Author Response First:
J.E.P 1996: The term battle dreadnought denotes a ship larger and bigger than a dreadnought. The ship order system goes a bit like this: light cruiser fast cruiser cruiser heavy cruiser fast battleship battleship dreadnought battle dreadnought. Each size up is larger and more heavily armed than the previous one, the battle term before dreadnought means its a bigger, meaner version of a dreadnought.
SpartanDog1: your comment would carry more weight if this wasn't taking place more than thirty years after the war. Plus while not unknown, there were elites who specialized in things besides combat.
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Admiral of the Fleet Lord Knight Terrance Hood looked up the polished, heavily stained oak table to where the hologram of the UEG president sat at the head of the table, his chin resting on steepled hands and his mouth drawn out into a thin scowl.
"Hood, what steps are we taking?" The president ground out.
At once, the heads of everyone present turned towards him, the Chief Director of ONI, Vice Admiral (upper half) Demeter Kiev, the General of the Army, Arnold Shaw, and the face of Vice Admiral (lower half) Kongo Chitose, as President Andrew R. Strauss was already looking at him.
"Sir," Hood began, "I've given mobilization orders to Vice Admiral Chitose and the entirety of the seventh fleet to more out from Harvest to the Shanxi system to join Rear Admiral Shearton and take take command of the situation and defend against any further intrusions by the aliens. Aside from her fleet's standard disposition, we've attached a number of science and tender ships to ensure that they'll be fine on their own for a time and that they'll be able to figure out what that construct is. Once they do, we've attached half a dozen prowlers and stealth cruiser Beyond Oblivion to her fleet to make jumps through the FTL system and find out what is on the other side and just where it is so we can begin our next moves."
"I see, does anyone else have any suggestions?" The president replied.
"Just one," Demeter said as he spoke up, "I would like to request that in case of further encounters, we have the Thermopylae attached as an independent unit to Admiral Chitose's fleet. It would be likely that the Spartan-IV's would prove quite capable of subduing one of the smaller ships if the opportunity arose." Demeter said, his voice accented slightly by his native Russian.
"I would agree to this, Anyone else have anything to say?" Strauss asked.
A series of shaking heads answered him before he continued speaking, "Very well then, Vice Admiral Chitose, get your fleet under way and reinforce Admiral Shearton's position and then move on from there. Understood?"
"Yes sir," Vice Admiral Chitose replied, a touch of her oriental origin showing in her accent as she snapped off a quick salute and faded from view as her hologram cut from the conversation.
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Captain Dorrell stood stiffly at attention on the bridge of the dreadnought Palaven as he waited for his superior before him to turn their attention towards him. Though he knew the waiting tactic was a play to make him nervous, he couldn't deny it was working as his mandibles worked in nervousness from the wait. He had seen the uniform on the turian before him and realized this was the legendary admiral Ardes Trell.
His thoughts were suddenly swept away as the admiral in question turned about to face him, giving him an appraising look.
"So Captain Ammen, you took your flotilla through the relay on orders from high command. You engaged and destroyed a single ship you found there as ordered, before additional ships further out from the relay destroyed your entire group barring your ship which was heavily damaged. Is this correct?" Admiral Trell asked.
Dorrell felt his mandibles flatten against his face in fear before he said, "Yes sir, that is correct. I would like to note that of the ships further out from the relay, seven of them were dreadnoughts and four others were cruisers."
"Yes I noticed that and that would be why I'm here with twenty-two of our militaries dreadnoughts, nearly two thirds of our military's fire power, Ammen, so your warning about their dreadnoughts and their weapons did not go unneeded."
"Thank you sir," Dorrell managed to get out.
"Now, the Pride of the Ancestors should be ready for action in twelve hours, at that point I want you to do a full systems check, and provided your ship is ready for action you will jump with the rest of us to fight these upstarts. Understood?"
"Yes sir!" Dorrell replied, snapping off a smart salute, thankfully it seemed he wasn't heading to the chopping block for the loss of his flotilla, but rather he was getting another shot at the aliens that had on the other side of the relay.
Unfortunately, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive about fighting them again.
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Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since the Persistent Beat had been destroyed and Rear Admiral Richard Shearton was only growing more bothered by the moment. He knew from the messages from HIGHCOM that Vice Admiral Chitose was less than half a hour away in slip space, but until she arrived, he was still rather vulnerable to an attack from the aliens if they returned which they surely would, after all the frigate analogue that had escaped back through FTL had surely gone to summon help.
In response to that fear, the Sangheili ships had joined their UNSC counterparts in a combat formation 100,000 kilometers distant from the construct with weapons at a constant seventy-five percent charge to keep them ready and prevent undue wear-and-tear.
As he watched the construct though, the event he had been waiting for finally happened. Dots of blue light shot from the distance only to be caught and brought to a crawl by the construct before they resolved themselves as ships.
A large number of ships.
There were twenty-two ships that sensors was tagging as cruiser analogues, another forty that were tagged as frigate analogues, with an additional fifteen tagged as destroyers, and then there were seventy-three ships being marked as corvettes.
All in all, Richard couldn't help but feel like he was staring down the throat of another Covenant attack. The ways they had always been so badly outnumbered flooded back before being soundly stomped on. These aliens weren't the Covenant, but even if they were, they would still win, just like they had before.
His thoughts were interrupted as his weapons officer called out, "They are entering the distal radius of the field sir."
"Understood," Richard replied calmly. With a thin smile, he set his thumb on the biometric pad and watched the red 'inferno' button on his command chair light up in response. Checking the sensor screen briefly, he uttered a heartfelt pair of words at the aliens and pressed down on the button, listening to the satisfying click.
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It had been a small matter. After the Human-Covenant War it was standard practice for every warship in the UNSC navy to carry stealth nuclear mines, the only differences were how many. Their primary use was for when the ships had to turn tail and run, to be deployed in their wake where the stealth mine would maneuver into the way of perusing ships and detonate, either steering them or giving the fleeing ship a chance to turn the tide of the fight.
That said though, these mines still retained their original purpose for use as stealth minefields against predicted opponents, and in this case they had served their roll perfectly. The twenty-five 30megaton FIGMENT nuclear mines had been set up twenty-five hundred kilometers out from the construct to prevent damage and based on where the ships had appeared previously, on the middle of a straight line path from them to the combined UNSC/Sangheili fleet.
From there it had been the mere click of a button on Rear Admiral Richard Shearton's part to see to the destruction of a large part of the incoming fleet.
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"Nukes. They used nukes!" Ardes shouted with rage over the fleet wide communication channels, "How barbaric are these aliens?! They're still using atomic weapons!"
"Admiral, we need to rethink our position here. The fact that we've lost so many ships puts us at a significant disadvantage plus there's the fact that the weapons on at least four of their ships bypass kinetic barriers," Dorrell interjected.
"Are you suggesting we flee, Captain Dorrell?" Trell shot back, stressing the word Captain.
"No sir, merely that we need to reconsider our choices. The fact they're willing to use nuclear weapons so close to a garden world puts us at a significant disadvantage in combat," Dorrell replied as calmly as he could.
There was a drawn out 'hmmmm' over the line before another ship captain cut into the conversation saying, "Admiral Trell, the alien ships are pinging us. If I had to guess they want us to surrender!"
"We will do no such thing!" Trell roared over the line, "What else are those ships doing?"
"Nothing at the moment sir, they're holding position 97,500 klicks out from us."
Again a detracted 'hmmm' came over the line before Trell returned saying, "Order all ships to readiness those nukes we encountered were prepositioned so we won't likely see any more of them. Besides that we still hold a numerical advantage in all areas so we're going to go ahead with our attack
"Understood sir," came from all the captains though some were significantly more reluctant than others.
Dorrell's reply among them.
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"Admiral, the alien fleet is advancing, energy readings indicate their weapons ARE charging!" The sensor officer called.
"We'll we have our answer don't we? All ships fire at will," Shearton responded over the fleet wide comm line, his voice rather grim.
While the nuclear minefield had certainly done its job, his fleet was still facing thirteen cruiser analogues, ten destroyer analogues, eight frigate analogues and nineteen corvette analogues.
And now they had to see about slimming that number down a bit. Across the tactical screen, Richard watched as the ships in his battle group fired their MAC guns and their archer missiles and made sure to note the four CCS's launching their plasma torpedoes towards the oncoming fleet. If all went well, they would knock out at least half the ships charging towards them.
Just as he had this thought, he saw the bows of the approaching ships flare with light before suddenly feeling the hull rock under him.
"Report!" He shouted, demanding to know what that had been.
"Mass drivers sir, extremely small but much higher velocity than ours!"
"All ships survived, though the destroyer Meet the Maker is reporting her shields are down!" Various bridge stations reported in.
The Sangheili seemed to have taken umbradge at not having been shot at in the first salvo responded instantly. With an intense white glow, energy projectors on the bottoms of the cruisers charged before suddenly discharging in brilliant white lances of radiation and energy.
One of the shots hit a destroyer analogue amidships before sweeping sideways to bisect two frigate analogues.
All three disappeared in massive fireballs as their reactors were breached.
Another energy projector shot hit one of the cruiser analogues and holed it nose to tail, gutting the ship and leaving it drifting as nothing more than a lifeless hulk.
The other two shots each cut across the paths of the advancing corvettes, instantly destroying six and cutting apart another three.
One unfortunate ship in an attempt to avoid utter destruction pulled up sharply and lost one of its wings where upon it spun into a neighboring ship and remained as they both drifted dead in space.
Richard watched with interest as the alien ships returned fire in a second salvo directed at the CCS class ships, before the fired plasma and MAC rounds plowed into them.
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Dorrell watched with horror as the surviving fleet's first salvo impacted only to to be deflected and absorbed by silver-gold shields that flared into existence the moment before the rounds would have impacted.
The alien ships had responded with their own fire, launching a salvo of their own slower moving, but much larger mass driver shots while the four silver-white ships had responded with their burning red energy weapons which had then been followed up with a weapon so terrifying, Ammen was still reeling from seeing the effects.
Four beams of white had shot from the bellies of the 1,600 meter monsters and left the fleet in ruins.
Over a dozen ships were out of the fight and the dreadnought Honor Above had been gutted in a single shot from the beam, with no sign that the ship's impressive kinetic barriers had done anything to stop or even resist the terrifying weapon.
And now as he watched the fleet fire a second salvo, this time directing all their weapons at the silver ships.
He tried to be grateful they had gotten their second salvo off, but the fact was the aliens' opening attack was about to land and after having been on the receiving end of their weapons once before, he was certainly not optimistic.
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Richard watch watched as the massed salvo slammed into the alien ships. A handful of rounds missed as their targets had managed to take evasive action or that the rounds hit an oblique enough of an angle that they skipped off the shields that flared into existence.
Most of them however plowed into their targets without a hint of mercy for the sailors inside the vessels. Seven hundred ton and larger MAC rounds hit the mark and with grim satisfaction, Richard watched as all but two of the corvette analogues and four of the frigate analogues were destroyed.
He noted with at first a touch of disapproval but than acceptance that the Sangheili plasma torpedoes were colliding with the cruiser analogues, but given the fact they weren't triggering the aliens' shields, that was an acceptable decision.
At the end of the exchange, there were only four frigate analogues left, two corvette analogues left, five cruiser analogues, and five destroyer analogues.
The exchange was getting more and more even in terms of numbers.
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"Sir this is suicide! We need to either flee and return with reinforcements or surrender. We won't survive if we keep fighting!" Captain Dorrell shouted at Admiral Ardes with all the force he could muster. He was going against everything instructed in the turian military to merely suggest such things, but the facts were too clear for him to ignore.
"Captain, and I am using that word for the moment, you will continue to advance and fire upon the aliens or I will order the fleet to open fire on you. Do you understand? I will not tolerate such cowardice from any officer under my command," Ardes roared back.
Ammen found he couldn't help but quail under the admiral's anger, but seeing the aliens' fire power, he had already made his mind up as he cut off the line, ending the conversation with a simple, "Yes sir."
As Captain Ammen Dorrell, sixteen year loyal officer of the Turian Hierarchy looked about the bridge of the ship, he saw doubt and fear in the faces of his fellow sailors.
The fear was the final straw as he began giving orders.
"Helm, give us flank speed towards the alien fleet and begin evasive maneuvers. Comm's, start hailing them in every language we can. Weapons, shunt all power to the engines and kinetic barriers. I for one don't intend to die here for a foolish commander," he said softly.
There was a pause and then a nod from navigation before the ship leapt forward and away from its comrades at arms as it was brought up to flank speed and began to jink and juke erratically. Over the comm lines, Dorrell could hear his communications officer broadcasting the ship's surrender in every known language as they speed towards the alien fleet.
Silently he held his breath and prayed to the spirits for protection for himself and his crew.
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So less then 24 hours after being posted and the story already has over 4,600 hits. Can't say I'm not damn proud about this. I will say I'm sorry chapters aren't as long as people would like, but shorter chapters are easier to get out and are also faster.
Besides the above, same stick as usual, whine in PM's to me, not the comments, suggestions are appreciated, and please R&R.