Captain Alex Harper
August 30th, 2552
04:57
UNSC Aegis Fate
Epsilon Eridani Fleet
The Fall of Reach 0500-0600 hours (military time)
[}-{]
It had begun with a coffee.
Alex sat in his office when the order came down to move the ship to a vector that would rendezvous the Aegis Fate with the fleet at 04:30 hours. His coffee sat on the table in front of him, the milk bubbled and sat like snow at the top of the glass, frothed by Mei's personal coffee machine.
The smell was intoxicating in the stale air of the frigate but it buoyed Alex immensely. He smiled, froth lingered on his mustache and Mei, who was sitting infront of him, laughed. Her hair was still wet, hanging heavily as the air conditioning did its best to dry her off. He wished it wouldn't, he loved the way her skin glistened when it was wet. There was a strange feeling in the air, one that the afterglow of good sex couldn't quite fix.
"No more cover for the evac ships, then." She noted, quietly.
"Apparently not. I had a feeling that was still bothering you."
Mei just nodded. "How's the coffee?"
Alex took a sip again and nodded, cupping the flask in two hands. "Really good. Thank you."
"So. We gave up the moray mine to the Winter, which is now partially controlled by the man who wants my siblings dead. We have barely half our MAC rounds left. About fourty percent of the Archer's left and no hangar. Not after we lost that whole deck and its crew to covenant fire."
"Your point, Mei?"
"That's more than most of the fleet. Do you think we're getting raided?"
"Not sure what the point would be. Chances are that the last reinforcements have arrived and the Fleet is readying itself to strike back."
"Two capital ships and twelve cruisers. The rest are frigates. Paris class or not, it's not enough."
"Again, your point?"
"We could just run. At least we could be together."
Alex smiled, "You don't really want that. You're just testing me."
"Let's get back to it," she said, sighing. There's a message coming through from the bridge. She stood up and pulled Alex to his feet as he sighed.
"Do I at least pass?"
"Huh?" she replied, opening the door to the bridge. "Oh, yeah, you do."
He winked at her, "you wouldn't love me if I was that kind of man."
As they left the office, Alex closed the door watching as the doors hissed shut and the clock on his desk ticked over into a new hour.
0500 HOURS
"Sir, we have pings. All over the system!" the intel officer blurted.
All the bridge crew were listening as the audio filtered in from a station nearby.
"Gamma Station, this is Fermion RSO. Unconfirmed reports of an in-system slipspace rupture."
"Impossible. Check your source."
"There's no mistake. It's them."
"More pings coming in!" the ensign said, "Fifty. One Fifty. Two eight- oh my God."
Alex calmly took a seat in his chair. At least the game was up and their number was called. The seat, plush, felt comfortable as his breathing quickened and he hit the emergency alert.
"All hands, Battlestations!" he said, hearing his voice over the tannoy.
Several things happened immediately. Every ship in the fleet ignited its engines and lights could be seen flashing on the bridges of the nearest ships. The lights on the tactical display in front of him pinged with red dots until they numbered three hundred and fourteen strong. Alex gasped at the sight, the covenant had sent their biggest force the UNSC had seen to squash Reach. From his chair, Alex could feel himself pale. It would be more than enough.
"Transmission from Admiral Freemont, sir."
"Put it through. Mei, take the helm." Alex wished Ollie was here as the message began to filter through.
"All callsigns this is Admiral Freemont of the Trafalgar, initiate cole protocol and proceed to RP ZULU. This is it, everyone, we make our stand together."
Alex signalled the affirmative and told Mei to punch in the heading, feeling nervous as the ship began to lurch and creak in the vacuum of space. She looked at him, then. Her almond skin was as pallid as his own as she mouthed an affirmation to him.
We will get through this.
"Together."
"Together."
It was an acknowledgement that Reach was lost. The curt speech the Admiral had sent was proof enough but the sheer size of the force was so great that it was difficult to make out individual ships using standard UNSC tech. Still, the ships ploughed on, consigned to the battle of all ages above a doomed planet.
Alex opened a channel and sent an update to the Fenrir. It was time for them to leave. It gave him peace of mind that at least Maddie's project would live on. The human race would survive even if he did not.
Alex reviewed the command channel. Freemont was moving the fleet in unison, commanding them to order in a line; in a standard battle formation. There wasn't much hope for the ships exposed on the flanks but as he was still officially grouped with the now defunct battlegroup SUDAN, Aegis had a level of tactical freedom that might just save the crew when the 314 ships turned their guns on the small frigate: a needle in a needlestack.
The covenant were at the edge of the system, their ships approaching with blinding speed. Command was in the process of baiting them into a killing field where the Orbital Defence Platforms could tear them apart. On the tacmap, ships caught in the wild were rushing to RP Zulu or the nearest ODP. Advance parties of covenant fighters had already begun to engage them and the bridge watched as the first ship, a frigate called the Harbin, became the first casualty of the day.
Mei Liang sucked air between her teeth as she watched the long range camera catch the blast it took from a seraph. As it vented its atmosphere, escape pods shot from the Harbin's sides before they were systematically eliminated by banshees.
Alex looked to Mei, who was busy lining up alongside the Kherson she had already moved on from the destruction on the screen. Alex killed the feed, knowing it would not help morale and shouted a series of orders across the ship. One after the other, each section sent back their affirmative and within ten minutes, the UNSC Aegis Fate was ready to fight.
The first covenant ships came almost within range at around 0530 hours, the fleet stood ready as the cataclysm loomed.
'Aegis, this is Kherson. Our targeting array is on the fritz but we've synced to your data. Call the shot and we can knock twice.'
"Aye aye, we'll send 'em down."
"Sir! Rapid movement across the enemy lines! They're jumping!"
Alex knew immediately what was going on. "Rotate to track the nearest UNSC stragglers, they're about to get swarmed!"
With pinpoint precision, the covenant blinked out of slipspace and rounded on the UNSC ships. The Kherson shifted, too. Its MAC cannons charged in tandem with the Fate, who already had a target marked for destruction.
Two frigates, steaming straight towards an ODP, were swamped immediately. The Kherson's shot lined up with the Aegis and Alex approved the fire mission.
"Fire!"
The characteristic whump of the giant cannon was followed by another, the two shots sliced through vacuum and the crews waited as the loose rounds flew through space. Alex didn't wait, he rounded on another target as gunnery control began to divert power back to the gun and get it firing quicker.
The second target was a corvette. At this range, the MAC was deadly and the Aegis and Kherson could disable ships with impunity. The gun again came online and thundered once more as fire control continued to work tirelessly.
Over the next few minutes, the crews tried to save the two frigates as they picked at the shields and engines of the swarm that surrounded them. The rounds found their targets, cleaving chunks of the ships in half and spraying atmosphere into space. What was left of the hulks were set upon by rounds of archer missiles launched from nearby ships in the UNSC formation. By the time they reached their targets, they were avenging the frigates. The point defence cannons couldn't compete with the covenant ships, who tore apart the frigates like a hot knife through butter. Alex growled and continued to wipe out the covenant formation over the next few minutes until again, the ships jumped away.
"Status?"
The comms analyst relayed the news:
"Freemont reports that the covenant just wiped out anyone out of range of the fleet or an ODP around Reach. They took casualties but we lost any reinforcements currently in the system. All reinforcements to the system are on standby until the engagement is over Captain."
"Jesus, okay. Liang, let's form up with the fleet. They'll be back in force next."
"Aye, Sir!"
The Fate swiveled on its hinges and the Kerson followed.
Blips reappeared in the mass at the edge of the system and Alex's stomach churned as the mass of ships on the scanner appeared unaffected by the losses in the first engagement.
Slowly, they began to track forward, inching closer to the thin line on the tacmap: where they would finally come into the fleet's effective range.
Alex looked at the time. 0545 Hours.
The covenant assault began in earnest. Great streaks of plasma barrelled towards the Fleet, which returned fire. MAC rounds lanced through the sky, outpacing the covenant as they closed the gap. The ODPs spooled into life and began to target the capital ships, the golden trails left by the cannons made space look like the inside of a fusion reactor as light and tungsten collided and exploded in a masterwork of colour and deadly ignition.
A streak collided with a frigate in front of the Aegis, tearing the starboard engine from its mounting and spewing debris into the path of the Kherson.
"Evasive action!" Alex cried. Mei ignited the emergency thrusters, pushing the ship along its Port axis. Without shields, the covenant knew how vulnerable UNSC ships were to debris. It was common for the covenant to target the lead ships in the opening salvo, turning frigates into cluster bombs that could slice a battlegroup apart and expose the cruisers and carriers as easy pickings. The damage was immense. Plasma melted nearly a third of the fleet in the opening salvo but the MACs did their job, cutting an equal number of covenant ships from their fleet as they continued forward.
The Battle intensified over the next few minutes but Alex, at Mei's direction, kept a watchful eye on the tactical display, which revealed a detachment of covenant ships outside of the ring of effective range.
The Battle was at a stalemate, with blows being exchanged like hammer strikes. The ODPs were doing masses of damage to the covenant capital ships, with eight taken out in the opening salvo and more falling with each round of raking MAC fire.
The Aegis and the Kherson remained still as detachments of UNSC ships began to maneuver, prowling forward to reposition. Acting as a sniper team, Kherson and Aegis disabled three ships before Alex noticed the covenant rearguard dispersing.
He watched in horror as an unidentified ping was slowly revealed, hidden behind nearly thirty corvettes and cruisers.
"Unidentified contact, point bravo-six-five!" Alex broadcast it to the fleet as the object glimmering on the long range scanners, far out of range of even the best equipment.
"Get a prowler on it!" Freemont was panicking, Alex could hear it in the tremors of his words.
"Is that thing firing?!" Mei asked, her eyes as wide as the gap between stars.
Even through the glass, a twinkle could be seen, first as a spark, and then as a calcified blob of superheated plasma on the long range scanners.
"Evasive action!" Alex commanded, the Aegis expelled more precious gas from its emergency thrusters as the glob advanced on them at breakneck speed.
Within minutes, it was upon them. Alex watched the view of the bridge disappear under a blanket of snow-like white light. The instruments fizzed and buzzed as it glided past in a wave of heat and terror.
For a moment, sounds were drowned out as the plasma cut through the various waves that connected them to the ship. In that awful silence, Mei screamed, her face flashed with cleansing light. Alex turned his face to the window, watching as the Kherson was stripped bare and melted as the shot seemed to pass through it.
Sound returned as the systems began to realign. Scatty voices and terse exchanges filled the air. They mixed with the turgid static that slowly unscrambled like dying snake: uncoiling limply and overtaken by the flood of voices.
'Where's the Trafalgar?'
'What is that thing? It's out of range, it shouldn't be able to hit us!'
'They haven't debuted new tech in years'
'All callsigns return fire. Use the wrecks for cover!'
"What should we do, Sir?" Mei asked, tentatively. Alex noticed that much of the crew were watching him as he weighed up his response.
"Hold fast! We will fight these monsters wherever they tread. Your lives will not be sacrificed. I will see us home. We have cover, we will fight them carefully and we will be here when our friends on the planet's surface call for our aid! When your children ask you about Reach you will tell them you were there, when the war was darkest. Then you will hug them close and tell them how we lived. How we turned it around. Soldiers. Sailors. Airmen. Hold fast against the tide, we will need all the strength on this ship to see september."
"Aye!" the sailors yelled, "we're with you, Captain!"
Alex grimaced.
They were. Always. So long as he sat in this chair, their lives took precedence.
Alex could only hope that Maddie found a way off Reach before the covenant forced his hand.