Battle Aboard the UNSC Status Quo

The Battle Aboard the UNSC Status Quo was a skirmish that took place aboard a UNSC-operated prison ship follow it's high-jacking by an Insurrectionist group under Michael Christiansson.

Background
On December 20th, 2536, the prison vessel UNSC Status Quo was transporting high value insurrectionist figures to the Inner Colonies to face trial when it was pulled from slipspace between Elysia and Society. Several prison guards who had been bribed by the Insurrection had sabotaged the slipspace drive, and were starting to free the prisoners, causing a riot aboard the ship. With the assistance of these security guards, the prisoners succesfully took over the ship and threw it's crew into the cells they were formerly detained in.

On December 22nd, the vessel Koslov's Retribution, a freighter operated by Insurrectionists from Elysia, would exit slipspace in the area and would dock with the prison ship, deploying around 40 militants to the ship with the intention of fixing the slipspace drive and re-purposing it to fight in the Insurgency on Elysia. Later that day, the UNSC Ivory Coast under James Coleman would also arrive in the area, responding to a distress signal that had been sent out to nearby UNSC assets without the Insurrectionist's knowledge. In response, the Insurrectionists massacred the captive crew before the UNSC could deploy forces to save them.

The Battle
The UNSC Ivory Coast deployed two fireteams, among them Fireteam India, to the Koslov's Retribution. Boarding the ship, they'd find it relatively empty aside from multiple mostly-unarmed engineers and mechanics. Upon detaining them, both fireteams would proceed outside of the ship, beginning EVA, and moving to take up breaching positions. Both fireteams, once they had taken up positions, breached the ship's hull and entered it, engaging with the under-trained and under-equipped insurgents who put up stiff resistance and stalled the fireteams from advancing towards the bridge.

Unknown to the UNSC, a Covenant Stealth Ship, the Righteous Sword, had been observing the UNSC Status Quo since the 21st of December, one day ago, after intercepting distress transmissions coming from the ship. 10 Stealth Elites would board the ship on the opposite end to that of the ODST fireteams, and would massacre the Insurrectionists in the bridge without a single casualty. By the time the fireteams had beaten through the Insurrectionists and reached the bridge, they did not find a single living Insurrectionist, and those who had survived the battle had re-boarded the Koslov's Retribution and initiated a withdrawal. The fireteams would remain on the ship long after both the Elites and the Insurrectionists had left, clearing it and ensuring it was safe for investigation.

Aftermath
Upon closer examination of the scene in the bridge, investigation teams would report that all Insurgents within the bridge had died from plasma burns or had been cut with what was presumed to be Energy Swords. More worryingly, they reported that the Insurrectionists had not gone through with the Cole Protocol, and that there was a chance of the Covenant having extracted compromising data.

Aboard the Righteous Sword, which had since put distance between it and the UNSC, navigational data was analysed by scribes aboard the ship. Due to a firefight that took place in the server room of the Status Quo during it's initial takeover, much of the navigational data was either destroyed or corrupted, leaving the scribes with relatively minor discoveries, as most of the planets on the navigational system were infact already known to the Covenant. Due to the discovery of Society within the recovered data, this battle directly preceded an invasion of the planet.