Disclaimer: I own neither Halo nor Kantai Collection.
"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small."
-Neil Armstrong
The Shipmaster noted, with some interest, that the door to his quarters was closed. The automatic door to his quarters had been propped open ever since it ceased functioning after the battle with the humans. Could it be working again at last? Or someone closed it just to toy with me, he thought glumly; childish to be sure, but he would not put it entirely beyond the irritable youngster to do so anyway. Stepping closer, however, the Shipmaster was relieved to see the door open with a swoosh. Nodding to himself, the Shipmaster entered the small meeting room of his quarters. "It seems the Huragok have made progress," he mused to no one in particular.
"Indeed they have," a voice responded. The Shipmaster turned to face the black-clad Sangheili, who sat in one of the chairs in the meeting room. "I must say, Brother, I am pleasantly surprised by the depths of your patience. You may make a worthy addition after all."
The Shipmaster inclined his head slightly. While it was true that all Sangheili called each other Brother, he knew his black-clad brethren meant it more literally than most. And therefore, the Shipmaster indulged his fellow with thoughts he would not usually share. "There are times I worry I have become too patient. The human ship still eludes us, and a not insignificant part of me ponders if it is still here at all." His mandibles tightened in a frown. "Either they escaped when we first arrived, or they are hidden so well they cannot be found. Their shipmaster mocks me either way."
"They are still here," his companion said firmly. "Your sensors would have detected if they attempted to leave. But they have not. Ergo, they remain on this world."
"I wish I shared your confidence."
"I have fought the humans from the start of this war. This is what they do. They know they cannot face us in honorable battle, so they hide. They lure you into a false sense of security, before striking from the sides, where you do not look. You must be patient, and remain wary. The moment you let your guard down they will strike."
"Easy for you to say; you are not in charge of this ship! You need not answer for the hundreds of brothers already lost, nor need you reign in those who remain!" His brother simply returned a dispassionate gaze. The Shipmaster frowned again. "With each cycle that passes my crew grows more impatient, and I with them! I wish nothing more than to burn this world to ash, and cleanse the heretical filth that walks the planet below! And yet instead I sit on my hands, waiting for an enemy that may not even be present anymore!"
"And I tell you that it is still here!" his brother returned, leaping out of his seat.
"Then how do I flush it out?!" The Special-ops Sangheili frowned. "How do I flush it out," the Shipmaster continued, "without ground troops to send in, without another ship to offer as bait, without any target that they may wish to defend?" The Shipmaster gestured outside. "We thought destroying their satellites would bring it out. It did not. We though destroying their guns would bring them out. It did not. Anything we could find that looked threatening we threatened, yet nothing has brought this ship out! What next?"
The two Sangheili separated, both deep in thought. Finally, the Shipmaster asked. "In your great experience, Brother, what is the one thing that the humans fought hardest for?"
The black-armored one blinked. In truth, there were lots of things the humans fought hard for; it was one of the reasons the war had dragged on for so long. Yet to pick one thing they fought hardest to defend… "Their young."
The Shipmaster's mandibles tightened. "Then that is what I threaten next," he replied, doing his best to ignore the bitter taste in his mouth.
"I still can't believe I agreed to do this," Nagato grumbled.
"Given your history, I'm surprised you did too," Repensum's voice floated out of Harvest's rig. "But you sure seemed eager when you leapt out of your chair like that. Far be it for me to turn down such a willing volunteer."
"I've been nuked; it's not what you might call a pleasant experience. I just don't want the rest of the world to have to go through what I did."
"Whatever you tell yourself at night, lady," Repensum replied.
Harvest glanced up at Nagato before giving her rig a Look. "You know, for all the hate you've expressed for Parangosky, you really do act like how I imagine she would."
"Yeah, yeah. Hard men making hard decisions while hard, no moral compass whatsoever, blah blah blah. Heard it all before."
"And this is the group we're sending off to save humanity," Enterprise muttered from off to the side. "God help us all."
"Eh, they're a typical ragtag bunch of misfits," her older sister retorted. "Usually that means they'll do just fine."
"This isn't one of your movies, York."
"Says you."
The sound of Harvest clearing her throat silenced the conversations. "Right. Shall we set this crazy plan into motion?"
The group stepped out onto the tarmac of Tanegashima Space Center, one of the main launch facilities for Japan's space program. The island had been abandoned when the Abyssals first attacked, but the past week had seen the island hastily yet quietly repopulated.
"Bit convenient that a rocket just happened to be sitting around, ready to be used, don't you think?" Yorktown asked.
"From what they told me, the rocket was to be used for another satellite launch," Nagato replied. "It was scheduled to take place about a month after the Abyssals attacked, but while the navies tried to stem the Abyssal advance the rocket was de-fueled and stowed away before the island was abandoned. And unlike Kure, the Abyssals never saw fit to attack this place."
Yorktown still looked unconvinced, but Repensum broke back into the conversation. "As satisfying as it would be to understand the how and why, don't we have more critical things to be doing with our time?"
Harvest took in a deep breath and let it out. "Right. So, Nagato and I ride this rocket into orbit, motor over to the Covenant ship with my RCS, get through the shield, plant the nuke, blow up the ship, and the day is saved. Anybody have anything else they'd like to add?"
"Preferably, you should probably try and get the ship out of orbit before setting off the nuke lest pieces of Covie ship rain down to Earth," Repensum put in.
Harvest cursed. From what the ONI ship said, the ship's bridge was rather forward of the slipspace drive room they'd be entering in. "We'll do what we can."
"In addition, as surviving is hopefully part of your plan, Saratoga has NASA putting a rocket together in the California desert to bring you back if you need it," Enterprise said.
Harvest nodded. Hopefully that wouldn't be needed, but always nice to have a back-up. "And you guys know the signals?"
The American carriers nodded. "Couldn't you have picked a more original victory line than 'Mission complete'?" Yorktown griped. "At least 'Winter Contingency' for 'mission failed we're all gonna die' has a little bit of imagination behind it."
"'Winter Contingency' is the code for Covenant forces attacking a UNSC world."
Yorktown threw up her hands. "Well, never mind, then."
Enterprise rolled her eyes. "Well, best of luck to you both. We're all counting on you."
Harvest looked up at the rocket and sighed. "Thanks. We're going to need it."
Nagato winced as she made her way into the rocket's makeshift crew cabin. At just under 180 centimeters, she was tall for a Japanese woman. Having to wear a bulky space suit didn't help matters at all. She wouldn't need it once she manifested her rigging—Harvest's jaunt with Shimakaze had proved that, at least—but with her rigging would show up on the enemy's sensors as a full-sized ship. They needed to be stealthy, and that meant that until they could enter the enemy ship Nagato needed to wear the space suit.
Nagato glanced at the figure next to her jealously. Harvest had no need for a cumbersome space suit, but then again, she was also a space ship, so maybe it came with the territory. Nagato knew that people far smarter than her had run themselves ragged trying to decipher what many spitefully called "Magical Sparkly Shipgirl Bullshit", and Harvest herself had added several more such instances to an already long list.
The frigate buckled herself in and sighed. "Ready?" Harvest asked.
"As ready as I'll ever be, I suppose," Nagato responded. "I'll be honest, this is something I never expected to see myself doing." As Harvest nodded, Nagato suddenly thought of something. "Where is the enemy ship, anyway? I hope it's not right above us."
Harvest shook her head. "Last I heard, it was fucking off on the other side of the Pacific. As far as my passive sensors can tell, it's still there—" The frigate suddenly stopped talking, going very, very pale. She clenched her jaw, her fists shaking.
"Harvest?"
"They've started glassing," the frigate ground out. "The American west coast. Damn them."
Horror spread through the Japanese battleship's body as the news sunk in. Images of glassed planets flashed through her mind. "We're too late," she mumbled morosely.
"Our job is to protect the innocent," Harvest replied, her voice harder than Nagato had ever heard it, "But when we fail, our job is to avenge those that we couldn't protect." Her hands tightened as the rocket began its countdown. "Time we had our revenge." Nagato nodded.
"That was easy."
The red-armored Sangheili agreed with his trainee's bemused surprise. He keyed his communicator. "Hierarch, the humans sent up a small vessel after you descended. We've destroyed it easily. It's obviously not the human warship."
"I thought I ordered you to report any sightings and not to engage," his Shipmaster growled back.
The pilot rolled his eyes. Several lunar cycles of waiting had left the entire crew on edge; was the shipmaster really going to chew them out for having a little fun? "You ordered us not to engage the human warship, and that was no warship. My trainee and I destroyed it effortlessly with the blasters on our fighter craft."
"I am aware enough of the letter of my orders, pilot. I expected you to be aware of the spirit of them as well," the shipmaster replied angrily. The pilot sighed; apparently the shipmaster actually was cranky enough to chew them out for having a little fun. "Return to the ship at once!"
The pilot sighed and switched channels. "The Hierarch isn't happy with us," he told his trainee. "Let's go get yelled at." He pointed his Banshee back towards the battlecruiser, his trainee taking one last circle through the wreckage before following.
Had the trainee been flying a Banshee, which he would have had to fly visually, he might have noticed that some of the wreckage wasn't there anymore. But the Seraph, being a craft flown largely by instrument and sensors, didn't pick up on the missing pieces.
And so the trainee failed to notice that two pieces of wreckage were clinging to his tail.
Well, that could have gone better, Harvest thought sardonically. Entertaining thoughts of revenge, she'd almost been too late picking up the two fighters, and she and Nagato had to scramble to abandon their spacecraft before plasma stitched it from end to end.
On the other hand, the UNSC frigate acknowledged that it could have gone worse, too. She or Nagato could have been killed for all she knew, and in any case they had an easy ride to the battlecruiser and past its shields.
Harvest glanced down at the Earth and grimaced at the glowing red lines over Southern California. Forcing herself to refocus on her objective, she studied the CCS-class as her ride came ever closer. Looking over the cruiser, the large hole her MAC had punched through the exact center of the ship made it easy to tell it was the same one she had fought after Skopje. As she came closer, she could also see the craters and scorching from Archers that got past the point-defenses after the shield went down. As the Seraph slowed to pass through the shields, Harvest could even see the scuff marks from autocannon impacts, probably from UNSC Nicholas. A not-quite-successful dodge of the energy projector left her MAC melted, so the fellow Stalwart turned broadside and raked the cruiser with her autocannons, a last futile gesture of defiance before an entire salvo of plasma torpedoes impacted along her length. At the same time though, Nicholas' effort had distracted the Covies long enough for Harvest to get above and charge her MAC, so perhaps the gesture wasn't so futile after all.
Harvest let go of her Seraph taxi, using her RCS to burn away from the hanger and towards the hole from the battle so long ago. Extra bracing ran across the length of the hole, Harvest noted a shimmering field across the interior, similar to that which ran along the outside of the ship's hangers. If Repensum was to be believed, it was a permeable plasma layer that kept atmosphere from leaking out, but Harvest still held her breath as she climbed towards it, not daring to release it until she was inside. "Alright, you can take off your space suit now."
Nagato reached up and hoisted off her helmet. "That's the most claustrophobic thing I've ever been in," the battleship grumbled. Harvest smiled.
The frigate looked up and around. "Well, we're here. Let's get to—" She suddenly shouted in pain as green balls impacted her arm. The two ships dashed behind the nearest cover, as green and pink lights chased after them. Only now did Harvest's hearing adjust enough for her to pick up the yips and rasps of Grunts and Jackals.
To Harvest's surprise, the level-headed Japanese battleship snarled in anger. "All main cannons, full salvo!" Her spacesuit ripped apart as her equipment shifted into position, her batteries orientating themselves towards the Covenant. "Fire!"
Explosions filled the corridor down which the enemy approached, and Covenant bodies and pieces thereof flew everywhere. The remaining Grunts and Jackals turned and ran. A loud roar, however, tipped Harvest off that not everyone was so intimidated.
A blue-armored Elite charged out of the smoke straight towards Harvest, plasma sword alight in its hand. The frigate jumped out of the way of the swing, before grasping the Elite's arm and snapping it at the elbow. As the alien roared in pain and dropped his sword, Harvest picked the Elite up and chucked him towards the hole through which the ship girls came. "Wort! Wort! Wort!" the beast cried, as it flew out into outer space.
It took a couple moments for Harvest's adrenaline to slow long enough for her to realize a couple things: first, even if it was an infantry weapon, plasma really hurt. But far more importantly, both Nagato and her had manifested their rigging; even if the firefight itself didn't do it, their cover was certainly blown now.
Harvest turned to the battleship, who seemed to stare in some horror at the carnage her guns had wrought. "Well, we've got a lot less time now." Nagato shook herself out of her stupor and nodded. "Let's get to work."