UNSC Apollo

The UNSC Apollo was a modified Halcyon-class cruiser that served in the human covenant war, and which was used as a testing ground for the modifcations on the Pillar of Autumn. It took part in the Battle of the Kamos System.

Construction
The UNSC Apollo began construction in 2510, as part of a wave of Halcyon-class cruisers created in that year. The ship was constructed at the same time as th Pillar of Autumn, but was not one of the sister ships of the cruiser.

Service
After construction on the Apollo was finished, it was deployed to the frontlines of the Insurrection. During thick combat it proved almost invincible, but after being heavily damaged, it was considered to costly to repair and was mothballed with the intention of being scrapped.

However, it never was scrapped, and by 2552, ONI Section III was looking to augment a ship with a slew of new technology. The intended ship was Pillar of Autumn, but the modifications had to first be tested. The UNSC decided to test the modifications on the Apollo, and thus removed it from the scrap list and heavily uprgraded all of it's systems. After the modifications proved successful, they were perfomred on the Pillar of Autumn.

The Apollo was then placed under the command of Captain William Davenport as a genuine warship. It was due to ship out on September 3rd, 2552, but when Reach came under attack, it was part of the force that stayed and defeneded the planet. The Apollo and another ship, the Vulcan's Hammer, stayed to the near end, even after things went sour, and finally fled the battle when the last MAC cannon was destroyed.

The ships fled to the Eagle Nebula, where they had spotted Taskforce Avenger fleeing too. However, when they arrived, they found only wreckage. But, there was a twist. In the mangled hull of a Covenant dropship, a team of SPARTANs, SPARTAN-358 leading them, had stowed away. The Apollo rescued them, and with the idea of the SPARTANs, engineered a trap for Covenant forces. They placed a NOVA bomb, salvaged from Reach, in the dropship's hull, and activated it's homing beacon.

The Apollo and Vulcan's Hammer then slipped to the Kamos system, the suspected outbound vector of the only surving ship of Taskforce Avenger, the UNSC Deadalis. They arrived in the system just in the nick of time--the Deadalis was crippled and drifting towards the planet of the system. The Apollo sent over engineers, which helped get the ship under it's own power, then sent teams to the surface to gather materials to restock the Deadalis.

After several hours of repair, the human forces were attacked by a Covenant ship. The Apollo sent additional forces to the ground, then engaged the Covenant ship. The human ships performed a charge, and [Deadalis] was hit by a plasma torpedo, though it survived. The Vulcan's Hammer was then destroyed by pulse laser fire from the covenant ship. The CCS-class covenant ship then tried to destroy the Deadalis with a plasma torpedo, but the Apollo intercepted the bolt and took it for the frigate. The Apollo then open fired with two successive volleys of MAC cannon rounds, using it's three shot weapon that it tested for the Pllar of Autumn, and destroyed the Covenant ship.

However, more Covenant ships then entered the system, and the Apollo and the Deadalis gathered their ground forces and jumped out of the system, towards Sol, as the NOVA bomb trap engineered by the SPARTANs detonated and eradicated everything in the system.