Orbit of Shanxi
First contact war
UNSC Corsair Halberd class destroyer
"Contacts coming from the Relay, sir! Ten corvettes at two hundred and fifty meters, and five frigates at five hundred," Ensign Susan Fields reported, her voice tinged with relief.
The Captain exhaled quietly, whispering, "Thank God," to himself. The alien battle group was small, only light ships, not a single cruiser in sight. It wasn't the overwhelming force he had feared.
"Take us in. Standard attack formation," the Captain ordered, his voice steady, masking the tension coiled in his chest. The fleet responded within seconds, shifting into formation as they used their thrusters to orient themselves, preparing to engage the enemy.
Their commanders were bloodthirsty for revenge, determined to avenge their brothers and sisters from the Abbie and Tactician, who went down protecting the retreating science ships.
THS Ravuna
Dropping out of the Relay
The transition from the Relay was seamless, the THS Ravuna emerging into real space with an air of predatory grace. The harsh, angular lines of the ship were a testament to its purpose: to dominate, to conquer.
"Contacts. Multiple cruiser-sized ships, no element zero signatures like the previous ones," said the second-in-command, a bloodthirsty grin spreading across his face, mirrored by his commanding officer, Desolas Arterius.
"Good, take us in. Offensive formation," ordered Arterius, not caring in the slightest that he was outmatched in size and tonnage.
UNSC Corsair
"Enemy battle group changing formation: five corvettes on the left and right, frigates in the middle," reported Ensign Fields, raising an eyebrow. The Captain mirrored the gesture, thinking, Why wouldn't they run? They've only got four more ships. He shook his head, pushing the thought aside.
"Mark the formation of corvettes Beta and Gamma, respectively, and the frigate formation as Alpha. Have Sunset and its sister ships engage Formation Beta, while Minerva and her sister ships engage Formation Gamma," the Captain ordered, his eyes fixed on the battle map. "And our formation right in the middle, target frigates one through three and fire at will."
For the next few seconds, only the quiet hum of machinery could be heard as the formation of Halberds and Paris drifted through space, minutes from engagement. Their crew was terrified and angry over the lives already lost and those that would soon be. But they knew that if they failed, Shanxi would be in danger, so they pressed on.
The Captain's steady voice cut through the silence, making a few crew members flinch. "Take the safety off our archer pods and spin up the MAC guns." Within seconds, the fleet's massive archer silos opened, ready to unleash their devastating payloads, while the MAC guns spun up.
For the next minutes, the UNSC battle group drifted through space, their hulls glistening with various lights as they moved closer and closer to their deaths.
"Incoming!" the ensign screamed as the frigates opened fire. Their rounds tore through space, moving faster than the UNSC's light MACs could ever hope to, and before the Captain could react, they struck. Two rounds hit Corsair's sloped forward armor, ripping off chunks and ricocheting, while the third struck the MAC barrel, disabling it.
"All warships, target the frigates with archer pods! Fire at will!" the Captain shouted, pulling the fallen ensign back to her feet. Seconds later, a barrage of missiles streaked toward the enemy. Over 3,000 archer missiles flew through space, the Halberds unleashed 520 missiles each, while the Paris-class vessels, with their smaller pods, launched 260 each.
But before the missiles could reach the Turian warships, the enemy fired again—this time, with all their ships. In the blink of an eye, 13 rounds streaked toward the UNSC formation. The UNSC battle group was ready, and emergency thrusters flared at the last second before impact, though not all the ships were fast enough.
Four rounds hit, one from a frigate and three from corvettes. UNSC Corsair got hit by a frigate round, but once again, the destroyer's heavy armor proved effective. The round struck the port side armor, leaving a long and narrow scar behind and some debris in its wake as it ricocheted.
But the other rounds were much luckier and struck the UNSC Sunset. Its armor was insufficient to stop the corvette's rounds. Each one went through the armor like a hot knife through butter.
The first round struck it right from the front, going through the topside hull boom all the way and hitting the armor right under the command bridge. The second round struck from starboard, hitting it from a bad angle, but even armor at this angle wasn't enough to stop the round from penetrating to the hangar, killing most of the personnel inside. Those few who survived were thrown out of the hangar with various equipment into space as the hull breach widened under pressure.
The third and final round hit the port-side engine, making it explode with a violent burst of debris and plasma. Systems on the Sunset overloaded, and the ship was left adrift, dead in the water.
Turian battle-group
"Full power to reverse thrusters and guardian array," ordered Desolas with a flicker of fear on his birdlike face. Not even in his wildest dream could he have seen such a mind-blowing missile salvo.
All Turian warships decelerated at mind-blowing speed for the UNSC and activated their forward thrusters, but that didn't help them in the slightest as UNSC missiles came closer and closer.
Across the Turian warships, hundreds of guardian point-defense guns, arranged in dozens of clusters, opened fire, but it wasn't nearly enough. The guardian arrays had too short a range and too slow a fire rate. Within seconds, the missiles struck all three cruisers.
THS Victorus
Close to a thousand missiles struck the cruiser, its shields holding for seconds before breaches opened up when archer payloads melted the mass effect field emitters. The shields were only capable of stopping kinetic energy. In a few seconds, THS Victorus was nothing more than a burning hull with hundreds of small and large hull breaches, its shields not even halfway depleted before it was destroyed.
THS Korvatos
Korvatos, compared to Victorus, got lucky, with only a little over two dozen missiles hitting it, destroying a few field emitters and blowing up 7 guardian weapons.
THS Ravuna
Like the Korvatos, the Ravuna got lucky and was hit by only a little over a hundred missiles. Its shields, unable to withstand the assault, left the once-powerful warship a damaged mess with its main cannon disabled.
UNSC Corsair
"They have shields?" stated the terrified Ensign, her voice pulling everyone from their shock. "Not only shields," thought the Captain to himself, shaking his head, "Their point defense guns managed to take out almost half of the missiles before they hit."
The Captain looked at the battle map. "Ten more seconds for MACs." But before he could give out an order, enemy corvettes and the last operational frigate fired again. This time, the UNSC ships were too close to even activate the emergency thrusters before they were hit.
UNSC Corsair took the brunt of the attack, with over 6 rounds striking it. Four of those shots, once again, didn't penetrate the armor, but the last two hit the damaged armor parts. A frigate round penetrated the armor, tearing through multiple decks and killing dozens before losing momentum. A corvette round did even less damage, only penetrating two decks and wounding a few personnel.
UNSC Pioneer
Pioneer, a Halberd class destroyer like Corsair, took the other half of the attack with little to no damage, all rounds ricocheting off her sloped armor, leaving only a few scars behind.
UNSC ships finally got in range of their MACs and fired. Nine massive and heavy rounds left the UNSC ships—four from both Halberds (UNSC Corsair's double MAC was disabled) and five from the remaining frigates.
Both Halberds targeted the remaining frigate. The enemy frigate tried to evade, but it wasn't fast enough, and a round from Pioneer struck its wing-like structure, annihilating its shield and ripping it off from the main body, disabling the ship.
UNSC frigates targeted the corvettes, but they were too swift and evaded all rounds before returning MAC fire. This time they targeted two frigates, one of them blowing up in a fiery explosion of plasma and debris as her reactor was struck, leaving no survivors, while her sister ship was hit in the engine. The engine, unlike in Sunset, was hit right in the middle, making it explode much more violently and sending the forward part of the ship into space with debris and bodies following in its wake. The UNSC ships didn't stop and pushed forward.
UNSC's massive rampart point-defense guns opened fire along with Halberd's onager cannons, ripping 3 corvettes to shreds and damaging 2 more, yet before UNSC ships could destroy even more, the corvettes opened fire with their disruptor torpedoes. Fourteen massive blue balls of death locked on UNSC ships, and all point-defense guns changed their targets and fired at them, but with no effect.
Torpedoes struck with devastating effect, outright destroying a frigate when 3 torpedoes hit her center body, separating the engines from the rest of the ship. At the same time, 6 torpedoes struck the Pioneer, her heavy armor doing nothing to stop the devastating effect as each one buried itself deep in the ship's hull before one hit the main generator, blowing the ship into two halves.
Another 2 torpedoes struck the Minerva's forward hull booms, cutting them off, while the rest struck the Corsair. One torpedo struck the forward armor, going deep into the hull before stopping, damaging the MAC even more. The second one struck the engine section of the ship, blowing off one engine and destroying the second one, while the third torpedo struck, cutting deep into the midsection of the ship, destroying its slip-space drive.
UNSC Corsair bridge
The bridge was in chaos, with half of the personnel moaning in pain on the ground, while the others were trying to pick themselves up. The Captain, blood trickling down his temple, stared at the flickering battle map. The realization hit him like a blow—this battle was lost. His hand hovered over the comms button, hesitation gnawing at him. But there was no choice. "All ships, retreat."
"What's the status of the slip-space drive?" he asked, knowing the answer but hoping that he had looked at the damage monitor wrong. Susan shook her head with a sad smile. The Captain chuckled to himself as he watched the remaining UNSC ships jump away on the battle map.
"Weapons status?" he asked, fully aware that this was their last stand. "MAC offline, onager offline, ramparts online, missile pods 1 through 4 online, Shiva silo 3 online," reported the Ensign as she looked at the damage monitor.
The Captain nodded and looked at the battle map. "Target corvette 3 with all missiles and Shiva, while ramparts will engage the damaged corvette."
UNSC Corsair opened fire for the last time, sending 80 missiles and a Shiva at the corvette. The alien ship was surprised, and before it could open with guardian, all the missiles and Shiva struck, leaving a burning wreck behind. Meanwhile, the Halberd's ramparts fired at the damaged corvette, destroying its unshielded hull in seconds. The remaining corvettes targeted the Corsair with everything they had. After a few seconds of bombardment, the UNSC Corsair finally exploded as a round struck her reactor.
Author Note
So before you ask I know halberd class don't have ongar I just feel like adding it.
I welcome any criticism, I don't mind if you point my mistakes and I write the story with no plan so any ideas how to go forward would be welcome