Battle of Roleath

The Battle of Roleath was an engagement during the early stages of the Human-Covenant War. In the battle, Covenant forces made use of a number of experimental EMP weapons, deployed via the Illustrious Pupil.

Attack on the Turbulent Testimony
During the Battle of Loren, boarded the Covenant  Turbulent Testimony. During the operation intelligence was uncovered revealing a plan to test experimental weaponry on the colony of Roleath, which the Covenant had recently discovered. was declared on February 27, 2529.

Reinforcement & Planning
Despite the Covenant's faster and more efficient slipspace travel and coordination, the UNSC was allowed a rare opportunity to prepare for the invasion ahead of time, thanks to prior knowledge of the Covenant's intentions and the fact that the specialized weaponry the Covenant intended to use had to be loaded and readied onto their ships. The UNSC made good use of this rare advantage, and the 17th and 24th Naval Fleets arrived on Roleath four weeks before the projected arrival time of the Covenant fleet. Marine contingents were sent to strategic locations, and Sapphire Team was sent to one of the most critical: the Moorstead Girls Academy, at the base of the Kimberly A. Moorstead Memorial Space Tether in Lotora. Evacuation plans were drawn up, and the local UNSC Army troops were put on standby. However, due to the cover-up of the Covenant and their attacks, the UNSC was prohibited from acting until given permission by Roleath's Prime Minister, Jonathan Matthew.

Covenant Arrival
On June 28th, the Fleet of Divine Fate exited slipspace over Roleath, six days before their projected arrival, and before evacuation had begun. The Illustrious Pupil disabled the UNSC sensor net with a low-power EMP blast. This alerted UNSC forces, however, the Prime Minister ordered that they could not take action until they had at least received visual confirmation of a Covenant presence. The New Wales Orbital Defense Platform first sighted the fleet deploying ground forces in high orbit. The stationed fired two MAC rounds, destroying a and a  before the Illustrious Pupil fired another EMP blast, causing the magnetic airlocks and life-support on the platform to fail, killing all 1500 crewmembers by a combination of explosive decompression and asphyxiation. Prime Minister Matthew was informed of this, but he ordered that the evacuation be held off until the very last minute. Admiral Hestly argued that waiting any longer would result in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary civilian casualities. He eventually convinced Matthew, who granted Hestly full authority over the colony before shooting himself in the right temple.

Evacuation Begins
The UNSC was forced to put unfinished evacuation plans into action. Over the course of one and a half weeks, civilians would be loaded onto shuttles and carried onto UNSC cruisers near Roleath's moon Tirithia. Unfortunately, the slow process made the evacuees impatient. Riots broke out as anxiety began to boil over, and Insurrectionist aid to these riots made the situation even more difficult to get under control. In New London, several shuttles were overrun and captured by these rebel-assisted rioters, only to be quickly destroyed by Covenant warships as they tried to exit the atmosphere. In Lotora, evacuees were gathered on the campus of the Moorstead Girls Academy, and evacuated through the Moorstead orbital elevator. However, a Covenant advance had cut off the entrance to the school. UNSC Army demolition teams created a new entrance in the emergency lockdown gates surrounding the Academy's recreation area using anti-material explosives. Covenant strike forces soon began landing near the high school dorms as the students were being evacuated from them. Sapphire Team fought them back while the students were led to safety.

The Campus Walls are Breached
On July 2, penetrated the walls protecting Moorstead Academy, and the area just inside of the breach was overrun. The UNSC Ia Drang deployed to counter these troops until the Army arrived and the 119th Infantry Division sent several detachments under the command of Major Brian Rothell to respond, supported by Sapphire Team. However, upon approaching the security breach, ambushed the response force, utilizing Pulse Bombs. The responders were scattered, and fell back to the middle school class buildings to regroup.

Counterattack
A large portion of the original response unit was forced to retreat in order to attend to their wounded. The Ia Drang deployed additional ODSTs, and the UNSC Saigon, Enola Gay, and Asch sent Marine reinforcements via. The Marines would approach the enemy from the Northeast and set up a perimeter of, cutting off their eastward advance, while the remaining Army troops would attack from the Northwest, aided by the Spartans. The Army unit arrived at the target as planned. However, the Marines were attacked by Covenant air support, and was put eleven and and a half minutes behind schedule, and were slaughtered by the advancing enemy before they could set up their machine guns. The Covenant now closed in on the evacuting civilians relatively unchallenged.

EMP Attack from the Illustrious Pupil
On the morning of July 3, Covenant troops broke through to the evacuating civilians, blocking them from the space tether with a barricade of. A massacre ensued before UNSC forces managed to pull the evacuees back from the barricade. As the UNSC retreated, the Illustrious Pupil fired a high-power EMP blast, disabling the Lotora Transit Station, the elevator's support systems, the UNSC Ia Drang, the UNSC Saigon, the UNSC Semper Fi, and the UNSC Sasquatch. The Ia Drang collided with the transit station, and destablized the already weakened elevator, destroying both. The UNSC Semper Fi and UNSC Saigon, which had been descending into Roleath's atmosphere to provide air support, plummeted to the planet's surface, killing hundreds upon impact. The Illustrious Pupil then retreated to safety to recharge its EMP emitter and shields.

Aerial Strikes
Though the space tether had been destroyed, the Moorstead Academy remained an important location, and with the UNSC having retreated from the schoolgrounds, the Covenant dug in at the academy's entrance. The UNSC Asch, which had been out of range of the EMP blast, launched to carry out a napalm strike on the Covenant's defensive perimeter of T42 DESWs. However, a pair near the Covenant's breach in the academy wall shot down the bombers before they could reach their target. The remainder of the 119th's response force and Sapphire Team, still within the academy, made their way to the guns, which they destroyed at 0100 hours on July 4 with the assistance of the 272nd Battalion, who reached the guns from outside the campus via the wall breach. The UNSC Asch sent a second squadron of Shortswords to the enemy position, crippling them with high-explosive fragmentation bombs. The UNSC ground force then advanced, supported by from the Asch. Sapphire Team, the Army's response force, and the 272nd Tank Battalion moved in from the Southwest, while the main force split up, with one group moving in through the main entrance, and the other moving in through the makeshift entrance in the recreational section.

The Academy is Retaken
The Eastern force was the first to reach the Covenant position. had positioned themselves in the craters left by the UNSC air strikes. utilizing were able to eliminate this threat. Marine infantry and armor then stormed the enemy position, but were soon pinned down by fuel-rod. When the Southwestern force arrived, Sapphire team marked these Shades with colored smoke, and the Longsword airsupport neutralized them. Once the Northern force reached the target, UNSC forces were able to eradicate the Covenant presence on the campus within 36 hours.