Chapter Two – The Battle of Troy

A message pinged off of Harmony's input buffer. She snatched it before the systems on the Bandwidth could detect it. The coded source was easily recognizable to those who knew Major Standish well. Harmony decrypted Standish's message and took in its contents. She copied the important data to her memory and deleted the message, pertaining to ONI protocol. Internally, Harmony smiled at what the message stated.

"Calling Commander Lukson. This is Harmony. Please report to the bridge. I have information for our next mission."

Commander Matthew Lukson strode into the bridge a few minutes later, and he approached the AI on her holo-pedestal. His white uniform was not quite as trim as usual, Harmony thought to herself. Neither was his attitude. His eyes betrayed what his voice did not; that he didn't want to be here. He was tired.

"What is it Harmony? More from ONI Section 3?"

"As I am sure you know, I am not disclosed to give you my source, but it is from the ONI." Harmony shimmered with excitement. "A ship was encountered just outside the Hellspont system, and just before it went down, it managed to send out a distress call. However, although a few defense ships were moved around it, the Covenant never attacked. We are to go to the coordinates of the Quebecois's last known position and gather intelligence on whatever Covenant may be there." Harmony explained. She pulled up a small map of the systems around Hellspont. "Here they were. We are to go there and gather intelligence on what happened to the ship."

"The Hellspont system?!" Lukson cried. "But that's just near Troy!"

"I know. They haven't seemed to show any signs of knowing that our planet is there, but that is why we are going. To keep them from finding out." Harmony replied.

"Alright. How long until we ship out?" Lukson asked.

"You have twelve hours. All your crew is now no longer on leave. I will see you then." Harmony vanished into her own subroutines, getting ready to record Covenant transmissions. The last bit of information she hadn't told Lukson was that the Covenant ship had just been spotted, and was thought to be a scout. They were to monitor it so Harmony could gleam information and then follow up with an attack if necessary.

Twelve hours later, the Bandwidth vanished into the alternate dimension that was known as Slipspace.

A shadow shimmered through the Slipspace portal as it slipped unnoticed into space just outside the Hellspont system, home to a human colony - Troy.

The crew of the Bandwidth watched as suddenly a red blip appeared on their radar. It shimmered, almost disappearing before Harmony recalibrated the system to see the cloaked Covenant scout. The AI took control of the comm station and the lieutenant manning it silently conceded. As Harmony reset the system to allow her to pick up the Covenant transmission she knew would be there, the AI took in the facing and armament of the Covenant craft. It seemed to be facing Troy, although it was always hard to tell with those alien ships. It wasn't very strongly armed but Harmony didn't doubt that it could turn them to molten slag in a minute.

The transmission suddenly came into Harmony's transmitters. She watched as the alien symbols scrolled across the screen. Something about these characters seemed familiar...

Harmony pulled up her records of the other Covenant transmissions she had intercepted but failed to decode. Here was the transmission she had picked up from a Covenant battle group just before they glassed Jericho VII. Here was the transmission from the Covenant scout just as he found Paris –

Harmony stopped. The symbols were arranged similarly to the transmission she was picking up now. She cross-referenced them and began a decoding scheme. Different symbols and meanings flashed through her matrix. Suddenly, she stopped. She had found a match. Harmony had actually decoded the Covenant transmission.

She snapped out of her self-congratulations and booted up the translating software. As the transmission translated, she opened up and set decryption schemes for her report to Major Standish.

"...The gods have blessed us. The system at coordinates 010-846-078 is a human-inhabited planet. It is poorly guarded - recommended glassing team three destroyers. I will remain at the system to monitor human activity..."

The rest of the message broke down into religious gabber that Harmony paid little attention to. They've found Troy! And they're going to attack it! Was the first thought into Harmony's mind.

She began organizing a message to Major Standish:

Decryption key:
ONI Priority - High
To: Sierra 10827
From: Hotel 11235
EYES-ONLY
Press ENTER to continue...

--------------
Standish, I have good news.

I have cracked the Covenant code. After translating their message, I have discovered the following:

They know of Troy, and they intend to attack it soon. The scout will remain and keep an eye out for updates. If we strengthen Troy's defenses, they will surely see and bring more destroyers. If we are to save the population of Troy, we must evacuate it quietly. But this is just my recommendation.

Justice reigns.
-----------------

Press ENTER to continue...

"Go ahead and begin evacuating people from the planet. I'll get another ship to coordinates 364-846-067 for you to shuttle the evacuees to. The Covenant probably won't wait long for the destroyers to begin glassing it." Sandish paused, something humans did that continually bugged Harmony. "Good luck Harmony. I think someone's onto me back here. Avi might have someone to keep me in line." Harmony could hear the Major smiling. "We'll see how long he lasts. Standish out."

Harmony appeared on the holo-pedastal. "Commander Lukson, we've been granted authorization to begin evacuating the civilians from Troy." She said. As always, she had a tone in her voice that hinted that what she was saying wasn't so much a suggestion as an order.

"Alright." He begrudgingly opened a comm channel through the ship. "All personnel, awaken the marines and ODSTs. Prepare them to head down to the planet and shuttle evacuees onto dropships." Then to the bridge crew he continued, "I want us brought around to the dark side of the planet. No need for us to cause a fuss." The Bandwidth inched around the planet as Harmony continued to monitor the Covenant scout.

"Where am I?" asked Petty Officer Thomas Starle; his voice croaky from the weeks of sleeping.

The two technicians looked terrified. "Troy." replied the shorter of the two. "The Covenant will be here any minute. We have orders to evacuate as many people as we can."

The man had neglected to call him sir, but Tom had more pressing matters to see to. Without another word he left the room and made his way to the armory. Once there he pried open his weapons crate and selected his shotgun, assault rifle and two pistols. He then retrieved some tape from a nearby shelf and began to attach extra ammunition to his armor before exiting and walking briskly towards the bridge.

Once there he made his way over to Harmony's holo-pedestal.

Commander Lukeson saw the Spartan enter the bridge and muttered frightenedly to Harmony, "I didn't know we had a SPARTAN on board!"

"Oh. I must have forgot." She replied coolly. In all seriousness, she had forgot, but that didn't matter anymore. Tom Starle approached her pedestal.

"What's going on?" he asked in his cool Spartan tone.

"We are in orbit around Troy as you can see. The Covenant are to show up any day now to glass the planet. We could just bring a fleet to evacuate the entire planet, but then the Covenant scout here -" Harmony highlighted the digital representation of the Covenant scout on the display board, "would be alerted and call for immediate reinforcements."

A call rang out through the bridge. "The first wave of dropships is away. Awaiting their return with evacuees."

"As you can see, quietly evacuating the population of Troy is our best option." The AI finished.

"What can I do?" Tom asked calmly. "I'm useless up here."

Jessie Lett woke with a start. Someone had just knocked on her door. Suddenly there was a crash.

Someone's breaking into my house! She thought instantly. She slipped out of bed and slipped on some clothes. Then she grabbed a rock she kept on her bedside table for decoration and snuck outside her room. Coming up the stairs were a group of dark strangers, at least one of them armed. One must have seen her, for they suddenly stopped.

"We're from the UNSC ma'am. We're going to have to help you off this planet." One said.

"What the hell do you want?" she spat nervously. She didn't trust these weirdoes, whether or not they were marines. As she eyed them she noticed the downstairs lights were all on. No burglars would turn on every light they found.

"We're here to get you off Troy and onto our ship. Please come with us." The man with the gun insisted.

Jessie thought for a moment, then relaxed her posture, if tightening up her insides. "Give me a few minutes."

"We don't have a few minutes. Please come." The man with the gun stepped forward and grabbed her arm.

"Get the hell off me!" Jessie jerked back. "I'll come. Just let me get my chatter!"

The man followed her into her room and watched her grab her small laptop computer and her chatter. She then turned and followed him out. "The government better get me enough to compensate for all this stuff I'm leaving behind." She said to him.

"That may or may not happen." The marine replied. "But at least you're saving your own life."

Jessie was intrigued. "Are the Covenant coming? Why didn't they evacuate all the other planets?"

"I'm not allowed to say. Watch your step." The marine helped her into a car and they sped off towards the dropship.

"We've got contacts!" one of the lieutenants called. Harmony engaged the sensors, only to discover the three destroyers they were expecting.

"The first wave of evacuees are safe! Sending out wave two." Came the call over the intercom.

"Contacts engaging!" Called the lieutenant at the weapons console. Harmony watched as Seraph fighters streamed from the ships on a crash course for the pelicans.

"Shit!" Harmony swore under her breath. "Lieutenant, bring this ship about. I want to engage those seraphs."

"What?" He yelled, before regaining his composure and turning the ship.

"Longswords engage the enemy." Harmony ordered.

"Ma'am!" Lukson exclaimed. "There's no way we can outgun four Covenant ships!"

"Outgunning them is not what I had in mind. We need to take out that stealth ship. That will give our marines enough time to evacuate the second wave of civilians. Then we will have to flee."

"And how do we take out the stealth ship?" Demanded Comander Lukson. "I know all of our araments. We have nothing that could possibly do enough damage to that thing! It's got anti-missile defenses for crying out loud!"

"You're forgetting one crucial weapon that could be easily overlooked." Harmony turned to Tom. "Ready to do some infiltration?"

"Thought you'd never ask." Tom grinned, turning and sprinting towards the hangar bay nearest the planet. His muscles were tense from the weeks he'd spent sleeping, but they still did the job. He pumped his shotgun as he ran, and after a minute or so he arrived in the bay.

Tom stared through the viewscreen as a Seraph fighter blew up and longsword. People were going to die. He had to do something; but what? He continued to watch. Thinking. Planning his next move.

The battle outside intensified.

He couldn't take a longsword. It would be too big and too obvious. He'd be shot down in seconds. No; a ship was out of the question.

He'd have to jump.

"Harmony. Do you have any idea where the control center would be located the ship?" he asked impatiently.

Harmony watched the Spartan with a section of her processing power, monitoring the rest of the battle as well. The Covenant destroyers were making their way around the planet slowly; they had little time.

"I don't know exactly, but from the few bits of research we've been able to do it seems to be near the center rather than at the head. There's a tac-nuke on board, I'm transferring it to you now." She pinged a pair of engineers and ordered them to transport it to Tom's hangar bay. "Just get it inside the ship and you should be fine. I'll order Hotel Squadron to weaken its shields and get them open for you."

"What are you thinking?" the Commander asked, watching Harmony incredulously. "There's no way a few Longswords can down a Covenant stealth ship's shields."

"No. But we will be the bait. The Covenant ship's shields go down when they fire." Harmony explained. "If worst comes to worst we can always ram them. We are much bigger, after all."

"And get right in the way of the plasma torpedoes of the other destroyers!" Lukson exclaimed.

"We're going to be counting on Tom. Let's just hope he can get into the ship." Harmony said finally.

"We've got contacts!" Jack Muller cried. He swerved around the Seraph's plasma, sending a volley of rockets back at the Covenant ship that had fired it. The explosives bounced off the seraph's shields, and Jack cursed his opponent's defenses.

"Charlie, Jan, Paul, Caroline, I'm pinned! A little covering fire would be nice." He swerved out of the way. Two fellow longswords dove in, hammering rockets on the surprised seraphs until Jack could spin and blast the Covenant fighters into oblivion.

"Nice work Hotel Squadron. Now we need to get to that ship." Jack boosted forward, watching on his radar as the other four ships of Hotel Squad formed up behind him. Suddenly another friendly appeared, but it was smaller than a dropship.

"Hey check that out!" Caroline Macmillan said over the comm. "It's the Spartan!"

"Shit!" Jack swore. "Find a target on the shields and open fire. Aim for where he's going to hit."

The five longswords opened fire on the Covenant ship's shields, barely fazing the cloaked ship. Suddenly Jan cried and Jack saw her blip fade from the radar. There was a few explosions and another voice came over the comm.

"Come in Hotel One."

"This is Hotel One, go ahead." Jack replied, reloading the missile cannons on his longsword.

"I'm sorry about Hotel Four. You were attacked by seraphs, and I just barely got there in time to cover you. I'll stay behind you with the remains of Juliet Squadron while you let the Spartan in. Juliet One out."

"Hotel Squad, keep an eye on the Spartan. When he is just about to hit the ship, let me know. I'm going to get this ships's attention." Jack double-checked the data Harmony had given him. He would have to somehow get the Covenant ship to fire at him at just the right time. Jack broke off from the core of the group, Juliet Squad covering his tail. Rockets detonated along the length of the ship's shields, and more and more seraphs turned on him to shoot him down. But they were shortly destroyed by Juliet Squad and the few longswords who could detach themselves from skirmishes.

Finally Jack ran out of rockets. "Damn..." He muttered. Then, with a moment's hesitation, he accelerated the longsword towards a plasma cannon on the side of the ship. The Covenant ship spotted him, and he made it look like he was arming a new set of rockets.

They took the bait.

The plasma cannon began charging. He heard something come over the comm, but the buzz of static from the charging cannon overwhelmed his communications. "I loved you Amelia."

Caroline watched with amazement as Jack dove straight at the charging plasma torpedo. He slammed into the still-online shields, bouncing off. The Spartan was just about to hit the shield...

"Hotel Squadron!" she cried into the comm. "Open fire on the weak spot! He won't make it!" The three remaining longswords unloaded the rest of their rockets, and the Spartan slammed into the shield. He saw the rockets coming and propelled himself out of the way. The rockets hit - and passed through the shield. Simultaneously, a bright blue blast erupted from Jack's position, engulfing him and the plasma turret adjacent to him in the torpedo's size.

A hole opened in the side of the Covenant vessel. The Spartan crawled along the side of the ship, still outside the shields. Caroline noticed a shimmer, however weak, reappear around the hole. "NO!" she screamed. She mashed down on the triggers, and rockets streamed into the shield surrounding the hole.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Paul exclaimed. "That's going to hit the Spartan!"

The explosions hammered on the shield, and Tom drifted towards the hole, no longer able to change his course. Suddenly the shields gave way, and he 'fell' into the ship. The rockets detonated around him, downing his shields and killing any Covenant who had come to fix the hole. The rockets stopped coming, and the shields flickered back to life around the entire ship.

"Mission accomplished." Caroline slumped back into her seat, wiping her sweaty palms on her shirt.

Moments later the ship detonated from within.

Harmony watched with satisfaction as the Covenant stealth ship detonated. The explosion was kept confined by the stealth ship's shields, something she was grateful for. The other Covenant ships reacted as she imagined, moving towards them even faster and more enraged.

"What's the status of the second wave?" she asked one of the lieutenants.

"They're just leaving the planet." He replied.

"And the Spartan?"

"I... don't see him ma'am. Hang on, let me double-check." He re-ran the software, hoping to find Tom the second time...

This is Spartan 064. Do not shoot. I repeat. Do not shoot.

"Sir! Receiving a transmission."

"Who is it?" Lukson asked, trying to regain command over his ship.

"It's... the Spartan!"

"Where's it originating from?" Harmony interjected, appearing on the holo-pedastal.

"That seraph!" the lieutenant said, surprised.

"Recall the longswords. The dropships are nearing the ship." Lukson ordered.

"Yes sir." Comunications replied. "All Longsword fighters, return to the Bandwidth. We are leaving in three minutes."

Harmony watched painfully as the longswords, seraph, and pelicans flew into the hangar bays. One by one dropships and retreating longswords fell to plasma blasts. Finally the Bandwidth closed its doors and prepared for the jump to Slipspace.

"Have all civilians go into cryosleep for the Slipspace transition. If there's not enough pods, freeze as many as we can." Harmony ordered.

"I can tell them to get in, but if they won't undress and get in the pods I can't make them." The communications lieutenant explained.

"MAKE THEM." Harmony ordered sternly.

"No." Lukson stood up and stared Harmony down. "You don't know what it takes to run a ship. I will be giving orders from now on."

"I know perfectly well how to run a ship. And unlike you, Commander, I have not lost a ship in combat and evacuated myself and myself alone to save my own skin." Harmony replied levelly.

"But all you know is orders, and following them to the letter. Let me introduce you to a topic you should have known about all along: FREE WILL. If these civilians don't want to get into those pods to be frozen, then we can't make them." Lukson was getting passionate.

"I know all about free will. It is the ability humans have to choose between right and wrong. We are putting them into cryosleep for their benefit." Harmony stayed calm in the face of anger and frustration.

"They are civilians. They aren't accustomed to following orders. And I can bet most of them are not comfortable with stripping in public."

"They are not in public. They are on a Navy ship."

The communications officer was speaking into the PA, but neither of the ship's commanders noticed.

"But it will seem public to them. They are going to be undressing in front of strangers. I can guarantee that they won't like that." Lukson argued.

The three Covenant destroyers opened fire, unleashing a score of plasma torpedoes at the UNSC ship.

"They must be made understand that they need to get in the cryopods. It is the only way."

The four lieutenants around Lukson and Harmony made eye contact with each other and nodded. The woman at navigations turned back to her station and tapped in coordinates.

"Enough!" Lukson finally exclaimed. "I'll do what I can." He turned to the viewscreen and saw the plasma torpedoes just about to impact. "HOLY SHIT!"

Click

The plasma torpedoes slammed against the Slipspace bubble that suddenly appeared around the Bandwidth. The ship vanished from the system, leaving the baffled Covenant destroyers to finish off the human planet of Troy.

"This is Lieutenant Demeter. We are entering Slipspace in a few moments. Any civilians who would enter cryosleep for the transition would be best off. It eliminates the physiological effects of entering Slipspace. I regret to say that we do not allow anyone to enter cryosleep clothed, as it induced cryoburns that can be very painful. If you wish to enter cryosleep, please find the nearest crew member and they will assist you."

Jessie heard the announcement along with many other civilians crowding around her. Most of the reactions were shock. They were expected to strip in front of strangers? Jessie was a stage actress, so she was willing to do whatever was necessary to do things right. She and a few other civilians bravely stepped forwards to enter cryosleep. The woman who she went to looked kind enough, if lacking sleep and stressed beyond her limit.

"Please, step this way." She led the twenty volunteers through a few halls until they came to a large room with a control room on a floor above and cryotubes lining the walls. "If you will remove al your clothes, jewelry, bandages, and get into the pod, then I can start the process."

A woman with Jessie hesitated for a split second before undressing with the rest. Jessie noticed as they were getting ready that their volunteering had convinced many others that it wasn't too bad. More civilians continued flowing in. Jessie finally lay down in the strange tube and let the woman shut it over her after giving her a small packet that looked like it contained energy gel.

"Please swallow that gel I gave you. It won't taste very good, but it will keep you nourished while you are asleep." The woman explained.

Jessie pulled open the pouch and sucked out the gel. Like the woman said, it tasted horrible.

"Now please relax..."

Jessie closed her eyes and relaxed. Suddenly she felt everything getting incredibly cold. Someone said something over the PA, and she fell unconscious.