Belated disclaimer: Halo is owned by 343 industries, Kancolle is owned by DMM, I own neither

Ninth Age of Reclamation, First Annual, Second Month

34th Cycle, 148 units (Covenant battle calendar)

Assault Carrier Pious Rampage , Fleet of Inexorable Obedience

Planet Borodan, Kyril System

The defiant explosion blossomed through the space over Borodan, a momentary blue star caught in the towering holograph of the high battle sanctum, the sole indicator that an ungainly human shipbuilding station had once floated there. Then it winked out, the tumbling wreckage forgotten by the holograph like so many other clouds of debris that increasingly blanketed the planet's gravity well.

Fleetmaster Nizat Kvaros'ee should've been satisfied by the sight. Tasked with purifying this sector of the infidels, his duty compelled him to destroy all human edifices, from the lowliest wooden huts to sprawling shipyards like that one. Indeed, this detonation marked the complete destruction of Borodan's orbital shipbuilding capabilities. Even if the humans gathered themselves in sufficient numbers for a counterattack, they would take hold of a strategically insignificant world.

But so would the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience.

He had planned for a quick battle. Even accounting for last-minute tactical adjustments made to deter the human boarders, he had over 100 ships at his command against a local defense fleet half that size, and built around pathetic picket craft that were nothing but colo measured against even his smallest ships.

Even as he watched, the holograph of Borodan dissipated into a wave of floating pixels, accompanied by a ripple of calm announcements from several of the readers assigned to the sanctum that another human squadron was sallying forth to meet its end. There were five of them this time, ugly bricks of metal stacked upon and next to each other in the now-familiar construction of human warships rendered light blue in the reformed holograph. They lanced upwards from the planet's southern polar region, no doubt coordinated with the self-destruction of their last shipyard.

Nizat was well-acquainted with every trick of these human light ships after almost 4 local solar cycles of combat, what few they'd tested against his ship's blessed shields.

Most were armed solely with the same pathetic guided missiles that littered all human warships, limited by their small size to quantities that were even less threatening than their larger counterparts. A few of the ships, in this case 2 of the current group, carried a slightly more threatening armament in the form of a fixed high velocity gun, but once again they were perhaps the smallest caliber that could feasibly be affixed to one of their vessels.

Yet the miniscule ships charged on, the holograph giving a rough outline of their course that led towards the right flank of Nizat's dispersed fleet. He needn't give any orders, for the isolated battlecruiser Litany of Devotion was already surging forward to meet the challenge from its screening position there. Perhaps too quickly, Nizat mused. In the brief stretch of time since the start of this crusade, Shipmaster BorRyyn Curo'ee had demonstrated himself to be even more zealous in his willingness to carry out the hierarch's will than Nizat, striking mercilessly at the humans whether in space combat or in orbital bombardment. Fitting indeed that he should helm a ship with the name "Litany of Devotion", the fleetmaster noted grimly. Importantly, one didn't advance through the Covenant by pure faith alone, though the Hierarchs might preach otherwise. That was why Nizat was the one leading this fleet from an assault carrier thrice the size of Litany of Devotion. If the Forerunners approved of his dark offerings in their name, fortune might bless him with an even more prestigious flagship. He hoped one day to humbly request command of a Rasus so that he might properly avenge the humiliating defeat the humans had inflicted upon the Covenant over the world called "Harvest"...

A sharp alarm snapped through his mind and ruined his fantasies. Reminding himself that future glories could wait, Nizat watched as the scene before him shifted with a pixelated tremor.

To show the real reason Borodan hadn't fallen after 3 days of battle.

They came charging out from behind one of the moons as they always did, and to add to the frustration, it was the same ball of ice where their promised rendezvous with the human dissident factions had gone so catastrophically awry.

He almost respected their stubbornness. Thanks to his unconventional formation, the human's true plan had been defeated. Aside from a failed raid on the Purifying flame, his ships remained untainted by human presence and their hellbombs. But the humans refused to admit defeat.

This time it was a trio of the so-called "heavy cruisers" in the lead, escorted by a half-dozen of their smaller ships. The brick with engines that seemed to pass for his foe's flagship hadn't taken to the field, unfortunately. If it did, Nizat would send the Pious Rampage chasing after it so he could deal with the enemy Fleetmaster personally. That cunning human had struck at his flanks seemingly unfettered by the nullification of their boarding schemes, and his flagship was of a class that posed the closest thing to a threat he'd encountered so far. It had already felled one of his battlecruisers on the first day, in a flyby attack that had prevented him from cornering the local defense forces. Now he was down a total of 3 battlecruisers-one each day-and several smaller ships. Would BorRyyn allow himself to be the fourth, Nizat wondered.

As the holograph flickered to display the Litany of Devotion swerving starboard towards the newcomers, Nizat dourly decided that he would know the answer soon. Blue light became tinged with ochre sparks, denoting each of the missiles fired by the local defense ships that struck fruitlessly against the Litany's shields. Not wasting any more time observing the battle, Nizat stormed towards his personal command console and hailed the charging battlecruiser.

" Litany of Devotion, fold in upon the right flank and make ready to receive escort."

The response reverberated through the sanctum with a characteristic fervor.

" I cannot, Fleetmaster. Your tactics debase our fleet and our cause! Purifying Flame tells the true tale of the human scheme, and it is a tale of desperate nonsense."

Nizat was not so quick to dismiss the human plot. It was true that the raid on the Flame had failed, not only resulting in several human ships lost during the accompanying diversionary attack, but also numerous prisoners taken from the black-armored human ranger equivalents. But what of the ones who hadn't been captured? Or even seen? The so-called "Spartan" warriors remained enigmatic since the debacle on the ice moon, the revelation of their involvement relayed by Tel 'Szatulai shortly after the Purifying Flame incident. Of their current whereabouts, the human traitors' contacts hadn't known. Perhaps the failed attack had been executed on purpose to instill within Nizat a false sense of security, so that he might eschew the fighter screens and in so doing grant the humans an opening that their Spartans could exploit. Their sacrifice wouldn't be so wasteful in that case. Without any concrete evidence in support or to the contrary, Nizat preferred to maintain his current formation.

"Are you trafficking insubordination under the guise of righteousness, shipmaster? It is by obedience that we Walk The Path, not individual ambition. Surely you should recall this." Within the few moments marked by Nizat's contemplation, the Litany of Devotion was now charging at flank speed towards the human heavy ships, oblivious to the picket boats but for a few volleys of pulse lasers directed at their missiles.

" My conviction is like an arrow already in flight." BorRyyn's cold recitation stood in sharp contrast to his initial fury, which reemerged immediately when he growled " The games are over! If they want my ship, they shall have it!"

—

1927 hours, March 23rd, 2526 (military calendar)

Task force Elbe, UNSC Navy

In orbit over Biko, Kolaqoa system

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" Fire!"

Captain Septem's voice slammed into the task force's comms almost as violently as the shudder of the bridge beneath Captain Kiet Trinh's command chair from the roar of his ship's dual mac battery. The barrage was joined by Septem's own ship, the Dresden, both cruisers' sister ship Thebes, the light Destroyer Dastardly Pulsar, and 5 frigates. Though he trusted his crew, the Captain was relieved that his ship had fired in concert with the rest of the task force. This was their first combat assignment, against an alien opponent no less, and he knew the possibility of a mishap was always there.

Then Lieutenant Scharf narrated the results of their barrage, and his relief curled up and died.

"Dresden and Thebes were spot on. Our shots grazed the dorsal shield, though." Just as he'd said, the Captain's tactical display showed a white-hot flare erupt along the top of a shimmering blue shield that momentarily appeared over the Covenant ship, accompanied by more subdued flashes from direct hits on the prow and the "neck" of the teardrop-shaped ship. Trinh didn't pay much attention to the weapons officer's description of their escorts' performance. The inadequacy of Frigate MACs against the enemy's shields had already become painfully obvious in just a few weeks of combat.

"He's warming up all along the left side," Lieutenant Voskanyan announced with a rankling informality.

"Come on guys, get out of there," Vincas Murro, the XO, sighed as the Covenant ship's port side hull began to glow a deep sapphire. His warning went unheard by the enemy's initial assailants, a hail of archer missiles and two low-caliber MAC rounds obscuring the glowing hull in a burst of debris and roiling shields. The tactical display split to accommodate a holographic representation of the 5-ship squadron composed of ships from the dwindling Biko defense force. The locally controlled fleet once boasted fifty ships, a combination of UNSC hand-me-downs and the planetary elites' private initiatives. But even the finest vessels Chancellor Ncinane's money could buy couldn't cut it against the Covenant. Only a few of them mounted MAC guns and many carried even smaller missiles than Archers. Faced with overwhelming odds, the Bikon sailors had dutifully coordinated with their UNSC counterparts to harry the enemy and buy time for the colony's orbital facilities to be destroyed, at considerable cost.

Undaunted by the meager barrage, the Covenant battlecruiser's lateral cannons spewed bolts of violet hatred at the defiant patrol ships, who were dispersing wildly now that Captain Septem's task force had entered the fray, ready to harry the target at a safe distance. Streaks of plasma fell well short of the frantically maneuvering ships and continued on course to dissipate in Biko's atmosphere. Another volley was already in the air, now spread high and low in a display that was both dazzling and deadly. This time, the enemy's gunners had more luck, plasma bolts sailing past futile missile volleys meant to keep them occupied while the Bikon ships gained more distance. One bolt slammed into the metal underbelly of the Margate, an obsolescent Superb-class frigate with a locally installed MAC cannon. Plasma gutted the ship's cargo bay, sending hunks of metal spilling out onto its nacelles, but the bay was empty of any volatile equipment the ship would've carried in UNSC service and managed to pull away trailing white-hot blood. Other ships weren't so lucky. The missile corvette Maokeng took a plasma bolt on the chin that melted its prow away, the ship saved from a more catastrophic chain reaction by a lack of missiles, having just dumped its last pods. Still, the now-crippled patrol craft ambled uncontrollably upwards on its last course, much of the miniscule crew no doubt lost with the bridge and sudden decompression on the neighboring decks. The rest of the squadron, composed of Margate's sister ship Maseru , the old corvette Luderitz, and the Mako-class corvette Soweto , fled unscathed on independent headings.

Trinh slumped in his chair at the sight. The Bikon squadron was down a fifth of its strength with another ship almost disemboweled, and that was a "good" result by the battle's standards. He would never be used to the sight of how callously the local ships were spent just to distract the Covenant while ships like his moved in for the kill. Unlike previous ambushes, however, this particular Covenant ship wasn't unleashing the full breadth of its arsenal on the Bikon forces, as two other ships of the same class caught in similar circumstances had done. They might've done it out of thoroughness, or out of spite, he couldn't know. But this battlecruiser was different. The enemy Captain, having dispersed the Bikons, now ceased firing and continued on his current course…right at Captain Aoife Septem's squadron.

Again, his ship rumbled below him, the weapons officer not needing any order to continue firing in tune with the other cruisers. Their volley caught the Covenant cruiser in a shallow dip to port, impacts flashing against the shields from stem to stern courtesy of split-second adjustments by targeting algorithms. His own ship might've been on target this time, but Trinh wasn't satisfied. Their shots weren't as concentrated as they could've been. Limited Navy records pointed towards massed fire on a single point as the only efficient method for shattering Covenant energy shields. Scans also indicated that the ships needed to open "firing ports" in their shields when using certain weapons, but the Biko defense ships didn't have the sheer volume of firepower needed to make targeting these brief gaps viable. With that in mind, Trinh gave new orders to Lieutenant Scharf.

"Launch Archer missile pods A1 through B7, arrange targeting solution for 0.5 seconds after our next MAC salvo." The tactical display flashed lime green, indicating that the other cruisers were on the same wavelength and firing missiles of their own. With 49 Archer missile pods in 7 groups each, his iteration of the Marathon-class Cruiser had plenty to spare, and he knew for certain that the class could fit even more pods throughout its hull. As to the usefulness of a few dozen more Archers against an enemy like the Covenant, Trinh preferred to get a sample himself.

—

"Their missiles take flight!" Hoktlye Vayrtar'ee calmly shouted from his Operations lectern, a kaleidoscope of warning lights reflecting in his red armor. Shipmaster BorRyyn Curo'ee needed to give no orders, the holographic display already shifting view from the enemy ships to deep space courtesy of his preset maneuvering pattern. Artificial gravity networks allowed the Shipmaster to remain steadfastly on his feet through the maneuver, a growing agitation preventing him from relaxing in his command chair. Fleetmaster Kvaros'ee's lack of response to his invocation of the sacred verses indicated nothing resembling satisfaction with Curo'ee's conduct, he knew. The older Sangheili still seemed convinced that the humans could replicate their success in raids on the Radiant Arrow and the Unrelenting against the full might of a Covenant battlecruiser, even after the attack of the Purifying Flame had gone so satisfyingly awry for them! It was infuriatingly befuddling that a beacon of their faith such as Nizat could be unsettled by a profoundly desperate human scheme, and that he enforced their current fighter arrangement with such rigidity only made BorRyyn grow even more tense.

Blue streaks of energy coalesced across the display for a moment, and the Litany of Purity shuddered slightly beneath his feet. " Their screening ships have fired a volley, our shields are not cowed," Vayrtar'ee declared, though BorRyyn guessed as much. The smaller human ships struck at him on a quicker tempo than the larger trio, presumably trying to batter his shields in preparation for the combined wrath of the bigger ones' missiles and main guns. It was of little concern to him. The pests that passed for frigates in the human's space forces had been measured and came up comically lacking when but a single battlecruiser took to the field. BorRyyn recalled the illicitly distributed battle footage he'd seen before setting out on this crusade from the attack on another ill-prepared planet. The little ships darted up and down, thrown about on primitive thrusters, launching missiles at any angle they could find, all to at least amuse the battlecruiser in question so slow-moving human barges could evacuate their civilians. He remembered well how one of them had sidestepped a plasma torpedo right into the molten remains of its freshly destroyed comrade, seeming to stagger mid-flight and fire all of its thrusters at once in a moment of collective panic from the crew. Moments later, it twisted gun-first into an incoming plasma bolt. How he and the other shipmasters had jeered!

Before he could recall its fate, a solemn voice filled the bridge courtesy of their local battlenet.

" We stand ready to intercept the missiles, however we can. " It was Itklknu'ee, the Evocatus, tasked by the shipmaster with organizing the Litany of Devotion 's fighter screen in accordance with Fleetmaster Kvaro'see's directives. BorRyyn's own adjustments to rotations and reserves had kept the screen notably lighter than much of the fleet, however.

"Let them fall upon the shields, warrior!" BorRyyn spoke with deliberate urgency. Itklknu'ee was a staunchly obedient Sangheili who viewed any sacrifice in the name of Glorious Salvation as acceptable. If he wasn't explicitly ordered not to block enemy missiles with his personal Seraph fighter, BorRyyn knew he would try.

"Maintain the present screen, I will need every single one of your fighters available for what comes next," BorRyyn continued, elaborating by keying up his command console and transmitting a preliminary overview of his next order to Litany's attack craft.

"Navigation, once our portside turn is complete, lay in a course at heading zero by zero."

"Arranging it," Major Hgmanhgo'ee's hesitantly voice trailed off, followed by a wordless gasp as another volley from the enemy escorts struck the shields-somewhat more resoundingly this time? BorRyyn was more concerned with his officer's timidity. That any among his crew hadn't taken in the lessons of the past few cycles was unacceptable. BorRyyn decided that a little elucidation was in order, and keyed the ship's announcement system. Before him, the display settled on the human formation, sensors illuminating hundreds of missiles with overlapping red rings.

"Perform your duties exactly as I order and only in accordance with what I order. Those who pursue personal initiative will be dealt with by my blade, if you do not damn us all to darkness. Obey me, and we will teach these humans a powerful lesson that not even their witless minds can deny."

"They fire once again!" Vayrtar'ee almost shouted, but there was no panic in his voice, the Shipmaster's words no doubt imbuing him with a contagious excitement. BorRyyn reached out towards the holograph, not to shield his eyes from the flash, but to grasp at the enemy cruiser in the center of their formation before it was lost in the flaring of his ship's shields. Yes, he decided, let that ship be the one to receive his wrath.

Litany of Devotion shook beneath him, and this time the rumble was followed by a ripple of explosions projected by several sub-displays on the holograph.

"They've focused on our prow shields, projectiles and missiles…" Anxiety turned to urgency in Vayrtar'ee's voice. "No! The little ones fired in coordination with the cruisers, it was just enough…"

Blue ripples vanished instantly from the holograph, leaving nothing between the ship and the enemy.

BorRyyn remained silent, reciting the meditation of the mendicant even while the first damage reports trickled in from stray missiles striking the bow.

One heartbeat for faith.

One heartbeat for family.

One heartbeat for honor.

He was ready

"Launch all fighters, in accordance with my targeting data!"

—

Captain Trinh watched the flock of alien fliers separate from their now-unshielded mothership, the tactical display identifying two dozen craft on the way and several more erupting from the ship's lateral hangar bays. Shielded or not, the battlecruiser continued advancing, now eschewing maneuvers to charge right at the task force on a heading that would take it right between the Dresden and his ship.

"Scharf…" Trinh began, but the weapons officer cut him off immediately.

"The MAC is still undercooked, sir!"

Trinh sighed, not sure why he'd raised the question in hindsight. Firing a MAC at partial charge sacrificed the velocity of a fully-charged salvo. That meant less stopping power, and Trinh wanted to make his next shot count before he had to maneuver out of the way.

Already the Covenant strike craft had closed the distance, point defense guns lacing trails of fire together to meet them: almost-solid lance of tracers from the cruiser's Helix CIWS and strings of sparks from the frigates' Rampart autocannons. Many contacts winked out of existence in a moment, but others enlarged into flickering blue ghosts and swerved out of the line of fire courtesy of shields. Apart from a few of the latter dumb enough to trust their shields for more than a few seconds, they and many of the former continued onwards, and the tactical display wailed as damage reports came in. Oddly enough, none of them corresponded with Trinh's ship.

"Dresden reports heavy concentration-no, exclusive concentration on it from enemy attack craft," Lieutenant Voskanyan stammered from his seat at the Operations station.

"What the hell are they doing?" Commander Murro asked.

"Damage is purely superficial," Voskanyan belatedly added by way of answering.

Trinh wasn't convinced. He switched the tactical display to portside view and was greeted with a swarm of purple craft, all of which flew at a distinct distance from his own ship. Glowing blue specks stitched all across the cruiser's hull. At first there wasn't any discerning pattern. Archer missile pods and hangar doors went unscathed by the attack. Then he noticed one of the shielded fighters dip between two Helix turrets and melt under the stream of 20mm rounds. In a moment, the harassing fighters changed their tactics, turning towards the general direction of their fallen wingmate. A loose formation of banshees split apart to attack one of the Helix turrets from several angles. The automated turret responded almost enthusiastically to the challenge, shredding the banshees one by one in a clockwise turn. But one by one wasn't fast enough, as one of the shielded attack craft tore away from the Dresden then swung around to attack the turret from above in a sharp dive. It was chased by a line of tracers from the other helix gun that had provoked the attack, shields flaring beneath the hail of rounds. Remaining stubbornly on target, the attacker had enough time to fire several bolts of green plasma before it was shredded by hundreds of rounds, the helix sustaining fire almost maliciously on the defeated enemy. Then the green bolts struck home, consuming the targeted helix in an emerald cloud and leaving a single banshee to ascend unscathed before the other gun abruptly squashed its relief with another burst.

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"They're picking off the AA," Trinh sighed. The lack of tracer fire on the Dresden's starboard side was now obvious, and one of the dorsal turrets fell silent as he watched. Dresden and her sisters only had 10 of the helix guns, and the need for more ships on the front had prevented them from receiving the first of many planned refits before they were pressed into Battlegroup X-ray. Trinh was about to raise Captain Septem when Lieutenant Scharf's panicked warning threw him off. "He's firing photon torpedoes! 16 of them!"

Not bothering to correct the weapons officer, Trinh keyed the tactical display to see several pink comets erupt from the Covenant ship's dorsal plates. The glowing projectiles left thin trails writhing through space long after they passed in an alluringly deadly display. With the cruiser's MACs recharging and the vulnerable frigates taking evasive maneuvers to dodge the fighters, the battlecruiser was taking full advantage of the lull in firing to close the final stretch between it and the humans unmolested.

"Fire Archer pods C1 through E4!" Trinh ordered, not bothering to wait until the MAC was fully charged. Proximity warnings had begun blaring while the ship's Helix guns opened up on the first set of plasma torpedoes in the now-staggered volley.

"Get me that MAC, Lieutenant…" The first torpedo blazed past his ship and dipped below it, a tertiary screen on his tactical display overlaying the view of a ventral camera to show the frigate Van Holt Nash drifting listlessly forward into a roll, a rapidly dissipating cloud of plasma and melted titanium all that remained of the Stalwart-class frigate's command center. Additional warnings and signals indicated that the Aomori, a frigate of the same class, had lost its MAC gun, the maimed ship drifting into view on a starboard camera and helpfully unloading the last of its missiles before dipping away.

"Almost there, sir, 95% I swear it…" Scharf's voice took on an annoyingly melodic tone. Ahead, the screen lit up again from both the pale pink gleam of pulse lasers and premature detonations as the Covenant ship clawed its way through the cloud of archer missiles. Lacking the coordination of the first volley, the archers were cut down in clumps by twitching beams of energy that flicked from one target to the next without vanishing. A select few made it past the pulse lasers, most sending specks of flame up on the battlecruiser's curved prow. While it was satisfying to see that the ship's shields were still down, he knew that a few missiles to the most armored portion of the ship wouldn't make much of a difference. Briefings had made clear that Covenant ships weren't going to curl up and die just because their shields were down. Much like everything else about them, the alloy used by the Covenant to armor their ships was far more advanced than the UNSC equivalent.

More damage reports came in from across the task force: the Dastardly Pulsar took a glancing hit from a plasma torpedo that melted away the Halberd-class's starboard armor plating and left another one of their screening ships disarmed. Even worse, Dresden reported a hit directly to the MAC battery. Strangely, the plasma torpedo seemed to have struck at the upper tip of the prow rather than hitting head-on and penetrating deep within the cruiser, as if the operator had avoided doing too much damage.

The bridge shook from the early detonation of a plasma torpedo, an accurate stream of 20mm fire catching it amidships near the portside. Before Trinh could recover, an emergency transmission request filled the tactical display.

" I'm out of position, had to fire the emergency thrusters to dodge one of those torpedoes, " Captain Kossman of Thebes gasped over the comm, " Trinh, you need to take a shot while I line back up with that alien kook ." Some undisciplined crewman on the bridge howled " Break his nose-!" Just before the transmission went dead.

"Lieutenant!"

"Charged and ready to rock!" Scharf cheered.

"He's launching more torpedoes!" Voskanyan added.

Trinh took one last look at the Covenant ship, now bolting through another volley of missiles.

"MAC, coilguns…fire."

The ship roared beneath his seat, an impatient tremor joined by the thudding of its M66 Sentry turrets now that the enemy was well within range and bereft of shielding. But it was the MAC that held Trinh's attention, the only weapon guaranteed to make the Covenant stagger without their precious shields, a momentary flash blotting out the view of the foremost hull camera on his tactical display before it faded to reveal-

"Are you sure the MACs were fully charged?" Commander Murro spoke first.

Trinh jerked forward in his chair, heedless of how unprofessional the sudden movement was, focused solely on examining the scene before him.

"What happened?" Voskanyan timidly asked.

Trinh magnified the tactical display as far as it could go, focusing on a violet glint that caught his eye as it floated away from the advancing Covenant ship-

The undamaged Covenant ship-

A green overlay field the tactical display, highlighting the fin-shaped piece of debris that spun through space trailing purple sparks. "Enemy sensor vane severed," the words flashed brightly on screen. "Direct hit!"

The whole task force fell silent.

"Scharf…" Trinh began.

Then the comms exploded.

" Captain, what the hell did I just watch? " Kossman yelled, joined by panicked shouts from his bridge crew.

" Break break break- " The CO of the stalwart-class frigate Bang was shouting desperately to the remaining escorts, now in command after the Pulsar was disarmed.

"He must've juked!" Scharf babbled.

"Oh, did he zag when you thought he was going to zig?" Navigation officer Paulston snapped back at the weapons officer, heedless of her insubordinate tone. "He's coming right at us-"

"And firing more torpedoes!" Voskanyan cut the Ensign off, but Trinh was already giving new orders.

"Set heading to 065 by 075, then plot a course to swing around and hit his engines!" He didn't know what had gone wrong-a power surge, a thruster malfunction-maybe the battlecruiser really had juked, in zero-g, a little twitch went a long way. No matter. He would leave the cause for an AAR, for now, he had to reassert authority and make up for the fumble while he still could.

Paulston acknowledged the order and sent the ship swerving away from the enemy, all prior griping forgotten.

"Archers, pods E5 through G1, now!"

The tactical display shifted across several portside cameras to accommodate the cruiser's rapid starboard dive. A trio of plasma torpedoes passed harrowingly close to his original position in formation, though they seemed strangely languid in their pursuit compared to the wily and unerring trajectories of the first volley. Trinh could see another quartet of them tearing straight for the Dresden , and his heart sank at the sight. He knew the Covenant ship could've absorbed a direct hit from his ship's guns and still let off another volley, but right now all he wanted was to do something more impactful than flinging missiles at the onrushing ship. The brief spell of panic had fled the bridge, now replaced with a dour focus, everyone stealing a glance at the tactical hologram to see the gruesome effect four plasma torpedoes would have on their flagship.

Yet the tails of plasma merely passed out of view on the Dresden's Port side without any discernible effect. It was strange, Trinh thought. An impact would've at least knocked the other cruiser off-course, and Dresden did indeed shove itself violently to the side in a burst of emergency thrusters. What didn't follow was an eruption of plasma across the ships dorsal armor plates.

The tactical display shifted to rear camera seconds before all four torpedoes sped harmlessly past the damaged cruiser, and only too late did the Captain understand the enemy's gambit.

"No…those torpedoes weren't meant to hit Dresden , they were meant to PIN it! That lizard is going to launch a boarding action!"

Sure enough, the tactical display fixated on the enemy battlecruiser and overlaid a projection of the course its slow portside roll would take: perilously close to the Dresden, which was now belatedly engaging starboard thrusters to counter its prior maneuver. But the Covenant ship was now far too close, and already had another volley of mischievous plasma torpedoes twisting around and over the cruiser's hull, but not into it.

Trinh's ship continued on Parker's heading away from the attack, the tactical display slipping into the blind spot that was the massive fusion engine block before swapping to the rear portside cameras slowly…too slowly and growing frustratingly distant. "Fire the longbows, pods Alpha through Zeta! All the archers, too! Stop that ship NOW!"

Marathon-class cruisers boasted 26 pods of Longbow missiles, a weapon that could be generously dubbed "anti-everything"; from Rebel asteroid bases to rogue UNSC destroyers, all of them crumbled at the impact of just one pod's worth of Longbows. The biggest drawback of the longbow was also its biggest advantage: there used to be so few targets worth firing a longbow at when a few archers would do the same job that the Navy had a hard time justifying the program. Ironically, Trinh suspected the Covenant wasn't going to make things easier for advocates of the missile. Their pulse lasers were just too effective.

For now, though, he needed everything in the air that he could, no matter how expensive. Sentry coilguns joined the missiles in unleashing their wrath on the Covenant ship, targeting areas previously marked in the tactical display where pulse lasers had fired. But in the precious seconds it would take for all that pain to reach the battlecruiser, it had already rolled almost 90 degrees, another volley of plasma torpedoes keeping its victim hemmed in. Far in the distance, the cruiser Thebes came into view, maneuvering desperately into position for a clean shot that wouldn't risk hitting the other cruiser.

It was too late. As Trinh's course took him alongside the Covenant ship, its ventral pulse lasers flared to life, slicing through Dresden's starboard side. Stripped of point defenses and coilguns on that side by the suicidal Covenant air attack, there was nothing the cruiser could do but launch all remaining portside archers before the Covenant ship's bulk started to fall over it. Return fire finally started to batter the Covenant ship in earnest by then, light MAC guns from the undamaged frigates striking its lateral armor from above and below courtesy of nimble maneuvers, and heedless of return fire that wasn't so numerous as before. A select few plasma cannons sparked and coughed up clouds of plasma energy that went nowhere, damaged by the escorts' missile volleys. Trinh's own barrage started to pound the Covenant ship's dorsal end too, archers falling upon dwindling pulse laser batteries and drawing smokey violet blood in a series of satisfying blasts. Even as the longbow missiles drew flaming stitches upon its fore section, though, the Covenant ship seemed to shed a wave of sparks from its side and ventral hangars. Scans from nearer ships interlinked with the tactical display outlines the attack in unnerving detail: a few dozen phantoms, dozens of drop pods and boarding craft, even hundreds of individual soldiers in EVA gear, all of them leapt forth onto the Dresden's torn starboard hull . As soon as the murderous rain of boarders commenced, it ended, courtesy of their host ships imprecisely quick pass that was already taking it beyond the Dresden. Trinh looked on in frustration at the sight of countless blue sparks flitting about aimlessly well short of their passing target, which now limped forward far less quickly, wisps of violet energy replacing the powerful glow of fusion engines thanks to what had to be a parting gift by the Covenant ship. The cruiser's starboard side, once resplendent in parade colors that hadn't been removed in the chaos of wartime mobilization, was now covered in red-hot scars, entire sections of titanium-a armor burned away to reveal the metal skeleton below, hundreds of flickering lights crowding around the open wounds like maggots.

"Dresden, what's your status?" Commander Plamenac of the Bang inquired first as Trinh prepared for the last turn that would give him a line of fire against the sadistic Covenant ship.

" Portside fusion drives grazed by a torpedo, that barrage on starboard finished the job," A grainy video feed of the Dresden's bridge appeared on the tactical display. Captain Aoife Septem leaned against her command chair, looking bewildered but not visibly injured.

"Inertia isn't our friend right now. Repairs could be made to let us move at partial power, but…we have unwanted guests all over the ship. They hit the intact decks with boarding pods, and they have EVA troops breaching every airlock they can find." The Captain retrieved an M6C from her command chair and brandished it at the camera, as if testing its weight. "We're going to purge anything larger than a kilobyte from the computers. I won't let them have my ship."

Before Trinh could listen any further, Voskanyan reported that they were in position to fire on the Covenant ship. It had peeled off hard to port and presented itself topside-on towards Trinh's ship. The cruiser's dorsal plating now resembled the surface of the moon, dozens of craters now covering its hull. Violet lightning crackled from its left side and in various gashes along the dorsal section where pulse lasers had no doubt overloaded from missile impacts. The Captain briefly felt like he'd forgotten something important, but in that moment, he was overcome by anger. This ship, that made a mockery of common sense and self-preservation, that had humiliated his squadron and his ship especially, was fast becoming emblematic of everything enraging about their new enemy. They were incomprehensibly more advanced, frighteningly numerous, and they regularly took full advantage of this superiority to humiliate formations like his by resorting to the most flippant tactics possible, and they almost always got away with their antics. He already hated it!

"Do I even need to ask, Lieutenant?"

"I've got him dead in my sights, sir," Scharf announced, seeming to pick up on the severity of the Captain's demeanor.

"Um, sir-" Murro began.

"Break him-ugh-!"

The bridge jolted to the right and down just as the MAC battery finally fired again, and the shot went wide well below the target. The entire bridge crew strained agonizingly against their restraints. Someone wailed in the unmistakable pitch of a man who'd bitten his tongue.

Captain Trinh spun on his nav officer, ignoring the alarms screeching on his display.

"Paulston, you let that bastard get-"

Then the ship jolted downward again, but not of its own volition. A veritable scream of protest filled the hull all around the crew, causing several to cover their ears. Decompression warnings winked in blood-red on every screen, and Trinh felt his heartbeat, already on edge through the fight, accelerate from shock and more than a little guilt. Not wanting to appear fearful, he swung his command chair around to face the music. The tactical display helpfully overlaid a replay window alongside the view of the withdrawing Covenant battlecruiser. With impossible swiftness, a circular indentation just short of the ship's center filled with light that took on a blue tinge and shot outwards in a concentrated beam of energy.

Now Trinh realized what he'd forgotten. Belatedly, he recalled the warnings of Covenant ships possessing singular high-intensity plasma beam projectors from various briefings. The half-second failed equation replayed itself in his mind: are the beam weapons on the top or the bottom? Of course they're on the bottom, that's what they use to glass planets! His guess was further strengthened by the enemy's refusal to fire the powerful weapon at the Dresden -they wanted to board the ship, therefore they wouldn't use it in this case! Or so he'd imagined. Regretfully, the Captain glanced back over his shoulder at Paulston. The young woman watched him with a mixture of shock and a twinge of spite.

In hindsight, such a devastating weapon would've required a massive buildup of energy before it was fully charged. The XO had noticed this. Trinh, being fixated on getting payback, hadn't. The Captain turned away in shame, preparing himself for the worst part.

"Ops, give me a damage report."

"Dorsal armor plating has been lost all along the length of the ship. Deck A is…gone, so are sections 8 through 14 of deck B."

"Status of the MAC?"

There was silence.

"The MAC, Lieutenant?"

Scharf replied instead. "There was a power surge in the aft coils, but the mac itself was untouched…" he trailed off, and Trinh could guess what the rest of his observation sounded like. It would've been skewered if we did it your way.

"That's a relief. Now, what can we glean about the enemy ship?"

Again, the bridge settled into an uncomfortable silence.

This time Murro answered. "Captain, the enemy's shields remain inactive. Energy readings from the previous minutes seem to indicate that the ship dumped power into weapon batteries facing the Dresden so it could do more damage in the flyby attack. There are unstable emissions at points corresponding with weapon positions all over its hull."

Trinh nodded. "Good, we've got him thrashed. Ops, dispatch a marine battalion with EVA gear to assist the Dresden in repelling boarders. Navigation, lay in a course to shadow the Covenant ship at a distance while we get the MAC in order, and have the surviving frigates link-"

" Belay that nonsense immediately, Captain. " A gruff voice filled the comms unannounced, making Trinh's heart skip a beat. It might as well have been the voice of god for him.

" I seem to recall assigning Captain Kossman to 2iC of Task force Elbe, not you, which means that as of this moment, he has tactical command. That's why I'm ordering him to pull back what's left of the task force."

"Sir, with all due respect, we have the enemy on the ropes," Trinh protested.

" Not with your gunnery, son, " Admiral Cole paused to let out something halfway between a laugh and a cough before he went on, " Besides, how can you expect to lead a task force with tunnel vision like yours? In case you missed it, that Covenant fleet detached one of their assault carriers-and a whole bucketload of fighters-towards your position. I also see that another one of your frigates was damaged, and the Thebes is venting its atmosphere from a plasma torpedo hit. "

Trinh swore under his breath. Scuttlebutt was going to be insufferable once word spread that Vice Admiral Preston Cole had personally derided his ship. Given the precarious situation the entire UNSC was in, with Battle group X-ray given the unenviable task of trying to blunt the Covenant's advance, Trinh knew Cole wouldn't suffer incompetents lightly. For now, though, he knew his superior was right and he had to focus on withdrawing. On the tactical display, a holographic projection of the task force's current position appeared onscreen, showing Thebes already pulling away towards their temporary assembled point as Seoba. Dispersed between the two operational cruisers was their screen of frigates and one destroyer: the damaged Dastardly Pulsar, Aomori, and the Charon-class Port Hueneme , and the undamaged Bang and Nitra, the last ship dipping below them to collect escape pods and pelicans from the disabled frigate Van Holt Nash. Lastly, pulling slowly away from all of them was the maimed heavy cruiser Dresden.

"Captain Septem…" Murro let the name hang, aware that her lack of correspondence spoke for itself.

" We lost contact with the bridge 9 minutes ago. I'm afraid we have to regard the Dresden as overrun ." There was no hint of frustration, or even resignation, in Cole's voice. " Now stop chasing a grudge and get your ship out of there!"

Hundreds of red arrows were already speeding into view on the tactical display, which spun to accommodate the incoming assault carrier, making it appear as if the huge ship was coming right at him. Measurement estimations appeared onscreen, and they weren't pretty. The ship was thrice the size of the Covenant battlecruiser that now fled well above them. That meant it was over four times the size of his cruiser. Hundreds of potential weapon positions flared up all along its all, two of which were already throbbing with energy readings even more powerful than the dorsal beam of the battlecruiser.

Trinh's heartbeat receded, but not from relief. The outcome had been decided long before that ship let slip its considerable fighter complement. Whatever that withdrawing battlecruiser's rationale-spite, orders, even boredom, it was now a maimed mess, but it had gotten away with it. The task force had lost and lost badly.

"Give us heading 020 by 010. Murro, you have the bridge…I need to get started on that after action report."

—

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/watch?v=v23jor3qhlM

Ninth Age of Reclamation, First Annual, Second Month

34th Cycle, 151 units (Covenant battle calendar)

Battlecruiser Litany of Devotion , Fleet of Inexorable Obedience

Planet Borodan, Kyril System

Shipmaster BorRyyn Curo'ee recited the oath of his keep's instructor: be as water before your enemy and as stone before your superior. He kept his jaws veritably bound shut, and his gaze tilted upwards towards the oversized holographic projection of Fleetmaster Nizat Kvarosee that filled his bridge. In that moment, he was no longer in command of the ship, or even the room.

" All of your bluster, only to directly vanquish one of their smaller ships and leave your warriors to purge the other? Who truly debases our fleet in this conversation?" BorRyyn winced at the reflection of his accusation. It had been a rather one-sided conversation, the Fleetmaster having plenty of time to amass grievances against Curo'ee while his ship limped back into formation. A subtle shift in attitude filled the bridge at this, as if the Fleetmaster's words finally extinguished the last traces of satisfaction that had infected the room when their maneuver succeeded. All of his senior officers stood silently in attendance. Even the white-armored warrior Itklknu'ee was there, the Evocatus having made it past the human's anti-fighter defenses and even resisting the urge to ram his Seraph into one of their ships. The same couldn't be said for much of the Litany of Devotion's fighter screen. After disabling the light weapons on the ship marked with the human glyphs D-r-e-s-d-e-n, the pilots had fallen into confusion as BorRyyn fixated on arranging his plasma torpedo attacks to facilitate the boarding action. Most followed deeply ingrained combat training and struck at other human ships instead of fleeing.

" A Sinaris crew could've inflicted more damage than the likes of you. In fact, I possess records indicating that they have." BorRyyn couldn't hide his shiver. Sinaris-type Destroyers were built purely for space combat, but that obscured their true vainglorious purpose. Crewed by fools, outcasts, and others in need of "redemption", they were often poorly maintained and sent charging into deadly odds with no expectation for survival. The Fleet of Inexorable Obedience contained no such disgraceful ships, a reflection of the Hierarchs' own trust in Fleetmaster Kvaro'see's prowess and faith.

" We advance not to 'teach the humans a lesson' -" The Fleetmaster repeated his words with particular disgust, "- but to eliminate as many of them as possible. That is the lesson-the will of the gods. What did it cost to inflict your own?"

BorRyyn considered the Fleetmaster's words carefully. Currently, his ship was the most heavily-damaged of the fleet. Careful usage of the pulse lasers had kept human missiles away from the Litany of Devotion's plasma beam emitter, but the enemy's secondary cannons had performed better than he anticipated, disabling several pulse laser arrays and allowing much of their final missile strike to land, shredding the dorsal nanolaminate armor and disrupting systems across the length of the ship. In particularly notable twist, what could've been a devastating human shot merely severed one of the sensor vanes located at the prow. The weak guns of the enemy light ships also drew blood while his shields were down, disabling several plasma cannons and disrupting the plasma fuel lines that fed others. Finally, hundreds of his warriors died dishonorable deaths when they failed to reach the human cruiser and succumbed to lack of air. Many more died in combat on the human ship or when the desperate human crew deliberately vented several decks. It was a futile effort-his troops had sabotaged several key systems with antimatter charges, saving life support for last after evacuating as many troops who lacked ranger suits as they could. The crippled ship now drifted limply in Borodan's gravity well, Nizat having ordered it untouched to serve as a demoralizing sight to what remained of the local defense fleet.

" Your troops could not even take any navigational data from the ship's computers," Nizat went on, causing BorRyyn's mandibles to clench. He hadn't even pondered the need to procure useful data from the human ship's computers, so focused had he been on striking a humiliating blow against the humans.

Nizat clearly sensed something amiss in BorRyyn's reaction, his mandibles opening and closing gradually without a sound. Finally, he gave his verdict.

" Your ship shall not partake in the glassing of this planet. You will keep watch over its surface with the other damaged vessels and contemplate your rashness, while the rest of our fleet proceeds on the attack to obtain further glory ."

"Understood, Fleetmaster."

A/N: Happy Fourth of July, friends! After much postulating and an unexpected bout of research, I'm finally ready to unveil my hinted "original master plan" on this auspicious occasion.

To answer some questions:

How does this story line up with Ghosts of Harvest?

I'm putting Ghosts of Harvest and this one in the same AU. You won't see any characters from it here for various reasons, but as far as I'm concerned, it could exist both in line with canon and in this story's setting. I've already planted some ideas that have yet to sprout within it (see chapter 8).

What's the name of Captain Trinh's ship?

You will know soon enough. It IS canon, like Dresden, although the rest of the UNSC fleet is original and sprung out of my postulation about how the Dresden might've been lost over Biko.

Also, can you tell I read Silent Storm for the first time while planning this scene out? I intended to start the story with a "present day" chapter one, but my plans expanded as the weeks went on.

Why are you posting partial youtube links like that?

Ask ffnet why their website is coded like it's 2002 ;^)