Redshirt047: The in-story reasoning for glassing Southern California is that they're trying to coax out Harvest, who they last saw by Asia. So to draw her out, they're glassing the other side of the planet to force Harvest to come to them so they can ambush her. The OOC reason is that most of my reader stats are from the U.S., so southern California hits "closer to home" than Asia would.

ARcan: Thanks! Usually by the time Harvest arrives, Winter Contingency has already been declared a while ago, so so far as she knows it just means "Covies are here oh noes".

perfectshade: Glad someone picked up on Yorktown lampshading everything! Thanks for the reviews!

TazalTerminals, edboy4926, et. al.: Thanks for the support and the likes! Definitely having a lot of fun writing this story, glad you guys are having fun reading it!

We're getting closer and closer to the end, guys. Here's the penultimate chapter. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own neither Halo nor Kantai Collection.

To: COMFLT Jericho; FLEETCOM Reach

Subject: PILLAR OF AUTUMN Recorded Timeline Fleet Encounter 15.8.2547

Description: Per FLEETCOM orders evacuation of Skopje yard completed and convoy performed randomized jump per Article One, UNSC General Order 098831A-1. Approx five minutes after jump completed sensors on all ships registered incoming slipspace signatures. Localized slipspace ruptures detected at 12:41 hours shipboard.

Order of Battle:

-Hostile: One cruiser (CCS-class), Two destroyers (CPV-class).

-Friendly: Six transport ships (UNSC Mercy CFV-63, UNSC Bright Dawn CFV-66, UNSC New Sun CFV-68, UNSC Harmony CFV-70, UNSC Another Show CFV-71, UNSC Lovely Day CFV-73), One cruiser (UNSC Pillar of Autumn C-709), Three heavy frigates (UNSC Balaclava FFG-532, UNSC Guinevere FFG-533, UNSC You Want More FFG-557), Four light frigates (UNSC Walker FFG-339, UNSC Ranger FFG-341, UNSC Nicholas FFG-405, UNSC Harvest FFG-413).

Timeline: (All times per PILLAR OF AUTUMN shipboard.)

-12:41: Slipspace ruptures detected and observed by all ships. Transports ordered to move to safe distance away from ruptures. PILLAR OF AUTUMN and all heavy frigates ordered to break defensive formation and prepare to engage. General Quarters and Fire Condition Zulu sounded on all ships.

-12:42: Three Covenant ships arrive in system. Hostiles are identified as one CCS-class cruiser flanked by two CPV-class destroyers in standard chevron formation. [Destroyers referred to as "Port-side" and "Starboard-side" based on their orientation relative to the cruiser.] GUINEVERE AI requests immediate permission to engage without coordinating with fleet, which is still out of position. Permission granted by PILLAR OF AUTUMN AI with caveat that GUINEVERE submit to fleet orders once PILLAR OF AUTUMN and other frigates are in position.

-12:43: GUINEVERE MAC shot strikes unshielded Port-side CPV midships and kills it.

-12:44: GUINEVERE struck below the bridge by energy projector from Starboard-side CPV [Hereafter referred to as "CPV"] and explodes with all hands. HARVEST contacts PILLAR OF AUTUMN and requests permission for light frigates to detach from convoy and enter battle. Permission is granted by RADM Sprague. Light FFGs break formation and approach the battle.

-12:45: CCS and CPV launch plasma torpedoes. Plasma torpedoes from CPV impact BALACLAVA, which is lost to primary and secondary detonations.

-12:46: RADM Sprague orders attacks to be concentrated on CPV. PILLAR OF AUTUMN and YOU WANT MORE engage CPV with artillery, supported by Archers from several ships. Plasma torpedoes from CCS impact PILLAR OF AUTUMN, causing exterior damage.

-12:47: Light FFGs enter artillery range and engage. Energy projector from CPV dodged by YOU WANT MORE. Energy projector from CCS scores glancing hit on PILLAR OF AUTUMN.

-12:48: Concentrated artillery and missile fire from PILLAR OF AUTUMN and YOU WANT MORE penetrate CPV shields. CPV struck simultaneously by MAC shots fore and aft and is destroyed. Fire is immediately ordered redirected against CCS.

-12:49: CCS launches plasma torpedoes from all batteries: Starboard-side batteries target YOU WANT MORE while port-side batteries target PILLAR OF AUTUMN. Artillery and missile fire from light FFGs absorbed by shield. FFGs close with CCS on their own initiative. YOU WANT MORE fires all remaining missiles and low-power artillery shot before succumbing to plasma torpedoes.

-12:50: Missile and artillery fire from PILLAR OF AUTUMN and four FFGs absorbed by CCS shields. CCS energy projector strikes PILLAR OF AUTUMN dead center causing critical damage and severing power to PILLAR OF AUTUMN's MAC. Point-defense lasers from CCS target exposed internal sections of PILLAR OF AUTUMN and cause extensive internal damage. PILLAR OF AUTUMN moves to disengage while FFGs continue to approach to very close range.

-12:51: Transport ships signal their slipspace drives have recharged and are ordered to escape on their own. PILLAR OF AUTUMN fires off remaining Archers before disengaging. Only after PILLAR OF AUTUMN has successfully disengaged does the CCS seem to notice light FFGs, which have by this time approached to incredibly close range with CCS, HARVEST on its starboard side, NICHOLAS in front, and WALKER and RANGER on its port. Concentrated fire succeeds in penetrating CCS shields. HARVEST fires its remaining Archers at the CCS' starboard plasma torpedo ports, rendering them inoperable.

-12:52: All transport ships fire their slipspace drives and escape successfully, while PILLAR OF AUTUMN limps at best speed away from the fight to transition to slipspace herself. [Note: All remaining events were observed by PILLAR OF AUTUMN and logged by her AI, though for all purposes PILLAR OF AUTUMN has disengaged from the battle and is moving out of range of enemy fire to activate her slipspace drives.] CCS fires plasma torpedoes out of functioning ports, which impact WALKER and RANGER and destroy both. HARVEST and NICHOLAS maintain a prow-on orientation against the cruiser, HARVEST to starboard and slightly above the CCS, NICHOLAS below and slightly to port.

-12:53: PILLAR OF AUTUMN judges distance safe enough and charges up her slipspace drive. CCS fires its energy projector, which clips the bow of NICHOLAS and renders her MAC inoperable. HARVEST begins to orbit around the CCS's starboard side, positioning itself above the cruiser while maintaining a prow-on orientation.

-12:54: NICHOLAS turns broadside, raking the CCS's hull with her autocannons to no effect, while HARVEST has slid into position directly above the CCS. PILLAR OF AUTUMN fires its slipspace drive, witnessing the CCS launch plasma torpedoes at NICHOLAS before jumping away.

Results:

All transport ships have arrived at Reach safely. Covenant forces have suffered the loss of two CPV-class destroyers, while one CCS-class battlecruiser is certainly damaged, possibly severely.

The cost to Friendly forces is as follows:

-One Halcyon-class light cruiser (Pillar of Autumn): HEAVILY DAMAGED.

-Three Paris-class heavy frigates (Guinevere, Balaclava, You Want More): DESTROYED.

-Two Charon-class light frigates (Walker, Ranger): DESTROYED.

-One Stalwart-class light frigate (Nicholas): MISSING, PRESUMED LOST.

-One Stalwart-class light frigate (Harvest): MISSING.

"Human warship detected!"

The cry tore the Shipmaster out of disciplining his reckless pilots. He'd done what he swore he wouldn't do: order his ship into low orbit to glass the human planet, and now the human warship was coming to make him pay for it. "Helm! Get us into high orbit! Immediately!"

"Aye, Hierarch!" the Unggoy manning the helm cried back, his little arms straining against the ship's steering to pull the ship up sharply.

The Shipmaster paid no attention to the Unggoy's efforts. Immediately he shouted back to the sensor operator, "Approach vector! What is it?!" If the humans were above and coming down on him, he could be in real trouble.

The sensor operator seemed to fumble with his console. "That doesn't make any sense!" he mumbled in frustration. "What is it doing?"

"Sensors!" the Shipmaster roared, adrenaline and panic coursing through his body. "Where is it?! Tell me now!"

"I don't know!" the sensor operator cried back. "This doesn't make any sense! According to all our sensors, the human warship is inside our ship!" The white-armored Sangheili fiddled with his console further. "No matter what I try it won't correct itself!"

The Shipmaster flexed his mandibles in frustration and confusion. What the hell were the humans pulling now? A memory suddenly shot back into his mind: his Special-ops brother had said the humans sometimes tried to use boarding parties… He cursed. "Where in the ship does it say?"

The sensor operator blinked at the Shipmaster taking the silly readings seriously, but knew better than to doubt his superior. "The slipspace drive room. It says the ship is there, with another unidentified large object as well!"

The slipspace drive room…where the humans had blasted a hole through his ship so long ago. A hole that was still open. A hole that was supposedly guarded by that ill-tempered brat…who despite himself had not piped up to complain in a long time. The Shipmaster cursed again. "It's a boarding! All of you, ready your weapons! The humans are trying to sabotage the ship!"

The two Sangheili manning the sensor and weapon stations blinked in surprise, but quickly made themselves ready. The Unggoy manning the helm squeaked in surprise. "What about the ship?" it asked.

"Leave it! We've got to stop the humans before they damage anything vital. The conduits connecting the bridge to the engines run near there; if the humans destroy that, we'll lose control over our maneuvering and thrust. I'd rather drift again while the Huragok repair it than slam into the planet ourselves!" The Shipmaster grabbed a plasma rifle and clamped his sword to his hip.

"All soldiers, with me!" The Shipmaster charged out of the bridge, the makeshift crew with equally makeshift weapons following him, leaving the bridge deserted. Meanwhile, the battlecruiser continued to drift farther and farther out of orbit.

Harvest cursed to herself as she fiddled with her damn SHIVA. All she wanted to do was set off really a big nuke; why would that be frowned upon?! What would make someone think that should be a difficult thing to do?

Tactical warheads like SHIVAs were tightly controlled; only a theater commander or commander of equivalent rank could authorize their use, and the warheads would refuse to arm unless supplied with an authorization code from an Admiral of sufficient rank to authorize their use. Unfortunately, at the moment Harvest was bereft of such an admiral to transmit such authorization, thus forcing the frigate to furiously wrack her brain trying to remember one.

"C'mon goddamnit," Harvest muttered. "They authorized these things after every fucking battle." Yet at the same time, Harvest knew all too well that such orders had been intended for those ships fighting in the fleet battles, not those supporting the ground troops. And back then, Harvest couldn't be bothered to pay too much attention to things that didn't concern her.

Just to make Harvest's job even more difficult, her train of thought kept getting derailed when the guns of the nearby battleship fired every few seconds. The UNSC frigate glanced up as Nagato's battery roared again. "How the hell are you not tearing up the ship with those guns of yours?"

"Type Three shells," Nagato responded. "Beehive rounds; they're like a giant shotgun."

"But even those should be shredding the ship, shouldn't they?"

"How would I know what effect they'd have?" Nagato returned hotly, or at least as hot as Harvest had ever heard the Japanese battleship. "You may not have noticed, but I'm not all that familiar with this craft."

Harvest grunted, conceding the point. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine. These tiny ones are cowards; make a loud noise in their direction and they'll run away. The avians with the shields are annoying, but I'm wearing them down with small caliber fire." She paused to let her batteries fire again. "The tall and loud ones are annoying as well. They're good at dodging; I've only gotten one so far. Just keeping them suppressed for now." Nagato's arm suddenly flew in front of her face, and she grunted in pain as green balls of plasma hit it. Her secondaries made clear her displeasure, and the green balls stopped coming. "How much longer until your weapon is ready?"

Harvest furrowed her brow. "Not much longer." I hope. She turned back to the task at hand. Alright, you bastard, let's try again. Whitcomb, Seven…Bravo…Niner…Delta? To her surprise—and, in equal measure, relief—the light on the Shiva suddenly changed to green. Harvest gave a mental cheer. "Got it!" she called out in triumph.

And then a plasma sword was shoved through her stomach.

As a kanmusu of Japan, not to mention the secretary ship of Yokosuka, Nagato prided herself on her ability to keep her cool in battle. The battleship knew all too well how emotions left unchecked could bring ruin to any force, and so Nagato forced herself to remain coldly logical, detached from the rush of battle. In many ways, her hamster was what grounded the battleship in sanity, allowing her some brief measure of relief, which in turn allowed her to remain calm no matter what happened on the field.

That said, however, what she was going through on this alien ship was stretching her calm past the breaking point. This was supposed to be a quick mission: get in, plant the bomb, and get out. If all went well, the Covenant would be none the wiser until their ship exploded.

All did not, of course, go well. Their cover was blown almost immediately, and then Harvest had to summon her ship self to solve that immediate problem, which in turn brought the attention of everyone else down on their heads.

Of course, Harvest had to summon her ship self to access her weapon, so their cover would have been blown anyway, but it was the thought that counted.

Now Nagato found herself pinned down by aliens whose grunts (both lower case and capitalized, if Harvest was to be believed) carried weapons that could harm a kanmusu, while Harvest fiddled with her apparently stubborn warhead. All in all, for one of the very few times since Nagato had returned as a kanmusu, the situation was starting to get to her.

'Not much longer' she says, the battleship grumbled mentally. That's what she said before, too! How hard could it be to arm that thing? It's her own weapon, after all! Of course, the fact that the weapon in question was a nuclear one was not lost on Nagato. Even after all these years she still sometimes had nightmares of that blinding light, and with good reason had she sworn to never have anything to do with them. And now she was helping to deliver one in anger. Yet another thought that served to dampen her mood.

"Got it!" Harvest cried in triumph. Nagato's spirit soared; finally they could get off this horrible ship! And then Harvest suddenly gasped. Nagato briefly glanced her way, only for her heart to freeze as her head whirled around in a double-take.

Harvest stared at the sword—Nagato remembered one held by the blue-colored tall and loud alien when they first arrived—that had seemingly just appeared in the frigate's midsection. Harvest shakily raised her arm and moved it towards the sword, only to stop when something seemed to intercept it. Something that shimmered…

Nagato's eyes widened in horror as that something turned into an alien arm. Harvest gasped again as that arm jerked, before screaming in agony as the arm slowly raised higher and higher, the black-colored tall alien the arm was attached to slowly becoming visible.

The black-clad alien narrowed its eyes, its mandibles tightening as it examined the small figure impaled on its sword. "Pathetic." Nagato blinked, surprised that the alien seemed to speak English, even if in a deep, guttural growl. "This is who the humans decide to after us. A youngling who plays as a warship." The alien suddenly deactivated its sword, letting Harvest crumple to the ground. "I do not know how you manage to masquerade as something that would pose a genuine threat, little girl, but your play-acting has come to its inevitable end. No amount of dishonorable trickery will stop our righteous crusade."

Leaving Harvest to writhe in pain, the alien stalked its way towards Nagato in just a few rapid strides. Nagato panicked and threw a wild punch at the alien's face, but it just side-stepped the blow, before back-handing the battleship clear across the room.

Nagato saw stars for a few brief moments, and even then felt dizzy and disorientated. "You," a low growl from much too close made the battleship freeze in terror, "are as heavy as a Demon. But no matter." Nagato opened her eyes and froze upon realizing the black-clad alien stood directly above her. He reignited his sword, and the Japanese battleship felt ice flow down her spine. "None shall stand before the Great Journey." He reached his arm back.

"Hey! Hinge-head! You wanna go on the Great Journey?!" a small, pained voice shouted out in defiance. The alien growled and turned around. "Have a pleasant flight, motherfucker!" Harvest snarled, and fired her MAC.

Nagato had seen—and felt—the power of Harvest's main weapon at close range, but it had never seemed as powerful as it did in that moment. There was a bright flash of blue as the round impacted and shattered the alien's shields, before its chest simply ceased to exist as the round continued on and blasted out the hull wall behind Nagato.

And then the vacuum sucked the Japanese battleship into space.

"NO!" she cried; though she could hear no sound made by her lips she knew the tightbeam communicator would transmit her words anyway. "Harvest!"

"All call signs, UNSC Harvest." The tiny frigate's labored, pained voice sounded in her ear. "Mission complete."

"Harvest!" Nagato shouted again. "HARVEST!" For a few moments the battleship waved her arms and legs as though attempting to swim, only stopping when she realized the futility as the alien ship drifted further and further away.

And then, just like all those years before, Nagato saw the Light.

That Light, blinding beyond belief, seemingly powerful enough to penetrate past all her armor into her very soul. Nagato braced herself for the horrible roar, the same cry of anger and anguish that drowned out the screams of goats and pigs and poultry so long ago. But it never came. Here the Light did its work in absolute silence. Nagato didn't know if that made it better or worse.

At long last, the Light slowly, almost reluctantly, faded away. Nagato's eyes adjusted enough to pick out the pieces of the once proud alien ship, drifting off into the void. After a brief moment of panic, she was relieved to see that she was not drifting off as well; she seemed to hang around Earth, even if only just.

"Nagato?" a voice sounded in her ear. "Harvest? This is Hood. If you can hear me, please respond."

"This is Nagato." It was bizarre, the battleship decided, that one could know that they were speaking yet be unable to hear themselves do so. If nothing else it forced Nagato to think much harder on her words, if only to make sure she said them as she wished to. "I am here. I require assistance, however."

"It may be a bit, but it's coming," the British battlecruiser replied. "What about Harvest?"

"She… She didn't…" Nagato tightened her fists. Her difficulty communicating was due to the silence, she told herself. Not because she didn't know what to say. She always knew what she had to say. Even if she couldn't quite say it.

"Understood," Hood replied. Nothing more was said. Nothing more needed to be said. Nothing more could be said.

With little else she could do, Nagato looked at the stars around her, and lost herself in her thoughts.