1438 hours 20th November 2552 (military calendar)

Picon

UNSC Trebuchet

First lieutenant Veda Hati nervously reached up to her new rank insignia a few days ago she had been a Chief warrant officer aboard the Midway but with the nearing completion of the new Paris class frigates Minotaur and Centaur Captain Jackson had chosen a handful of officers to form the experienced cadre of officers training new Colonial recruits into the UNSC naval forces.

These men and women would come from existing ships and have exeplurary records. Rumor was the seven hundred naval personnel and even hundred marines had already been selected and would be pulled from their current assignments following the liberation of Picon.

The sudden shockwave from a near miss brought her attention back to the current job rather than the future. The Trebuchet had been instructed to patrol the outer area of the combat zone now that the fighting was over and ensure the cylons couldnt ambush them from behind. And this had marked the fifth cylon ship hiding in the wreckage, this time a Colonial raptor missing its tail and a wing but able to fire a missile or a burst from its wingtip cannon every time it spun around to face them.

The trebuchet's guardhouse autocannon spun to target the stricken craft even as its spin brought it back around letting loose another missile and five round burst. Its under powered cannon bounced off the titanium battleplate while the missile was hit by dozens of 40mm rounds and detonated a safe distance from the corvette. The auto cannon spit out four rounds; only one was needed as the round impacted the side and detonated, finishing the craft off.

Hati relaxed; it was still so strange to have her own command during the first UNSC assault the trebuchet had been regulated to a defensive role, her understrength weapons unable to do more than keep the swarms of Cylons missiles and fighters off the larger ships. When they arrived they had carried a hundred Archers and double that in the smaller Aries when they had returned for resupply they had less then a hundred rounds for the ramparts and that was it.

Speaking of ammo she looked to the munition levels and sighed, they had only used a third of their missiles in the return trip and they were still over fifty percent on their guns. When a alert came up

"Ma'am" called out Chief petty officer Raul Truman the XO and the navigator of the ship "detecting another ship with live power coming into view now. On the heels of his word the smoking ruins of a Colonial origin freighter leaking atmosphere and debris came into view.

Hadi let out a breath out glad it wasn't a warship "let's finish this quick target the ship with Aries missiles four should suffice." she said "release safeties on Aries pod 6."

Petty officer Alex Brown manning the weapons and EW console "Yes ma'am." his hands flew over his console setting up firing solutions and just as he was about to fire CPO Truman spoke up "Wait receiving Colonial UNSC IFF." he said in confusion "IFF reads as the freighter Caduceus of Hermes."

Veda paused "neither fleet brought in any freighters right?" she said, eyes looking off to the left and up as she accessed her cerebral implant looking over the ship's transponder as her blood ran cold "the Caduceus was assigned to the supply fleet.."

"Ma'am" said Brown from his weapon station "you had better take a look at this."

Veda walked the three steps to his station and her fear was doubled as she saw the telltale burns of plasma damage "s…s..set condition one and send out a high priority message code red for the rest of the fleet."

A few seconds later the Trebuchet broadcasted this transmission picked up by every UNSC ship over picon the high priority rating of the message brought it up on each of the ships commanding officers neural link to ensure its immediate receipt

United Nations Space Command priority Transmission 01731A

From UNSC Trebuchet K0031

TO all UNSC forces

Encryption code Red

UNSC Trebuchet discovered the remains of Colonial freighter Caduceus of Hermes. A freighter assigned to the supply flotilla just outside of the Picon AOE scans and visual inspection show Covenant plasma weapon burns or something similar.

Recommended action: all UNSC naval forces jump immediately to supply force position.

–/ End

Captain Brian Jackson blinked rapidly to close the high priority message from his vision

Fuck

"Notify the colonials and get every fighter within five minutes back on board." Brian ordered the Ables bridge crew "prepare a jump to the supply forces position." he paused "and prepare for possible Covenant assault."

The crew's shock only lasted a few moments but their training pushed through as the ship prepared for battle with their old foe. This relatively easy war was about to get real dangerous. Over the next five minutes the UNSC ships turned away from the planet; only twenty longswords were able to dock in time before the UNSC left the colonials and UNSC MArines and ODSTs on the planet to rejoin the war they thought had been left behind.

The slipspace jump only took forty five minutes for the eleven UNSC ships. When they emerged to normal space they looked in shock at the massive cloud of debris. Almost a hundred ships had been deployed here protected by the nearly thirty police cutters they had found so far along with over half a dozen improvised freighter carriers under the command of Commissioner David Wilhelm.

In a somber tone Brian said "scan the debris cloud for any signs of survivors." without replying Wilks and Billiards got to work at their consoles.

Looking over the debris as far as the eye could see Brian thought of the nearly five thousand men and women aboard the ships here facing ships and technology only a few of them might have known from the Modifications the Jackals had made to ships like the Rushmore and other ships they had recovered.

Brian's inner monologue was broken a few minutes later as Ensign Billard called out from the tactical station "Sir i've found a distress beacon.."she hesitates before continuing "but its not Colonial it's an automated UNSC beacon from a Pelican."

Brian looked up at that "A pelican are you sure? I don't think any UNSC ships or personnel were deployed with them right?"

"No sir." confirmed the Ensign "all UNSC ships and personnel were dedicated to the assault on Picon." She taps away at the console for a moment backtracking the distress codes id and origin before pausing and typing furiously again "sir according to fleet records the pelican id code was assigned to the destroyer UNSC Yellowstone which was destroyed in the battle of Meridian in 2551."

"Send a pelican to check it out" Brian is interrupted by Samantha Wright "Sir all of our pelicans are still at Picon the Artimis does have several Condors would that be acceptable?"

Brian nodded and continued "if it looks safe take it in tow and bring it back.

A few minutes later a pair of Condor gunships launch from the Artemis and head in the direction of the pelicans broadcast as longswords launch to look for any trace of survivors.

Over the next hour longswords call out finding the occasional sign of survivors ship fragments leaking heat and atmosphere and a few dozen survivors are found trapped inside freighters and a handful of Viper pilots drifting in the void their suits EVA systems on their last legs.

However the biggest find was the pelican. Its starboard engines completely shot away and the port side only had a single thruster; its crew was the real prize inside the cockpit; they saw the bloody remains of four jackals and the stubby waving of nineteen grunts holding open hands.

Pirate pelican

During the raid on human supply fleet

The Unggoy Bubbub or as the humans called his species Grunts jumped as he peeked up the human pelican he was riding in as they approached the massive foundry ship that was the pirates prize while only sporting a handful of weak guns, it was escorted by several groups of ships with bigger kinetic guns nowhere near as strong as the UNSC he had fought before but more than enough to kill him and the thirty five other brothers on this human ship.

One of the four KIg-yar or as they are scornfully referred to as Jackals Chur'n'oal saw him jump and slapped the back of his head dislodging his methane breather with its carbine "Don't be scared even if you die i'll eat you and you can fight that way."

Another Jackal Bubbub didn't know and laughed "don't eat him he will get scared in your digestive tract and try to run out of your ass." it finished saying with even louder laughter.

Bubbub gnawed the inside of his breather without saying anything taking every bit of his self control not to shoot them with his plasma pistol but inwardly he grinned sure him and his brothers could kill at least one of them in the fight ahead. But an explosion knocked them into a wall and left them unconscious.

Bubbub came too later to the shaking of his best friend since he was a grubbling Abubu "wake up Bubb come on ope…finally you're awake."

"What happened?" Bubbub groaned, sitting up brushing debris from his eyes.

"A human ship fired on us" said Abubu looking around the darkened troop bay "there was an explosion i just woke up too."

Bubbub felt around on his harness for a human glow stick found it and shook it to life the pale green light illuminated a scene of horror one of the jackals carrying a human rifle had been impaled by a section of a broken seat two of his brothers were also dead their faces a dark blue of asphyxiation they breathers laying on the floor.

A groan caused Bubbub to look behind him and see Chur'n'oal laying his arm clearly broken with the unconscious body of the jackal he didn't know with both legs broken laying on top of him. Grinning Bubbub pulled the human pistol from one of his dead brothers harness. Knowing the expanding projectile wouldn't have the energy to pierce the hull behind the chest of both Jackals he leveled the pistol "not so scared now huh." Bubbub said to the wide eyes of the jackal before pulling the trigger the explosion of the pistol woke the rest of his brothers up to see the smoking pistol in Bubbub's hand and the hole through both jackals torso's.

The next four hours according to the Pelicans computer the grunts made sure the other two jackals were dead and patched any leaks they could find in the cabin. They watched the pirates finish the last of the freighters and board the foundry ship and jump away.

The grunts had almost lost hope when the Pelicans computer beeped showing friendly ships in proximity and it was about that time from behind the floating pelican a human fighter drifted over them and Bubbub made the decision knowing the humans did not mistreat their prisoners made sure the human could see the pistol in his hand fall as did the other weapons in grunt hands waving friendly like they had all seen in their secret cashes of human media to show no threat and friendly intentions.