Prologue part 1-Out of the frying pan….
Date: Aug 23, 2552
Time: 15:45 UNSC standard
Commander Cook

Looming in the skies of New Alexandria, a Covenant warship covers the docks in a dome of plasmafire. UNSC fighters and bombers bob and weave in between Seraph and banshee, desperately trying to make a whole in the sky for the evacuation shuttles to escape thru.

On the ground, Army troopers desperately fight off wave after wave of Brutes, Jackals, and Grunts. Civilians, untrained in how to fight, pick up arms in futile attempts of resistance, cut down under the might of unrelenting plasma fire. On the balcony of a nearby Mall, a squad of Army troopers, most barely out of bootcamp, are hunted by a pack of Brutes, their sergeant pummeled into a wall and pancaked by a Chieftains gravity hammer. The rest are witnessed being ripped apart by a flight of Falcons flying by, with one Sierra B312 firing a a burst of his chaingun at some of the brutes, trying to give some help, but it is in vain.

The battle for New Alexandria has been raging since morning, with a covenant corvette, and a large invasion force of Brutes, attacking the city just as people were beginning to wake up for work. The city, under the orders of the Winter Contingency, were left unaware of the Covenant presence on Reach until the enemy was at the gates, slaughtering thousands in the first minutes alone. Army troops were quickly mobilized, to the best of their ability, to fight off the invasion ofthe city long enough to evacuate civilians, and for a good portion of the day, they had mild success.

That is, up until around 3pm, when Brute forces began to focus their efforts over the Traxus Landing pads, the main evacuation route off of Reach for the citizens of New Alexandria. In short order, the Beach adjacent of the landing pads was seized, its weapon emplacements shutdown by a Brute Chieftain, and the Army troopers guarding the beach to be pushed all the way back to a small redoubt south of it.

I….was not having a good day at this point. I only had 3 Egress class Raiders, which were basically just civilian transports with a hodgepodge of whatever weapons I could beg, borrow, or steal, to defend nearly 6000 civilians, trapped in metal coffins, just waiting to be blasted out of the sky on liftoff. From the view in my ship, the YOINK, I was racking my head, trying to figure out how the hell I was gonna get out of this mess, when a alert came over the comms.

[BEACH RETAKEN BY SPARTAN. AIR DEFENSES ONLINE. AWAIT LIFTOFF ORDER]
….Well, guess that solves that problem. Dont know where the fuck a spartan came from, but I ain't complaining.

I turn to my helmsman, and say "Once that order comes thru, you put a brick on the gas until we are fucking gone, you hear me?"

"Y-yes sir.", I get in response, before he turns back to his station, hand nervously hovering over the throttle panel.

I feel bad for the kid who has to pilot my ship. My actual Helmsman was killed in the initial attack, managing to get the word out to the rest of the Raiders that the Covenant were on reach, before being disintegrated by a plasma bomb courtesy of a Banshee. Poor kid was some air shuttle pilot, who got to find their entire life destroyed by a Wraith mortar, fortunately NOT inside it. Thankfully he was closeby to my ship when this happened, so me and my crew grabbed him and threw him in the pilot's chair of the YOINK.

Of course im not much older than he is, being 20, but NOOOOOO, the covenant just HAD to invade 2 days before my birthday.

While i'm sulking internally, the liftoff order comes thru over the Radio, not exactly needed as I get a frontrow view of nearly 50 surface to air missiles shoot upwards from the beach across the water, and soar up into the gut of the Corvette that covered the docks, giving it a good old Human kick in the dick for good measure by a flight of longswords, taking out its glassing beam, sparing the city from more damage, at least for now.

"Helmsman, punch it! Get us the hell out of here." I say, before switching over to the local channel for all ships on the docks.

"Break, Break, Break, all ships, liftoff, nows the chance. Everyone, follow my lead."

I feel the ship lurch before it lifts off, flying over the crashed remains of a evac shuttle that took off too early and was shot down, and the ship begin to rumble as we begin to make our way out of Reach's atmosphere. The rest of the ships follow suit, my Raiders taking point, being the only thing thats even remotely armed amongst us.

Now in space, I get to have a grand view of the UNSC navy, or whats left of it. Nearby, 2 Paris and a Charon Frigate are duking it out with a quite large squadron of Seraphs and Banshees.

"Comms, put me thru to those 3 ships, I want to see if they want to get out of here with us. Call it giving us a escort, whatever. "

Simply nodding in response, a short static in my headset is followed by the panicked voice of a crew men aboard one of the 3 ships.

"W-who is this?" I receive over the comms, most likely NOT the comms officer, and almost surely some random crewman who took over for the captain when he or she died.

"This is Commander Cook of the Raiders. I have 10 Evac shuttles in tow, and was hopping to get an escort out of this shit show."

"A-and abandon Reach? We cant, we can still win!" He responds.

"Kid, look around you. The planet is fucked, the Navy is currently getting its shit rocked, and im watching 3 frigates get mauled by a hornets nest of Seraph's and Banshee's where there isn't even anything of importance nearby to protect. And take it from me, I know when to cut my losses and bail. Tell the others to follow us if they want to flee this rock, but im not sticking around and getting 6000 civies, and myself killed, for a planet thats already lost."

A minute goes by in silence, before the quiet is broken as a alert pops up on one of the screens on my dashboard, saying that the 3 ships are making a heading towards my little flotilla. Over the comms, the same man replies back.

"Alright, we're going to tag along. I got outvoted by the other 2 captains on whether to stay or flee, but I want us to make for one of Reach's moons and hide out there for a couple days to make repairs and to lick out wounds before we bail."

"Sounds good to me. I'll send out a fleetwide message saying that any ship that plans to escape Reach near us to regroup with us so we can stick together. I doubt anyone will actually get the chance to do it, but its worth a shot anyways"

"I agree. I may not want to leave Reach like this, but lets try to save as many ships as we can before we run." I respond. Its a solid plan, and if we're lucky, maybe some more ships might swing by and join up.

I hope so anyways.

"Helmsman, set course to the far side of one of the moons, should help us hid from the covenant while those frigates lick their wounds. Once we're in position, tell all ships to go to low power, don't need to stand out."

"Yes sir, One Pink Floyd album cover, coming right up!" the kid responds, trying to make light of such a shitty situation.

….Fuck, I already like this kid, if he know what good music is. Now im ABSOLUTELY keeping him as my pilot.

He grins slightly as he see me smile at his remark, before I lean my head back and close my eyes, trying to get as much rest as I can, and eventually falling asleep in my chair after a couple minutes, the exhaustion finally catching up to me….

[Data Entry end]