WARNING!
This story contains content not suited for younger readers, such as Violence, Blood and Gore, Language, and Explicit Sexual Content. This Chapter's Rating will be placed at T-Rated. Future Chapters may, and most likely, will switch back and forth between the T and M ratings.
Regardless, Reader Discretion for this Chapter is advised.
I don't own Halo or Naruto.
Bold-My Own Words
Bold & Italic-Locations, Time & Calendar
Normal-Narrative
"Normal"-Person Speaking
'Normal'-Thoughts
"Italic"-Foreign Language
'Italic'-Radio Chatter
/Italic\-AI/Computer typing
Prologue Arc-Episode 17
-The Battle of Visok Pt. 1-
(Part 17)
February 12, 2544
Alpha Imura System
Nearing the Orbit of Port Liberty
Visok Evacuation Fleet
Thunder Child Bridge
"What the hell were they doing?" Barnes asked incredulously at what he just saw, more or less summing up everyone's opinion of the situation they watch unfold and then... conclude. The bridge was silent as they observed the decimated ruins of what had once been a small colony, now nothing more than another victim of the Covenant's genocidal crusade against humanity. There was an angry glowing red scar on the moon's surface, visible even from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away due to the intensity of the plasma bombardment. If one hadn't known better, it would have looked like a massive supervolcano was erupting on the moon. The ships that had tried defending the port were now nothing but burning husks floating in a lazy, decaying orbit over the colony. In a few days the ships would eventually crash into the moon's surface, adding a few more scars of war from this terrible conflict. But incredibly, this wasn't their most immediate concern.
"They retreated." Satomi, of all people, suddenly spoke up, confused by his worry and speaking as if it was the most obvious thing. "Exactly," Barnes stated back, brow furrowing in building anger. Why, though, was the question. And the only answers that were coming to him made him extremely uneasy. "I- That's good, isn't it? They retreated without giving battle." Satomi said with growing confusion by everyone's discomfort. The ODST Colonel was about to reply, but Desiderio beat him to it, "That's exactly it, dear. The Covenant retreated without giving battle."
"And?"
"They never do that," Barnes stated firmly, in a way only someone who has seen it countless times could possibly understand. He turned from the holotable to face the kunoichi, who stilled eyed him uncertainly, "The Covenant are fanatical about two things. Their gods, and killing us in the name of their gods. Those hinge heads and apes never retreat from a fight without giving battle and will gladly die if it means taking a few of us out in the process, especially when it comes to a target as tempting as ours." Satomi stared at him as if he'd grown a second head as she processed this information. To be this devoted, this fanatical, in committing genocide and murder. And to use religion as the excuse... this was unheard of in her world. It was insanity. Outright insanity. The only thing she could think of that would even compare to it would be the Cult of Jashin. But that cult had been wiped out decades ago.
"If that fleet retreated," Karson spoke up, eyeing the now dead colony on the display while holding a soothing hand on the grieving Rebecca's back, "then it would "be for one of two reasons I can think of. Either there was a prophet on board who decided not to become a martyr for their bloody crusade..."
"Or we're dealing with a Hingehead who's actually competent and isn't afraid to pull out when needed." Barnes finished, earning a nod from the massive insurrectionist. Perfect. Just what they needed. Not just an Elite Commander (No way in hell that fleet was commanded by a Brute. They would have stayed and fought no matter what.), but a competent Elite Commander. One that would actually use his head. The ODST sucked in a breath through his nose as he scowled in frustration, "Fuck~."
"Yes~, my thoughts exactly." Wambua chimed in, "Shit has hit the fan, as the saying goes."
"They also say no plan survives contact with the enemy." Barnes shot back, pacing back and forth beside the holotable, "Dammit. We should have anticipated the Covenant could have found this little hidey-hole of yours. But what I don't understand is how they managed to do so, outside of... Were there any-"
"If there were any Forerunner artifacts on that colony," Rebecca finally spoke up, quietly and with shakiness in her voice, as she raised her head to look at him, "we would have known. Even we knew the Covenant can detect Forerunner relics and knew better than to store said alien artifacts on colonies like this. We always avoided anything forerunner to minimize the chances of the Covenant finding us. Not that it did any good..." The look in her eyes told the ODST all he needed to know. She was enraged, out for blood, but above all else, she was devastated by the loss of the colony. She looked as if someone had stabbed her through the heart. Leon sighed, sympathetic to her plight, but steeling his heart to the bitter reality of their situation. As tragic as this was, what's done is done. They no longer had a reason to stay in-system now that their resupply point was gone. Even more important, Ludogorie may be in danger if the Covenant are snooping around this close to the colony. They needed to get to Ludo now.
Now whether or not the Innie crew would see it this way...
Later...
UNSC Everest
Bridge
The Expedition Fleet moved into position over the moon as dozens of dropships sailed out from their motherships towards the burning inferno that was once a colony. The URF ships in the fleet had been adamant about conducting search and rescue operations. With any luck, they might find some survivors of this massacre.
Rear Admiral Alexander Simmons highly doubted it, however.
He had initially been against the idea of attempting any sort of rescue. The Covenant tended to be rather... thorough with their extermination of humanity and generally left no survivors in a glassing. Their initial plan had been to hold in orbit for 36 hours to allow for resupply and some R&R, but now that the colony was destroyed, there wasn't any point in lingering here. Especially now that it was all the more likely Ludogorie would come under imminent attack. But many of the URF ships in his fleet had friends and family that were on that colony and had been adamant about conducting a search and rescue attempt. For the better part of an hour, they went back and forth, with the 'spokesman' of the URF ships, Captain Aarif al-Azad, threatening to leave the fleet no less than three separate times. Though Simmons understood the rebel's position and where they were coming from, their mission (and contracts in the case of the URF captains) wasn't to save a dozen survivors of a glassed moon, if there were even that many left alive. Their mission was to try and save hundreds of millions of lives, along with countless military equipment, resources, and industry that were at risk on Ludogorie should the Covenant find it. Simmons wasn't a heartless man, but he couldn't potentially sacrifice 400 million to save what might be 4 or 40. Nevertheless, they managed to work out a compromise. Upon reaching Port Liberty's orbit, Simmons would allow the fleet a 12-hour respite to take stock of their situation and conduct search and rescue. Twelve hours was all Al-Azad and his fellow Innies were going to get. After that, they would continue to Ludogorie with haste. Time wasn't on their side. He could feel it. The sooner they'd get to Ludogorie, the better. But there was another thorn in their side now.
The Confederacy was pulling out of the expedition.
The Confederacy of Colonial Systems, from what little he had seen of them, had talked big games and acted as if they would play with the big dogs. (Which, according to Simmons, was essentially himself and the rest of the ex-UNSC out here. Maybe Falkirk, too.) However, everything he's witnessed of them so far didn't reassure him. Cutthroat politics, infighting within the branches for both influence, finances, and the outright decentralized nature of the Confederacy's politics and military all told the newly promoted Rear Admiral that either the Confederacy was run by a gaggle of corrupt and incompetents or they genuinely had no idea what the hell they were doing. The Confederate naval detachment commander, Rear Admiral Gilday, political yesman and outright moron in every sense of the word, had the Gaul to insist to Simmons that they share a joint command of naval assets. This hadn't been a necessarily bad idea in Simmons' mind, the naval commanders of the Falkirk and Confederacy Fleets understood their ships, crews, and capabilities better than he could. However, Gilday wasn't wanting a joint command. Rather, he wanted assets of Simmons and the Falkirk Commander, Rear Admiral O'Rooney, under his personal command for his use.
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Simmons told the Confederate Admiral to piss off. One, there was no reason to do anything like this when they already had their battlegroups set up. Two, it had already been agreed upon by all parties that Simmons would lead the fleet, given his time and frontline experience. Even if both Gilday and O'Rooney outranked him in terms of time in grade, neither had seen significant naval combat in years. Simmons had, even if he hadn't been in command. But Simmons had been shadowing one of the greatest military minds in a generation, and he'd be damned if he hadn't been paying attention to the master of warfare at his craft. Gilday, either driven by scorn at his rebuttal or cowardice in the face of the Covenant, had then announced following the destruction of Port Liberty that the Confederacy forces would be pulling out of what was clearly a suicidal endeavor. Simmons had partially wondered if the admiral had somehow gotten into command with his superiors and they'd made the decision, but to his knowledge, the Confederacy didn't have any superluminal communicators, especially aboard a 75-year old Diligence-Class destroyer being used as a flagship. More than likely, Gilday had decided to cut his losses before he had any genuine losses. While it wasn't necessarily a bad idea, given the small size of the Confederate Navy, there was one problem with this. One that Simmons was quick to point out to the renegade admiral. If Gilday pulled his contingent out of the expedition, then the Confederacy would receive nothing of the promised 'assets' rescued from Ludogorie and lose much goodwill throughout the Cluster's nations.
To his surprise, Gilday had seemed unconcerned about this consequence. "The likelihood of any reward coming out of this, in my eyes, has dropped too low be worth the inherent risk. You might be willing to risk the losses, but I can't, and my government can't. We're not some state-of-the-art UNSC Fleet armed to the teeth, Rear Admiral," He said with barely concealed sarcasm in the addressing of Simmons' recently acquired rank, which admittedly earn an eye twitch from him, "And even if we were, what good will it do us? We've seen time and time again what the Covenant can do to our navies, so why risk what few assets we have on a suicide mission?" And with that last question and a halfhearted wish of good luck, the Confederacy began their long voyage back to the Aquarii Star Cluster, taking with them 30 warships and 60 civilian ships. They hadn't even arrived to the Visok System yet, and Simmons had already lost a third of his 'fleet.' Ninety badly needed ships that could have made the difference between millions of lives saved or lost.
"Spineless damn cowards." He muttered under his breath as he watched several URF ships move into position over Port Liberty. He turned to the communications suite, "Lieutenant Demarcus, keep a line open to the URF ships as they work. I want hourly updates on their progress."
"Yes, sir." The young woman answered.
"Caesar, maintain the sensor suites at full power. We're no prowler, but there's even a whisper of the Covenant coming back in-system, I want to know about it immediately."
"Yes, sire."
"Lastly, I want a fleet-wide transmission. All ships in the fleet are to maintain TAC CON Alpha 3 until told otherwise to stand down. We will not let the Covenant catch us flatfoot like these poor bastards."
"Done, sire," Caesar obeyed diligently. "Shall I also check in with the Thunder Child, as well? You know, to make sure the ODST and Insurrectionists haven't killed each other yet?" Simmons pondered this momentarily. The decision to station ODST aboard an Innie ship had been extremely questionable, even for him. But as his superior and mentor had stated, both the UNSC and URF would have to get over old mentalities and grudges if they wanted this to work out. Old grievances needed to be set aside for the sake of millions, if not billions, of lives depending on them in the years to come. The admiral shook his head, "No. We'll check in with the commander and colonel later. I'll trust that the children are behaving themselves for now."
"Such optimism, sire. I wish I shared it." The AI said in a rather uncharacteristically cheeky remark. Simmons arched an eyebrow at the hologram.
"Hm, there's still plenty of time to have your skepticism justified, but I'm obligated as the commanding officer to have optimism for this operation."
"Of course, sire. I look forward to being proven wrong."
Later...
Thunder Child Bridge
"Any signs of life?" Barnes asked, watching as another dropship offloaded their teams and equipment to try and search for survivors. The teams were frantically moving about the decimated colony, careful to avoid the worst of the molten glass as they attempted to excavate destroyed buildings. He didn't bother glancing next to him. Rebecca Cole hadn't moved from her spot for what must have been an hour now, just staring at what had once been her home, "No. Nothing yet, but... we're hoping." The Helljumper merely nodded at this and said nothing else. In all likelihood, it was a fool's errand. The Covenant tended to be rather thorough with their genocide of human worlds. And with a colony this small? Barnes would be surprised if there were even any remains left to recover. But he wasn't going to say anything in this moment. He'd seen too many worlds glassed, too many survivors who held out hope for friends and loved ones even as they watched the world they'd lived on their whole lives turn into dead, desecrated worlds. It was a harrowing, heartbreaking that had played out too many times in this damn war. Better to have some false hope than no hope at all. And hope was something they were running out of, among other things. Barnes finally turned his attention squarely to the captain of the Thunder Child. She hadn't moved from her spot, still fixated on the site of Port Liberty's molten remains. Though they needed to plan their next strategy following this, he decided to wait and let her grieve.
Walking away from the command chair, the Colonel made his way over to his unit's Senior NCO, Staff Sergeant Jackson, who was eyeing the Innies in the room with a wary look. The man was tense; he could tell. Out of all of the ODST who were onboard, Jackson was among those who were least comfortable being surrounded by 'former' enemies. "Easy, Bill. Everyone's on edge as it is." Barnes muttered softly to his SNCO. The redhead shot him a look, as if he'd grown a second head.
"Aye, and it ain't doing no good sitting here. We should be hauling our asses to Ludo, not hanging around a grave with a thumb up 'em."
"They want to see if anyone survived-"
"Bullocks, sir. Respectfully, bullocks. Covie glassings on colonies this small leave no survivors, and they fooking know it." Jackson cut him off in a rather uncharacteristic fashion. "They're stalling. Maybe hoping we'll change our minds and turn tail or looking for an opportunity to turn tail themselves." The Colonel said nothing at first, digesting the Staff Sergeant's words.
"It's not like our ships could outright stop them if they wanted to leave, Bill." Barnes replied, "We don't have the numbers or the firepower to stop all of them, and we can't afford infighting if we're about to go into a warzone."
"Sir, we can't trust these peopl-" Jackson began, but now Barnes cut him off, "They could have ditched at a number of points in this trip or turned on us. I don't like them any more than you do, and you, of all people, should know that. But right now, we have to depend on each other, and they know this. They haven't turned on us yet, aside from the occasional fistfight. But until someone is stabbed or shot, I will try to give them the benefit of the doubt. We're going to need their ships if we want to save even a fraction of Ludo's population." He then jerked a thumb towards the burning colony beneath their ship, now visible outside the bridge's viewport, "Remember who the true enemy is, Bill. Otherwise, we're all screwed no matter who turns on who."
"Right..." Barnes decided to ignore how forced that answer sounded coming out of his NCO, giving him one last look over before walking over to where Satomi and her little ninja squad were standing. She had been mostly silent since they arrived in the system and witnessed the destruction of a colony. The kids that made up her 'team' probably showed the most visible reaction regarding the destruction of an entire moon. When they first joined on this expedition, they had all been excited. Even after they'd been shown combat footage of humanity's fight with the Covenant, it felt to Barnes that it really hadn't sunk into the young ninjas the gravity of the situation they'd gotten into and why they had been paid ten times the standard rate of one of their S-Ranked missions. They still kept treating it like it was some sort of adventure or vacation away from home. Now, though? Judging from their expressions, all fixated on what had once been a pristine moon colony; it finally dawned on them just what kind of enemy they were facing.
Twelve hours later, as the fleet departed to its ultimate destination, it was revealed that nine people had been rescued from the now-dead world. Nine people out of nearly ten thousand had called the station home. All but two of them would be dead from radiation poisoning by the time they arrived to Visok weeks later.
February 29, 2544
Slipspace Transit to Visok System
Expected Arrival Time: Minutes
"Alright, everyone! I want all ODST teams on standby!" Barnes barked out on comms as he looked over his VT40 one last time, cycling the bolt and watching it smoothly function. He wished he had his BR55 instead, but Cole had been insistent that the ODSTs try out the new weapons and give their assessments. If these weapons VelTec had designed were all that had been promised, then Cole was planning on having their military assets transition over to the new rifles as their standard infantry weapon, replacing four different variants of the MA5 series at once. So far, he hadn't been disappointed with the VT40. It was even more customizable than the venerable MA5 series, allowing him to easily equip the SO41 2-4x Scope* that was standard on the BR55 (that he might have 'liberated' from one of the Innie armories onboard.) onto the weapon, along with an underslung flashlight with an angled foregrip built into it. He contemplated adding a laser sight but refrained from it. He almost never used laser sights save for the occasional pistol or submachine gun and saw no need to do so here. For more close quarters, he went with his trusted M6C SOCOM, which had seen him through thick and thin on a number of occasions.
"We'll have no idea what's waiting for us, so I want everyone ready for anything." He ordered as the ODST contingent finished equipping the last of their gear and doing last-minute checks on themselves. He didn't bother doing any double-checking of his troops. He trusted them enough to know what they were doing. Soon enough, they were finished with their checkups, and all squad leaders reported their squads ready for action. Nodding at this, Barnes quickly pointed out to Jackson, "Jackson, you have the company while I'm gone. Be prepped to have them deploy. Whether by dropship or drop pod, I'll find out asap." Glancing around the room, he quickly pointed out a fireteam, "Corporal Ferrero. Your squad's with me to the bridge." Oscar Ferrero had been one of the ODSTs on the first mission to Shinsei, having been with Fireteam Whiskey in their fateful encounter at the Sky Ninja camp, and had more than nine years in the Helljumpers. Sadly, he'd been stuck at the rank of Corporal for nearly six years now, and was apparently unable or unwilling to advance further up the NCO ranks. And that might have been for the best. He wasn't quite someone you'd want as a platoon leader, but he was a good second-in-command when you needed one.
The nine-man ODST team quickly navigated its way through the halls of the Innie Frigate, making their way to the main service elevator that would lead them straight to the bridge. Crewmen of the ship could be seen running about, making last-minute preparations and check-ups on equipment across the entirety of the ship. The handful of Innie 'soldiers' onboard were getting the last of their gear on and checking rifles. The Colonel noted that while most of their equipment was outdated CMA gear, some of it was surprisingly modern. He saw a few Innies armed with MA5Ks, which were typically used only by UNSC Special Forces or Navy and Air Force pilots. Another was inspecting an XM510 Grenade Launcher, a six-round 40mm grenade launcher that had fallen out of service in the early years of the war due to its heavy weight and lackluster handling. It was extremely rare to see one nowadays, and Barnes could imagine how the Innies had managed to get their hands on one, never mind the storage rack behind the group showing five more in stock.
"Damn." Ferrero commented beside him quietly, "Maybe we should see about 'liberating' one of those grenade launchers for if this evac gets hot."
"Sure, if you're willing to lug around all the ammo for it and deal with the weight. I'm more interested in getting my hands on a '55." The colonel replied back. He really wished he had his BR55 and was furious about the fact Matilda had been taken from him by some fuck off ninja. Worse still, he'd later learned (unofficially) that the Spartans had been deployed to destroy the weapons and had succeeded in destroying said weapons, meaning there was no hope of getting his rifle back now. That rifle had served him faithfully for nearly 20 years through countless battles, and now it was gone forever. What a lousy way for such a trusted weapon to meet its end.
The ODST team continued toward the bridge, arriving just in time to see the arrival of Rebecca's 'Captain's Guard' as the trio of rumbledrug-enhanced insurrectionists called themselves. Barnes hated to admit it, but quirky personalities aside, the trio didn't slouch with arming themselves. They were armored like tanks, with heavy custom-made body armor that seemed to cover the entirety of their bodies. He initially thought they were wearing the EOD-variant MJOLNIR helmets but noticed that they were, in fact, the UNSC Army's version of the helmets. Less armor, and with the signature Hardened Uplink on the side. He didn't see any weapons on them but assumed nothing. He'd learned not to underestimate the three massive warriors. Weirdos or not, they took their job of protecting Rebecca seriously and had made it clear they had no love for the ODST or UNSC, regardless of whether or not they were deserters. But they were behaving at the behest of their captain, so he could accept their loathing for now.
"How much longer?" Barnes asked as he walked up beside the captain.
"Any minute now," Rebecca answered, looking noticeably nicer in attire but not anything military-oriented. Say what you wanted about her, rebel or no, Barnes had come to realize that she ran a tight ship in his time aboard her ship. Even if it wasn't to the standards or regulations of a UNSC ship. The crew may have been made up of a motley crew from all sorts of backgrounds, but they were a solid crew who knew what they were doing. Which was one less thing they needed to worry about.
"Good. Hopefully, everyone's wearing their Sunday best." Barnes commented nonchalantly, trying to make light of the situation that could very well see them going to their doom. But before he could get another word out, the doors opened behind him as several people were heard entering the bridge. The Colonel looked back to see Takashima Satomi and her chunin squad entering the room, geared up with all of their ninja equipment.
"Miss Takashima." Barnes was quick to greet but quickly followed with, "I think it would be best if you waited within the armored bulkheads where the armor's thickest. We're still not sure if we're entering a friendly system or an active warzone." Everyone on the bridge knew that those were just hollow comforts. If there was a Covenant fleet in-system and they were caught in that firefight, then the frigate's armor would last all of a few minutes at best. And this was assuming they weren't struck by a plasma torpedo or energy projector. The ship had a few anti-torpedo countermeasures, small launchers that shot out a ten-meter projectile that would explode into a large field of nickel and cobalt chaff, which would disrupt the magnetic fields of plasma torpedoes, and cause them to become unstable and dissipate into a vaporous cloud. But the launchers could only be fired once and were unguided, so it wouldn't matter if more than a couple of torpedoes were fired at them. The armor would be lucky to last a couple of seconds if even one hit. But the shinobi didn't know this little detail, or if they did, then they hadn't grasped the concept of just how much peril they were in. But nobody told them differently. What was the point? If they appeared in-system before a Covenant fleet, they would likely be dead before anyone realized it. That was the problem with fighting the Covenant. Their weapons were so many light-years ahead of what humanity had that they couldn't develop any form of armor capable of withstanding it. Even ablative armors specifically designed for use against the Covenant's energy weapons simply lacked the engineering refinement and durability to withstand the weaponry for more than a few moments. For all of Humanity's technological prowess and knowledge, it simply fell flat in the face of the Covenant's overwhelming firepower, hence why the UNSC was so desperate to develop functioning energy shielding, especially for ships. Anything they could use or develop to level the playing field, even just a little bit and energy shielding technology was considered one of the holy grails for doing this. And so far, there had been no luck in that field of development, despite countless amounts of captured Covenant equipment to reverse engineer.
"I don't see what difference it would make. Warzone or not, we should at least see the world we're supposed to be helping." The ODST Colonel glanced at his team, then to the Innie Captain, who simply shrugged as the navigation officer called out, "Exiting Slipspace in 5!" He sighed in defeat. Not really a point in saying no at this point, "Well, come on up. Might as well get a good look while we can-" Barnes started to say, turning around just in time to see their ship exit the void of slipspace... and come face to face with death.
Ludogorie, the fortress world and last bastion of the CMA, was on fire.
The planet was an open warzone, with entire regions of the planet covered in molten flames from where the Covenant had rained plasma fire down on the planet. Small explosions could be seen raging across the surface, war consuming the entire planet in apocalyptic fury. The skies above it were illuminated with dazzling flares of red and purple lights, the telltale sign of explosions in the void of space. Great lances of yellowish-white light pointed out human ships or ODPs firing their mighty MACs, while red and violet lances of light signified Covenant energy projectors retaliating in kind. Longswords, Baselards, and Nandao fighters clashed with Covenant Seraphs and Space Banshees, explosions announcing the destruction of one craft. The void around the planet was filled with the broken and molten forms of human and covenant vessels, the broken hulls of various space stations drifting lazily in stable or decaying orbits. The apocalypse had come for Ludogorie.
But none of that had grasped Colonel Barnes' attention more so than the Covenant Battlecruiser baring down before them, barely a kilometer from them, and an energy projector primed and ready. It glowed ominously like a menacing violet eye glaring down at them.
"... Fuck."
"DIVE! DIVE~!" Rebecca screamed out as the helmsman quickly slammed the ship's control into a steep dive, desperately attempting to avoid the certain death about to fire on them. Even with the artificial gravity, the sudden maneuver threw everyone off balance as equilibriums were thrown off. Panicked voices shouted out in alarm. Barnes was barely able to magnify his boots in time before he could be thrown off his feet, while a couple of his soldiers weren't so lucky and were thrown up a couple of feet as the ship made a desperate attempt at survival.
The Covenant Battlecruiser fired its energy projector, but not at them.
Despite being closer to the vessel, the Covenant Battlecruiser hadn't had time to readjust its aim to the fleeing Thunder Child, so instead of trying to fire upon the sudden newcomer, the mighty Covenant warship fired at its original target. Arabian Nights, a CMA Asculum-Class Heavy Cruiser of the Visok Defense Fleet, attempting to fire its heavy MAC at the Covenant warship but was now unable to with the Thunder Child blocking its line of fire, was struck head-on, gutting the ship from bow to stern and causing fires and explosions to erupt all over the vessel as it violently died. The cruiser was sent into a fall into the planet's atmosphere, its fusion reactors compromised and going critical as it plummeted into the planet's surface below. Minutes later, it would impact with the force of a small asteroid, its engines detonating and destroying everything within one hundred miles around its impact point, kicking up ash and debris miles into the atmosphere.
The Thunder Child's sudden arrival had inadvertently killed both the Arabian Nights and millions on the planet's surface when the cruiser crashed.
The Thunder Child and a dozen more combat ships of the evacuation fleet had arrived right over the planet and as a result, were caught right in the crosshairs of a Covenant vessel besieging the planet. They had held so much hope that the Covenant hadn't discovered the planet. That their presence at Port Liberty had been a terrible coincidence. They were wrong, and millions were burning. As was the norm with slipspace, the fleet had arrived in-system scattered all over, perhaps having arrived a little too close to the planet's orbit. The fleet's ships were spread across nearly half a million kilometers across the local space of the planet. But none of this helped the Thunder Child and her fellow ships, who were staring down a 1.7km long Battlecruiser, with another one a 100,000 km away barreling towards them.
"Get us the hell out of here! Launch missiles in suppressive salvos and burn fuel to put as much distance between us! Prep PDGs and countermeasures for enemy aircraft and counterfire!" Rebecca barked out orders as she scrambled to her seat on the bridge, "Everyone is to put on suits and prepare for atmosphere venting!" Bridge crew scrambled at their stations, carrying out a flurry of orders and directives, while the three giants that called themselves the Captain's Guard were surprisingly calm about the string of events. Barnes figured they'd already concluded there wasn't anything they could do about their plight, so there was no sense adding to the panic. 'Might be lunatics, but at least they haven't lost their nerves.' He applauded the former special forces soldiers silently as he helped up one of his troopers, who wasn't handling the situation as well as the three guards or Barnes himself. Glancing back to Satomi and her squad, they were confused and shocked more than anything but could clearly understand that the situation was dire as nervous looks grew on their faces.
A bright violet glow blinded the bridge's viewport temporarily as the battlecruiser fired its energy projector again, but once more not at the Thunder Child. Instead, a Falkirk ship, the FFS Ranger, was the unfortunate target as, in the panic, had also beelined to try and put distance between it and the Covenant warship. The Hillsborough destroyer was struck midship, the plasma beam cutting through the two meters of Titanium-A armor like a knife through butter and cleaved into two rapidly descending pieces. Fires spewed from both pieces like volcanic eruptions, and soon enough, lifeboats were being launched in desperation. Even one of the ship's Nandao starfighters managed to escape from the ship, followed by a couple more, but a flight of roving Seraphs moved in to intercept them and the helpless lifeboats as they went barreling down to the surface. Worse still, the battlecruiser flared its engines and moved to pursue the scattering battlegroup.
"Falkirk Vessel Ranger is gone! Life pods being launched!" A bridge hand declared from their station, "Flight of five Seraphs are moving to intercept! SOS are being broadcast-"
"We can't help them! Ignore it! Focus on that cruiser and any other Covenant that decides to join the party. Close bridge viewports and vent atmosphere in noncritical areas." Rebecca snapped at him, turning back to navigation, "Nav! Get some distance between us and that cruiser. Full power to engines to max speed, then divert power to weapons and perform a 180 rotation to give us a firing solution. Weapons! Spin up MAC to full power and prep a salvo of Archers followed by one of our nukes to follow behind them. Missiles first, then the MAC." Satomi, listening in to the conversation and following as best she could, was caught by the sight of massive slabs of armor closing down over the viewports of the bridge. She wasn't even aware the ship could do that, and saw with an eerie sensation as the light from the system's star was quickly snuffed out of view.
It dawned on her at this moment that this could be the last time she ever saw sunlight.
"Done! MAC charging! Five minutes till full charge, three once we get full power diversion! Nuke being prepped for launch. ETA three minutes. Boss, we've only got three of those Harpoons in stock." The weapons officer warned.
"Then you better not miss!" Rebecca warned back, just in time for the sensors officer to call out, "Another energy spike from the cruiser! Energy Projector prepping to fire!"
"Shit! Evasive, now!" Rebecca called out, "What's it targeting?!" As if summoned to answer her question, a panicked voice suddenly came up on comms crying for help. It was coming from another ship and on an open channel, clearly desperate. 'This is the Ching Shih! We're being targeted by a Covenant battlecruiser! We need immediate assistance!' On the holo-table, another Olso-Subclass could be seen frantically firing its Point Defense Guns and salvo after salvo of missiles at the looming Covenant warship. The onslaught of firepower, as impressive as it looked, did little more than impact against the shields of the Covenant ship. Several of the missiles were intercepted by brilliant beams of light, the battlecruiser's pulse lasers firing out occasionally and destroying some of the missiles, but the ship seemed to mostly ignore these annoyances as if they were but gnats.
'It's about to fire! Shit! Get under it! Out of the line of fire! Any nearby ships, please send-' The person on Ching Shih's comms went from pleading for help to the sound of explosions and a scream of agony to nothing but static all in less than two seconds as the battlecruiser's energy projector fired, spearing the bridge of the Ching Shih and then slicing through the frigate diagonally. The ship was nearly bisected by the attack, now drifting off aimlessly and ablaze in countless parts of the ship
"Goddammit! Someone kill that fucking cruiser!" Rebecca thundered out as Thunder Child's point defense guns opened fire on the Covenant vessel, followed by a salvo of archer missiles being launched directly at the warship. Most were intercepted by pulse lasers, but at least a dozen managed to slam against the shields of the massive cruiser. From somewhere, one of the other frigates from the expedition fleet had managed to fire off a MAC round at the battlecruiser. The shot was well-aimed but had been clearly fired underpowered and prematurely as the round slowly flew towards the Covenant vessel. The battlecruiser, in a blatant display of arrogance, didn't even bother to try avoiding the shot, letting the underpowered shot slam into the shielding to little effect.
"Energy buildup!" the sensors officer called out again, then swore, "Shit! Plasma torpedoes! Two of them being prepped to fire."
"Torpedo countermeasures and emergency thrusters! Prep them now!"
The frigate barreled away from the battlecruiser at top speed, now nearly 100 kilometers from the massive warship, but there was no way they could possibly outrun a plasma torpedo. It was possible to deflect or even 'dodge' one, but such feats were incredibly difficult to do due to the high speeds and accuracy of the torpedos. And unlike the battlecruiser, taking a hit from such a weapon was absolutely not an option. A single volley can gut a ship from bow to stern. And a frigate like Thunder Child could very well be destroyed by even two of these powerful weapons. Satomi and her squad were now visibly panicking as they realized just how dangerous their enemy was, while Barnes' fellow ODST were starting to lose their nerves, too. They needed to get the hell away, and now.
"Vampire! Vampire! Two torpedoes inbound!" Sensors declared.
"Intercept with countermeasures, now!" Rebecca ordered. A pair of the countermeasure launchers fired simultaneously, sending their payload directly on an intercept course with the two torpedoes at nearly 10 kilometers a second. As intended, the 10-meter-long spherical devices burst apart and scattered their chaff payloads over a large area in front of the incoming torpedoes. The twin pairs of chaff expanded to larger dense clouds, each nearly a quarter of a kilometer wide as they moved into the path of the oncoming torpedoes. The first torpedo was intercepted, shooting through the chaff field and almost immediately struggling to maintain its shape. For a couple of seconds, its cylindrical shape seemed to warble and warp as it struggled to maintain cohesion before finally, one side of the torpedo seemed to 'burst' open, the magnetic fields finally losing the battle, as the tightly condensed plasma clouds within erupted out. The torpedo burst into a quickly cooling cloud of plasma vapors, the purple haze quickly dissipating against the background of space. The nickel and cobalt chaff that came into contact with the plasma was superheated and melted down to the atomic level, but their job had been done.
The second torpedo, however, was completely missed by the chaff, barreling past before the countermeasure could intercept it.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" The sensors officer wailed out as the torpedo came closer and closer. Rebecca was screaming out orders to fire another countermeasure and to brace for impact, but the round wouldn't be fired in time to intercept. Someone shouted out something about more objects being launched from the battlecruiser, but few, if any, were paying it mind. Much of the crew and ODST were now busy panicking at their encroaching doom. Barnes felt himself tensing up in anticipation and a small build-up of fear as he watched death itself approach him through the holo-table's display. But as with many other times in his life, death would be cheated once more.
As the torpedo was mere seconds from impact, the battlecruiser that fired it was lanced by a blinding spear of light, looking almost as if it was impaled upon it, before violently blasting apart as if a star had gone supernova inside it. The 3,000-ton Mark V Super MAC round, traveling at 4% the speed of light, tore through the Covenant warship, shields and all, and obliterated the monstrosity in a fantastical display of raw, unyielding firepower. The battlecruiser disintegrated into thousands of tiny pieces as the MAC round accelerated on, barely stopping for the impact. The plasma torpedo, having lost its guidance system for the magnetic fields keeping its shape and control, slowly warbled and burst apart into a cloud of plasma. The entire crew was silent as the realization sunk in that they weren't dead.
Barnes released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as it sank in that they weren't going to die just yet.
"C-Cov..." The sensors officer stammered, swallowing heavily before continuing, "C-Covenant warship destroyed." Rebecca was breathing heavily, still processing just how closely they had come to death right then and there. Her heart was beating a mile a minute. Never in her life, save for once, had she ever come so close when battling the Covenant. But this one beat all the other encounters by a goddamn mile. This might have been a one-in-a-million chance encounter, but it still had been too damn close for comfort.
"Is... is it over?" One of the chunin ninjas asked, Rebecca unsure which one it had been.
"Well, that was a fantastic~ way to start the day," Wambua was heard sarcastically remarking, "really helps emphasis the implication that we're all going to die horribly."
"Stow it, Wambua," Rebecca snapped shakily, "Comms get us in contact with any nearby-"
"Contacts on sensors!" The sensors officer called out again, catching everyone's attention. "Six contacts on an intercept course, coming from the cruiser." From the cruiser?
"Can't be. Cruiser's dead, now." Someone called out, "A flight of fighters?"
"Not fighters." Barnes curtly said, glaring at the holotable as he looked at the incoming craft. Seraphs would have been bad enough, but the cruiser either hadn't had time or had already launched its contingent of aircraft. These weren't Seraphs, though. He thought he had heard one of the bridge crew shouting about something being launched from the cruiser, and he knew those tri-pronged shapes anywhere.
Ticks. Boarding craft.
"Get that AA firing and tell the crew to arm themselves, now!" Barnes barked out, tapping into his helmet and opening comms to his platoon, "We're about to be boarded! Go to pre-planned defensive positions across the ship and prepare to defend yourself." The tension that had left the room with the battlecruiser's destruction rebounded with a reckoning as the bridge crew doubled down on their duties. The soft repeating thud of point defenses firing could be heard reverberating throughout the hull as everyone scrambled to perform various functions. Barnes looked back to his squad, all on their feet and ready for action, "Y'all are with me. We're defending the bridge."
"Wait, what's going on?" Satomi asked, running up to them. Her chunin team quickly followed up behind her.
"The Covie ship got destroyed, but not before it launched some party crashers. We've got boarding craft inbound." Barnes quickly answered, pulling out his VT40 and flicking the safety off. The rest of the ODST squad were in the process of doing the same, pulling out their weapons and prepping for combat. Before Satomi could follow up her question, Barnes had already turned his head back to Rebecca and her three guards, "Where's the nearest armory on this level?"
"Left of the elevator, at the end of the hall," Desiderio answered, but Barnes didn't finish listening to him as he quickly ran out of the room. He didn't even bother to reply to Rebecca's question about where he was going. His ODST squad followed close behind him with Satomi in tow, telling her squad to stay put. Running down the corridor and sprinting left to the armory. The armory wasn't large compared to the main armories down below, but it had enough of what he was looking for. A pair of M247s with tripod mounts for them, along with a trio of M72L barriers as well. "Grab those and get them set up outside the bridge entrance." Barnes barked out as he grabbed an M90 shotgun and a box of shells from one of the weapons racks, loading the shotgun and then clipping it to his back. He checked to see if there were any BR55s on the weapon racks, but was disappointed to see none. Oh, well. Nothing to do about it. He turned back to Corporal Ferrero next to him, "Ferrero, your squad is on bridge detail. We cannot afford to lose it or the crew at all costs. If it ain't human, don't let it onto the bridge."
"Wait, what are you going to do, sir? " Ferrero asked as the first boarding craft was felt slamming into the hull of the frigate. There it was. The first of several boarders. As if instinctively knowing what Barnes was going to ask, he heard Atlas immediately speak into his headset, 'First boarding craft has attached. Deck 12, near the engines. Two of the Ticks have been shot down, but the others are closing in.'
"Pest control," Barnes replied back, grasping the side of one of the mobile barriers with another ODST and helping roll the cover down the hallway toward the bridge entrance. Satomi, though not entirely sure what they were doing, was helping by carrying a couple of large drum magazines for the 247s. "I'll need to form an ad-hoc QRF to quickly try and contain wherever these fucks land on the hull. Innie crew will only be able to do so much."
"Which is where we come in, myes~." Came a voice from in front of them, revealing the three captain's guards standing before them, all armed with M247 in their hands, each one connected to a large ammo backpack. Behind them, Satomi's chunin squad had followed them out. Wambua, on the left-hand side of the trio, spoke up once more as he took a step forward, "The three of us can handle defending the bridge while your little rascals go about purging the ship of the undesirables."
"With all that heavy ordinance you're packing, you'd be better off going around the ship clearing boarders." Barnes countered sternly as another boarding craft was felt slamming into the ship. Klaxons started blaring out across the ship. 'Deck 14, near the primary armory.'
"And I'll be damned before I trust your lot with the captain's safety," Wambua shot back sharply, "The captain is willing to tolerate your presence, but that doesn't mean-"
"Wam, enough," Karson interjected suddenly, to the surprise of both. Walking up towards the Colonel, the towering man hefted up his machine gun and then looked back to his two brothers, "Stay here and defend the bridge. I'll go with our helldog here and help clear the ship. Not going to do us much good defending the captain if the Covenant drops off an anti-matter charge in the reactor." The two other super soldiers didn't seem too thrilled at the idea but said nothing in protest as Barnes glanced up at the massive man. He was skeptical about working alongside an Innie, especially one that was 6'6" and bristling with muscles and testosterone. (Not to mention full of super steroids, too.) But the machine gun would be some nicely added firepower for whatever the Covies had brought onboard, so Barnes nodded in acceptance. "I'll come with you." Satomi followed up but was stopped by a hand raised by Barnes, "No. Stay here and watch the bridge."
"What?" One of the chunin, Arisuke, if he remembered correctly, asked indignant, "But we can help you-"
"Don't y'all have some sort of fatal condition called chakra exhaustion?" Barnes interrupted him quickly, they really didn't have time to debate this, "We still don't know a lot about your people's chakra or how well it'll recover in a chakra-less environment. And this really isn't the time to be testing it. This is a warzone, and you're observers. Not to mention you three are children." He pointed out sternly to the three teenagers, before gesturing to the ODST and two super soldier Innies, "Stay on the bridge and try to stay out of the fighting. Let them handle any intruders unless you absolutely have no choice. Ferrero, you know what to do."
"Roger, coronel."
The Colonel didn't wait to hear any sort of arguing from the ninjas, as both he and the massive warrior beside him began moving toward the elevator. They needed to clear the ship and now before more boarders arrived. The ship shook once more as a third tick slammed into the hull, further emphasizing the point. 'Deck 5, right beneath us. They may try to go for the bridge or the primary coils for the cannon. The other three were shot down.' Dammit. Each one of those Ticks could carry 75 passengers. Even one of those damn things attaching would have been bad for the Thunder Child, but now there were possibly over 220 combatants onboard. "Alright, we'll go there first and help thin out the herd," Barnes said, which earned a nod from Karson as the two descended the elevator. Tapping into his comms array, he quickly spoke out to his ODST teams, wanting to know where all 100 of his troopers were. A dozen would still be tending to injuries in Medical after the numerous fights with the Innies, but that still left him with 88 helljumpers to defend the ship with, along with what few troopers the Innies had amongst them. Debating it for one moment, he decided to share the comm link with Karson. No sense in keeping him uninformed about the rest of the ship, "All squads, this is Bulldog. Give me a sitrep."
'This is first squad,' Staff Sergeant Jackson voice replied swiftly, 'Currently locking down the Engines with second and third squads, then gonna take my squad double back and start sweeping the bastards off the boat.'
"Roger, First. I've left Fifth squad to defend the bridge and will be making my way to you." Barnes answered back, "Fourth, what's your status?"
'Fourth squad here. Medical has been garrisoned. Wounded are secured. Got a few Innies helping out, but we're spread too thin and covering too many entryways if they try to come here. Please advise. And before you ask, no, none of the innies know the codes to lock down the doors.'
"We can get ahold of Rebbie to close some of the doors." Karson suggested, "That'll help."
"Do it." Barnes said, and then turned back to speaking to fourth squad, "Roger, fourth. We'll get ahold of the bridge and get some of those doors shit. Fifth and sixth squads, what's your sitrep? How's the primary armory looking?" The response he received wasn't the one he was hoping for, as the sounds of frantic gunfire could be heard intermingled with the whine of plasma weapons. Along with the sounds of men and women dying. In the midst of all these voices, one guttural voice could be heard. An alien tongue deep and hateful, thunderous over the sound of gunfire and people dying.
"Ahhh, lohbaba!"
SO41 2/4x Scope= Fanon name for the classic scope used on the BR55. Also tweaked the scope a little bit by allowing it to switch between 2 and 4 times magnification. Always thought it was weird a Battle Rifle was equipped with a scope that had only a 2x magnification, given that one of the most common scopes used by the US Army is a 4x Scope. (Likely gameplay reasons, no doubt, but still odd.)
And there we have it for this chapter. Battle of Visok has officially begun and we're off to the races. I'm going to try and speed up the story once the Visok campaign is done because we're 17 chapters into this and we're still only in the first year of the story. I need to speed the story along. Anyway I hope yal;l enjoyed it, let me know you're thoughts in the reviews, and I'll see you next time.