Battle of Gamma Aurigae

The Battle of Gamma Augirae was a minor engagement that took place in 2526 between the UNSC and Covenant Empire.

On April 26th 2526 a lone Covenant destroyer entered the Gamma Augirae system just near the asteroid belt. Reacting immediately to its arrival a UNSC battle group, consisting of five light destroyers, engaged the lone warship. The UNSC ships moved in and opened fire with a volley of Ares missiles. All twenty-five missiles struck the Covenant ship but to no effect. The Covenant ship fired its energy projector and annihilated the UNSC Hanson in one shot. The UNSC battle group spread out to avoid another shot like that. They fired another volley of missiles but were completely unable to penetrate the Covenant ship's shields. The Covenant destroyer fired a volley of four plasma torpedoes. The UNSC ships effected emergency evasive maneuvers in an attempt to avoid the incoming projectiles. The Saratoga and San Diego failed to avoid the torpedoes and were struck head on. The torpedoes boiled away centimeters of armor and vaporized whole decks in a instant, completely destroying both ships. The Porter and Sheffield managed to avoid the worst of the torpedoes by using their emergency thrusters and the torpedoes grazed by them taking a whole layer of deck with them. Desperately the two ships continued to fire missiles at the Covenant ship but to no avail they were completely unable to pierce the enemy's shields. Meanwhile the plasma torpedoes circled around caught the Sheffield, who was not expecting it, off guard and went down with all hands. Knowing that the situation was lost the Porter made an emergency jump into slipspace and escaped the incoming torpedo.

The whole engagement had lasted for seven minutes and the Covenant had wiped out a battle group with total impunity. The UNSC Porter successfully escaped to warn the UNSC of the incursion and three days later FLEETCOM responded returning to Gamma Augirae with a fleet of thirty ships. They obliterated the Covenant destroyer as it was attacking the human colony but at a cost of ten ships.