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Chapter 6
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Part 1
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3 AIF (After Imperial Founding)/
14.08.2552 UNSC Military Calendar/
Bridge, UNSC Leviathan
low orbit above Reach
Epsilon Eridiani System
Milky Way Galaxy
A hundred ships moved deceptively slow, skirting the edge of the atmosphere. Above them, tugs and damaged warships of various stripes dragged three refit stations, pushing and pulling them at a faster orbit.
Everyone in the fleet who could be was strapped securely in a seat, ready for sharp maneuvers and inevitable combat damage. Centurion and the other Smart AIs spread out through various capital ships ran the show. They constantly refined calculations, nudged ships to keep perfect vectors, and ensured the refit stations would be in place when the fleet needed them.
The Covenant were acting arrogantly, so nothing new there. Still, Standforth worried he was flying his command into a deadly trap. All it would take was one smarter enemy commander to decide that properly defeating the enemy in detail would be prudent.
Instead, the Covenant pulled back only fifty-odd ships to meet the UNSC fleet. The odds weren't good at the best of days. However, they might be survivable, if barely.
A timer counted down to zero, and the fleet decelerated as much as it could without flipping around for the warships to use their primary drives. Hundreds of Archer missiles left their pods in staggered salvos, going in on a ballistic trajectory to preserve fuel. They were little more than cover for all the Shiva nuclear missiles the fleet could launch.
The other benefit was the odd missiles were refitted with experimental ECM packages or sensor suites to help the navy refine its targeting solutions and better understand what the enemy had deployed. After all, long-range sensors could only do so much.
Long minutes passed as the Covenant force finished turning and decelerating and finally began accelerating to meet the UNSC. Most of the enemy fleet continued converging on the anomaly.
"Firing," Centurion announced. The deck rumbled from the MAC recoil. Over a hundred projectiles of various sizes and speeds were launched in a staggered pattern, ensuring they would hit their targets simultaneously.
The enemy ships had low speed due to their commanders' tactical blunders. Their options to evade the incoming fire were strictly limited. Many tried, while at the same time, they opened fire, sending plasma torpedoes hurling at the human fleet. At that point, the ships with the refit stations pushed their charges toward the planet. The UNSC fleet lit up its engines to begin sharp ascending above the planet, aiming to get the platforms between itself and the incoming guided plasma.
A few MAC rounds missed their targets when Covenant ships barely managed to get out of the way. A couple of cruisers got their shields clipped by shots that would have otherwise missed their hull if by mere centimeters.
Twenty-three cruisers got hit by at least three MAC rounds each. Their shields could handle a single slug. They would strain to deflect a second. Unless fired from a frigate, the third would inevitably punch through, hit the hull, and tear through nanolaminate armor and the compartments below it. Often, the rounds would be able to punch straight through a Covenant ship, ripping large holes in their hulls. When the slugs didn't, they tended to splinter and shatter, causing even more internal damage with an effect like a shotgun blast.
Punctured reactors went critical, immolating whole cruisers. Other ships tore themselves apart in secondary explosions or drifted after losing power to too many critical systems. Here and there, a heavily damaged ship remained combat capable, if barely.
In exchange, the massive salvo of plasma torpedoes slammed into the refit stations. Jets of liquid metal boiled into space and flew at Reach's atmosphere like metal rain. Pieces of the nearly vaporized massive stations hit the atmosphere and remelted again before burning out on the way down.
Archers and Shiva missiles ignited their engines and converged on the closest large Covenant ship their sensors could lock on. Pulse lasers scythed through them, erasing dozens, then hundreds of missiles as they approached the crippled enemy fleet. The intact Covenant ships launched more plasma torpedoes at the UNSC fleet, accelerating their way. The torpedoes raced toward their targets, flying right above the approaching wave of exploding missiles. As programmed and guided by sensor missiles flying beside and just ahead of them, half the Shivas changed trajectory and broke off their attack run, instead heading up to intercept the torpedoes. Naturally, the Covenant pulse lasers and their gunners disregarded the ordnance that was no longer coming their way.
Nuclear explosions lit up the sky above Reach. The Shivas detonated as close as they could get to the torpedoes. Hard radiation washed over nearly a third of the plasma weapons, disrupting their magnetic containment. It wasn't enough to outright stop the torpedoes. However, they would lose potency and leak most of the deadly plasma they contained before reaching the UNSC fleet.
A handful of Shivas slipped through the gauntlet of pulse laser fire. One detonated between two CCS cruisers, weakening their shields and blinding their sensors. The second struck an armored cruiser that had two MAC rounds glance off its shield earlier. The resulting explosion burned through the defensive field, melted armor, and scorched sensors and weapon emplacements, crippling the front of the capital ship.
At that point, the UNSC fired, deploying MAC rounds from cannons that weren't fully charged. It would have to do, for seconds later, every ship across the fleet engaged their maneuvering trusters, sharply moving in a direction away from incoming plasma torpedoes. Tugs and crippled vessels, the same task force that brought the refit stations this far, suicidally raced forward, physically intercepting the firepower coming at intact warships.
Now it was the UNSC's turn to burn. Virtually all thugs and damaged ships that attempted to sacrifice themselves died, immolated by Covenant plasma. Twenty more ships died.
Meters worth of titanium armor boiled away, unable to protect the compartment and crew members below. The smaller ships blew up as plasma flooded critical compartments and ignited fuel, air, and ammunition. The larger ones got cut to pieces, with sections blowing up and others drifting out of control, engulfed in fire.
Fifteen more ships emerged from the engagement damaged, leaking molten metal like lifeblood. Armor belts were compromised, and sensors and secondary guns were gone. However, the MAC cannons were still operational in all but two cases.
All things considered, Standforth knew his people got fortunate in the exchange. Even better, he had enough combat-capable ships to dedicate killing firepower to any Covenant ship that survived the second salvo. The UNSC fleet would have to shoot again without waiting for the MACs to get to full power, yet it should be enough to win this round.
The second barrage impacted, and more Covenant ships died. As the range closed, the relative speed of the combatants was too low for practical evasion. Ten Covenant ships broke, some simply shattering under the hits of multiple MAC cannons. Every surviving enemy vessel had its shields nearly shattered or suffered damage from relatively low-velocity MAC rounds. While those weren't killing blows, they still degraded sensors, compromised armor, and ruptured plasma lines.
"The damaged ships will advance ahead of the fleet," Standforth ordered ruthlessly, cursing himself and the Covenant for having to give the order.
Fifteen ships went to emergency acceleration, flying in front of the fleet. Centurion and his surviving fellow AIs refined firing solutions, and the UNSC ships rumbled with recoils mere seconds before plasma torpedoes converged on the sacrificial offering. A short-lived inferno burned above reach. Almost nothing was left from fifteen proud warships and their brave crews when the conflagration ended.
A final plasma torpedo salvo was on its way. At the same time, the remaining Covenant ships were doing their best to evade the incoming fire.
They failed miserably. A handful of crippled cruisers drifted aimlessly when the MACs hit like the hammer of a vengeful god.
"I want MACs at full charge for the next engagement. Finish those ships as we approach using mass Archer strikes," Standforth tiredly ordered. Even with the enemy ships that launched them no longer in the battle, the plasma torpedoes kept coming and tracking. The UNSC fleet scattered, earning itself more space to maneuver and trying to bait the incoming ordnance to either spread itself too thin to guarantee killing blows or focus only on a handful of unlucky ships.
This time, the UNSC's luck ran out. Five ships died outright, including one of the few precious heavy cruisers Standforth had left. Frontal impacts warped or outright melted the barrels of MAC guns on six more ships, while nearly a dozen more vessels suffered glancing blows.
He had forty-nine ships left with intact MAC cannons. A third of them were frigates, which would have trouble taking out Covenant shields at the best of days, though they could still cripple and kill ships with their shields broken.
By this damned war's standards, the Vice Admiral presided over a stunning victory. It still tasted like ashes in his mouth, and he wondered if it was too little, too late.
"Admiral, we've got a comms request from the anomaly zone. IFF reads as Spartan B312. He was presumed MIA during Operation Upper Cut," Centurion informed him a moment before the Comms' Officer could do the same.
"Authenticate and confirm!" Standforth snapped. If this was true and the Spartan was in contact with the people who could win against the Covenant at the anomaly site, it meant that he didn't just sacrifice nearly fifty ships and thousands of lives for nothing.
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Part 2
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3 AIF (After Imperial Founding)/
14.08.2552 UNSC Military Calendar/
Bridge, UNSC Leviathan
low orbit above Reach
Epsilon Eridiani System
Milky Way Galaxy
Spartans had access to state-of-the-art equipment. Sometimes, they needed to contact ships in orbit or beyond from worlds where they couldn't utilize anything but what they brought with them. In the case of the communications suite, raw power transferred from their armor's reactors could significantly boost radio signals.
Nevertheless, the connection was spotty and unclear despite Centurion's best efforts. That problem might solve itself as the remains of the fleet approached the anomaly.
Most importantly, Standforth could get the gist of B312's explanation of the situation.
To summarize – Upper Cut both succeeded and failed spectacularly. Anything less was too much of a coincidence to trust at this point. Activating the improvised slipspace bomb didn't destroy the Covenant Super Carrier. It transported it intact to a distant world, the capital of a large and advanced interstellar Empire. In doing so, the event somehow transported the Senate building of said Empire to Reach, replacing Covenant staging grounds and forward bases with it, bringing them forth to the alien planet.
The anomaly was another consequence. It was a portal connecting Reach with Coruscant, the capital of an entity calling itself the Federated Empire. Standforth wasn't about to touch the name and possible implications, thank you very much. Even an advanced, belligerent imperial power that wants to conquer everything in sight would be a considerable upgrade compared to the genocidal Covenant. Besides, with the existence of an Imperial Senate, there was always the hope for a constitutional monarchy or something else more palatable. Then again, the UNSC has been a military junta for years now. So glass houses and MAC cannons, like the navy liked to say…
The Covenant being Covenant acted like their murderous selves when they found both humans and aliens on the other side. Standforth winced at the thought of what would happen if a Super Carrier suddenly appeared on top of a major city on Earth, replacing a government district with alien military bases. There would be an unfathomable slaughter before anyone could react.
That bit of news was something that the UNSC might have to make restitution for unless they could blame it all on the Covenant. Doing so would be convenient, but what politicians on both sides might decide was beyond his ken.
More importantly and favorably, the leader of the Federated Empire was currently on Reach and had been forced to engage the Covenant during their failed assault on the Imperial Senate. He was available for talks. Standforth thought the man wouldn't leave until critical personnel could evacuate back to the other side of the portal first.
The Vice Admiral knew he had a short window of opportunity to make a favorable impression and get the ball rolling for a potential military alliance against the Covenant. To do so, he had to figure out how to deal with eighty-odd enemy ships that stood before him and the until not the mythical Latchkey that could save the UNSC from certain destruction.
With time until engaging the Covenant running out, it was inconvenient that any talks they could have had to run through the Spartan and AI translator on the Imperial side.
Speaking about the Covenant… a few ships that had just arrived in the system were making their way to intercept Standforth's fleet. Everything Covenant on the sensors was busy decelerating toward Reach and out of position to move against him. They would need to either fly by the planet, slow down, turn around, and accelerate first. In case of at least two fleet elements, skip off the atmosphere at best. If not, enter it willingly, bleed velocity, and head back into space. It was becoming increasingly clear that the Covenant commander had been sure the ships they dispatched were more than a match for Standforth's command. That would have been the case in most previous engagements between the two sides.
The nature of the war was such that with a few notable exceptions, suffering fifty percent casualties against a fleet half the size of his was one of the most stunning UNSC tactical and strategic victories in thirty years of conflict. The Covenant had a good reason to believe they could have won the engagement even if suffering severe casualties at worst.
The mood on the bridge was telling – the sheer jubilation, despite the high butcher's bill, was something sorely missed and rare within the UNSC ranks. Morale was high, and not just because of the victory they had just won. If Standforth played his cards right, they wouldn't be alone in this fight after today. Then again, the Covenant might force the issue and ensure that was the case even if his whole command burned in the next engagement. Either way, it wasn't a chance he could afford to take when humanity's fate was at stake.
Unfortunately, Standforth was out of tricks and nuclear weapons. The Imperial ships were tough. Compared to what their reinforcements did on Reach, the Vice Admiral wasn't sure his whole fleet would have been able to achieve the same in such a close combat where he wouldn't have been able to guarantee the use of MAC cannons. Archer missiles and secondary guns wouldn't have been able to bring down the shields of twelve Covenant CCS cruisers in such a knife-range fight, much less kill them all. Despite that, the odds were steep. About eighty enemy ships left, and the overwhelming majority of them were soon to enter Reach's atmosphere and go for the Imperials.
Noble Six didn't believe the Imperials had many tricks left in their sleeve either, at least not deployed on Reach. Possible reinforcements had the issue of dealing with two Covenant squadrons plus escorts. If they were coming, they wouldn't arrive in time. The correlation of forces wasn't good, though it was better than Standforth could have hoped for hours ago.
Was it just hours since this all began?
"Emperor Kenobi has a plan, sir. He requests that, if possible, you order everyone within hundreds of kilometers around the anomaly to go into reinforced shelters or flee," The Spartan's voice crackled a bit more clearly this time.
"I don't like the sound of that," Standforth grumbled.
"No one here apparently likes any idea related to pulling a Veil, whatever that means, sir," Came the response.
From then on, the Vice Admiral could do little more but wait while his fleet decelerated and the Smart AIs refined targeting solutions. When the MAC cannons reached full charge, they opened fire at the few approaching Covenant ships. After unleashing their firepower, his ships maneuvered as best as possible to avoid incoming plasma torpedoes. This particular engagement would have only one resolution unless Covenant reinforcements jumped on top of Standforth's fleet. Five-to-one odds weren't going to work for the Covenant, not when they were in the UNSC's favor anyway. Despite that, the alien commander kept the rest of the enemy fleet hellbent on reaching the Imperials.
Speaking about the new faction…
Standforth looked at the tactical display. Two of the Imperial ships hung back above the Senate, evacuating people. The rest rapidly headed up, dividing into two groups. One of the larger ships, just above a kilometer and a half in length, hung back with two of their more common smaller cruisers. The two smallest capital ships flew up, with the rest of the Imperial fleet forming above them into a close-in defensive formation. Escorts that were tiny in comparison took the lead.
The disturbing part was that all but the three ships in the front that moved to face the Covenant were shedding escape pods.
"Any ideas what our new acquaintances are up to?" Standforth demanded. He disliked the implications of the large affected zone the Spartan warned him about. Were the Imperials about to deploy strategic weapons in Reach's atmosphere? Were they using their ships as bait and shield, just like he had to do mere minutes ago?
Predictably, the Covenant opened fire. Plasma torpedoes and energy beams burned through Reach's atmosphere, followed by the first alien ships to plunge into the flames, followed by more and more large vessels and their escorts.
The Imperials' return fire was sporadic at best, which further reinforced the idea that they were using their ships as shields and a delivery system for a weapon, not as weapons of war. Standforth's educated guess was that they were using all available power to push the engines to their limits and reinforce the shields.
The Covenant weapons struck and engulfed their targets in firestorms. The distance between the converging ships fell rapidly, but not as rapidly as the imperial ships began to die. As tough as they were, outnumbered almost ten to one by vessels as large or larger was simply too much.
One after another, the Imperial ships fell out of formation, unable to maintain acceleration. Secondary explosions tore them apart even as their cohorts flew past them or through clouds of fiery debris.
"Major power surges and thermal spikes form the Imperial fleet!" Once again, Centurion was faster than the sensor operator. Under combat conditions, it was his job to shave off precious moments of the command staff's decision loop as long as he had the processing capacity to spare.
Three minutes after the Covenant, ships entered the atmosphere. Despite their deceleration and because of the accelerating, almost dead Imperial ships, the distance between them was down to mere fifteen kilometers. With every passing second more Covenant firepower sliced into the burning wrecks of the shielding ships, cutting them to pieces and melting those burning pieces. The onslaught, fires, and fiery debris turned out to be a good enough shield for the two smaller capital ships. Notably, the energy and thermal emissions were coming from them.
Another thing Standforth noted was that the other three ships that trailed behind the Imperial force on a suicide run had cut off their acceleration and merely used accumulated momentum to drift up. The distance between them and their cohorts opened up in the last minutes.
"Power spike! Massive power spike! We've got thermal energy, hard radiation…." Centurion trailed off. "Sensors are scrambled. That's at least two gigaton plus yield explosions in the upper atmosphere!"
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Twin, short-lived stats erupted within Reach's atmosphere. Overloaded hypermatter reactors with their safeties intentionally disengaged went critical while channeling a significant portion of their power output into Silencers. The opened hangar bay doors of the Venators helped direct the resulting critical reaction, with energy briefly continuing to flow on the path of least resistance, which meant up.
It was the intentional and planned repeat of a catastrophe that happened in the closing months of the Clone Wars when everyone learned the hard way why you don't use Silencers in the atmosphere.
The effect was no less spectacular this time, just better channeled. About seventy percent of the released energy expended itself in an arc aimed roughly at the descending Covenant fleet at a distance of fewer than fifteen kilometers. Outside of the atmosphere and lacking the focus of a Silencer or another weapon emplacement, such an energy burst would have, at worst, fried more sensitive sensors and scorched armor. Most capital ship shields would have been able to handle the dispersing energy easily.
It was different in the atmosphere. A split-second touch from the deadly Silencers was followed by a wall of pressurized plasma rivaling Covenant plasma torpedoes. The side effects flattered reinforced structures for hundreds of kilometers, ignited forests, and boiled lakes and rivers. The shields of the Palpatine Class cruiser Dauntless burned, trying and failing to absorb the weaker side of the detonations. Superconductive armor glowed, and Guardian emplacements burned. Yet, the Palpatine Star Destroyer and her Victory cohorts otherwise emerged from the massive fireball largely combat-effective. Their turbo laser batteries went on wide-spread rapid fire while flying through a huge, expanding fireball, heading for its heart.
The Covenant fleet was less fortunate. Smaller ships broke and burned. Cruisers of various stripes lost their shields and often had much of their armor and external equipment shattered and slagged. Here and there, warships were lucky to have a few of their sisters act as shields, protecting them from the worst of the onslaught. They merely lost shields and had most of their sensors burned out.
The plain below and the nearby mountains shook under the onslaught of the titanic detonations. Firestorms swept the plains, killing Covenant stragglers and thousands of Imperial personnel whose escape pods failed to survive the pressure wave and the following firestorm. The Senate building's shields glowed in defiance, stoically absorbing the punishment like they were designed to.