User:XW3 AR3 L3GION/UNSC Spirit of Fire (L3GION)

The UNSC Spirit of Fire (CFV-88) is a UNSC Phoenix-Class Colony Vessel built in 2473, serving during the Second Colonisation Wave before being converted and re-purposed 2520 for military purposes and to serve as a supporting warship.

Second Colonisation Wave
The Spirit of Fire was constructed in the Reach Orbital Shipyards, during the Second Colonisation Wave when the Outer Colonies were formed. During its fifty years of service, the Spirit of Fire colonized three worlds - Arcadia, Wellington and Verent - under numerous Captains. After colonising Wellington, the Spirit returned to Arcadia to assist the beleaguered local authorities during the series of violent student riots.

Shift in Priorities
However, when Captain Samuel Alexender retired from active duty at the end of the colonisation effort on Verent, the UNSC Navy requisitioned the vessel to help support a UNSC Campaign against the New India Rebel Union. It was quickly outfitted with sub-standard armaments including Dual-Tier 3 Magnetic Accelerator Cannons (the standard Frigate is equipped with a Tier-7 MAC), H87-98 Deck Cannons and fewer than average Archer Missle Pods. Its huge storage bays once used for transporting pre-fabricated buildings, oxygen scrubbers, heavy-duty colony vehicles, machine parts and hydroponic biomes were now filled with M12 Warthogs and M808B Scorpions to construction supplies for fire bases involved in front line engagements or in rearguard actions and repair equipment for herself and other ships and crew as well as a large supply of Titanium-A plates to be welded to damaged vessels.

Involvement in the Harvest Campaign
The Spirit also acted as a support vessel during the Harvest Campaign, supplying Cole's Fleet with fresh food and reinforcements. But due to extensive damage to many of the ships in the Fleet, the Spirit of Fire was forced to take an more active role such as providing vehicles and air support, becoming a medical centre during the Second Battle of Harvest, assisting the UNSC Prophecy after it had repelled several Covenant vessels in the Epsilon Indi System and retaking Harvest once more from the claws of the Covenant.

Members of the Spirit's Marine Corps Battalion took a buried Forerunner structure from the Covenant accessing its system for a few short moments before being ambushed by the last of the Covenant invasion force. While the Squad of Marines were able to fend off the Covenant counter-attack, with a little help from the Spirit of Fire, which deployed several heavily modified M808B Scorpion Tanks, they were able to keep a VIP safe and learned the location of the retreating Covenant fleet: Arcadia.

Pursuit of the Covenant Fleet
The Spirit of Fire under suggestion from the VIP, Professor Ellen Anders and with permission from Admiral Preston Jeremiah Cole, followed the surviving Covenant Fleet; two CCS-Class Battlecruisers to the minor Outer Colony world of Arcadia, a short slipspace jump away from Harvest. As the CCS Battlecruisers arrived at Arcadia, they were immediately engaged by four UNSC Naval vessels: the Belfast, the Texas, the Pillar of Autumn and the Armstrong, who caught the lead vessel with its shields down, destroying it.

However by concentrating their fire on the lead vessel, it gave the second vessel time to raise thier shields and charge their ship-mounted plasma weaponry; dealing the outmatched UNSC fleet heavy damage. The Belfast and Texas were completely destroyed becoming nothing more than molten Titanium-A while the Armstrong had lost its entire port-side armour and was venting a serious amounts of oxygen and the Pillar of Autumn had lost a almost 88% of its structural integrity before being assisted by the Spirit.

Deployment on Arcadia
With the assistance of some of the Marines from the PoA, the Spirit landed on Arcadia to help the Arcadian Patrol evacuate Pirth City, Arcadia's only and capital city and to repel the Covenant forces. While a few transports were destroyed by the Covenant ground forces resulting in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, the majority of the transports were saved by the UNSC forces before being forced to retreat into the outskirts of the city. However the assault on the city was just a ruse to occupy the UNSC forces while the Covenant set up a base of operations in the Arcadian jungle protected by a huge energy dome as the Covenant investigated several Forerunner relics.

Using several experimental weapons to disable a portion of the energy shield, the Spirit of Fire dropped into low orbit and proceeded to obliterate the Covenant reserves with High-Explosive Non-Nuclear MAC Rounds. From there, they quickly transported several Marine Corps companies into the energy dome which slowly destroyed a Super Scarab before trying to discover what the Covenant were so interested in. Unfortunately, during their investigation of the site, Professor Ellen Anders was captured by Arbiter Ripa 'Moramee which quickly fled Arcadia to the newly-discovered Shield World.

Although the colony was now firmly in UNSC control, there was no need for it as it's location was known to the Covenant and was only a matter of time until the Covenant returned to finish the job.

Discovery of the Shield World
Following in the slipspace wake of the Covenant vessels and the emergency transponder signal of Professor Ellen Anders, the Spirit of Fire gave chase to the fleeing Covenant vessel and discovered a Forerunner Shield World, dominated by dormant Flood. The Covenant were planning to use Professor Anders to activate the Apex Site, an installation that contained hundreds of inactive Forerunner Dreadnoughts, in order to exterminate the human race even faster.

When the Spirit of Fire first entered the system, they landed several Marine Platoons and tackled several Jiralhanae Packs which were being used as suicide troops to stall the UNSC. Continuing their exploration, the Marine platoons, for the first time in human history, encountered the Flood - paratsitic lifeform which used sentient beings as a host to further their gains of total domination of all life. Despite heavy losses to the Flood, the UNSC Marine forces managed to push on deeper into Flood-held territory, although facing several problems with air support due to the thick dust in the atmosphere and reinforcements from the SPARTAN Red Team which were heavily engaged with Flood forms being co-ordinated by a Proto-Gravemind.

Descent into the World
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Emergence into the Interior
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Assault on the Apex
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Destruction of the Shield World
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Escape
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Aftermath
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