Lost Battle

The UNSC Arizona holds at the edge of a catastrophic frontier battle against a renewed Covenant offensive.

"Salamis reporting enemy fire from the stern!"

"Windsor is hit! Hard plasma contact across her hull, crew not responding to hails!"

"Two, no, that's three Covenant heavies approaching from moonside!"

"But Captain Irvine reported only two contacts in the system! Where the hell did the rest of them come from?"

"It's like the war all over again!"

Commander Marie Baudin needed to regain control of her bridge. The rest of the UNSC Arizona's command team was caught up in the terrifying momentum of the catastrophe playing out in orbit over the colony Fresia. All the panicked shouting and frantic reports were flagrant breaches of naval protocol. She could practically hear her instructors shouting into her ear, ordering her to take back control and restore discipline to her terrified subordinates.

But how could she possibly demand calm from her crew in the face of the facts?

The Arizona shuddered as Lieutenant Halle maneuvered the frigate to avoid a stray burst of plasma fire. The small ship was at the far edge of the battle, where Captain Irvine had ordered Marie to hold down their flank. That assignment spared the Arizona the fate of the destroyed Windsor and the embattled Salamis when the Covenant raiding force sprung its trap. Now Marie and the rest of her crew looked on as five Covenant warships closed in on the Salamis and the colony the UNSC task force was charged with defending.

Marie fought to steady herself in the command chair, breath barely passing through her tightened throat. It wasn't supposed to be like this. The war was over. A quiet posting on a stretch of frontier nobody cared about. That was the dull career she'd jumped at. That was what she'd gotten. Now in the span of five minutes the Covenant had torn that life apart.

She thought of her graduating class back at the academy, over half of them killed in the last week of the Great War. She'd been the lucky one, not that it mattered anymore.

The com channel crackled and Captain Irvine's voice boomed across the bridge. Even with the Salamis crippled and surrounded she sounded like she had everything well in hand. "Baudin! What the hell are you doing? Get your ship into the fight! You're in a perfect place to sideswipe these bastards!"

"Yes ma'am!" Marie was amazed at the false confidence in her voice. Her stern-faced mask was barely holding-behind it, she wanted to scramble up from her seat and throw herself into the nearest escape pod. "We just sent out a distress signal-"

"Damn the distress signal!" Irvine snapped. Her com line crackled as the Salamis took another hit. The cruiser was maneuvering under fire, trying to get a shot at the oncoming Covenant. It was only a matter of time before a plasma torpedo found its mark. "No one will get here in time. I've got my Marines deploying to the colony. You'd better do the same. Now get on line and start firing!"

"Yes ma'am!" Marie repeated. She peered over Lieutenant Rodriguez's shoulder to see the blips of Pelicans streaming out from beneath the Salamis. Covenant fighters were already sweeping in to intercept them-how many of those Marines would die before they even hit the surface?

"Commander." Beside her, Lieutenant Commander Moder stood straight as a flagpole. "Captain Hieu reports India Company is ready to launch at your order."

"Understood." Marie fixed her gaze on Freesia. Captain Irvine and her crew would fight to the death to defend the doomed colony. The Arizona was expected to do the same.

"Commander." Moder's voice was steady. "It will take at least three shots from our MAC to do effectively damage any one of the enemy ships. And at maximum engagement range we can expect an accuracy of-"

"I know," Marie cut him off. The Arizona didn't have an onboard AI to calculate her firing trajectory. And the crew was hardly the Navy's finest. Two-thirds accuracy was the best she could possibly expect.

Fire erupted across the Salamis's hull. The cruiser's guns fell silent and the Covenant ships swept in for the kill. The bridge crew's eyes turned from the battle to their commander and back again. None of the enemy ships diverted course to intercept the Arizona.

Moder clenched his jaw. "Commander, the ship's logs will show that we have not been fired upon."

Marie fought back the urge to strike her executive officer around the head. He was only doing his job. Just like the rest of them were. And the rest of them were waiting for her to make the call that only she could make. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. For the last time she wondered why she was the one who had to be here, at this time, in this place.

She thought of the colonists on Fresia. The men, women, and children Captain Irvine had brought them here to defend. And she thought of the men and women on her ship, of the Marines prepared to be shot out of the sky in a fruitless gesture to protect the colony.

"We could make a fighting pass on the enemy," Moder suggested. "It will make the logs look-"

"No." The only thing at stake-the only thing that could possibly be saved here-was Marie's reputation. Weighed against everything else, it was no choice at all. "Belay India Company's deployment. Lieutenant Halle, emergency Slipspace jump. This is a direct order. Get us out of here."

"Yes ma'am." There was none of the earlier, unprofessional panic in Halle's voice. Now the only unprofessionalism in the navigator's tone was an undisguised sigh of relief.

The Arizona banked away from Freesia-away from the Salamis, the lost battle, and the doomed colony. None of the Covenant ships moved to pursue. The image of the alien ships tearing the Salamis and the colony apart burned itself into Marie's mind as the blinding light of Slipspace filled the viewport.

Beside her, Moder's rigid posture loosened. "Thank you," he muttered, almost completely inaudibly. "I can report that I advised you to retreat."

"Don't give yourself so much credit." Marie leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. She was already visualizing the room where her court-martial would take place. The accusations, the charges, the disgrace. Which mattered more, she wondered: the fact that she'd saved her crew or saved herself?

The tribunal would have an opinion on that. Perhaps she agreed with them.

She looked up at Moder and offered him a wry smile. "But before they lock me up, I think you owe me a drink."