"Shipmaster Faith and Glorious Redemption, this is Rear Admiral Boris Mikhailovich, commanding officer of the Citadel Expeditionary Force. We have arrived and are prepared to make the jump," the short Alliance officer said through a communications channel opened between his flagship, the cruiser SSV Lima, and the Faith and Glorious Redemption, patiently awaiting the CEF's arrival.
"Shipmaster Mikhailovich, maneuver your fleet directly underneath the Faith and Glorious Redemption. Once you are in position, await instruction," a gravelly voice replied from the other end of the connection. Boris sighed, wishing he could see who he was talking to. He'd learned not to trust audio-only communications through the death of his colleague Rear Admiral Kahoku, whose hunt for troops dispatched to an audio-only distress call lead to his assassination, which was still under investigation.
Mikhailovich turned to his bridge crew, issuing the appropriate orders to the CEF to maneuver them to a position under the supercarrier.
His flotilla would form the forward element—small and quick frigates and cruisers. Behind his frigate screen was the salarian 'force' of frigates loaded down with enough electronics intelligence equipment to sink an old-style carrier. Next in line were the turian and asari units—they were the heavy hitters. To most of the galaxy's astonishment the turians lent two dreadnoughts to the cause, though Mikhailovich suspected it was because dreadnoughts had been revealed to be essentially useless against Covenant weapons. The asari had sent a small task force of cruisers and frigates, assigned in the CEF to be escorts for the turian dreadnoughts.
Working with salarians was a new experience; the little lizards were quick on the uptake and impatient as hell. They were displeased the CEF was under human command, but the Council still felt indebted to humanity to a small degree after the Battle of the Citadel. That was fine by him, the longer humanity could ride that the better.
As his frigates fell in under the massive supercarrier, Mikhailovich realized just how large the ship was—relative to his hundred meter ships, it may as well have been a planet. The displays just showed a massive purple wall above the CEF, which was disconcerting. Even the dreadnoughts were dwarfed.
"Shipmaster Mikhailovich, take your ships forward now," the voice said, and reluctantly Mikhailovich issued the order. The CEF began to travel forward in a tight formation, toward the very bow of the supercarrier.
Without warning, the auditory emultators crackled and a huge, glowing blue sphere appeared before them.
"What is this?" he asked the other shipmaster.
"A portal into the void, fear not and fly into it. You shall ride in our wake," came the reply.
Gritting his teeth, Mikhailovich continued forward until they were on the cusp of the thing. He watched the Covenant's ship begin to pass through faster and faster, and he took the CEF in. Everything went black, as there was nothing to see.
The crew was distressed by this, and communications with the other ships were impossible.
"Human, your communications are likely not working, so I do not expect a response. You are in the void, an area of space that allows for rapid travel from point to point. We shall arrive in the target system in less than three units, as it was quite close to your Pax system," the Covenant shipmaster announced over their communications link.
"Three units?" Mikhailovich asked, annoyed. "What the hell does that mean?"
Heads shook in confusion around the bridge as the seething admiral took a seat behind his console and buckled down for what may or may not be a long wait. The intelligence on Covenant society was nonexistent. Their timekeeping units were evidently called 'units', something immensely unhelpful. Dutifully, though, he added that entry to the ship's log.
"We discovered the technology of the void Ages ago, before even the Covenant had been formed. It allowed us to move among the stars, traveling in units, cycles, what would've taken us an Age to travel beforehand. It was a gift from the Gods," the alien voice said slowly, it was for certain this alien was still learning the language, although he didn't appear to need help with any of the words.
Dutifully, if disinterestedly, Mikhailovich took notes on the monologue, underlining 'the void' three times with a question mark placed beside it. What was this void? How did it allow the Covenant to travel so quickly?
About two hours passed and suddenly they were warned by the sangheili that they were about to return from the void. Right on time light returned to the visible spectrum, placing those present in a position to see a huge field of battle laid out below them.
A dusty-looking brown planet burned below them, silhouetting dozens upon dozens of Covenant ships twisting and turning, maneuvering through space, jumping through the void from point to point in an effort to gain better position on their adversaries.
Red lights flashed through space at one target or another, oftentimes dodged by a timely jump into the void. Other ships were stricken, drifting through space venting purple fire that extinguished just as quickly as it entered space. Others flew close to each other and delivered devastating attacks with blue plasma bolts that tore through their barriers and melted their hull.
A handful of ships roughly twice as large as Covenant mainline cruisers but not nearly as large as the Faith and Glorious Redemption formed up and drove through the formations, firing those silvery lances through the opposing ships and devastating them instantly. That weapon appeared to be the most deadly of the Covenant arsenal, but its downside was that it didn't appear to be able to rotate. If you stayed above their ships, they couldn't use that on you.
"Admiral, enemy ships on approach," the LADAR officer announced, before pausing. "I believe they're enemy ships. They're moving very quickly."
Forward elements of the small Council Expeditionary Force began getting more detailed active scans of the enemy, revealing that their weapons were not ready to fire.
"Negative," Mikhailovich said. "Stand down. Those ships aren't going to shoot."
The four CCS-class battlecruisers, as they'd been informed they were called, fell into formation around the front half of the supercarrier, leading it toward the conflict with a bigger, better screen.
Well aware of the destructive power of these vehicles and not wishing to be caught in that particular crossfire, Mikhailovich kept his ships well behind the newly-arrived screen as they struck toward the battle.
"The heretics are breaking contact Admiral," the sangheili shipmaster announced as they approached. "They're coming this way. It seems they seek to overwhelm the Faith."
Mikhailovich shifted his gaze down to the display where the shapes representing the heretic vessels were now turning toward the new arrivals, leaving a screen behind them while the bulk of the fleet advanced. He counted thirty-two ships against the Faith, four cruisers, and the CEF.
He ordered the frigates to fall back around the CEF's strength, noting that some of the fighters were one third the length of his frigates with some concern. By his math he had to concentrate GARDIAN systems to take them down. Next, he ordered the dreadnoughts to charge their cannons so they'd be ready to fire the minute those ships entered their maximum effective range.
"The CEF is prepared," Mikhailovich reported.
"Very well," the shipmaster on the other end acknowledged. "Smite them as soon as you can."
After a short roll of his eyes at the bizarre terminology their new allies used, he relayed that command to the turian commanders of the dreadnoughts. Fortunately, the opposing ships were already inside of the max effective range.
The two dreadnoughts began firing, a massive slug was discharged from the main guns every two seconds, tracking ahead of the lead heretic vessels estimating precisely where they would be in the several seconds after the round left the dreadnought and arrived at the target point.
Each round struck home. The first slammed into what appeared to be a very strong kinetic barrier and did no damage, nor did the second, third, fourth, fifth, or sixth. The rounds glanced off the shields like they were fired from a pistol rather than a dreadnought.
When the sixth round hit, though, there was a blue flash and the seventh round drove into the hull of the ship and punctured it, two seconds later the eighth arrived and punched into the hull a little ways down, and the ninth an equal distance down the hull from that. The cruiser was perforated all along its length and the twelfth shot apparently struck the ship's drive core, as a brilliant blue explosion blew the back end of the ship apart and sent the front careening into the cruiser immediately to the right.
Two cruisers were destroyed and one was severely damaged by the time the other twenty-nine arrived and began engaging the Faith and her escorts.
The CEF frigates and cruisers broke formation and engaged single targets en masse, as going ship-to-ship was obviously suicide. The dreadnoughts were able to bring down two more cruisers before they attracted significant attention and the order was given for them to jump to FTL to get a kilometer away.
Without the dreadnoughts for the few minutes they were in transit, the CEF was hopelessly outgunned. They maneuvered as well as they could, but frigates were being destroyed at an alarming rate when engaged by what were identified as the mainline Covenant fighter, the Type-31 XAV—the "Seraph."
All it took was a wing of Seraphs—four, five maybe—to overwhelm a frigate and bring it down. Dozens were being deployed by the cruisers. Cruisers fared better, especially when the frigates weren't being driven back by the Seraphs. Cruiser GARDIAN batteries blew apart the Seraphs with relative ease, but one did get outmaneuvered and driven away from the main CEF where it was destroyed with all hands.
After the cruiser was lost the dreadnoughts got in communication again and began to pick targets, drawing off several cruisers in what rapidly evolved into a game of cat-and-mouse. The dreadnoughts would fire, attract the attention of three to four cruisers, and enter jump through space to another point within the max range when the cruisers turned to give chase. The heretics, unable to track the dreadnoughts in FTL, were forced to wait to see where they appeared next and take their fire while they calculated the jump through the Void to their position. Then the dreadnoughts would retreat again, and the cycle would restart.
The real heavy-hitter, of course, was the Faith and Glorious Redemption. The massive carrier pulled out all the stops to deal with the heretics with fanatical fervor. Both their nose and ventral energy projectors were lashing out constantly as the ship rolled about in space to line up shots on its targets. The supercarrier claimed half a dozen cruisers in the group that attacked it before the shipmaster turned his attention to the screen holding the friendly cruisers in check and began to destroy them systematically.
With the screen gone, or mostly gone, the reinforcements rushed to the aide of the Faith and ended up behind the attackers, encircling them. Realizing the futility in continued combat, the heretics escaped into the Void, their numbers reduced to seven from thirty-two.
This gave Mikhailovich time to count his losses. Fully half of the frigates were gone and the other half were collecting what few escape pods weren't also destroyed. Two cruisers were destroyed, one with all hands, on the other some of the crew managed to escape before it was totally destroyed. Both dreadnoughts survived, each accruing an impressive number of kills. Two of the cruisers sent to escort them from the "true" Covenant were destroyed, the other two severely damaged, and the Faith emerged totally unscathed.
In his after-action report, Mikhailovich reflected on the Faith's power and prowess in combat.
The Covenant naval vessel [hereafter CNV] Faith and Glorious Redemption [hereafter 'Faith'] displayed incredible power. With a single shot it could destroy any vessel we have. It would take the entire turian fleet to bring it down, or even just have a chance at bringing it down. I watched as she swatted a dozen dreadnought-sized ships from the sky without garnering a scratch. Furthermore, she did it at great range- a hundred thousand kilometers or more. From what I've observed, if more than one CNV Faith-class ship attacked any one position, the opposition would be wiped out unless it was a joint human-turian fleet with the other races in support. There can be no resisting the power of this vessel, as well as no understatement of said power.
He saved the report, unable to send it seeing as they were in an unknown part of the galaxy far from the nearest communication buoy.
For now the CEF waited in high orbit over the planet below licking their wounds.
"Do you see that?" a technician asked in the STG listening post in the Annos Basin. His supervisor, a colonel, arrived and looked over his shoulder.
"Curious," he hummed. They were looking at traffic coming through the relays and registered six large ships utilizing the relay in the past minute. "Very massive ships. Dreadnought-sized. Send this directly to headquarters."
"Yes, sir," the underling replied, sending the readouts to STG HQ on the salarian home world. Something was wrong, as the six massive contacts were on the way to human space. Had the humans moved dreadnoughts into the Pax system? Or was something bigger moving out?
HQ came back with the simple response: Keep advised.
The salarian watchman acknowledged and went back to monitoring the relay network.
On the distant Covenant colony world of Skybound Altar, the heretics had overtaken the comparatively small loyalist faction, securing the world. It was the place from which their attempt to cleanse the Covenant was coordinated.
The search for a leader of the revolution had yielded few san 'shyuum willing to take on the mantle. Worse still, the revolution had been dealt twin defeats above Noveria and a colony world called Sterling Gem within eight cycles of each other.
After the defeat at Sterling Gem, a sangheili shipmaster known as Ikaporamee began to rally a significant base of support with stories of being the Prophet's first confidant. He knew the Prophet of Serenity's warning as well as anyone, and before long he became the de facto leader of the heretics.
Today he sat in a newly-convened Interim Council of the Pure, wherein all those who thought themselves worthy to form a council to lead the revolution were gathered to decide their course. It was smaller than it could have been, as many were scared off by the defeats of the past few cycles, but the strong of heart were now gathered upon the temporary capital of the heretics.
"Brothers, hear me! Our fleets have found defeat when assaulting the impure, our former brothers," Ikaporamee said from the center of the circular room. Around him were seated several dozen sangheili and a handful of san 'shyuum.
"What shall we do?" a sangheili shouted. From his harness appeared he was a fellow shipmaster. He sat on one side of the doorway that lead out of the room directly onto the sandy ground of the planet, from which a wispy path of yellow sand trailed toward the center of the room, driven more by feet than by the wind, though the wind too blew through the room brining the warmth with it.
"I have already taken the next step. If we cannot sway our former brothers, we will destroy their corrupting influence. We have learned how to use the aliens' technology through an informant aboard an impure vessel, and I have dispatched a force through what has been called a 'relay' to destroy that which lay on the other side," Ikaporamee announced. "We have not received word about their progress yet."
"How are you sure this will work?" a meek-sounding san 'shyuum asked from his stone gravity throne. "How will this cleanse the Covenant?"
"If we strike their allies, they will be forced to withdraw from our space to defend them," Ikaporamee reasoned.
"You speak of 'their' and 'our', are we not one Covenant? We are not separatists, we are the pure seeking to cleanse the impure of the alien influence," the san 'shyuum retorted.
"If one of their ships arrived in orbit right now, do you think they would be peaceful in their intentions? Would they send forward a greeting party? To you, my brothers, I say nay. They would burn this world to end our efforts and silence us. The decision to make it us versus them was not ours to make, but it was theirs and they made it. They have fired upon us at the behest of these new aliens. If that is not an act of heresy, what is?" Ikaporamee asked the audience, but with his eyes firmly locked on those of the san 'shyuum who had questioned him.
Satisfied, the san 'shyuum remained silent. Ikaporamee turned his attention back to the audience at large. "Now we must choose. Do we press the attack on the aliens, the source of this cancer spreading through the Covenant, or do we continue to slay our brothers?"
The room grumbled agreement that they must attack the source, but that further missions into alien space were contingent upon the attack that could be in progress as they spoke.
So they waited in the circular room, silence ruling for a few minutes save for the sound of blowing sand and light wind. The star shined brightly on the hot planet, one the sangheili felt at home upon.
A/N:
Sorry for the short chapter! I wanted to get one up after such a long hiatus. School and work have hit me hard, and after muddling through this chapter the next one should be cool (and possibly longer, since this one is short). I have stuff planned… and thangs. It'll be good, I hope. A lot of build-up for this chapter, I hope to have Nine out by the end of next week.
Also, I'm still undecided regarding a codex. Not sure if it's warranted yet. If anyone's really truly confused PM me and I'll be glad to answer any questions you've got.
As always, thank you for reading, and additionally, thank you so much for your patience.
JLake4