Disclaimer: I don't own Halo or anything associated with the US navy

chapter 2: This is the USS Ronald Reagan, where the hell are we?

/system error/ October 25, 2009

/system error/ location: the Scotia sea, USS Ronald Reagan

The crew slowly regained their posture and sprang into action, requesting damage reports. On the bridge, captain Schulz rubbed his temples, his ears were still ringing.

"What the hell was that?" Said commander Young.

Schulz took a deep breath and stood firm, then addressed his crew. "Sound general quarters, set condition 2."

The officer of the watch acknowledged the order and grabbed the intercom. "General quarters, all hands" he shouted.

"Captain, the destroyers, they're gone" said Young. The captain looked out and sure enough, the entire battlegroup had disappeared. Suddenly lieutenant Wagner burst onto the bridge, out of breath. Her flight helmet clattered to the deck as she dropped it.

"Sir... CAG and roundtop, they're gone."

"Slow down, lieutenant" said Schulz "what happened?"

"Their planes went down on approach" said Jessica "when what ever the hell hit us left, the wreckage was gone."

"Wagner, Young, Quayle, with me" said Schulz as he pushed past them. His subordinates followed him down a few levels to the CIC. A few stations in the room had been damaged during the storm but the CIC was still operational. Quayle took his station and tried to establish a SATCOM uplink.

"Captain, I can't raise SOUTHCOM" he reported.

"Radar picture?" Schulz asked.

"Radar's clear" said a petty officer manning that particular station.

"Are we picking up any communications on friendly frequencies?"

"Negative, skipper" said another petty officer.

"Lieutenant" Schulz said and Wagner came forward "I want a CAP in the air and two more fighters on a one hour alert."

"Sir?"

"You're senior pilot now" said Schulz "I have to write CAG and roundtop off as MIA. Chain of command falls to you."

"Sir, lieutenant Knight is a much more capable pilot than I am. He should get command of the air wing."

"Lieutenant, I know how you must feel right now" said Schulz as he set a hand on her shoulder "what would CAG want you to do? If your dad was here he would want you to step up."

"Yes, sir" said Jessica as she left the CIC and headed for the pilot's ready room. The captain turned his attention back to the rest of the senior officers. "Young, I'm going to my quarters, I am not to be disturbed unless absolutely necessary."

"Aye, sir" said Young.

The captain left the CIC and went down several decks to his quarters. He saluted the marine guard and entered the executive cabin. He sat down at his desk and removed the safe key hanging around his neck and tucked underneath his uniform. Schulz inserted the key into the safe built into the wall and opened it. He removed a black procedure book entitled: Yelland protocol top secret.

--

Jessica was rushing through the halls toward the pilot ready room, after collecting her helmet. Suddenly sergeant Banks walked up behind her and matched Jessica's pace.

"Jess, I herd what happened."

"I appreciate your concern, sergeant" said Jessica as she tried to speed up, but Banks matched her speed.

"Don't give me that crap. Can't you see I'm really concerned here?"

Jessica came to a stop in the middle of the corridor. "Billy I told you, it never happened."

"Quit toying around" Billy said in a harsh tone.

"Its general quarters" said Jessica "report to your duty station". She marched off and left a fuming Billy in the hall. Jessica double timed it to the ready room, the other pilots of her squadron were seated in their chairs. "I'm sure all of you have heard about the CAG's death. What you don't know is that I've been given command of the air wing my the skipper. So all flight decisions go through me, am I clear?"

"Crystal, sir" the pilots cried.

"Good. Now the CO wants a CAP in the air ASAP. And two more jets on a one hour alert. Knight."

"Sir" said lieutenant Ben (knightrider) Knight as he stood up.

"You're with me on the CAP. Hookline and boomer, you're sitting alert, dismissed."

Everyone cleared out except lieutenant Knight who came over to the podium. Jessica let out a sigh and faced Knight. "How did I do?"

Knight smiled and said "you nailed it, CAG would be proud."

Jessica returned the smile and gave Knight a slap on the arm. "Come on, lets get this CAP over with."

--

Jessica flew her F/A-18 in formation with Knight's over the calm ocean. Her GPS instruments like those of the Reagan's were not functioning, instead she was forced to rely on her backup avionics.

"What do you think happened?" Knight asked "with that storm and all, then the whole battlegroup. You think it was some kind of new weapon?"

"Haven't got a clue, knightrider" Jessica replied "but this isn't what the Navy pays us for."

"Just making conversation, hammerhead" said Knight. "Hang on a sec... tally ho, I've got contacts. Three of them. South of us and moving fast on a parallel course."

"Ok then, lets take a look" said Jessica as she pitched her super hornet left and her wingman followed.

October 25, 2552

location: Earth, Antarctica, MT Erebus- covenant excavation site

A jackal moved cautiously across the snowy tundra, carbine in its arms as it conducted it's patrol route. It noticed a flurry of movement in its peripheral vision and turned to face a snow bank. Before it knew what happened, a bullet penetrated it's environment suit and blew its brains out over the back of the helmet. Two figures wearing white cloaks got up from the snowbank, they kept their heads low so no nearby covenant would spot their gold faceplates under the cloak's hood.

"Nice shot" the lead figure, Senior Chief Petty Officer Fred-104 said into his COM.

"You owe me one, later" replied petty officer Linda-058 from her concealed position several clicks away. Fred turned to his other teammate, petty officer Will-043. Their mission was to destroy an apparent covenant drilling operation on Mount Erebus, using a HAVOK tactical nuke. Will had the nuke in his white satchel. Both Spartans kept low to the snow floor as they made their way over to a rise, below them was a full company of covenant troops, further on was the base of mount Erebus, and covenant drilling equipment. ONI had authorized them only to plant the nuke in the covenant encampment, not to approach the drill site. Fred and Will kept low to the ground as the crawled along the rise and down to the camp. After making sure their cloaks hadn't been torn they crept around the covenant supply depot, which wasn't as heavily guarded.

"Over here" said Will as he pointed to a rather large container, bing enough to fit two scorpion tanks inside, and still have room to spare. "This is probably what they used to ship the drill equipment down."

"Which means they won't be coming back to this particular crate any time soon" said Fred "let's do it."

The two Spartans moved to the main ramp of the crate and bounded inside. There were a few smaller containers still inside, Fred and Will moved over to one positioned against the container wall. Fred pulled it away and Will slipped in behind and broke out the nuke. The whole process took about five minutes and they replaced the crate with the nuke attached in its original spot. Then made their way to the rendezvous point with Linda. She appeared to be an ordinary snow mound from her crouched position.

"What took you?" she said jokingly.

"No time for antics" said Fred "we still got several clicks to cover". This turned out to be an arduous 20 click trek across the snow, not a problem for the Spartans, their enhanced speed let the make there in only half the time, waiting for them was their pelican dropship.

"About time" said their pilot, sergeant Laura (smokes) Tanner as she fired the dropship's engines, after the Spartans were secure in their seats. Also in the back was crew chief, corporal Jim Higgins. The Spartans removed their white cloaks, underneath they wore their new MJOLNIR Mk VI armor. Just issued to them five days ago, the same day the covenant attacked Earth. The initial assault force was repelled but the covenant sent reinforcements, but they didn't glass the planet like they had done so many times before. Their team leader, John-117 had followed the prophet of regret's carrier when he fled New Mombasa, they hadn't herd from him since.

"We're outside optimum distance" said Tanner "fire away"

"With pleasure" said Fred as he sent the signal. Behind the dropship a new sun flared into existence as the nuke vaporised the covenant presence, as well as half the mountain. Fred leaned back against the seat ad looked out the viewport as the dropship left Antarctica behind and raced for the south Atlantic. Before Fred could start to relax though the pelican entered a steep dive.

"Hang on" said Tanner "we've got banshees on out tail."