it!"
"WORK FASTER! I'M TAKING HITS!" Betros screamed, sounding like he was on the verge of panicking.
"Just hang on for a few more - "
KABOOM!
The Banshee unexpectedly exploded as a missile came out of nowhere from above. Zelda looked up to see a couple of missile Wombats whipping past him in a dive. They were the ones that had taken out the Banshee.
"Fucking… kill stealers!" Zelda yelled after them out of habit though, truth be told, while he would never admit it out loud, he was kind of glad they did that because he was beginning to get worried Betros was going to get taken out before he could kill the Banshee.
Speaking of Betros…
"2, what's your status?"
"Christ. I think I pissed myself."
Zelda rolled his eyes. "No Betros, what's the status of your bird?"
"Oh, right. Um… minor damage to the armor, but I think I got hit in the fuel tank by some shrapnel. I'm down to twenty percent reserves."
"Right."
Zelda zoomed in until he could see Betros' bird. Sure enough, some sort of crystalized cloud was spraying out of a black hole in the underside of his Broadsword. "Omega-Leader, Omega-6. 2 is secured, but he's got a fuel leak. He needs to RTB for repairs."
"Roger that 6. 2, you have a green light to return to base for repairs. 6, escort him in. 5, you're with me; you're my new wing mate."
"Copy."
"Copy."
"Betros, you lead, I'll follow," Zelda ordered. He glanced down at his radar to see where the Trenchard was presently located. "Turning to heading –"
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Zelda didn't think, he just reacted. As soon as he heard his proximity alarm go off, Zelda threw his Broadsword into a barrel roll. Microseconds later, a massive blue plasma bolt passed through the space he was occupying moments ago. As Zelda struggled to recover, he watched in horror as the bolt slam into Betros' Broadsword, ripping his entire left wing off, and throwing him into a spin.
"Holy shit!" Zelda screamed as flames began erupting from the gaping hole where Betros' wing once was. "Omega-6 to Omega-Leader, Betros is hit! I say again, Betros is hit!"
Over the radio, Zelda could hear Betros screaming, "Mayday mayday mayday! This is Omega-2, I'm hit, I'm hit!"
"Betros, eject buddy, EJECT!"
"No good! I can't control it! I'm going in! I'm going in hard! AHHHHHHHHH!"
Zelda could see Betros drifting away from formation before disappearing behind a meteoroid. He didn't emerge on the other side.
"2, this is 6, do you copy?" Zelda frantically called over the radio. "Omega-6 to any Omega Flight, does anyone tally Omega-2?"
"6, this is Leader! 2 is gone! You've got contact, high tonnage, closing in on your nine!"
Zelda glanced over to his left. There, several hundred kilometers away, the two Covenant CRS-class light cruisers that had greeted them when the Trenchard first arrived had finally decided to join the battle, with their mission objective, the crippled destroyer, a few thousand klick behind them. Truth be told, Zelda had kind of forgot about all of them in the chaos, but now the warships were making their presence known by pushing their way through the asteroid field, shooting any UNSC aircraft that got too close. Even as he watched, one of the cruisers blew away an entire flight of Wombats using the same blue plasma bolts that had taken Betros out.
"Omega-Leader to all UNSC aircraft! Fall back, I say again, fall back!"
Zelda ignored her. At first, he thought there was something wrong with his Broadsword, as his entire body was trembling. But then the rage hit him. White hot fury began surging through his veins. Betros was a good kid. He was funny, polite, and willing to listen. He had a lot of promise, and Zelda had liked him. But now he was dead –
- and someone had to pay for that.
Zelda grabbed his control yoke. "Odessa, cover me. I'm going in!"
"'Going in?' Going in where? Hang on, you're not about to do an attack run on that cruiser, are you? Zelda, fall back! You can't hope to take on a ship that size by yourself!"
Odessa's words washed over him, and while Zelda's rational side was bobbing his head in agreement as fast as he could, he was getting drowned out by Zelda's emotional side which was screaming 'KILLKILLKILLL!' at the top of his lungs. Almost as if he was on autopilot, Zelda banked and settled in for an attack run on the lead cruiser.
"Omega-6, Omega-Leader, what the fuck are you doing? Get your ass back here, NOW!"
Even if Zelda had been inclined to obey, he knew he couldn't. The moment he decided to attack, he was committed.
The space around him exploded with plasma fire as the Covenant sensors quickly picked up on his approach, but somehow none of them hit. It was like Zelda's hands had suddenly acquired a mind of their own, dodging plasma fire, evading behind asteroids when the fire became too thick, and throwing chaff in all directions to confuse any locks. The rational side of Zelda couldn't help but note this was some of Zelda's best flying ever.
Then suddenly, the barrage abruptly ceased, and Zelda was left with a clear path towards the cruiser's ventral plasma turrets. Up close, the cruiser was an even more impressive sight then it was from afar. The Covenant may have classified these ships as "cruisers," but in truth, they had about as much firepower and armor as the UNSC Navy's light battleships.
Fortunately, Zelda's arsenal included a missile that was capable of penetrating those ships.
Selecting one of his four ASGM-10 anti-ship missiles, Zelda armed it and locked onto his target.
"Fox Three," he announced over the radio, his voice surprisingly calm. Then he pulled the trigger.
The doors to his bomb bay on the underside of his Broadsword popped open for a moment, long enough for the missile to get ejected from its rack. Then the missile's boosters kicked in, and Zelda watched as the missile rocket away. Surprisingly, none of the cruiser's countermeasures activated, and Zelda was able to watch the missile sped towards the plasma turrets -
- and detonated harmlessly against a blue field of pure energy roughly fifteen meters above the cruiser's hull.
It was at that point Zelda started too calmed down and realized that maybe, just maybe, he had bitten off more than he could chew.
"Zelda, get out of there!"
Zelda looked behind him. The only way he was able to even get this close to the cruiser without getting shot down was because of the numerous asteroids that had surrounded the cruiser, protecting Zelda from view. However, the sheer amount of fire the Covenant had sent his way had destroyed most, if not all those asteroids, leaving the area clear. If Zelda were to try and retreat now, he would simply get swatted out of the sky. But he couldn't advance either: he didn't have nearly enough ordinance to disable the cruiser's shields and without that shield disabled, he wouldn't even be able to so much as scratch the paint on the cruiser. In short, he was fucked.
"Well. That's just great. Whose brilliant fucking idea was this again?" Zelda muttered to himself as he noticed a number of turrets start to swivel in his direction. "Now what?"
KABOOM!
Zelda jerked in surprised as a magnetically accelerated cannon round slammed into the cruiser's shield from above, causing it to light up. Before anyone could react, another four slammed into the shield in quick succession, causing the energy field to fluctuate, before failing entirely.
"What the -" Zelda sputtered, looking up. There, just above the field, were the seven Navy destroyers that had originally accompanied them out here. They were sitting over the field, their bows pointed straight down, unloading on the cruisers.
"Finally!" Zelda exclaimed out loud, pumping his fist in triumph. "Where the fuck were you guys, taking the scenic route?"
He watched as nearly six dozen Archer missiles slam into the shield-less cruiser, which began to fall apart under the barrage. The second cruiser was just beginning to react, rotating around on its axis in order to bring its heaviest weapons to bear, but all the movement did was attract the Navy's attention and shortly, the second cruiser found itself under heavy fire. Meanwhile, an unknown voice sounded over the radio.
"Delta Sierra two nine to all call signs: the Navy will deal with these cruisers. All fighters, proceed to the objective and execute the mission."
In the distance, Zelda could see the crippled Covenant destroyer, desperately limping away but it couldn't go far: a few thousand kilometers beyond the destroyer, Zelda could see a series of green blimps appear on his radar representing the UNSC Pégoud and her escorts. With the Pégoud blocking the way, the destroyer had nowhere to run.
While the destroyer attempted to figure out it's next move, the Pégoud began launching fighters to engage, but Zelda could tell it would take several minutes before they came within range of the destroyer. Meanwhile behind him, the remaining fighters from the Trenchard were in the process of getting reorganized, but it too would take them several minutes before they could begin their attack. Which meant at the current moment, Zelda found himself as the only fighter in position and ready to execute their objective.
Hm.
Rationally, Zelda knew he probably should wait for backup. While the destroyer's point defenses had supposedly been disable, the ship's main battery was still operational. And while heavy plasma beams and plasma torpedoes weren't exactly designed to hit something as small as a one-man fighter, it wasn't like they needed to score a direct hit to kill him.
Yet, at the same time, Zelda could still feel the rage burning within him, and he still had three ASGM-10 anti-ship missiles in his arsenal…
Zelda ignited his thrusters and began speeding towards the destroyer.
As he closed the distance, Zelda started studying the destroyer, looking for a weakness, for something that would hopefully amply the damage caused by his ASGMs. He wasn't entirely sure what had damaged the destroyer in the first place, but whatever it was had been powerful as the destroyer was missing its entire left nacelle, leaving a gaping hole in the ship's hull. The entire area was awashed with radiation, scrambling his sensors, but Zelda's targeting computer could faintly pick up a large concentration of energy emitting from one particular spot in breach. Good enough.
"This is for you Betros," Zelda announced out loud to his cockpit as he armed all three of his ASGMs. "Fox three."
He pulled the trigger.
All three missiles quickly crossed the distance between him and ship, and Zelda could see them disappearing into the breach. Even on max zoom, Zelda only barely saw the flash as they detonated. He waited for any more signs his missiles actually did something, but nothing else happened.
Zelda shrugged. Truth be told, he wasn't all that surprised. While he had his hopes, he didn't really think he was going to be able to take down a ship this size with only three missiles. Oh well, he supposed he could let someone else get this kill.
He started to peel away when a series of flashes caught his attention. He turned back to see a number of sympathetic explosions going off on the destroyer's hull. The explosions were starting from the breach and were quickly working their way towards the bow, with each subsequent explosion being more powerful than the last. As Zelda watched, hanging on the edge of his seat, the explosions reached the bow where the Covenant's plasma beam emitter was located.
KABOOOMM!
The bow erupted in a giant flash of light! A visible, spherical shockwave was launched from the explosion and Zelda had but seconds to brace himself before the shockwave hit. His tiny fighter was violently thrown around, and all his systems starting going haywire, but then it was over as quickly as it began.
Zelda hurriedly initiated a system's check, but most of his attention was on the destroyer. The giant fireball had already died down, allowing Zelda to conduct a proper BDA: the front of the destroyer had been completely obliterated, it's armor peeled back like a banana. Individual fires were burning all across the ship's hull with such intensity, even the vacuum of space was unable to immediately extinguish them, and all the run lights as well as the ship's engines had shut down. The ship continued to drift forward at the same speed, but it was clear no one was steering it as the ship began colliding with a number of asteroids that were obviously avoidable.
Yet despite all this, Zelda continued to watch with bated breath, waiting to see what the destroyer would do next, not quite believing his eyes.
"Actium Command? This is JTF Omaha," Zelda heard someone report over the radio. "Mission accomplished, target 1-Alpha is down, I say again, scratch one destroyer, over."
"YEAHHH!" Zelda cheered, forgetting where he was for the moment and throwing his fist into the air, only to hit them against his canopy. "YEAHH! TAKE THAT YOU SORRY ASSES! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT! WELCOME TO THE FUCKING AMBRACIAN SYSTEM! WELCOME TO FIST OF HUMANITY! WHAT NOW CUNTS?"
"Slipspace rupture detected."
A shadow fell over him and Zelda looked up to see a huge slipspace portal open up over the entire asteroid field. Emerging from the portal was -
"Holllly shittttt!" Zelda gasped. "Look at the size of that thing!
- a massive Covenant capital ship. The ship had to be at least twice as long as a CSS-class battlecruiser and bristling with just as many weapons.
The ship shot out of the portal at high speeds towards the Navy's destroyers gather there, colliding with two of them, both of which promptly exploded, but the impact didn't even cause the Covenant shields to fluctuate. The ship promptly opened up on the remaining destroyers, engaging them with plasma cannons and disabling or crippling another two outright. The last three remaining destroyers disappeared as they made a hasty retreat to slipspace.
But the Covenant warship wasn't done just yet. Advancing on the Pégoud, Zelda could see massive amounts of energy beginning to build on the underside of the Covenant's bulbous bow. The Pégoud fired her thrusters, trying to clear out of the way, but it was too late: there was a blinding light, so bright Zelda's visor automatically polarized, and a pencil-thin line of pure energy lanced out from the ship. The excavator beam cut through asteroids like they were made of butter before spearing the Pégoud amidship. The beam burned its way through the Pégoud and emerged on the other side, cutting the ship in half. Explosions immediately began rippling across the Pégoud's hull. Then, just when Zelda thought things couldn't get any worse, he saw hundreds, if not thousands, of Banshees and Seraphs emerging from the bowels of the Covenant ship, half of which charged straight at the Pégoud's fighters, the other half began charging straight at Zelda.
"Oh fuck!" Zelda yelped as he flipped his fighter around and began racing back towards his squadron, but he could tell it was going to be too late. Because of his reckless charge at the destroyer, the Covenant were now closer to him than he was to his squadron. The Covenant would be able to overtake him long before he could reach safety. The only way Zelda might make it was if he left this field and flew at max burn towards the Trenchard, but he would need cover as doing so would leave him exposed to long range Covenant cannon fire.
"Omega-6 to any UNSC call signs in sector one two seven, I've got bandits closing on my six! I need immediate assistance!" Zelda desperately called over radio even though with that many Covenant fighters, it was doubtful anyone would respond. "Anyone copy, over!"
At first, he heard nothing. But then, Zelda noticed a large amount of green blimps appearing on his radar, flying right towards him. He felt his heart flutter. That couldn't be his squadron, could it?
As they drew closer, Zelda realized it wasn't his squadron but in fact, every single Wombat that had been assigned to the Trenchard still left. He wasn't sure if he should feel disappointed or relieved.
"Trenchard Control Tower to all Broadswords!" Zelda heard over the radio. "All pilots, fall back to the Trenchard! Wombats will cover your retreat, but you got to get back to the Trenchardright now! We're falling back to Actium and if you're not on board in the next thirty seconds, you will be left behind!"
Zelda blanched. His Broadsword may have been equipped with all sorts of things, but a slipspace drive was not one of them. Attempting to fly back to Actium under his own power would take him at least thirty years, assuming he had enough fuel to do that (which he didn't) but even then he only had enough oxygen to last him five days, at most.
"Screw it!" Zelda yelled, then threw himself into a climb. Once he was clear of the field, he took off towards the Trenchard, which was thankfully advancing towards him, picking up everyone else.
"They're not going to leave me behind, they're not going to leave me behind," Zelda chanted to himself as he worked on coaxing every ounce of speed from his bird. "They are not going to leave me behind!"
"Leader to Omega Flight, sound off as soon you're safe," he heard Bellum demand.
"This Omega-12, on board and safe!"
"Omega-3, I made it!"
"This is Omega-8, I'm aboard!"
As what was left of his squadron continued to sound off, Zelda concentrated on flying as fast he could. As he flew, he was vaguely aware of someone reporting, "Omega-5, on board," and he felt a faint wave of relief, knowing Odessa had made it.
"Omega-Leader, on board. Omega-6, what's your status?"
"I'm working on it!" Zelda yelled. "I'm maybe fifteen seconds away! Tell those fuckers to keep those damn doors open!"
He glanced at his rear scopes to see how much time he had. The Wombats were dropping at an alarming rate, but they had managed to throw the Covenant formation into disarray, buying everyone a bit more time. He also saw at least a dozen Broadswords behind him, and he realized some of Pégoud's fighters must have broken through the Covenant lines. With the Pégoud having been destroyed, the Trenchard was the only way they were going to make it home.
The sight of the Pégoud's fighters gave Zelda some hope. "Okay, I got some time," he told himself. "They're not going to leave all of us behind."
With that in mind, Zelda started thinking about how he was going to land his bird. Running some quick mental calculations, Zelda realized he was going too fast and wouldn't be able to slow down in time to do a vertical landing: he was going to have to use the runway.
"Trenchard, this Omega-6," Zelda said over the radio as calmly as he could. "Be advised, my approach is no good; vertical landing is a no go. I say again, vertical landing is a no go. Request permission to use the emergency landing strip, over?"
"Yeah yeah, fine!" came the frantic response. "The right strip is cleared; just get in here!"
"Copy! You don't need to tell me twice!"
Zelda angled his bird towards the lit up bay doors at the back of the Trenchard. Lowering his landing gear, Zelda shut down his main engines and diverted all power to his forward thrusters to slow down, but even then, when he cross through the doors and into the ship, he was still moving far faster then what would be considered safe.
Dropping his tail hook, Zelda was able to snag one of the arresting cables draped across the floor, but even that wasn't enough to bring him to a stop. His Broadsword barreled down the runway into the overrun area, and Zelda gritted his teeth as his Broadsword began to roll over the arrestor bed. The cable, combined with the arrestor bed, was finally enough to bring him to a stop.
Without even stopping to catch his breath, Zelda quickly raised his tailhook and began working on moving his Broadsword out of the way so the others could land. He looked behind him to see how much time he had, only to see the bay doors closing behind him.
"What - Control Tower, Omega-6, hang on, we still got birds outside!" Zelda yelled over the radio.
"Omega-6, we just came within weapon's range of the Covenant. If we don't leave now, we're not leaving at all."
Even as he heard that, Zelda felt the Trenchard shudder as the ship transitioned into slipspace. He stared in shock at the closed doors. He had a feeling he knew what the answer was going to be, but some part of him had to ask any way.
"Tower," he slowly began, "how many of Pégoud's fighters did we retrieve?"
Sure enough, Zelda's worst fears were confirmed: "None."
Zelda sat back in his seat. There had been over three thousand crewmembers aboard the Pégoud, one hundred and fifty Broadswords, and who knows how many more fighters they had retrieved from Actium before embarking on this mission. Coupled with all the Navy losses, the losses from the Trenchard, and Betros, this day was taking a heavy toll. And to make things worse -
- Zelda knew it was only the beginning.
XXXXX
UNSC Kilkis (BB-123), High Orbit, Actium
Spaatz
Spaatz stared at his screen, his back straight as a ramrod and his hands folded behind his back, as an entire second Covenant invasion fleet drop out of slipspace. Not only did this second force include that ORS-class heavy cruiser that had annihilated JTF Omaha, but it also include two more CCS-class battlecruisers, at least a dozen more CPV-class destroyers, and a score of other support ships, bring the number of Covenant warships in the system to forty-seven. In terms of sheer numbers, the UNSC still outnumbered the Covenant a little over two to one not counting the ODPs, but in terms of firepower, the Covenant were now unmatched.
"They were stalling for time, just like we were," Spaatz muttered to himself.
"Pardon me, sir?"
Spaatz glanced over at Kanin. "Never mind. How many ships from JTF Omaha made it back?"
"Thirty gunships and four warships sir: carrier UNSC Trenchard and destroyers Chi Ceti(1), Kulish(2), and the Gabrielle(3)."
Spaatz nodded in acknowledgement. His forces had managed to destroy three Covenant warships at the cost of eighteen of his own for a kill death ratio of one to three. According to the UNSC manual on space battles, that was about the expected average ratio a command could hope to achieve against the Covenant. So in public, Spaatz would make sure to tell everyone, his men, the civilian press, and the families of those who died, what a great job everyone had done and how the sacrifice of all those men and women was well worth the cost. And that they all died as heroes.
But in private...
...Spaatz knew he was going to spend many sleepless nights, wondering how he could have done things differently, and more importantly, how he could have done things better.
"Kanin, what's the status of our fleet?" he finally asked.
"We are officially at one hundred percent alert status, sir," Kanin reported. "Every single installation and military personnel is now at full alert."
"Good," Spaatz grunted as he watched both Covenant fleets join together, then begin burning their way towards Actium. "Because as of right now, we're done with games. We're done with light skirmishes and picking at each other from afar."
"The Battle of Actium begins, right now."
Ship Names
1. Chi Ceti: this ship is named after the canon battle, the Chi Ceti Incident (or alternatively, the Battle of Chi Ceti.) The battle first appeared in the novel, Halo: The Fall of Reach. It's memorable because the planet of Chi Ceti was where the Spartan IIs including the Master Chief would first receive their Mjolnir powered armor that they would become famous for wearing.
2. Kulish: the Kulish, which is Sanskrit for thunderbolt, is the name of a mythological weapon belonging to the Vedic deity Indra. The word is also the name for a modern day corvette, the INS Kulish, which is currently in active service with the Indian Navy. I thought the name sounded cool, so I decided to use it. I doubt this ship will be of any major importance for this story.
3. Gabrielle: in case you guys don't remember, this is the ship that Amber (from chapter 1, 2, & 4) is assigned to. This is not named after any real ship (that I know of.) I do have a backstory for the origins of the name, but I think I'll wait until the ship is the focus of a chapter but I post it.