Chapter 5 – Impetum
January 4th, 2552 - (11:56 Hours - Military Calendar)
Daedalus system, In orbit over Ballast
:********:
Hood's brow furrowed. He grimaced with each contact that appeared on his display. Each one manifested beyond the Sevastopol's forward viewing screen as a Covenant warship entering the Daedalus system. The flashes of multiple slipspace reentries created the effect of a mass cannonade across the span of local space. From the bursts of light were borne the sleek and bulbous images of a fleet of aquatic fauna, or so they would appear to anyone too young to understand what they were. The Fleet Admiral was too old for such innocence. Where a child might see clusters of sting-rays, he saw CCS Battlecruisers. Where the innocent might see horseshoe crabs, he saw CPV-class heavy destroyers. The same went for the manta-like heavy corvettes. However, as the Covenant fleet assembled, his greatest concern turned to the biggest fish of them all.
The moment he saw it he felt his chest tighten. Alarmed, he strained his eyes in the hopes that age had made them faulty. They weren't. The ship was just that massive.
The vessel was more than 11 kilometers long. With its round, harpoon-like forward section, a flat middle and hooked aft section it could have passed for a standard assault carrier. Those were beasts among warships in their own right. But this ship dwarfed those types by six times the magnitude; a long-lost member of the carrier family. And the UNSC would have to face it. The beast had come to their doorstep. There was no way to avoid it now, not without serious costs, but the same was true if they stayed. With less than 400 kilometers between the closest of their ships and the farthest of his, there was little maneuvering room and therefore little room for either party to miss.
Hood quietly cursed himself for the thought of withdrawing from Ballast. It couldn't be helped in the face of a CSO-class supercarrier, the terror that was staring him down as a tiger would a small bird. The behemoth had exited slipspace last. It came to rest at the rear of the Covenant fleet which stretched around it like an arrow aimed away from the planet. He supposed by its presence that it had to be the command post of their supreme commander. The guy with the most chevrons always got first pick of the best ships. A similar mindset pervaded the UNSC. But if they acted the same then maybe they also thought the same, which was why both commanders remained at a certain distance from the battlefield. The decision granted them extra space to better coordinate this intrasolar shootout.
With the last ship having arrived seconds after the first, the final count of the hostile vessels scrolled onto his screen: '62'. He scowled at the report. He'd only brought 93 ships. As a general rule of thumb, the UNSC needed at least a 3 to 1 ratio in order to win a naval engagement. What the Covenant had brought to the table surpassed that metric by a whole third. They still outnumbered them, albeit not to the extent that would warrant confidence. Any victory they won here today, if there was any to be had, would come at a high cost regardless of the ODPs.
He pondered on that as he witnessed the brilliant blue illuminations of the enemy ships' plasma lines heating up. They were getting ready. It was now or never.
He quickly tapped an icon on his display that opened a communications channel to the rest of the fleet. Before he even opened his mouth the fusion drives of dozens of UNSC ships were flaring, turning them at varying vectors to face pre-selected firing zones.
"All ships, prepare to engage. Hold your fire until they reach within 300 kilometers of the formation. Battlegroups Basilisk through Indigo, you've got the first volley. Groups Geyser through Viking, you've got the follow-up. Maintain the 30 second interim between shots to compensate for the dead time."
He watched the 92 ships of his defense fleet perform the last micro-adjustments needed to level their MAC guns at their targets. The Sevastopol similarly shifted to aim in the direction of the supercarrier. An accelerated round from this class of frigate would be nothing more than a mosquito bite against the shields of the gargantuan warship. The best they could hope to muster against it was the combined might of the orbital defense platforms. That much ordinance would puncture shield and hull alike. Until the ODPs were up, that carrier would remain a threat to everyone, a queen-piece on the chess board. If it made any moves before the platforms were in place then it could spell doom for them all. Yet its destruction could also mean an automatic victory. No matter what, he would need to keep a constant eye on it.
:********:
From his command platform on the bridge of his personal carrier, the Long Night of Solace, Supreme Commander Barutamee contemplated the strategy of his opponent. It was an impressive lineup of frigates and destroyers. The handful of carriers he discerned would probably be good targets. Much to his relief, there were no signs of those orbital platforms. Their absence meant there was still time for the assault groups to reach their objectives. Preemption would be the key to winning this battle.
In that same spirit, the entirety of the Fleet of Valiant Prudence was arrayed perfectly in his preassigned formation. The variabilities of slipstream space hadn't affected his ships like it would those of the humans. The blessing of the prophets on their refined slipspace drives was surely to thank for it.
Valiant Prudence was divided into three subfleets. The Sacrament of Devotion, his subfleet, floated at the middle of the formation. That of Righteous Piety and the Service of Verity were positioned on his left and right wings respectively. The latter two were moving forward under his orders. To engage the scum before them they would need to get closer. The filth had proven wise in their decision to stay within the confines of the planet's equatorial field of gravity. They were well entrenched. It would be no easy feat to dislodge them. A close-range naval fusillade would be unavoidable, preferential in the case of stopping the ascension of the platforms. For that particular objective he'd sectioned off two strike groups from Sacrament of Devotion. He watched on one of his displays while the two clusters of contact signatures hooked around the planet, giving the battle a wide berth. Once they bi-passed the defensive perimeter there would be nothing stopping them from striking at their foes' best chance for survival.
He pinched the holograph to zoom out to a larger view of the system. Far outside the scope of the battle there was a third cluster of three friendly contacts. Two battlecruisers and a single heavy corvette were rounding the far edges of local space. Their trajectory angles were on a course to avoid the enemy entirely, as planned.
He pressed the signature for the heavy corvette. It winked green twice before the hail went through. Another display activated in front of him showing the rear of the command platform on the bridge of the Divine Confession. A Sangheili warrior, a Devoted Sentry stared back confidently from beneath the brim of his crimson helmet. "Leader."
"Ludumee." Barutamee replied. "Are your zealots ready?"
"We are. There is certainty in our cause but little patience. We wish to retrieve the holy one without delay."
"There will not be any to speak of, not where you are going. Be as swift as your word. The moment you retrieve it, you will return to the holy city. I will continue the battle here."
"Understood, commander."
"And remember, the Jirilhanae are with you."
Ludumee scowled at the mention. "I will, though I do not trust them."
"Which is why I want you to remember they are with you..."
Ludumee slowly caught on to the inference. "I see. Consider it done."
Barutamee considered something. "And one more thing."
"Yes."
"Give the Hierarchs this message. 'I give you a gift from our Gods. I hope it pleases you as much as it pleases them to entrust it to our possession'."
"Understood. May the prophets be pleased and may our path be blessed."
"Indeed."
Ludumee's feed switched off. The commander returned to his display. He watched the ships of his left and right flanks soar towards the enemy lines. They reminded him of the maw of an electric kesh descending upon the spine of its prey in the waters of his homeworld. His mandibles clamped together with pride. It was a beautiful sight. "May the prophets be pleased, for my path is blessed."
:********:
Hood became alarmed the moment he saw the additional movement on his screen. His personal display beeped an alert for the three separate battlegroups pinching off from the rest of the enemy fleet. Their trajectories were plotted ahead of their movements. His immediate deduction of their destinations made his bones freeze.
On the holo-tank beside him, the ship's AI manifested himself. Hood spotted him out the corner of his vision though he was barely able to pay him much attention. A well-pressed dark blue uniform baring a light blue sash, decorative medals and a golden epaulette on either shoulder heralded his fondness for the extravagances of Russian Tsardom. Yet beneath the sheened hair, a proud but curly handlebar moustache and an accompanying beard was a face that looked just as hopelessly aloof as his real-life inspiration. The spitting image of Tsar Nicholas II, the ship's AI 'Nick' looked over Hood's shoulder, frowning at the data readouts he himself had procured. "Well, that's not good."
The Fleet Admiral winced at his bluntness. He reminded himself that some AI were less subtle than others.
"You're right, it's not. Those are-"
"Flanking routes. They're trying to get the better of us by going around for the ODPs, all while knowing we'll be too caught up with everything else they're sending our way to do anything about it." Nick looked towards the distant CSO and put a hand to the saber sheathed on his thigh. "It seems whoever's at the helm of this assault knew what to expect. But what should we expect of him next?"
"Exactly." Hood tapped a communication icon on his display to link himself to the emergency E-band, giving him full access to the comms of every UNSC element in Daedalus. "This is Hood to all forces, naval and ground, be advised, the Covenant have detached three battlegroups to bypass our orbital formation. They are currently moving at 500 kilometers to the east and west of our position. Battlegroups Basilisk and Viking, dispatch several of your ships each for atmospheric interception." Hood pressed the two smaller clusters of red icons moving in a wide arc around the UNSC formation. "Don't let them get close to ground-level or we'll have hell to pay."
"Basilisk dispatch is on its way, sir." One of his vice-admirals replied.
"Same with Viking." Said another. "We can only spare so many though."
Hood looked through the Sevastopol's viewing screen. From the leftmost of his ships, a handful of frigates disengaged from the top defensive line to soar eastward across the planet's exosphere. To his right he watched another handful leave from the end of the lower defensive line. They in turn headed west after the enemy.
"Ground forces, prepare for secondary defensive contingency in case of any unsuccessful interceptions."
Unsuccessful interceptions, Hood thought; a nice way of saying the fleet might miss one. He never liked admitting that the navy couldn't always handle a smaller force with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, this was the Covenant. There was never any certainty. The list of smoldering colonies once placed under his own care had taught him that much.
"And...what about that one?" Nick asked, unsheathing his saber to point at the third group on his display, the one moving out the farthest from the action. In fact, from Hood's perspective, the group was seemingly piloting out of local space. The trajectory mapping showed the two CCS frigates and single heavy corvette were on an extremely wide arc. Upon seeing where their path led, he shook his head.
"No need. With what we have available now, we can only afford to focus on what's right in front of us."
Nick arched a brow at him. "You would give them a chance to flank us by leaving the back door open?"
"We have virtually no settlements on that side of the planet. The few that are there have already been evacuated. Unless they make any major offensive maneuvers, I'll have the system RSOs keep an eye on them while they muck around in our backyard. They can have it...for now."
Nick scratched his head. "Ay, sir."
"On that note." Hood's eye flickered between his display and the forward screen. Each time he saw the main Covenant fleet growing closer, both visually and in kilometer estimates. At 305 kilometers he gave the order. "Line 1, open fire!"
All at once the MAC gun on every ship in the upper line fired. Several dozen flashes of brilliant bronze lanced out across the darkness of space at supersonic speeds. In atmosphere, this would have been an overwhelmingly deafening barrage. Up here, it was silent. So were their impacts less than 1.5 seconds later, too fast for their targets to evade. The ferric-tungsten rounds slammed into the shields of multiple Covenant ships. The envelopes of energy flared a silvery blue and either held or burst like bubbles under follow-up shots, courtesy of being targeted by more than one MAC. Over a dozen vessels staggered back from their advance, lurching from rounds that gutted them to port or from stem to stern. Half of those struck detonated in fiery gasps that fizzled out into burning debris fields a breath later. A third fell away as skewered fish, their lights flickering and failing. The rest of the survivors carried on shield-less, willing their lightly damaged hulls to join the rest of the fleet in the surge forward.
Hood's ever-present grimace somehow found a way to deepen. The first volley had only taken out a seventh of the enemy's naval strength. He recognized well enough that it might be the most they could hope for, to bite away at them piece by piece.
The retaliation was swift.
In unison, some 30 ships of those at the head of the advancing maw released their building plasma in the form of eager torpedoes. Twice as many of the blue comets of death snaked across the firmament like rain droplets down a window. Luckily or perhaps not so luckily, the torpedoes took nearly seven times as long as the MAC rounds to reach their targets. That gave those same targets opportunities for evasion, however limited. It also gave them a moment to think about what was about to happen, however brief.
The formation quickly loosened. UNSC ships put more kilometers between themselves and their brethren craft, the smaller frigates giving all the more space to the larger destroyers and carriers. The more distance the better as size was often a good determinant of blast radius.
"Incoming." Nick said worriedly. Hood braced himself, as did the rest of his bridge crew.
At 100 kilometers, the storm of torpedoes fanned out towards specific targets. Then at 50 meters the expected miracle happened. The balls of solar-chemical fury suddenly wavered. They wiggled and writhed chaotically. Many took unexpected dives on downward and upward vectors. Others spiraled into out-of-control corkscrews or outrightly disintegrated.
Hood smiled. His gamble with Ballast' equatorial gravity had paid off.
His smile dropped a second later at the sight of a third of the torpedoes forging on towards the formation. They reached a range where the chosen ships tried to turn away. The last-minute maneuvers helped few. The azure fireballs impacted hulls, splashed over Titanium-A armor, melted through it and engulfed the unfortunate souls inside. Flashes of angry yellow light appeared throughout both defensive lines. One of those flashes blew with such force that it pushed two untargeted frigates a full kilometer to either side. Burning wreckage from the aftermath rained against their hulls.
Hood instantly understood by its size which ship had gotten hit. His mouth went dry. "Was that-..."
"The carrier Second Solstice." Nick confirmed, his tone lamenting. "We just lost her, sir, along with eight other frigates and the destroyer Rum Runner."
Hood closed his eyes. The weight of the losses threatened to keep them shut. An even greater weight of what they still stood to lose helped pry them open again. He turned from the scenes of fiery debris and back towards the enemy.
The Covenant were slowing their advance at just 200 kilometers away.
"So, it's a shooting game then." Hood said. Cold calculations and years of tactics took hold. As the fleet reorganized into their lines, he gave them their next order.
"Line 2, fire!"
The following volley of MAC rounds was unleashed, a much larger barrage coming from the lowest line. The navy boys and girls of the Aquilla Defense Fleet were ready to avenge their casualties. Losing an Epoch-class like the Second Solstice was a near crippling blow. Hood swore he would make them pay for it as the second score of tungsten rounds ripped through energy shields, toughened hulls, occupied decks and the silent emptiness of the galaxy.
:********:
Martin felt a bitter cold wash over his mind at hearing the fleet admiral's warning. He was no UNSC tactician but he understood what it meant when the Covenant were entering the atmosphere. His best guess was that they were trying for the ODPs. Undoubtedly, Vallejo station was about to be a target.
He carried his worries with him in his sprint throughout the station. Pre-launch checks were never something he liked leaving up to distant communications. He preferred in-person checkups. They were more reassuring than taking someone else' word for it, even if they were trustworthy and even if the entire operation took a bit longer because of it. In their field it paid to be sure. The crew understood that as well, which was why the individual teams gave him a swift synopsis of their progress from compartment to compartment.
He'd jogged out from the bridge first to get a feel for the eastern space-dock. The crew there showed him that the docking rings were securely in place along with the kinetic energy dampeners along the outer containment braces. They reassured him that any ships they might have to dock with for repairs wouldn't have to worry about rebounding from the umbilicals. With starboard shipping ticked off his list, he ran to the MAC storage compartment and got a glimpse inside from a windowed balcony. The cylindrical chamber below resembled that of a revolver. Only there were three times as many bullets, and those bullets were really 20 meters tall by 5 meters wide high-density plutonium slugs. Because of their condensed state, it was easy to forget that each weighed 3,000 tons, the mass of a small freighter. These were the main reason why the Covenant were on their way. If just one of these slugs could kill a capital ship then having more than a dozen made them a threat worth stopping.
Martin eyed the gathering of hazmat wearing tech-heads inside. They were busy moving along overhanging catwalks, holding up advanced Geiger counters towards the slugs in order to take their radial temperatures. He turned to see Yohanan on the balcony with him, the man he'd left in charge of the compartment. The curly-bearded hazmat wearer was scrolling through readouts that were piling up on the screen of his personal pad. He spoke without looking up. "You sure are antsy, aren't you, boss?"
"At this point I can't afford not to be. Well?"
Yohanan turned the pad's screen for him to see. His mathematical mind crunched through the numbers. "Ionizing and thermal radiation is still in the green?"
"As always. Alpha Decay's at an easy minimum also."
"Good. Make sure to get your guys out before the launch and have them bring down the firing tube on at least one of those slugs. I get the feeling we'll need the MAC to be active right off the bat."
"One in the chamber then? Alright."
Martin moved to leave but Yohanan's worrying tone stopped him. "Think they can hold up out there long enough?"
He turned back to meet his uncertain glare and nodded confidently. "Just worry about the heavy-lifting in here. Let the UNSC deal with the rest."
"...If you say so."
"Cheer up, Yohan, at least you'll finally get to see what it's like to be in these things when they take off. If you make it, it'll be a story you can tell your kids someday."
"...If."
Martin headed back out. He journeyed down to the tram station for a sitrep. The transportation crew were already finished activating the last of its levitation and guidance coils, making him the first to test out the maglev. The speed was good, not too slow but not too fast. Not that he had very far to go. The magnetized guideway gave a calming purr throughout the short trip, no worrisome screeches to be found. The scenery outside was also easing. Rather than seeing the stars, he was made privy to a view of calm morning skies about to make the high-noon changeover. They were deceivingly calm. There was plenty of activity on the ground however. Scores of Marines were running to their positions and laying down their last emplacements. He saw a few ODSTs in the mix as well and wondered where squad Epsilon had wound up in all of this. Everyone was looking up whenever they could. So too were their big rotary cannons and missile systems setup just outside the launch silo. They knew just as well as he did what was happening up there. Like him, they were also anxiously waiting for when it finally arrived down here.
He reached the disembarkation point and got off, replacing the purr of the maglev with the clip-clopping of his boots on metal flooring. He passed the intermediary hall to the bridge where, out the corner of the door, he could make out the white-clad navy personnel settled at their stations. Edwards was still standing in front of the main consoles on the far side, investigating a projection of many red contacts heading towards a larger host of blue ones. That must've been the battle raging over their heads.
Martin kept going until he passed through the console-maze of the security rooms and hotel-like atriums of the commons that lay between him and the hangers. The hangers themselves were undergoing the last sparks of additional reinforcement. The crew used ladders as well as the interior observation platforms to apply the last of the elastic O-ring sealants. The threshold between the walls and the glass of the launch bay windows received most of the treatment. Some good old-fashioned blowtorching was added for good measure.
One of the torchers slid up his protective mask to expose an exhausted but satisfied smile. All Martin saw of Sean's face was that classic Irishman's beard, the hairy curtain under which everything else would remain hidden if he didn't smile. "All good here, sir. That's the last of the sealants for Hangers A0-1 through A-02."
"And C?"
"Already done. Hydraulics are functional too so we should be green for this entire compartment."
"Show me."
"Sure thing."
Sean pointed to the line of torchers doing a similar work along the length of the hanger. They backed up as he reached for a control panel on a nearby wall. His fingers travelled down a list of vibrant green buttons before pressing a yellow one at the bottom: 'All doors'.
A brief alarm flashed throughout the hanger. Martin watched as the three glass entry doors started sliding upward, releasing a stealthy hiss that was soon overwhelmed by the wail of the morning wind. Though the air was refreshing, the doors were noticeably slow.
"Any way you can speed that up?" Martin asked.
Sean shook his head. "Not possible, boss. Remember, we never got VOSPER's shipment of the new traction cables when we logged that complaint about these old ones."
Martin sighed at the memory of how slow intersystem bureaucracies could be. After all, he'd sent that request to his superior a whole six months ago. "Right. We'll make do for now then. Close'em."
Sean pressed the button again. Martin watched annoyed as the doors reversed course to begin their sluggish descent. He waited for the last one to thump shut before he started for the next exit. "And remember, have your guys run to the main atrium once they're done."
"The security seats are setup already?"
"Yup."
Sean whistled. "Jake's crew sure works fast."
"That they do."
Martin moved along the passages leading to the western space-dock in order to complete his rounds. On the way he had to weave through flocks of construction crew and forests of ladders as they foisted the last of the ceiling lights into place.
He decided to use the walk to check in with the members of his most important teams, those both within and outside the station. Stopping at a window, he looked across the western side of the site then down to the infinite abyss of the launch silo. Against the pit of darkness there existed a cobweb arrangement of connective platforms that served to stabilize the bottom-half of the ODP. And beneath them were the faintly visible structures of the four main hold-down arms that were clamping the platform's lowest section. Until take-off, they were Vallejo station's primary supports; mechanical hands holding up a delicate flower.
Like the hangers before, there were sparks occurring on these structures as well. A closer look revealed that they were occupied with handfuls of engineers hard at work detaching and disassembling the smaller connectors. They moved about on safety lines that connected their harnesses to an upper level of the ODP. Like spiders they rappelled down or shuffled over to different spots, beginning new tasks or wrapping up old ones. Martin hoped they were careful. Those lines were the only things between them and a 2-kilometer drop to the subterranean generators.
He manipulated his earpiece. "Rachel, how're things down there?"
Atop one of the platforms, one of the workers he could tell was Rachel stood up from what she was doing to look around. She eventually caught sight of him. "The minor couplings are mostly away. I'd say we're 85% done down here." She pointed down to the barely visible hold-down arms straddling the shadows. "We triple-checked the pistons for the pneumatic cylinders so believe me when I say those main restraints will disengage the second either you or Edwards decides to press the button. As for thrust." She pointed up.
Martin followed her pointing to the area just beneath his feet. There, bulging out from the exterior, were the yellow-painted aeronautical wonders of every ODP's maiden voyage. An R7 thrust coupling was attached to this section of the station. The pair was one of twelve of the mansion-sized thrusters in their possession. Eight were attached to the ODP's encircling girdle and four out of sight on its lower body. They were its only means of getting into geosynch. He hoped so anyway after the hailstorm of paperwork he'd endured to get them from procurement, yet alone the actual pain of the hook-up process.
"Those are ready to fire on demand. You can ask Sammy yourself. That's what he told me anyway."
"Mhm. Well, you know me, I like second opinions."
"You sure do."
Martin switched to another line with the leader of the refueling team. "Sam, how's that fuel for the R7s coming?"
He followed the fuel lines that led from the closest thrusters over to the western edge of the silo. There, several more of his guys were removing a bracer that had safely secured that end of the fuel line to the ground.
The link crackled. "Job's done, boss. All the couplings have what they need. We're trying to remove the anchor bracings now so we can rehouse the lines."
Martin nodded approvingly. "Great work. Head inside once you're done."
"Are our rollercoaster seats still in the atrium?"
"They never moved, Sam."
"Just double-checking. I know you'd understand."
He did. They shared that same situational OCD that he always got from doing final checks; the hallmark of a veteran aerospace construction crew member. Martin left for the western space-dock. On the last hallway he tuned in to overhear the communications from the reactor team. All he heard was yelling and a lot of mechanical hissing in the background. He could make out Dominic's voice shouting over all the others, briefly calming them for a second or two before they were riled up again.
"Reactor Teams, can you hear me?" He called. "What's the situation down there?"
A burst of static blasted into his ears and he reflexively took off the earpiece. He lowered the volume to a third and tried again. "Reactor teams, can you hear me?"
More static answered. Then Dominic's voice broke through, cutting in and out. "We...you...sir, it's not...signal's bad...hold on."
Three nervous beats of Martin's heart passed after which Dominic's voice came clearer. "Sorry about that. We've got a crap-ton of interference right now."
"What's the report?"
"The heat's really building up down here. We had to force a cooldown for the fuel rods."
"How many?"
"At least 90 assemblies' worth. That's just under 40%, and that's not even the kicker. The worst part is we haven't even taken off yet." He stopped to bark orders to someone. "We're barely managing the acceleration rate down here as it is. We might need to slow things down."
Martin mulled it over. That many assemblies requiring a trip to the spent fuel pools was nothing short of a disaster in the making. They had to slow things down or risk the entire operation going critical.
He was about to reply when suddenly an alarm went off. Emergency lights flashed an ominous red. Sirens moaned a loud warning. Edwards' voice sounded over the intercom. "Attention all hands, attention all hands; Covenant ships have just entered our airspace. Get to your stations immediately and prepare for final launch procedures."
The message automatically repeated. Martin ran to a window and saw the last of the Marines and MPs running behind sandbag walls, into buildings or out over the rooftops of the unfinished apartments. Then above all the clamor he heard what sounded like a scream. Only it wasn't quite a scream. It was loud, echoing and continuous, more engine than lung. Despite having spent more than his fair share of time around ships, he'd never heard anything like it before. That fact alone set a fire in his belly. Soon every other sound around him was drowned out by that loud shriek.
Then the world began to shake and rumble.
His position near the space-dock gave him a perfect view of the skies over his home-city. A shadow was growing larger and larger over a cloud until a form burst through. Vapor, steam and the residual flames of a hasty reentry burn were peeled back like layers, leaving behind the unfamiliar form of what could have only been a Covenant ship. The purple insect-look-alike had its engines roaring. It was on a beeline straight for Vallejo.
Martin fought back a growing numbness in his legs. He willed them to move, first as a trot then to a full sprint down the hallway.
"Sir?" Dominic called.
"We can't decelerate, Dominic! Not anymore! Get those spent rods back into operation as soon as you can 'cause we've got company!"
Dominic's reply came quickly and with greater determination. "We're on it, boss! We'll do what we can!"
Martin switched over to a general link with the entirety of his site crew. "Everyone, once you're finished head up to the atrium and buckle in! We've got a ride ahead of us!"
:********:
Duncan felt the ship before he saw it.
The high-pitched scream of repulsor drives vibrated in his bones. He was looking up with everyone else when the CCS battlecruiser slipped through a cloud and arrowed down to Vallejo. The sight of it was enough for the Staff to give the order.
"Hit the walls, Epsilon!"
The squad was the first to break from their inspection of a close by M-71 Scythe that had been recently deposited. They slid behind the thick sandbag wall lining the edge of the rooftop. Duncan took a spot between Deaks and Zack, the sniper on his left and the radioman on his right. With the bipod having been laid down hours earlier, he watched Deaks eagerly lift the rear of his SRS-99 to track the CCS in its flight. "Remember, Ep-8. You're my spotter for this round. See any big helmets, you let me know."
Duncan nodded. Earlier, he'd drawn the short end of the stick for spotter duty. However, being the corporal's wingman was unavoidable. Deaks would need an extra set of eyes to help him navigate what was soon to be a target-rich landscape. Duncan's DMR just so happened to make him the best fit for the job.
He peered back to see that the platoon of Marines they were stationed with had stopped gawking at the CCS. They moved in Epsilon's wake to take positions at the wall. He wasn't sure how he felt about that kind of delayed response. Then again, he realized that he was comparing jarhead reflexes to ODST reflexes. A jarhead was a jarhead and an ODST an ODST. Thinking of the two as the same wasn't fair to either.
He peeked over the sandbags.
The rolling fields, hills and valleys of the region stretched before him. So did the distant spectacle of the Covenant ship coming to settle less than several kilometers above Vallejo.
He'd witnessed scenes like these so many times that he wasn't sure what to feel. Anger, fear, sadness. None of that was there. The only thing that was there was an iron focus on the ship's main energy projector. Unlike the rest of the hull, the indicator lights of the little hexagonal hole on its underbelly remained offline. A good sign.
An even better sign appeared in the sky in the form of a hail of missiles launched from SAM-sites within the city. The bright balls of destruction whispered towards the CCS on snaking trails of exhaust.
The moment was short-lived. Pulse turrets immediately activated along its underside. They lasered many of the missiles out of the sky with pinpoint accuracy. Of the few that survived the crisscrossing plasma lances, their fate was to slam harmlessly into the ship's energy shields. For a second the cruiser looked to be sparkling from the blasts. The sound of the explosions echoed over Vallejo station.
Answering the attack, the cruiser's hanger bay doors slid open. A host of Seraph fighters, Phantom and Spirit dropships flew out. They quickly swarmed down across the city. The cruiser provided cover for them as its pulse turrets carved up the downtown area and the origins of the missiles with surgical precision.
A cascade of additional sounds reached the squad's ears. At first, Duncan was confused by what he thought was the sound of ocean waves or a waterfall. In little time he realized they were actually screams. Thousands of them.
He wanted to mute his audio sensors to block them out. Yet that would be a bad idea for its own reasons. The best he could do was try to block them out, something he'd been forced to get good at over the years.
On his right, he saw Zack look away from the city. Deaks, however, kept his scope set on the Covenant ship, never letting it out of his sight as it dissected the heart of Vallejo.
"How much longer until that interception force gets here?" Zack asked. "The one Hood talked about?"
"You tell us, Ep-7." Nova replied. "You're the one with the big radio."
"...Right."
A second echoing scream caught their attention. The squad looked back over their shoulders to the eastern skies. Beyond the pinnacle of the ODP, a shadow appeared above the thin blanket of cloud cover. The object on the other side ploughed through into visibility. The fiery specter soared towards the ODP as a meteorite. The reentry flames faded once it leveled off 5 kilometers above, leaving behind the purple laminate sheen of a second battlecruiser. Its momentum carried it past Vallejo station, though it remained at a stretch from the facility as a whole. It carried on a good distance before the thrust of its drives swung it hard to starboard.
Tense, the ODSTs and Marines watched as the CCS briefly wavered, not turning to either the station or the city. Duncan got a solid bead on the starboard-side plasma cannons. Again, to his relief, much like the energy mortar on the other CCS, this one didn't look ready to use heavy ordnance. He could think of two reasons why the thing hadn't struck out the ODP altogether. One; its plasma torpedoes wouldn't work this close to the surface thanks to the whole gravitic interference problem, although some types had figured out workarounds. Two; the shipmaster onboard was probably scared that the platform might still be able to swat him out of the sky, never mind whether it was actually spaceborne. Another bad sign. It meant the enemy for today was smart. Bad enough that they were technologically advanced, even worse that they were now technologically advanced and tactically rational.
"Here they come." Deaks said.
Duncan scoped in on the ship's midsection. The circular reticle and its inner optics stayed a neutral blue as he scanned the length of the vessel. When he reached the hanger doors on its starboard side, they opened. The reticle turned red on a series of Covenant aircraft that swarmed out from the bays. Phantoms, Spirits, Seraphs and Banshees came out in droves. He counted several dozens of them and then sum as more streamed out from the portside. These were easily three times as many as the cruiser types typically carried.
"They're not pulling any punches this time, are they?" Mito asked.
"Do they ever?" Hector asked back.
"Standby to engage." The Staff ordered. Next to him, the captain of the Marines shouted orders for his platoon to do the same.
Duncan eyed a set of luminal bursts from the bottom of the ship. He watched more insertion pods than he could count eject from the vessel. They flew down to the surface at a steep angle that sent them barreling closer to the site. Why were some of their forces being deployed separately from the rest? Special forces perhaps? Whatever the reason, he made a mental note to check on the valleys that most of them were landing in to the west.
He refocused on the paved highway that wound its way down the breadth of the open plains and past the gates. With Epsilon's posting on one of the two buildings overlooking the western road, they would be the first to take a shot at any trespassers. They would also have front row seats to the small gift 4th Platoon had left outside the perimeter gates.
Duncan turned one last time to the building on his left that guarded the other side of the road. There were four times as many ODSTs on the rooftop, Baelson's 4th Platoon. The lieutenant himself was at the center of the sandbag wall they'd formed on the edge. He briefly glanced from his own DMR to scan down the length of their defenses and ended up locking eyes with Duncan. With a nod, he turned back to the west.
"Eyes forward, Ep-8." Deaks said without turning from his scope.
Duncan returned his rifle's attention to the fleet of Covenant craft issuing towards them. He steadied his breathing and waited.
Nearing 2 kilometers, the dropships and attack craft split off into four distinct groups. The swarms broke away from each other with two moving south and one north. A classic encirclement. The last group kept straight on.
With 1 kilometer left to go the gimbals of the nearest M71s let out a whine as the guns locked on. The air was quickly filled with the lateral rain of tracer rounds. The gun closest to Epsilon started up its rotary cannon from atop a lower platform fitted to the front of their building. Duncan listened to the 10-note drumbeat of the outgoing bursts and enjoyed the hell they raised for their new guests.
An orchestra of armor piercing rounds cut into the aircrafts, dampening the collective noise of their engines. As their names rightly hinted, the outgoing fire scythed through Banshees and mutilated dropships. Phantoms detonated under sustained bursts or fell dead into the valleys. Spirits ignited into fork-shaped fireballs that dipped down towards the ground to scramble into a gust of azure flames upon impact. Seraphs were chased from left to right in their attempt to save their overloading shields. The scythes tracked the faster craft with impunity and broke through their shields to pepper the vehicles within.
All around the site, the outermost M71s were knocking out parts of the air assault advancing on the entire perimeter. Phantoms were torched. Seraphs were turned to pin-cushions under stuttering fire. More than a few were reduced to fiery corkscrews that spiraled out of the sky, but nowhere near enough to make up for those that got through.
The overwhelming majority of the western dropships made it to within 300 meters. There, most of the survivors stopped to begin their descent into the outer fields with Banshees flying as escorts around them. Still more of the flyers and their Seraph counterparts moved ahead, looking to guide the last of the troop carriers into the inner grounds directly.
Duncan heard the eerie whispers well ahead of time. Like everyone else, he instinctively ducked as a slew of missiles whistled mere meters overhead. He could barely see past the exhaust trails but witnessed a wave of explosions ripple across the face of the Covenant's advance. Unlike the M71 that bulleted targets to death, the M95 Lances simply made them disappear. He saw more than a handful of Phantoms vanish in flame and reappear as fiery confetti. By some miracle, the increasingly close wreckage didn't set off anything when they landed in the fields. He guessed that Garrison was waiting for things to clear up before reactivating the grid.
Against the withering fire of the scythes and lances, multiple craft flew past the gates and into the interior. Their sights were set on either trying to land or moving straight for the ODP. Both were critical mistakes. The dropships slowed down, leaving the remaining escorts to make their play for the station. That left one side without protection and the other less difficult to single out. The aerial breach quickly activated the AA installations in the third and fourth rings. A new wave of anti-aircraft fire blazed up to meet them. More Phantoms attempting to land on unoccupied rooftops were evaporated by missiles or by SPNKR fired rockets from neighboring structures. Spirits trying for the safety of the roads had their fuselages gutted by armor piercing rounds, sundering their hanger bays apart and sending those inside into a fatal tumble. Meanwhile, the Seraphs and Banshees shooting into the interior were hacked and blown to pieces long before any reached their target.
Dealing with the breach took less than 20 seconds, during which time at least 20 aircraft were taken down, one for each second. Adding the ones that didn't make it in, the aerial kill-count Duncan surmised was at 35. The count increased by one as Zack hefted up a SPNKR, locked onto a Banshee trying to hover back towards the gates and finished it off with a classic one-two punch.
Rico whistled. "Nice."
"Yeah." Zack proudly bounced the launcher on his shoulder. "I'm getting pretty good at this."
"You haven't arrived just yet." The Staff intruded. "Don't worry though. You'll get plenty more chances to improve your skills real soon." He proceeded to set a Nav marker that drew everyone back to the main threat.
In the outer fields to the west, most of the dropships that had stopped there were already offloading their forces. There were twice as many of them as those that tried their hand at the earlier insertion. Elites, Jackals, Grunts and Hunters poured out of the bellies of Phantoms, riding their gravity lifts all the way to the ground. Spirits landed to unleash torrents of infantry from either hanger. In seconds, hundreds of Covenant soldiers had hurriedly assembled into an assault force and surged forward across the grasslands.
Baelson comm'd in. "Hold your fire."
No one moved, although a plentitude of trigger fingers twitched and itched, searching for a target that best matched their preference. Many of the rifles peeking over the sandbag walls moved here and there, picking and choosing like customers at a grocery store. While everyone else honed in on the fields, Duncan zoomed in on the hills that bordered the valleys further west. His hunch about the pods was proven right. Two platoons' worth of Jackal snipers had moved up from their landing zones and were setting up positions on the hilltops.
"I got Jackal snipers." Duncan called. "Western hills, 400 meters out, at least 30 by my count."
"I see'em." Deaks replied. "Man, that's a lot of competition."
Duncan's eye scanned along the relatively scattered line of snipers. He settled his sights on a white-armored Elite Ultra barking orders to a pair of them. "Good thing I found the coach."
"Where?"
"Center, close to that upper berm. You see him?"
"Hold on...there he is. Now we just wait for the ref."
Certain that Deaks had a good target in his sights, Duncan turned to the incoming forces. They had reached the 170-meter mark and were closing fast. There were plenty of them, more than enough in his opinion to overrun their position. Good thing most of them would never get that close.
Then at 150 meters the Covenant changed their approach. The Elites and Jackals suddenly slowed down. The Jackals moved ahead to bring their shields together in front of their superiors, forming a phalanx of red and blue energy barriers. A dozen Hunter pairs strode through gaps in the line to get ahead of them. Upon taking the lead, they too slowed down and coagulated together, baring up their massive shields to form a second layer to the phalanx. The spikes on their backs eagerly rattling, they marched onward with the rest of the formation close behind.
Nova sighed. "A double shield wall? Really? Can't they make life just a little bit easier for-"
A wave of screams arose. They were frantic, wild and crazed.
There was suddenly a wave of motion within the enemy formation. The Hunters stepped aside, opening several lanes for a slew of Grunts to burst forth. The conical backpack-wearing creatures waddled and ran ahead by the hundreds, firing their plasma pistols at the apartment buildings. Most of their bolts were too wild to hit anything. That didn't stop a few strays from coming worryingly close to heads and shoulders.
"No way." Rico grumbled. "Come on, are they seriously doing this?"
Duncan gritted his teeth. He could see what the Covenant were going for. They really weren't taking any chances.
The ODSTs could do nothing but watch while the Grunts charged headlong into the last 100 meters.
The first of the Antilon anti-personnel mines went off the instant they sensed motion, generating a rumbling drum of explosions across the outer field. Grunts were tossed high into the air in wholes or in bloody pieces. The screaming momentarily died down, restarting a second later as more pushed through the smoke. They carried on unphased. One mine went off after another, blowing handfuls of the aliens apart and sending others flying into the air on plumes of ruptured methane. More kept coming, running past the torn bodies of their comrades or stepping over them altogether.
"Think they'll clear a path?" Yuri asked.
Rico nodded. "At this rate..."
Distant explosions pulled Duncan's eye away to the other sectors. There was residual smoke rising all along the perimeter. More screaming came from those sides as well. The Covenant were doing the same thing on every front. He had a sinking feeling in his gut, a sensation amplified by the sight of the surviving dropships flying away from the site under continuous AA fire. Across the board they were all retreating towards the second cruiser.
"Think they're going back for more?" Zack asked.
"You ask the most obvious questions." Nova huffed.
The detonations of the Antilons continued alongside the screams to the point that mines were going off just meters from the entrance. The Grunts started stumbling into the more powerful Lotus anti-tank mines which sent shockwaves through their ranks every time one went off. Their numbers dwindled. Their screams died down under the weight of each consecutive blast.
Soon all that remained was a field of smoking pits and flaming bodies. The road's last 100 meters was torn up and gouged out, leaving behind deep craters in the asphalt. None of the Grunts had made it to the entrance. However, they had cleared a sizable path through the minefield that led straight to the gates.
The remaining Covenant were swift to act on the opportunity their cannon fodder had afforded them. They marched more briskly across the remaining field with their shields held high, ignoring the pools of blue blood and mangled corpses at their feet.
"Troopers, open fire!" Baelson called. "Focus on those Hunters!"
The report of Deaks' sniper was the first thing Duncan heard before a deafening barrage of rifle fire commenced. The rooftop instantly transformed into a shooting range. So did the positions of the Marines and MPs on each of the floors below them. From both of the apartment buildings, turrets were unleashed and rockets flew out. Bullets pinged against the shields of the Hunters. The armored behemoths staggered or stopped under the impacts of the rocket explosions. They struggled to push forward as their momentum slowed. Meanwhile, the more exposed fringes of the formation were picked off, crumpling under the deluge of the onslaught.
Duncan sighted in on the far hills. Much to his relief, Deaks had made the shot. The Ultra now lay on the slopes of one of the hills surrounded by his own blood. The Jackal snipers around him were desperately returning fire.
"That's a confirmed for the coach." Duncan remarked.
"You're late, spotter." Deaks squeezed off another shot. "And that's buzzard number four." He squeezed again. "And his brother, number five. Take care of business down below, Ep-8, I'll handle things from here."
"Copy."
Duncan winced as series of loud THUMPs went off around him. From the rooftop and the lower floors spewed a volley of SPNKR rockets that added to the ballistic blizzard. The closest came from Zack who emptied the chamber before tossing the weapon aside and switching to his rifle.
The volley sailed at an angle so that it struck the feet of the Hunters rather than their shields. The resulting eruption tore apart their once invincible phalanx. Hunters flew apart as their wormy innards splattered the grass. Others were thrown back wholesale to crash down onto those behind them, crushing them under their sheer bulk. Less than half of the original juggernauts pushed through the resulting smoke. They stubbornly carried on. Yet in doing so they exposed openings in the formation where even the Jackal shield wall had faltered, something every rifle and turret was quick to exploit.
Duncan took the chance to pop two dazed Jackals with headshots. He slid a third round through the skull of an Elite minor whose shields were just beginning to recharge. There was a certain satisfaction to one-shotting the four-jaws and seeing it let off a few strays as it tumbled. That brought with it his newest combat high. A surge of bloodlust directed his scope leftward to a quintet of charging Grunts. The first quickly did a backflip from the gift of a third eye. The second doubled over as a round punched it in the gut. The motion threw off its mask to expose an ugly mouth that gasped for breath, only to inhale a round that tore through throat and skull. As the second toppled over, Duncan retargeted. A burst of machine gun fire riddled the third before he could get to work. It danced backwards under the assault until its gas tank caught alight. The alien erupted in a burst of yellow-green methane, taking a comrade out with it. Duncan laid claim to the last of the small squad by a low shot that knocked it down onto its knees. After making it bow to him, he spared it the mercy of a headshot.
"I see you, Ep-8, I see you." Deaks said through the whipping CRACK of his own shots. "But there's only room for one sharpshooter in this outfit, you got that?"
"Sorry, what was that?" Duncan asked as he bowled over another Grunt. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of my being better than you."
"Beginner's luck. That's all."
Duncan heard the distinctive THWUMP of an M319 discharge. Out the corner of his vision, a grenade arced across the air, over the perimeter gates and down into the enemy ranks. He was too slow to the draw and it bounced into an Elite major that had caught his interest. The following blast killed the major outright and knocked a pair of nearby Hunters off balance.
"Hey, Ep-8, stop lagging behind and get on my level already!" Rico shouted.
Duncan grinned. He snapped to a nearby Jackal and made to blow its throat out, but the avian creature lunged backward to join a recuperating phalanx of energy shields. The remaining Elites behind them had gotten within sufficient range to fire back. So too had the surviving Hunters, turning the diminishing space between the two sides into a shooting gallery of plasma and lead.
More than a few times Duncan heard the wisp of a beam rifle over his head. He would shuffle over to a different spot to keep up his rate of fire. Not everyone was so lucky. To his far right he witnessed a Marine's helmet fly up and away in a spray of blood. Its owner fell back with a steaming hole in his cranium. While the downed soldier still had comrades desperately calling out his name, another to Duncan's left sizzled and screamed. He tumbled from the wall, kicking in agony as he grasped at what remained of his face. Renni ran to his side along with another corpsman.
The apartment building shook.
Not more than 10 meters from the fence, some of the Hunters had stopped to return fire. Several plasma torpedoes slammed into the front of the structure. One of the Hunters released a continuous stream of plasma like a flamethrower. The green flames engulfed half of the third floor, silencing much of the firing going on there. More agonized screams and frantic cries of "Corpsman!" followed.
Someone on the rooftop shouted; "Banshees! Second wave incoming!"
Duncan and everyone else glanced skyward. Sure enough, far in the distance was what appeared to be a large flock of migrating birds leaving Vallejo's skyline. Upping his magnification allowed him to make out their finer details. They bore wing canards attached to propulsion drives, leaving long lines of blue exhaust in their wake. The haunting HEP of boosting fuselages was a sound he could never mistake for any other craft.
Nova let out a heartfelt sigh. "This is going to be a long day, isn't it?"
"Looks like it." The Staff said with more enthusiasm than anyone expected. He gestured down at the Covenant infantry arriving at the gate. "So clean your plates and get ready for dessert, troopers! Get to work!"
Duncan flashed his acknowledgement light with the rest of the squad as they reengaged.
An armada of shadows crossed the grasslands between the city and the station. Soon the M71s were stuttering again. So too were the M95s. Duncan kept firing, choosing and picking off targets even as the world in front of him was drowned out in rifle fire and sizzling bolts, thundering AA fire and the wrath of plasma turrets, whisper quiet missiles that crisscrossed the air and emerald torpedoes that rained down from above.
Impetum – Assault
