UNSC Dacia
North Euxine Ocean, Actium
25 May 2545
1102

Lieutenant Commander Xie Junyi
UNSC
Dacia, Task Force-25 (Surface Action Group), 2nd Flotilla

Eastern Front – 650 km Offshore

"Captain, TAO: we have incoming Bandits!"

Xie immediately lurched to his feet and grabbed his radio. "Give me a distance and bearing!"

"We tally forty-three Bandits comprising of both Banshees and Seraphs!" came the response. "On approach, from the west, seven hundred kilometers and closing!"

Xie felt his blood freeze at that information. Despite knowing from the moment he had been forced to park his sloop-of-war six hundred and fifty klicks offshore in order to support Land Forces' counterattack against the Covenant breakout that he was going to be making his ship the largest target for enemy aircraft in the AO, a small part of him had hoped he would have been able to scrape by unnoticed. That between the Air Force, Army Aviation, and ground based Air Defense Artillery, it would have been enough to keep Covie air power distracted.

But clearly, that wasn't the case.

Taking a moment to compose himself, Xie immediately leapt into action.

"Gunner's Mates, set all VLS missiles to air seeker mode," he barked. "Comms, send a flash warning alert to Task Force Command with our current position, and that we're about to be engaged and request immediate reinforcements!" Snagging the phone for the 1MC, he continued, "Attention all hands, this is the Captain: enemy Bandits spotted. Make ready all weapons for an air attack!"

Chaos immediately descended on the ship as the entire crew hastily moved to prepare to defend themselves, switching gears from shore bombardment, surface-to-surface attack; to air defense mode.

In the midst of all the mayhem, Xie could sense Tesfaye walking up to him and, in a quiet voice, "Captain, sir, but with all due respect, our orders from Task Force Command were to provide fire support for those caught in the Cavtat Pocket. We switch those missiles to anti-air mode- "

"We can't help anyone but especially the Land Forces if we're sitting at the bottom of the ocean doing our best impression of a submarine, Senior Chief," Xie immediately interrupted. "Our first priority is the preservation of the combat status of this ship, and that means breaking off our attack, even if it comes at the cost of everyone still trapped in the pocket."

"Understood, sir," Tesfaye immediately replied, and quickly stepped aside as Xie looked past him.

"Helm! Left full rudder! All engines ahead, full!"

The thrum of their engines surged as the Dacia's two massive propellers began to spin faster, increasing her speed up to twenty-five knots. Waves began colliding with her forward bow, the seawater spray reaching even as high as the bridge windows; with no natural satellites of her own, Actium's oceans were never as active as say, those on Earth, but during the winter season, the North Euxine Ocean was usually at a sea state of four or higher. For a brief moment, Xie entertained the idea of the possibility of the rough seas disrupting the Covenant's attack, but immediately dismissed it for the fantasy that it was; if anything, it would be their operations that would be disrupted.

"Give me a sitrep!" he demanded instead.

"VLS tubes switched over from surface-to-surface to SAM mode," came the report.

"All deck guns ready in all respects," Tesfaye added, "including all crew-served weapons."

"Sounding and Security patrols reporting in from across the ship!"

"Sir, we're gotten a response from Task Force Command," one of the communications technicians reported. "They've acknowledged our report and are routing Amphibious Ready Group 'Wloczewski,' to our location, but the Wloczewski's fighter compliment is currently undergoing refueling and rearmament. Command estimates earliest available support in fifteen minutes!"

Xie grounded his teeth.

"Which means we're on our own until then," he gritted out before turning back to his radio. "TAO, Captain: update on those Bandits?"

"Still advancing on the same bear- wait! We're seeing movement! The Covenant fighters are splitting up into three separate groups! Group-1 seems to consist of all of their Seraphs and continuing on their current heading, but we're seeing two separate groups of Banshees, with Group-2 headed north, and Group-3 headed south!"

"Send it to my screen!"

The desktop at Xie's station abruptly sprang to life, showing a copy of the same radar image his tactical action officer was receiving right now. Sure enough, the Covenant had separated into three distinct groups, with two peeling away from the main body - bearing north and south respectively – but even as Xie watched, both groups turned onto a western heading so they were traveling parallel to his ship. It wasn't hard to figure out from there what they were planning.

"They're aiming to pincer us!" he exclaimed. "Use their Banshees' speed to overtake us so they can turn around and hit us simultaneously with harassing fire from two sides, slowing us down long enough for the Seraphs to catch up and finish us off with plasma torpedoes!"

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Tesfaye glancing at his screen, and knew the moment his SCPO had seen the same thing he had when the man let out a mute curse.

"Your orders, sir?" Tesfaye asked in a louder voice.

Xie leaned around him. "Helm! Increase speed to flank!"

"Sir," Tesfaye immediately said, "with all due respect, but we can't hope to outrun those Banshees."

"No, but the longer we stall, the more time the Wloczewski has to get over here," Xie pointed out. "Plus, this is one way we can indirectly support the Land Forces – by depriving the Covenant Army of their support! Helm, all ahead, flank!

"'All ahead, flank,' aye, sir!"

The steady hum of the Dacia's engines grew in pitch as she cranked up to her full speed of thirty-two knots. Waves began to truly smash into her bow, showering her deck and forward three inch turret with freezing salt water as she plowed through the ocean like a dagger, but too little to no avail as, monitoring his screen, Xie could see the Covenant aircraft steadily gaining on them. Without another word, he grabbed a pair of high-powered binoculars and dashed outside to the observation deck.

Ignoring the waves that instantly soaked his work jacket, Xie looked aft of the stern, scanning the horizon for any movement. It took him a few moments, but eventually he was able to spot the purple dots in the far distance that were steadily growing in size.

"Hell," he grunted to himself, before speaking more loudly so his mic could pick up his voice, "CIC, Captain: time to intercept, Groups 2 and 3?"

"At current speed and heading, time to intercept: five minutes!"

"ETA on reinforcements?"

"Still fifteen minutes away, sir!"

Xie grounded his teeth together. Well then; if he couldn't run away, couldn't hide, then there was really only one option left for him to do. He marched back onto the bridge barking, "Helm, left full rudder. Make your heading one five five. CIC, give me a firing solution on all Tracks of Group-3 and standby trigger. Main turret, prep all shells with air defense proxy fuzes."

"We're going to attack, sir."

Even though Tesfaye's statement was not worded as a question, Xie nevertheless felt compelled to answer.

"Can't run away, can't hid, only option left is to attack. And given that the Covenant have so helpfully divided their forces for us, allowing us to potentially defeat them in detail… now is the time to strike," Xie explained and he waited long enough for Tesfaye to give a single nod in agreement before turning back to his radio. "CIC, status?"

"Banshees have noticed our movements and are turning to attack us head on; firing solution obtained."

"Release batteries on all kill tracks!"

There was a shrill of an alarm from their forward deck as the hatches to the VLS tubes abruptly sprung open, and fire and exhaust smoke shot straight up into the sky, directed there by the blast shields as Dacia's quad-packed ASGM-11 missiles came rocketing out of their cells. They leapt into the air before arching on a parabolic path in the direction of the incoming fighters.

"Captain, CIC: all birds away, time to target, sixty seconds."

Xie barely acknowledged the call as he could see the missiles departing the ship on his screen, but his primary focus was on the other two groups of Covenant aircraft. In response to the Dacia's maneuvers, both the Banshees in Group-2 and the Seraphs in Group-1 had altered course and were sprinting to catch up, leaving Xie and his crew a small window to try and take out as many Banshees in Group-3 as they could before they got hit with overwhelming numbers. But as explosions began sounding in the distance and his screen showed no sign in the reduction of numbers in Group-3, he knew that it was going to be a lot easier said than done.

"Captain, CIC: negative impact on all birds. Contact, thirty seconds!"

Xie found himself looking up as the infamous howl of the Banshees' engines steadily began to fill the air, and he hastily stepped back out onto the observation deck to see the purple hulls of the approaching Banshees, standing in sharp contrast to the gray skies that surrounded them.

"Here they come," he murmured.

"CONTACT!"

Their three inch cannon abruptly opened fire. With a thunderous roar, it began spitting out rounds at steady rate of one and a half shells per second. Shell casings spat out from the rear of the turret and onto the deck where they lingered for but a moment before rolling over the side and into the ocean, but Xie paid them no mind as he pressed the binoculars against his eyes and watched as the shells began exploding among the crowd of Banshees, throwing fragmentation and tungsten ball bearings in all directions. Sparks flew as the metal shards impacted the Banshees' hulls and at least of them burst into flames as it was damaged but not destroyed by the barrage. However, the fighters weren't deterred and even as Xie watched, the sky was lit up with radioactive green.

"Right full rudder, hard over!"

Xie automatically reached out to stabilize himself as the Dacia banked hard to the right in order to evade the approaching fuel rods. At these speeds, Xie could feel the Dacia tilting until her deck was almost at a twenty-five degree angle, but it was enough to cause the few fuel rods that didn't miss to hit against her hull, as opposed to her top deck; given they were designed more for opposing fighters or ground vehicles, a Banshee's fuel rod cannon didn't actually have the capability to penetrate the hull of a sloop-of-war like the Dacia, but they could still heavily damage everything above it.

Xie could feel Dacia trembling from the explosions as most of the Banshees broke left and right to circle around for another pass, but one flight of four continued forward, as if to do a strafing run. But doing so only put them in range of the Dacia's deck guns.

POMPOMPOM!

Two, remote control 40mm case telescope autocannons mounted on the midship deck - port and starboard sides - immediately started shooting, filling the air with tracers. Exploding among the incoming fighters, the Banshees seemed to waver for a moment before –

BOOM!

One of the four Banshees abruptly exploded and causing the remaining three to break off their attack. Flaming debris was sent raining down into the water below, but Xie barely noticed as the remaining Banshees in the Group were hardly deterred. Splitting up into flights of four, the Banshees began attacking from multiple angles.

"INCOMING FUEL RODS, PORTSIDE!" one of the lookouts cried out.

"Flight of Banshees approaching, forward starboard side! They're sea skimming, trying to get below our guns!" another warned.

"Helm, left standard rudder, thirty degrees then meet her," Xie barked to the helmsman as he ducked back inside the bridge. "CIC, take out incoming missiles with CIWS! Gunner's Mates, engaging low flying Bandits with crew-served weapons!"

KADSH! BRRRRTTTT!

Dacia's forward CIWS abruptly opened fire, lobbing one hard kill projectile at the Banshees while at the same time, began engaging the incoming fuel rods with its 20mm rotary cannon. A steady stream of orange tracers slammed into the first fuel rod, causing it to exploded, and the CIWS quickly switched targets, shooting down the second one moments later. Concurrently, while that was going on, three of Dacia's gunner's mates positioned near her aft MAKO drone landing pad were firing their rail mounted heavy machine gun at the sea skimming Banshees. The 14.5mm rounds chewed up the surface of the ocean and while none of the gunners were able to score a hit, it did cause the Banshee pilots to think twice about what they were doing, as they instantly aborted.

Simultaneously, their forward turret continued to fire.

BOOMBOOM KABOOM!

Another Banshee was knocked out of the sky as it took a direct hit from a three inch shell. The relatively fragile aircraft disintegrate, leaving little to no debris to go crashing into the ocean.

Looking up into the sky, Xie could see the entire area was already lit up with tracers, plasma, and fuel rods as his ship and crew attempted to fend off the Covenant with everything they had. And this only a third of the Covenant attack force!

"CIC, Captain! Give me a sitrep on the rest of the Bandits!"

"Group-1 closing fast from the south with Group-2 close behind! Range, four hundred kilometers!"

"Target lead Tracks with aft VLSs and engage when ready!"

The sound of rockets launching only added to overall cacophony and chaos as four ASGMs took off in rapid succession. One of them almost immediately exploded before it had traveled more than five hundred meters as a pair of Banshees moved to intercept; in retaliation, their starboard 40mm fired a burst of shells which just barely managed to clip the Banshee's left booster pod, sending the alien aircraft into a death spiral straight into the water where it blew up the moment it hit the water.

But even as the remaining missiles sped towards their targets, the Seraphs of Group-1 opened fire.

"VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE! Incoming plasma torpedoes bearing one zero three! I tally twelve- now thirteen- now fifteen in the air!"

"Kill with CIWS!" Xie immediately roared. "Helm, left full rudder! Deploy flares and chaff in conjunction with the turn!"

THUNK! THUNK!

On the deck just below the bridge, a bank of six, 130mm mortar tubes, began lobbing a series of projectiles into the air in a desperate bid to steer the incoming torpedoes away from the ship. The shells exploded midair some distance away, filling the sky with brightly colored flares and fluttering pieces of chaff.

"TAO, those Seraphs should be breaking away to circle around for another pass, but at the speeds they're traveling, their turn will leave them unable to engage any incoming. Set up a firing solution and immediately fire as they bear; ram a missile up their asses and take out as many as you can!"

"Affirmative! Engaging!"

Xie glanced outside to see the plasma torpedoes on fast approach. As they got closer, Dacia's CIWSs began firing, causing the horizon to light up once more as the first wave of torpedoes detonated, either because they were hit by incoming fire or because they were fooled by Dacia's countermeasures.

And yet, more kept coming.

"First five Vampires destroyed but I still tally ten more on approach- "

"Confirmed, Tracks zero one seven and zero two five splashed- "

"Aft CIWS reporting running low on munitions- "

"Right full rudder, hard over! Circle the ship around and met those torpedoes head on to provide maximum chance for all our weapons to engage!" Xie commanded. "Switch three inch turret over to point defense and take out those incoming!"

Every single weapon onboard the Dacia was engaged as their forward CIWS and turret began rapidly lobbing missiles and shells at the torpedoes. Xie could see them steadily getting take down one by one, lighting the sky with multi-colored explosions, but it wasn't enough as the torpedoes were starting to explode closer and closer to the ship.

"We need more countermeasures!" Xie yelled. "Deploy decoys port and starboard side and- "

"INCOMING!" Tesfaye abruptly screamed and Xie looked up to see one plasma torpedoes coming straight for them. There was only one thing he could do:

"All hands: BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

It was like the planet itself had taken a hit. The entire ship shook and if Xie didn't know better, he could have sworn the Dacia was propelled a few meters backwards by the explosion as he stumbled to the deck. His radio exploded with chatter but he could barely hear what was being said over the sound of the alarms going off left, right, and center.

"Captain! CAPTAIN!" Tesfaye frantically yelled as he pulled Xie to his feet. Shoving him away, Xie shoved his helmet back on and staggered over to his station.

"Damage report!"

"We're hit!" came the report. "Portside, forward bow, top deck. Aft of the turret but forward of the VLS cells!"

And sure enough, looking forward, Xie could see the gaping bite that had been taken from his ship, as well as the raging fire and smoke pouring out of it.

"FIRE!" he heard someone screaming over the intercom. "FIRE ABOARD THE SHIP!"

"Senior Chief! Sound fire alarm and get firefighting crews over there, now!" Xie yelled. "All DC teams, respond!"

"Captain, CIC: the forward, portside VLS cells have been breached!"

"Flood the cells!" Tesfaye immediately commanded before Xie could, though he agreed with the order: while doing so would render any ordnance remaining inside inoperable, better that than letting it possibly explode while still onboard.

"CIC, status!" Xie barked.

"We splashed three of the Seraphs but that last group of Banshees has finally caught up!"

FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!

Xie reflexively ducked as a volley of blue plasma bolts splattered against the railing just outside the bridge. A split second later, the Banshees that fired the shots came roaring by.

"ETA on friendly reinforcements?" Xie yelled as he watched one of the strafing Banshees get hit and go crashing into the water, though given the swarm circling around them, it barely made a difference.

"Fighters from the Wloczewski are roughly seven minutes out!"

"Seven minutes!" Xie immediately yelled at the bridge crew with as much confidence as he could muster. "We have to hold out for at least seven minutes!"

More quietly though, to Tesfaye, he found himself asking, "We can hold out for seven more minutes, right?"

Tesfaye opened his mouth to reply.

KABOOM!

Without warning something exploded against the Dacia! If Xie had thought the first explosion was bad, this one was a hundred times worse as he could have sworn he felt the sheer force of the blast had caused the Dacia to go airborne, however temporary. Whatever the case was, Xie found himself on the ground, with even more alarms ringing.

"Report!" he managed to cough out.

"We hit something!" one of the lookouts screamed. "Hull breach! Midship, starboard side! Just below the waterline!"

Xie staggered outside to take a look himself. Sure enough, a gaping hole had been punched through the Dacia's hull. Given the melted edges of the hole, it had definitely been done by plasma, yet, it didn't seem like a plasma torpedo. Had they hit a mine of sorts?

Whatever the case was, water was pouring in through the hole and even as he watched, the Dacia began leaning to that side as all the added weight caused her to start to list to one side.

"Engineering, give me a sitrep!"

"Engineering here! We have flooding in decks three and four! Water tight doors and hatches are holding, but all this extra weight is going to cut our speed down by half!"

"Activate the pumps!"

"They're not working and we haven't figure out why yet!"

"Well, figure it out!" Xie snapped. "In the meantime, get a bucket chain started if you have to! Whatever it takes! We can't afford to lose our speed!"

"Captain, sir, we don't have enough personnel for that!" Tesfaye immediately protested. "Not unless we want to compromise the integrity of our defenses!"

Xie hesitated for a moment. "Pull some men from the fire at the forward bow! We'll worry about the damage later when we're out from the combat zone!"

A plasma bolt slammed into the railing just outside, causing them to flinch.

"If we even make it that far, that is," Xie muttered to himself as he turned to the Helmsman. "Mister Helmsman, make your heading- "

BRRRRRRTTTTTT!

Xie paused as he heard their forward CIWS going off. That in of itself wasn't unusual as it had been going off nonstop since the start of the attack but for some reason, something about this barrage caused Xie to look up…

…only to see the radioactive green fuel rod cannon headed straight for the bridge.

"HELM! LEFT FULL RUDDER! EVERYONE GET DOWN!"

Xie threw himself onto the ground as a green light enveloped the entire bridge. The next thing he knew, he was waking up, a ringing in his ears and his body feel like it had just been run over by a speeding truck.

"Report!" he tried to demand, but he was overtaken by a coughing fit as smoke filled his lungs.

As he struggled to bring himself under control the sound of pain-filled breathing started to replace the ringing in his ears, and he looked around only to see Tesfaye leaning against the far wall, gripping onto a jagged piece of metal sticking out from his gut.

"Senior Chief!" Xie cried. "CORPSMAN! WE NEED A CORPSMAN ON THE BRIDGE! Hang in there, Petros, you're going to be okay!"

Tesfaye shook his head. "Fire! On the bridge!" he managed to rasp out.

Xie started and turned around, seeing the damage to the bridge for the first time. The fuel rod had struck the starboard bridge observation platform, destroying it and a good chunk of the bridge wall with it. Several controls and consoles had been destroyed, and as to the lookouts that had been standing outside, there was no sign of them and Xie feared the worse. But, more urgently, fire was starting to consume what was left. And it was spreading, too.

Swearing violently under his breath, Xie staggered to his feet and grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher and began hosing down the flames, trying to bring the situation under control. The fire seemed to recoil as the chemical compound spread across it, but then leapt out with a vengeance as something exploded.

"Fire on the bridge!" he yelled out, even as he worked to keep the flames at bay. "Corpsman and DC teams to the bridge!"

Without warning, his fire extinguisher ran empty. Snarling, he hurtled the empty can to the side and grabbed another one, just as there was a clatter outside and he looked up to see three of his Sailors. He couldn't tell who they were between the smoke and the fire, plus all three were wearing full face respirators, but fortunately their rating insignias were prominently displayed on their fire-resistant turnout coats, revealing two of them to be Damage Controlmen dragging a fire hose, while the third was a Corpsman.

Xie felt himself sag with relief.

"Corpsman!" he yelled, pointing at Tesfaye. "DCs! With me!"

He tried to grab the hose to help out, but the lead damage controlman, a DC3, shook their head.

"Captain, sir!" they yelled, their voice muffled by their mask. "You need to evacuate the bridge!"

Xie opened his mouth to protest – he was trained to fight fires like everyone else -but then Dacia shook from another explosion, and he suddenly remembered they were under attack.

Without another word, he dashed outside, yelling into his radio, "CIC, Captain: sitrep!"

"We're being swarmed!" came the immediately reply. "All Covenant aircraft are now engaging! We're taking fire from all directions and are unable to hold them off!"

"Give me specifics!"

"Engine speeds have been cut down to two-thirds, we have a hull breach amidship, starboard side that's causing uncontrolled flooding, there's a fire spreading in the forward section, and the entire bridge is offline! We've expended three quarters of our VLS tubes, forward CWIS is out of ammo, and if that fire continues to spread, we're going to have to seal off the three incher's magazine otherwise it might blow up!"

Hearing all of these issues and faced with the sight of his ship full of holes and on fire, there was only one thing Xie could think of to say, "Where the hell is the Wloczewski!"

"Last transmission we had before radio antenna got taken out was- oh, shit, INCOMING!"

Xie instinctively ducked, but instead of the Dacia rocking from yet another explosion, the roar of thunder came from far above and Xie looked up to see a Seraph come screaming out from the sky, shields disabled, engines crippled, and cockpit on fire, having been struck by a missile. But Xie had been looking at his ship, and the Dacia had not fired anything. So where did...?

"Sir! We're picking up friendlies on the long range radar: it's the Wloczewski!"

Xie head snapped skyward as more missiles came spiraling down, each one tracking a different Covenant fighter. Explosions began lighting up the sky, making the area look like one massive Unification Day display. The Covenant Bandits all immediately broke off their attack as they attempted to take evasive maneuvers and reorganize in response to this new threat, but the Wloczewski's fighters refused to let up. As the Covenant began to withdraw in a disorganized mess, the howl of their anti-gravity engines was replaced by the roar of jet engines as a flight of F-23 "Falcata" fighters plunged out of the sky, lobbing missiles and firing their autocannons as they took off in hot pursuit of the Covenant, backed up by another flight of AV-19 "SkyHawks." Very quickly, a full-fledged air war was being waged over Xie's head, and he realized this was his best opportunity to sneak away.

"CIC, Captain: rendezvous with the Wloczewski at whatever top speed we can achieve. You said comms were down?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then as soon as we get in range, use the short-range broadband; if that doesn't work, break out the signal lamps and request they have search boats on standby just in case we have to abandon ship. In the meantime, yank all gunnery crews and put them onto damage control: we gotta bring these fires under control."

"Aye, sir!"

His headset clicked off, but Xie didn't allow himself to relax. While the Covenant may have ended their attack on his ship, it didn't mean they were safe. No, far from it. They still have a raging fire in the forward section, a magazine that could potentially explode at any moment, flooding in their amidship section, and only god knew what was going on in the stern. Plus, who even knew how many of his crew had been killed or wounded, and with his ammo running low, well, there was only one thing he knew for certain: Dacia was officially combat ineffective. What that meant for the ground troops trapped within the Cavtat Pocket, he wasn't sure.

But it could not be good.


General Notes

In the US military, there is a saying: similar to how the US Marine Corps declares that "every Marine a rifleman," the US Navy declares that "every sailor is a firefighter."

This chapter took three months to write because, much like the last chapter, I don't know much about naval warfare. I tried this chapter in part because – as I mentioned back in chapter 8 – there isn't a whole lot of canon information about Wet Navies, and I wanted to try and expand on that subject as that's… kind of the point of Firefight to begin with.

The UNSC Dacia - the sloop-of-war featured in this chapter – is somewhat based off the IRL Sachsen-class of frigates in use by the German Navy.

Something I think I forgot to bring up in chapter 8: ranks. According to canon, Wet Navies are under the purview of the UNSC Army, but I imagine they would use naval ranks and nautical terms out of tradition; after all, humanity has had a longer tradition of maritime services than they've had of interplanetary service. One branch having two different but parallel rank structures sou2nds unusual, but it's somewhat common: most marine infantry forces around the world, for example, often have their own ranks despite being properly being a part of their respective navy branch.

F-23 "Falcata" – despite writing Halo fanfiction, I actually do a very poor job keeping up with new Halo lore. I was looking up the Halopedia article on the SkyHawk for a refresher, and was caught off guard to discover the amount of canon UNSC fighters and VTOLs had doubled since the last time I checked. I figured I would throw at least one of them in, to start using them.

According to its article, the F-23 "Falcata," (formally known as the "Falcon,") was originally an aircraft designed for the 2009 game Halo Wars, but was ultimately cut. In 2023, it was canonized, but because by then the falcon name had been taken by the UH-144 "Falcon" helicopter (which made its first appearance in the 2010 game Halo: Reach,) the F-23's name was changed to "Falcate," a falcate being a type of sword that was most used from the 5th to 1st Centuries BCE. Detailed renders of the Falcate exist, but the fighter has yet to make an official video game appearance.

As per the article, the F-23 is a classified fighter used by the UNSC Air Force and requires a single pilot, and is armed with one autocannon and one missile bay. It is capable of vertical and short take off/landing, but is confined to atmosphere. My guess is this fighter is supposed to be analogous to the IRL F-35B fighter in current use by the US Marine Corps (among other militaries,) with the possessing-similar-capabilities strike fighter, the AV-19 "SkyHawk," being closer to the IRL AV-8B Harrier II (though the SkyHawk is canonically capable of supersonic flight, something the Harrier lacks.)