Chapter 4
Strieger always hated these damn suits, they restricted movement, they smelled like mothballs and piss, and the internal heaters had always been unreliable at best, which he could see as he watched his officers shivering in their seats as the ship got increasingly colder. He looked down at his right hand, the grip shaped detonator grasped firmly in his gloved hand. The bridge was dark, every terminal, light, and piece of equipment was shut off with the exception of Petty Officer O'Malley's weapon station, the rest of the bridge was dully illuminated by a mix of glow-sticks, flashlights, and the light of Iago's blue hologram.
"Iago, do you think the Covenant will notice us here?"
"That is very unlikely good Captain, visually, the destroyed hulk to our port side and the blackness of space will protect us from being seen through say, a viewport, but if they pass the hulk, they might spot us with their ambient lights and notice a very not-destroyed Marathon-class Cruiser. On the sensory side, the amount of power and heat to keep the engines ready and the MAC cannons primed is less than most of the destroyed vessels around us, many still have electrical fires or auxiliary power generators still running in their unbreached bulkheads, we should remain completely undetected until we fire."
"Excellent, but we have to plan for the worst case, if this operation fails I'm entrusting you to activate the Cole Protocol."
"I understand Captain Strieger, if it does come to that, I would like to say it has been an honor serving thee these past 4.27 hours."
"Slipspace ruptures detected Captain, three in total." Buzzed Ferguson through the in-helmet radio.
Across the other side of the debris field, 3 circular slipspace ruptures opened, a trio of the large bulbous shaped vessels slowly emerging from the tear. The two smaller vessels Alec instantly recognized, though small was definitely not the right word. 2 CCS covenant battlecruisers, both vessels were about the same size as the Seventh Son, the covenant vessels being larger in length but not height. Strieger was confident that with a proper surprise they could handle them without too much risk, but the sight of the final ship seemingly tore the breath from his lungs. The vessel looked remarkably similar to the CCS class in design, the main terrifying difference being its size. This massive ship that Strieger could only guess functioned as some sort of carrier was over 5 or 6 times the size of the Son, and Alec could only guess what kind of firepower the thing possessed.
"Everyone, remain calm and stick to the plan."
"Look at the fucking size of that thing!" Comm Officer Wright muttered under her breath.
"If the split-jaws can build it, we can break it," O'Malley interjected with steel in his voice, but Captain Strieger could make out him pulling a small silver cross out of his collar in the unlit bridge.
The massive vessels began slowly lumbering through the debris field, making a beeline straight towards the station. At first the shields of the ships could be visibly seen battering through the debris field, a blue bubble-like field appearing every time an impact was made, but about halfway to their destination, the shield disappeared, metallic debris now visibly striking and jostling the two smaller vessels, and merely denting the carrier.
"Status report, those impacts aren't nearly enough to break through a battlecruiser's shields."
"It looks like they shut them down on purpose, but why?" Responded the Lieutenant.
"Covenant shielding technology has been known to overload and cause irreparable damage to their ships hulls under too much stress. Perhaps they'd rather suffer the dents then risk overloading their shields," spoke Iago as he made another flurry of weapons checks.
"We couldn't possibly be that lucky could we?" Karlsson whispered.
Alec tightened his fist around the detonator as the covenant vessels passed their cover, a Marathon-class like the Son, only this one's bridge had been physically sliced off, most likely by an energy projector. A very grim reminder of what might happen to them if they screwed this up. The Covenant continued on towards the station without noticing them, approaching ever closer to the dilapidated refueling station. Just a little bit closer, a little bit deeper into the debris. He flicked open the trigger safety, his thumb hanging over the button, this was the moment of truth, the Covenant ships were less than two hundred yards from the station and were beginning to launch transports to board the destroyed station. Strieger took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as he brought down his thumb.
All at once every last one of the hundreds of mines that Miles and the marines had placed detonated simultaneously. Explosions in space had always fascinated Alec. The silence, and the strange mixture of a short fireball that was more like a blinding camera flash and the massive increase in explosive power due to the lack of atmospheric friction. In a split second one of the CCS battlecruisers had ruptured it's bulkheads, the outer hull compressing in before exploding outwards, a series of smaller explosions rocked through the ship as decompressions spread throughout its hull. The other two Covenant ships also seemed heavily damaged, though only on their surfaces, as they seemed to be extremely disoriented as their lead ship began listing to its port side, explosions continuing to shake through its hull. The Seventh Son immediately reactivated it's thrusters and veered to its starboard side as Iago and O'Malley worked in tandem to aim and fire the MAC cannons.
The Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, also known as the Mass Accelerator Cannon, MAC Gun and MAC Cannon, a large coilgun, similar to a railgun in design, that serves as the primary offensive weapon for their warships. The weapons are so important that most UNSC warships are built around the weapon system. Because of their status as the only non-nuclear weapons in the UNSC arsenal capable of effectively reducing or destroying Covenant capital ships' energy shields.
The energy shields were always the problem, it would usually take 2 MAC rounds or a full salvo of over 600 Archer anti-ship missiles to overload a battlecruiser's shielding, and there's no telling how many hits it would take to down the shields of a vessel of that size. Lucky for them they had been kind enough to deactivate them. If there was ever a time to engage the two remaining ships, it was now. They were confused, disorientated, and their surfaces were already heavily damaged, chances were many of their weapons systems were inoperable thanks to the massive concussive waves. It was do-or-die time and we had no plan of waiting.
O'Malley fired both forward facing MAC guns simultaneously, the stabilizers and rear thrusters activated for a moment to compensate for the inertia of the cannons, but it was more to keep the cruiser on target. A massive hum of the weapons priming, followed by a metallic whine could be heard inside the vessel as it fired, the thump of the blast jerking forward everyone onboard, it felt like a punch to the chest, but it was a satisfying one. The two standard ship-based MAC cannons fire slugs of ferric Tungsten approximately 9.1 meters long at around 30,000 meters per second. The high muzzle speed gives the 600-ton slug the kinetic energy and momentum necessary to damage a target and partially mitigated the unguided nature of the slug and its lack of maneuverability. By the time the slug is fired out the end of the barrel it has accelerated to a speed of approximately 30 kilometers per second, with the destructive power of 64.53 kilotons of TNT, essentially one giant bullet.
With destructive power like that on an unshielded target, Alec couldn't help but smile wide. Both rounds struck the Covenant carrier through its engines, tearing their way through the Covenant ship room by room, both blasting out the front of the ship followed by a massive fireball that quickly diminished, dissecting the vessel and going on to clipping the aft of the destroyed battlecruiser that was already in the process of colliding into the refuel station. Moments after the rounds tore through the massive carrier, the depressurization ripped even more holes through the ship, and all but two engines had exploded.
"One minute to recharge MAC one, minute twenty to fully charge both sir." O'Malley shouted from his console.
"Captain, the carrier is coming about." Karlsson interrupted.
Iago's hologram flickered for a moment as he made a few calculations. "They will be facing us with their broadside in approximately 56.239 seconds."
O'Malley spun around in his chair, "How's that possible?! Covenant warships have their bridges in the center of their ships, and we just put two MAC rounds through the bastard!"
"They must have an auxiliary bridge." Wei responded, the cold confidence having returned to her face, "your orders Captain?
"Weapons free, fire everything we have at it."
"Even the Shivas sir?" Junior officer Wilson spoke up from his missile control console.
"Save the nukes, we still have a third ship to deal with."
With that, the Seventh Son opened fire on the slowly turning Covenant Carrier, launching its first salvo of Archer missiles and began firing it's 50mm autocannons. A few Longswords also began leaving the hangar to begin strafing runs on the final battlecruiser to keep it occupied as the Seventh Son finished off the carrier. With only a few plasma turrets still functional, the carrier was only able to shoot down around a dozen of the missiles before they hit their marks. All along the hull, Archer missiles blasted massive gouges that shook the carrier to the core, one of the missiles launched by a strafing Longsword fighter landed directly inside the carrier's main hanger bay, igniting the fuel storage and ripping the starboard half of the ship to pieces.
Ferguson jumped out of his seat and cheered as the bridge crew watched as half of the Covenant ship was vaporized by its own fuel. "We got 'em on ice Captain, that thing's looking like half a million tons of chewed bubblegum!"
"Sit down Ferguson we can celebrate when it's over. Karlsson, maneuver us into cover, the last battlecruiser is ignoring our Longswords."
"Aye Captain, I suggest everyone hold on." Karlsson replied as she flipped up a pair of switches and grabbed hold of the steering joystick.
All at once the port side thrusters activated, strafing the Seventh Son to the right, just as a plasma torpedo launched passed them, striking the destroyed Marathon-class the Son had been using as cover, the purplish-blue plasma melting a hole straight through one end to the other. A halt of plasma fire continued spraying down upon the Son as it spun and began outflanking the Covenant vessel, but Karlsson continued to be able to dodge the onslaught by maneuvering through the debris field, the majority of the enemy fire striking floating pieces of scrap metal and destroyed vehicles. Though she was an excellent pilot, that didn't stop the cruiser from colliding with small to medium pieces of debris, and stray plasma fire, all three shaking the ship violently.
Karlsson seemed to be unphased by the impacts, running her left hand over another set of buttons and switches. "If we survive this, I'm going to have a conversation with Dixon, the gyroscopes are off by 30 degrees, compensating."
Strieger was more or less amazed that she could maneuver a ship of this size with thousands of people aboard as if it was an oversized fighter jet. Coming out of its spin and facing the Covenant battlecruiser, O'Malley and Iago once again fired a pair of MAC rounds at the warship, this time once at a time, the second one fired 2 seconds after the first. At the same time, Wilson launched a second salvo of Archer missiles and Pollard ordered the Longsword starfighters to begin another set of strafing runs.
This time the Covenant wasn't as open as before. Learning from the deadly mistake of its two fellow vessels, the CCS reactivated its energy shields, the first MAC round disintegrated against the battlecruiser's shield causing the bubble to flicker and the craft to lurch backwards. The second MAC round also disintegrated, but caused the shield to visibly shatter, a small explosion appearing on the top of the craft, most likely where the generator had been due to its overload. Being now shieldless, it looked like it was over for the last Covenant vessel, but this last ship was the least damaged by the mine surprise attack, being positioned between the carrier and other battlecruiser, it had significantly less surface damage on its sides, the ship still possessing many undamaged point defense plasma pulse turrets. Shooting over one hundred and fifty of the missiles down, but it wasn't enough. The other four hundred and fifty missiles peppered all across the port side of the Covenant battlecruiser, fires erupting from the gouges caused by the subsequent explosive decompressions. The CCS then fired up its engines and began plowing through the debris field, limping its way towards the edge of the field.
A beeping suddenly started erupting from Lieutenant Wei's console, she quickly looked over her screen before turning to look at Captain Strieger. "Radiation spike, they're trying to made a jump to Slipspace sir."
Comms Officer Wright leaned up from her console,"They're running? The covenant never run."
"Hahahahaha, looking like the bloody split-jaws do know what's good for them." Pollard laughed and started whooping up the bridge crew.
"Orders Captain?" Wei quietly asked
Strieger cracked his knuckles, "as much as I would love to know that the crew of that ship will be executed for incompetence, it's one more ship we'll have to fight another day, if we let them escape they'll be back with 30 ships in a few hours, besides, I believe the men that died here could use a little revenge to send them off properly." Strieger pointed with an open palm the dozens of destroyed UNSC vessels floating listlessly in the empty vacuum. "Wilson, arm the Shivas, we're nuking the sons a' bitches."
"With pleasure sir, arming Shivas."
"All squadrons, this is Petty Officer Wright, return to the Son, we have a code ARMAGEDDON, repeat, code ARMAGEDDON."
About 30 seconds later, a single missile launched from the Seventh Son, spray painted onto the side of the warhead were the words, "ET phone home." There was no denying it, those marines do have a sense of humor after all. Alec sat in his chair as watched the warhead gaining on the Covenant ship as the titanium-A shutters began to quickly close to protect the crew's eyes. Wilson leaned in on his console, announcing the targeting data to the rest of the crew.
"6,000 meters to impact, 5,000 meters, 4,000 meters, this bloody super Shiva better not be a dud, too damn expensive. 2,000, 1,000, 500, we have impact! Struck just to the right of their engines, detonation is good! I'd hold onto your butts everyone."
Strieger brought down his palm on the intercom button, "all hands, brace for impact!"
Suddenly the entire ship lurched backwards, then began violently wobbling and spinning, sending anything not tied down flying into the insider shutter and lifting Alec's stomach into his throat. As the shaking ended, and everyone took a minute to catch their breath and peel off their pressurized emergency suits, and in the case of Pollard and Ferguson, run off to vomit, Karlsson opened the shutters. The only traces left of the final battlecruiser was a fine purple dust that seemed to cover everything, even the Son's fresh paint was covered.
"Thanks to that nickel coating electronics are doing good, looks like we didn't EMP ourselves too bad, it'll take about 15 minutes to recharge the slipspace drive after using our MACs." Wei sighed as she sat back into her chair.
"Captain, we have activity coming from the Carrier." Iago noted.
Alec raised the camera feed, the image covering a section of the viewport, "Looks like all the firepower we poured into it didn't quite kill all of them. Raise the shutters, I want everyone back on full alert until we've dealt with the last of them."
The crew watched on the feed as the shutters slowly opened, not wide enough to be seen through yet, as a swarm of small bulbous craft jettisoned from the remaining hangar of the burning Assault Carrier, turning towards the Seventh Son
"Boarding craft… sound the alarms and open fire with whatever we have left. How is the slipspace drive looking?"
"Dixon in engineering says the drive is still charging, and we're still stuck in the debris field, it doesn't look like we can run captain." Iago spoke after he brought up targeting displays.
Strieger stood up from his chair, attempting to yell over the now blaring attack alarm. "Then it looks like we fight them off ourselves."
The Covenant, whether through extreme zeal or bravery swarmed toward the Seventh Son, even as the lead ships were blasted to pieces by arcs of 50mm fire and missile salvos, the bridge crew looked on in silence as at least a dozen hard thumps could be heard across the hull of the ship, one in particular striking relatively close to the bridge, Pollard slumping back into her chair and pulling her service cap down over her face. "I'm sorry sir…. There were too many, we couldn't hit them all, 14 of them made it to us."
"Rest easy Pollard, it's not your fault, we couldn't expect you to shoot them all down," Alec spoke in an attempt to comfort her, "I want status reports Iago, where did the boarding craft strike and where is the crew being engaged?"
"I've already located the points of all breaches, notified our marines of the locations on their eyepiece HUDs, and skimmed through a few books on covenant knowledge of our vessels. It seems that 11 of the boarding craft latched on to various unimportant bulkheads, unfortunately, 3 are near rather important locations, engineering, life support, and this bridge. All 14 locations are facing stiff fighting at the moment."
"If the Covenant know that this is the bridge, we can bet they'll be here soon, load your sidearms and be ready, the marines on board are spread thin at the moment." Halfway through Strieger's speech, a distant explosion from a grenade and a few dozen shots rang out. "And it sounds like we need to move fast."