March 24th
2583
12:00 pm UNSC time
UNSC Charon-class light frigate 'Mother of Invention'
Orbiting Reach
Nobody's POV:
An entire 2 weeks passed since the incident involving the destruction of the 'Titanic 2.'
Since then, the UEG and Swords of Sanghelios have been not only tracking down the treacherous fleet that illegally entered UNSC space without permission, but also salvaging the Mother of Invention from Sidewinder and adding new technology to the mix, making the former headquarters for Project Freelancer even more formidable. On that mission, they discover a highly classified base of operations for Project Freelancer, but agreed to not worry about it until the current mess with the Republic is dealt with. The Mother of Invention, along with 5 Sangheili CAS-class assault carriers led by Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum will be demolishing the fleet and confiscating some of the Republic's intel for breaking the treaty between the UEG, Swords of Sanghelios and the Galactic Republic.
Madam President Peterson and Arbiter Thel 'Vadam agreed during the 2 weeks that all-out war with the Republic was unnecessary. After all, you can't punish a whole organization just because one of their members got careless and destroyed a UNSC ship transporting famous heroes. When word spread of what happened, the public was angry to say the least, but their anger was curbed, albeit barely.
But now, the ships are ready. The CAS Carriers are above Reach, near Gamma Station, where the Mother of Invention is getting loaded up with everything, from food to weapons and armored vehicles. A large squad of marines and even some red and blue squads rescued from their outposts were assigned to the ship, given the standard white armor of the frigate as a sign of being a part of the ship. The ship is now led by the Blood Gulch crew, now dubbed Purple Team. As a precaution, the UNSC assigned Reginald Quince as a 2nd Colonel to the ship to help Sarge come up with competent battle strategies while his 2nd-in-command took over, being promoted to Captain in the process. Quince was moved from the Argo to here since Quince was once a member of a Blue squad at Rat's Nest before the Meta killed them and he got transferred to a UNSC ship, thus giving him experience in tolerating and dealing with idiots.
Within 15 minutes, the Mother of Invention departs from Gamma Station and meets up with their Sangheili ships. Just then, Rtas comes up on a communication system on the Mother of Invention.
"Greetings, Shipmaster. Our chaps are ready to go." Quince says to Rtas, nodding his head to the Shipmaster.
"Good. Soon those traitors who look down on us for our weaponry will know what true warfare looks like." Rtas said.
"Spoken like a true warrior. Let's kick their asses and bathe in their blood for messing with my team, those Blues and the former Freelancers. Unless we're talking about Grif, in which case, you can just laugh at his screaming. That lazy bastard needs a knocking around once in a while to keep him hard." Sarge adds, his shotgun in his hand.
Rtas looks a little disturbed by Sarge's enthusiastic tone after what he just said, but nods in agreement. "Very well. Let's begin the battle." The transmission cuts off.
Quince then walks towards the loudspeakers and activates it. "All crew of the Mother of Invention, prepare to enter slipspace and prime all cannons for battle." He then turns off the loudspeaker.
"Here we go again." Agent Carolina said, staring out at space from the bridge.
The Frigate maneuvers next to the CAS Carriers, and simultaneously, speed up and enter slip space.
20 BBY
12:20 pm UNSC time
Galactic Republic Acclamator-class star ship
Around Mon Calamari
Meanwhile, the Republic fleet of 10 Venators and 1 Acclamator ship were engaged in combat with a CIS fleet of 20 ships, made up of inferior class star ships that were sent by General Grevious to re-establish a fortress there and with time, reclaim the planet they tried conquering, and would have had Jedi Kit Fisto not interferred.
But after hours of battling, the CIS ships are now down to 10 ships while the Republic only lost 4 Venators. The clone pilots and Vulture droids are also firing at each other, while the cannons on the ships on the 2 sides shot at each other. "We have to keep going at this rate. The Republic must stop the CIS at all costs. Have all fighters evade and start taking our ship's cannons to put some pressure on those Vultures." Yularen said.
"Yes sir!" A clone responds, then starts relaying the orders to the fighters. Then, another clone calls up on another report. "Sir! Heat signatures about 20 klicks on our starboard bow!"
"Who could it be?" Commander Fil asks, standing next to him.
"Turn our ship to that sector. I want to see who it is." Yularen tells to the clone operators. They comply and begin turning the ship to that direction. What they witness is truly stunning. A single streak of white light is flying at the CIS ship and once it hits a CIS ship, punches through it even with shields up like they're made of wet paper. It passes through so easily that it come out the other end and punches through another 2 ships. Both of them explode, making all of the ships rock uncontrollably. Yularen even staggered to make sure that he remains on his feet.
"Who fired that shot?" Fil demands, getting anxious and a little unnerved at the firepower of whoever made that shot.
"Sir. The UNSC and some Sangheili warships have come." A clone calls up, sounding nervous.
"What? How can you be sure it's those primitives?" Fil asks, now a hint of fear in his voice if it's really them. In answer, more blasts go off towards the CIS and 6 ships that definitely belong to the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios come into their view. The UNSC ship, apparently called the 'Mother of Invention' starts firing guns on each side, tearing through dozens of Vulture droids at a time while the Sangheili ships start firing their plasma shots at the CIS ships, which are standing little to no chance against. The parts and carcasses of the enemy ships and fighters are floating dead everywhere, but the 2 allies push on. Until the remaining 2 ships turn around quickly and flee into hyperspace. Just then the 6 ships turn towards the Republic and face them. Yularen can't help but feel a little bit scared and suspicious at what's going on. Scared that he finally got to see the UNSC and Sangheili fight and isn't looking forward to fighting them, not to mention how the ships seem to be leering at them. Yet he feels suspicious as to why they are here and why they felt the need to interfere in a battle he had a firm grasp on.
"Sir. One of those ugly Sangheili ships and the UNSC ship are hailing us. Shall I answer them?" A clone next to the communication table calls to Fil and Yularen.
"Yes, do so. I want to know why they are here." Yularen orders the clone, who makes the necessary preparations.
"I don't like this." Fil says while the preparations are being made. But a second later, 3 people appear on the holo-table. Two of them are humans, one of them being the first UNSC Captain the Republic ever met, Reginald Quince, and a red-armored man holding a shotgun in his hands. But the 3rd being is a Sangheili in white armor, with 2 of its right mandibles missing.
"Greetings to the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios. I have to wonder: Why are you all the way out here?" Yularen asks the trio, not really liking the way they are looking at him.
"Admiral Yularen. I am Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum, my allies her Sarge and you probably heard of Reginald Quince. As for why we are here, you have betrayed our people, and thus, you and your ships shall burn. Even if you have more ships than us, that only evens the odds. Now, you shall see what a true battle looks like."
"Have fun getting blown to bits, dipshits. Men, let 'er rip." The red-armored man, now name Sarge, said before the transmission cuts off.
"Sir! Their guns are warming up again. They are about to fire!" A clone shouts in panic.
To say Yularen is shocked, confused and outraged at the accusations of betraying the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios is a major understatement. He shall investigate why this is when this rogue fleet is obliterated. "Take all of our deflector shields and put them to the front of our ships to withstand their shots. Send our fighters and see if they can do some damage to those ships so we can destroy them." He said quickly.
The clones jump on the orders, priming the deflector shields to the front. Just in time as a barrage of Sangheili plasma shots hit the shields, weakening the shields but not destroying them while another one of those white beams flies from the UNSC ship, tearing through a single Venator, and crippling the systems of a 2nd. Said ship now flies in space helpless. "Scramble all fighters and send them out! Get those missiles primed and fire them at will." Yularen orders again. Within minutes, the fighters leave his Acclamator ship and fly at the enemy fleet. They turn sideways and rain down a barrage of sidearm fire, wiping out a considerable number of fighters. Then to the clone's horror, the hatches open up and their own fighters fly out to take care of the survivors.
'If only Anakin Skywalker was with us.' Fil thought bitterly, watching as several UNSC Saber-class fighters and the Sangheili's Phantoms tear through the clone fighters. The Hero without Fear would definitely turn the tides of this battle, mainly because it's pretty obvious that each of their fighters have experience in brutal dogfights, certainly much more than the clones who have only been in battles for a year. Although they do manage to destroy some fighters, it isn't enough. Just then, Yularen and Fil hear the report they wanted to hear.
"Sirs. All missiles loaded up and ready to go."
"Fire!" Fil orders. The order is relayed and within seconds, streaks of light fly towards the other fleet. But to their horror, they explode on the ships but no damage whatsoever is done.
"Sir. No damage has occurred on the ships." A clone shouts up, stating what was just observed.
"We just need to hammer them harder. Fire the turbolazers." Yularen then orders, wondering what they might do next. All around him, the Sangheili plasma shots begin destroying the deflector shields and damaging the Venators. Then the enemy ships start maneuvering in a strange matter. Two Sangheili Carriers fly right at 2 Venators and hitting them, while firing their side weapons at the other Venators, further damaging them. The respective star ships the Carriers smash into start flying towards other ships and destroying more ships in the process. Meanwhile the Mother of Invention starts flying at the Acclamator. Despite the Acclamator's turbolazers, the frigate flies right towards them before turning to where it's parallel to Yularen's ship. To his shock, giant tubes jut out of the (in his opinion) tacky ship and touch the Acclamator ship.
"Fil, prepare the troops. We're being boarded." Yularen orders, still holding on to hope that he might win this fight. He then walks to the holo-table and starts recording. At the very least, he'll have data on how they fight. Their definition of 'a true battle' is far more brutal than the Admiral's used to. The screen pulls up and shows off the docking bay where the clones and commandos preparing for an imminent invasion. Just then the doors are blasted inward, and a shrill voice can be heard.
"Let all those who stand against us be washed in our divine light! Attack!*" Then the UNSC's famous 'marines' run onto the ship. The only difference between the ones he's heard they look like and these is that these soldiers are in all white armor, and are firing on the clones and killing them quickly. Yularen felt somewhat reassured when he sees Commander Fil running into the bay with a squad of ARC troopers. They start firing on the marines, who are shot and killed despite them killing 2 ARCs. Before he can feel any better, he heard a strange song on the other side. To his horror, the marines that were killed immediately get back up, whooping and firing on the clones again. A split second later, a UNSC Warthog drives into the docking bay, its turret built on the back blazing and killing even more clones. Its driver is in strange gold armor, in the passenger seat is the red-armored man Yularen saw in the communication, with a maroon armored soldier in the turret area. They immediately started barreling towards the bridge area, with the few surviving clones and Fil dodging in either direction.
At this point, Yularen accepted a hard truth. He and his men are outmatched, and all they can do is escape and tell the Senate of what has happened. "Men. Prepare for evacuation. We've lost." He said, retrieving the data on how their new enemies fight then runs to the elevator that will take them to the docking bay where the only means of escaping this battle awaits. He makes it down the elevator and keeps going for a minute until he hears that strange music. Yularen immediately dodges to the left, only for the Warthog to barrel past them. Seeing that it's safe, he keeps running until he meets up with Commander Fil and 3 surviving ARC troopers.
"Admiral! We're getting torn apart." Fil reports.
"I know. I ordered the men to abandon ship. Come, and we'll do the same." Yularen responds then they keep going to the docking bay, where any leftover clones were gunned down by the white-armored marines that are pooling into the bay.
"Go!" Fil shouts to his Admiral and the ARCs as he starts firing on the enemy who noticed him. Despite the randomness of a blaster, he does manage to kill 2 marines before joining the others in a gunship on the verge of taking off.
"Sir. What about the others?" The trooper that's piloting the gunship asks.
"I'm sorry, but unless they can make it past the marines, they won't make it. Get us out of here." Yularen answers. Immediately, despite the guns going off and damaging the gunship, the ship takes off and after using blasters to punch through the Acclamator ship, fly out into space. Then as quickly as possible, fly down to Mon Calamari while several shots from enemy fighters go off around them.
Yularen stares out at his former ship, when the Mother of Invention pulls away from the ship after a few minutes. Mere seconds later, it blows up. Yularen accepted another truth then: They are the only survivors of this disaster of a battle. He doesn't want to, but watches as the Sangheili fighters wipe out the remaining Venators. Now that the battle is over, all of the fighter ships return to the main ships of the rogue fleet, turn around and enter slip space before disappearing from view. Yularen sits down, trying to digest all that has happened. As much as he hates to admit it, that Sangheili was right. A whole new definition of what a battle is like was given to him.
For the rest of the gunship's trip to Mon Calamari, he ponders what they meant when they accused him of betraying their trust and what he should say once he returns to Corusant to tell the Jedi and Senate about what happened.
AN: Now the bitter wars have begun.
*Can anyone guess which Reds and Blue squads these guys are?
As for the Sangheili ramming one Star Destroyer into another to destroy both ships, consider it my dedication to the Star Wars story Rogue One. I must say, that was an awesome movie.
I shall see you next Friday, my last post for 2016.
I can promise, things definitely get heated up next time, and have a happy holidays.