Burke was thrown from his chair as the "Pegasus" took a direct hit from one of the Covenant carrier.
They had faired well so far, destroying several Covenant ships without losing one of their own. There were still only four of them left.
A voice came through the COM "hello, Captain Burke, respond"
Burke rose from the floor, blood trickled down his face, from a cut on his forehead. He stumbled towards his chair and picked up his microphone.
"This is Burke"
A sigh came through the mike, "this is Captain Cole of the carrier "I would have been your daddy", we have sustained major damage, and we only have our seven nuclear warheads, request permission to execute Cole protocol, and secondary plan"
Burke did not speak. He thought about Cole's plan, sighed, then turned on his mike.
"Permission granted Captain, god's speed" Burke said wearily.
Burke watched his monitor of the overview of the battle. He watched as the "I would have been your daddy" flew into the middle of seven Covenant cruisers, he watched as the cruisers turned to face the carrier. Then there was a huge flash of light.
"Lieutenant prepare to fire MAC guns at any surviving cruisers," Burke said
"Aye sir"
One cruiser drifted away from the explosion, systems rendered inoperable by the EMP. The "Pegasus" MAC guns fired and the cruiser exploded. The carrier had detonated all seven nukes, creating a catyclismic explosion destroying all but one cruiser.
Burke reopened the COM "all remaining ships, co-ordinate with the "Pegasus" navigator, we're goin back to help the survivors". The three remaining ships turned about, and went into the slipspace.
Sean looked around at the dead elites, once their leader had been killed, they acted rashly, uncoordinated, they charged into open fields of fire, and getting gunned down. Sean walked inside of the phantom, keeping his magnum ready.
There appeared to be no one inside. Strange runes and symbols were on holographic keyboards.
"George" he called, "get in here". The Spartan in recon armour climbed up the hatch. The room was illuminated with purple lights, there was a row of seats across the two walls of the ship and at the pilot station there were holographic runes and symbols.
George stood in front of them.
"Can you fly it?" Sean asked. George snorted
"Of course I can", he sat down in the station's chair and began reading the holograms, "I was in training of all available vehicles including phantoms, now give me a sec". He leaned closer to read the runes, "right" he said, "I recognise this, I can pilot this baby no prob"
Sean patted him on the shoulder and left the phantom. He jumped down through the circular hatch, landed and walked to the weapons cache. He flexed his stump where his right arm had been; he would have to get the engineers to give him a cybernetic arm if they ever got back to a UNSC ship. He sighed, and kept walking.
Troy and Ed hopped up through the hatch of the phantom and stared around at the luminous purple interior. Troy tapped George on the shoulder, and nodded to him. Then the COM channel started receiving a large amount of static "…hello, this is Spartan…Jack I am onboard Covenant….requesting evac or…to destroy this ship"
George replied "evac is on the way Jack, hold on we are in phantom", he stopped and turned "Ed" he said "Grab all our explosives, if this goes south then we gotta be ready".
The phantom took off and swayed slightly, it's anti-grav stabilisers keeping it airborne. George nodded to Ed and Troy, they knew the risks.
Sean heard a noise of engines, he ran out of the cache, David and Niall in his wake. He looked around, and seen their phantom dropship flying towards the Covenant carrier.
He clicked his COM "George what the hell are you doing?" he shouted
"Sir, we're saving Jack, and if we fail, that carrier is gone" the reply said
"Get back here now" Sean said "that is an order!"
"Negative sir"
Sean sighed again, then said "good luck Spartans"
He watched the phantom fly off into the shadow of the vast Covenant carrier. They waited, ten minutes, twenty, half an hour, an hour, then there was a huge explosion underneath the shields of the carrier. It rippled along the whole line of the ship until the whole ship was engulfed in flames, and it disintegrated.
Sean hung his head, there goes four more good Spartans he thought, and he thought, these lives were not wasted. They destroyed a Covenant carrier, no easy achievement, so they couldn't have been wasted, but still it was yet another loss.
He thought about all of the others he had lost, Diarmuid during the procedure, Chris in the drop, and now Ed, Jack, George and Troy, four of the best Spartans he had ever known, certainly better than him and his squad.
Then he heard static through his COM "This is the UNSC Pegasus, any remaining ground units respond", Sean clicked on his COM
"This is the Ghosts of Reach Terra squad, transmission received"