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Chapter 5
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Part 1
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3 AIF (After Imperial Founding)/
14.08.2552 UNSC Military Calendar/
CIC
Republic Command Cruiser Coruscant's Shield
high orbit above Coruscant
Coruscant System
Corcusca Galaxy
Twenty-five Victory-class Star Destroyers and their Palpatine squadron leaders sliced through Coruscant's upper atmosphere. Escorts flew around them in a close formation that would have been considered far too close in space. Coburn's command squadron hung back, high above the planet, staying right outside the inner orbit of the massive Gollan II battle stations ringing the capital. Venators retrofitted with Silencers and carriers hung back, nested between their dedicated escorts.
At a safe rate of approach, the Imperial ships were minutes away from the anomaly when the first enemy passed through. It was no behemoth like the one hanging above Galactic City, being boarded by divisions' worth of soldiers. Despite that, the ship that shared obvious design similarities with the monster was almost twice as long as a Victory and a bit larger than the Palpatine cruisers, which were still in relatively limited production.
More enemy ships kept coming from the anomaly. Some were apparent escorts. They were still almost as large as the Victories. A second capital ship followed, then a third. Heat and power emissions spiked above the portal, something the Sensor Operator dutifully reported. The focused sensors of the fleet and battle stations told the tale in real-time, displaying it in the main tactical holo tank. Holographic screens showed crystal clear feeds from cameras in space, from the descending ships in the upper atmosphere, and even intercepts from the odd media camera droid.
Plasma torpedoes shot forth from the enemy capital ships, much smaller than those utilized by the crippled monster. Focused plasma beams followed, drilling fiery lanes through the atmosphere.
Virtually all descending ships had taken hits from the enemy super capital ship. While their shields held, in no small part, due to the atmosphere acting as a secondary defensive field, it meant that, in most cases, their deflectors were still recharging. Coburn had dispatched his ships with the most intact defenses through the portal, leaving him at a tactical disadvantage. Another one was the unwillingness to set Coruscant ablaze.
The distance between the combatants was significant, at least for an engagement within the atmosphere. In space, they would all be at nearly knife-fighting range. The leading elements of the fleet returned fire even as plasma lances slammed into their shields. Due to their sustained, if fleeting, nature, those things were more effective in draining deflectors than blaster bolts. The plasma torpedoes struck their targets despite the defensive fire, which was limited in nature to avoid collateral damage to the planet below. The sky above Galactic City burned.
The battle net updated with damage reports as shields failed under the onslaught. The armor mainly held, yet weak spots there by necessity to accommodate the Guardian system failed. It happened universally at the locations where light weapon emplacements and their sensor suites were deployed.
Return fire, with yields, dialed back to be safe for use in the atmosphere, failed to pierce the shields of the targeted enemy ships. Even as the first firepower exchange ended, more and more silver and purple warships emerged from the anomaly. Coburn couldn't allow this to become a fight of attrition. He needed his remaining fleet relatively intact to contain the enemy and the damage they could cause until reinforcements could arrive in force. He might also need to dispatch more ships to facilitate the evacuation of the Senate as well.
He quickly pressed a few buttons on his command console, then typed his personal authentication codes.
"This is Admiral Coburn. Case Omega is now in effect. The use of full-power capital weapons within Coruscant's atmosphere is authorized. Secure the anomaly at all costs! Gollan stations Bastion and High Tower, coordinate firing solutions with my flagship, and prepare to commence planetary strikes at my discretion."
Plasma beams lanced at the leading Star Destroyers. Armor glowed as it dispersed as much energy as it could, then boiled and ablated as it was designed to do. Sensors, Guardian emplacements, and the odd turbo-laser battery melted under the onslaught. In places, secondary explosions rocked the Victories when enemy fire breached magazines full of light concussion missiles. Even as plasma torpedoes raced into the burning skyline and more silver ships opened fire, gunners dialed up the yield of their weapons, overriding security protocols. The three targeted Victories managed to unleash a single salvo at standard combat yields before between sixteen and thirty-two plasma torpedoes struck their hull. Superconductive armor boiled, and hot plasma flooded sealed compartments turning them into furnaces.
The leading Victory lost her repulsors and began falling like a rock. Engineers desperately struggled to scram the hypermatter reactor when the automatic system meant to do it if the ship took excessive damage failed to kick in. Meanwhile, the pilot disregarded all security mandates and sound advice. She fully awoke the engines while in the atmosphere. The ship limped and shook while cold-fusion reactors struggled to provide power for its power-hungry systems. The pilot barely managed to avoid the edge of a theater shield, which flared blindingly when the exhaust wake of the mission-killed ship washed over it. With fires in dozens of decks and scores of locations, the Captain ordered his ship to head out of the atmosphere where they could safely vent compartments and starve the fires of fuel to burn.
The other two targeted Victories were less fortunate. Secondary explosions compromised either the power lines of their engines or the secondary fusion reactors. Due to the sudden and excessive damage, their hypermatter reactors automatically scrammed, averting disaster. An explosion rocked the now out-of-control ships, and they ponderously fell out of control, shedding escape pods. Below them, theater shields flared brilliantly, shifting configurations to resist kinetic impacts when possible.
The Star Destroyers didn't die alone. Their last barrages struck true, hitting Covenant ships with already weakened shields. Blinding flashes of light washed over ravaged buildings like a sunrise, followed by hard radiation and heat. Shields shattered, and nanolaminate armor boiled. Nearby, space scrapers burned and melted like candles in an oven.
Secondary explosions broke the spines of two cruisers. A third began a painfully slow descent towards the burning surface as system after system went offline, disabled by Ionic energy or crippled by the grievous wounds opened into her armored hide.
Admiral Coburn didn't know it then, yet after this first deadly clash, the enemy reinforcements lost their commander. Coordination between the remaining elements of the Covenant task force would suffer and eventually collapse after the Gollans and the ships in orbit added their firepower to the inferno below.
"Targets locked in! Synchronized barrage programmed! Firing!" The Weapons officer grimly announced. Every single warship in orbit in a position to do so opened fire. A moment later, two of the Gollan II stations followed suit.
Down below, the enemy ships were maneuvering, trying to get more weapons to bear on the descending Imperial fleet and avoid incoming fire if possible. They might have been able to dodge if in space and the range was sufficient. When caught so deep within a gravity way, or worse, like in this case – on the planet's surface, there was no way for the fleet in orbit to miss.
Still, the invaders fought. Two of their ships managed to rotate to the side, and powerful energy lances shot from large weapon emplacements on their bellies. The first cut off the front third of a Victory with her shields burned away by plasma torpedoes. Secondary explosions blossomed across the ship's superstructure, even as its forward third detonated, bathing the mangled larger part with a barrage of debris. Secondary explosions tore the ship apart.
The second lance struck a Palpatine class that had avoided enemy fire since tanking an energy beam from the thirty-kilometer-long leviathan. Her nearly drained shields had time to mostly recover when the beam burned through them, then bit deeply into the hull, carving her starboard side like a giant hooked knife. Secondary explosions ravaged nearly half the ship, wiping out weapons, sensors, and thousands of crew members.
That enemy victory was short-lived. The barrage from orbit struck true, bathing Galactic City in radiation and fire. Covenant escorts disintegrated. Fire and smoke engulfed their crippled super capital as dozens of levels of Coruscant's surface turned into molten lakes.
Warships burned, their shields glowing like stars before overloading. Nanolaminate armor flowed freely like it was back into the forges that shaped it in the first place.
Any unfortunate soul who could not reach a shielded shelter in time either burned as well or baked from the radiation alone.
Coburn grimly watched his handiwork. He didn't need a camera to see the fires from orbit. That part of Coruscant would glow for days while lakes of molten metal cooled sufficiently. Or that would have been the case on any other planet. Here, the molten metal would find its way down, murdering countless people who wouldn't have even got the message that there was an invasion underway. There would be rivers of molten metal spreading through the paths of least resistance until their pressure was low enough to no longer burst through any common barriers.
Meanwhile, a firestorm engulfed Galactic City, with only the Palace of the Republic and a few other areas shining like beacons thanks to their shields fighting the onslaught.
A second barrage fell, then a third, before the last enemy ship blew up or fell into the burning maw leading straight
to the Nine Corellian Hells.
The tactical display updated, showing only the large red blinking icon of the super-carrier. Above it, twenty-two Star Destroyers slowly made their way down while crippled ships clawed their way to either orbit or a safe spaceport to land at. Four ships were outright destroyed, with another four missions killed at best, if not headed for the breakers. At least half the rest carried scars from the brief, deadly engagement.
It was their beam weapons, Coburn decided. They were fiendishly effective at burning through shields. After all, armor could do only so much when forced to endure pure energy or plasma hotter than the heart of a star. They needed a way to defend themselves against these new weapons better.
On the bright side, when faced with reasonable firepower, the enemy ships died surprisingly fast.
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Part 2
=RF=
3 AIF (After Imperial Founding)/
14.08.2552 UNSC Military Calendar/
Senate building
Reach
Epsilon Eridiani System
Milky Way Galaxy
From what Six could see and assume, no matter how dangerous that was, he was glad that dealing with politicians wasn't part of his job description. Until now, anyway. The bickering humans and aliens, who didn't seem to comprehend the Covenant, were attacking the building were baffling to the Spartan.
He watched how Kenobi suddenly vaulted in what should have been an impossible jump and landed on the floating pod above. He caught its edge for stability and nimbly vaulted inside. The woman with the ridiculous hair looked at him in bemusement and shook her head, muttering something. The Emperor presumably spoke back before she stepped aside, allowing him to use the pod's equipment to address the whole chamber.
A few gestures, accompanied by a brief yet angry tirade, got many of the politicians moving up. Kenobi obviously wanted them to concentrate on the upper levels, which would make that part of the building easier to hold. Further, anyone in the higher pods would have some cover from fire coming from below. A good look down convinced Six that the chamber could make for a decent killing ground if you had the high ground. The Imperial soldiers seemed to agree. As soon as the lower levels emptied of beings, the security details pulled up, herding everyone to the top. Meanwhile, more soldiers entered the chamber from side doors on the high levels, carrying crew-served weapons they began to deploy within convenient pods. The Spartan could only presume there was simply not enough space in safe rooms for everyone, so some unlucky bastards had to bunker down in this chamber.
Six looked up to see Kenobi passionately kissing the blond woman before whispering something to her. Then he turned around and jumped off the platform in an impressive leap that brought him back to their now-shared security detail. He landed lightly and, to Six's surprise, far too quietly for someone in power armor.
Cody muttered something to the Emperor, earning himself a snort before Kenobi put his helmet back on.
The other Clone spoke to the droid, and C-3PO translated.
"Enemy fighters and those Banshees are engaging our air support. That allowed strike teams to get to the roof. They're dismantling our AA there, if at a high cost. We can expect insertions from the top floor momentarily." After those words, it was the Emperor who spoke to Six.
"Soldier, can I trust you with a gun?" C-3PO waved his hands at that. "Combat? Here?! We are doomed! Artoo-Deeto, where are you!?"
"I am a veteran soldier, sir," Six pointed out, knowing this wasn't the question. "You are friendly humans and aliens of all things. I have no reason to shoot you in the back."
The Spartan felt that Kenobi was staring at him as if trying to gaze into his very soul, if such existed. He nodded at Cody, then at him.
The Clone removed a large pistol from a magnetic clamp on his thigh and offered it to Six holding it by the gun barrel.
"This is a DC-18 heavy blaster pistol," C-3PO was happy to translate. "It has a power cell worth fifty shots," The Clone explained. He pointed at two buttons at the side of the weapon. The first one was in a comfortable reach of the thumb, and the other was above the trigger, easy to flick with the index finger. "Safety and an option to shoot high-powered blaster bolts. Effective range is…." The Clone paused, then looked Six up and down. "About twenty-four or five times your height."
Close to fifty meters, very good for a sidearm. Some pistols favored by UNSC soldiers could get a similar effective range with magnum ammo and integrated scope.
The Clone offered him two compact power packs and showed him how to change them – no surprises there. The logistics implications alone, if the other weapons used by the Empire needed power packs instead of all kinds of different bullets, would make armorers across the UNSC very happy campers. No more snafus of getting the wrong ammo and being stuck up shit creek without a paddle… or at least that happening would be much less likely.
Six locked the pistol to his armor and stashed the power cells. Meanwhile, Kenobi was looking at the politicians who were crawling up as if their lives depended on it, which they very well might.
The Emperor's head snapped up and to the left, and he barked an order. Cody did the same, and within the moment, they were moving around a relatively small path around their row of pods, heading for a side entrance down the aisle.
"Enemy forces are about to breach into the upper level. We are the closest mobile reserve available to contain them," The droid hurriedly explained.
Six glanced at the soldiers digging into the chamber and guessed they had standing orders and people to keep in one piece.
This time, Kenobi led them to a broad stairway held by a single fire team. The soldiers were on the top level, with most of them taking cover and aiming into the corridor to the right. At the same time, a single trooper kept watch to ensure no one surprised them from behind. Six noticed that now that they were out of the chamber, the sound of combat was again relatively low, yet still not as loud as one might expect. Intentionally or not, the materials the building was made of apparently absorbed sound.
Rapid fire and explosions echoed from down the corridor. Six picked up his new weapon and carefully pointed it at the floor. He didn't want to give these soldiers any reason to shoot him in the back out of a damned misunderstanding.
About twenty meters ahead, a blue armored soldier was dragging a wounded buddy. In contrast, a single heavy armored trooper slowly walked back while firing downrange. He was carrying a heavy weapon of some stripe, perhaps a SAW or HMG equivalent. Every few seconds, the Imperial soldier shot a burst of red death at Covenant troops. Grunts yipped in fear and anger while Elites barked.
A stream of needless flew through the air and curved mid-flight to aim at the retreating pair. More of those seeking munitions homed on the heavy trooper.
At that point, Kenobi did the impossible again. His left arm snapped up, and he made a backhanding motion. The first swarm of needles slammed into the transparent metal window and detonated in pink clouds of crystal shards. A moment later, Kenobi's hand was up in a very recognizable Halt gesture. The needless about to strike the heavy's helmet froze in mid-air. A dismissive motion had them slam into the floor, where they exploded, marring the polish of the metal.
What kind of enhancements could allow him to do that?! Six stared in disbelief and found out he had ceased walking only when one of the soldiers behind him pushed him forward.
Seconds later, the Spartan discovered his eyes didn't lie to him. Kenobi raised his hand again and, this time, stopped a charging Grunt in its track. The tubby alien had a live plasma grenade in each hand and was trying to be a suicide bomber. Kenobi made a pushing motion, and the Grunt floated in the middle of the corridor, then flew back at his Covenant buddies as if kicked by a Hunter.
Six could see the Covies stare at what was happening in disbelief. The image of slack split jaws would be a happy, treasured memory. The plasma explosions that devastated the Covenant assault party would be another.
The heavy trooper and the Emperor exchanged words, and he joined their party. Six could hear the excited cries of more Covenant in the distance. They would soon try again.
The Spartan was just out of position to see a CR90 corvette emerge from the portal and accelerate, followed by two more. Ten seconds later, the first Star Destroyer to arrive in the Milky Way galaxy emerged from the anomaly.