Taskforce Avenger

Taskforce Avenger was a UNSC Military Naval Fleet in 2552, which survived the Battle of Reach but was destroyed in the Skirmish of the Eagle Nebula.

History
Taskforce Avenger was formed in August of 2552, with the finishing of the construction of the UNSC Deadalis and the UNSC Valley Forge. The Taskforce was created to help bolster Reach's defenses, as some in HIGHCOMM worried about the secrecy of it's location after Sigma Octanus IV. And indeed, it was not formed in vain.

Only two weeks after the Taskforce was officially formed, Reach fell under Covenant attack. Taskforce Avenger was out on system patrol when the assault began, and was forced to fight two Covenant ships before they could make their way to rally point Zulu, due to the Covenant forces performing pinpoint slipspace jumps in an attempt to destroy incomming and outgoing UNSC ships. The Taskforce was thus late in arriving, and had only just arrived when things started to slip. Sensing the imminent destruction, Admiral John Stevenson ordered the Taskforce to retreat. On the way out, the taskforce picked up a Pelican dropship escaping from the surface. Aboard this craft were SPARTAN-358, 359, and 400, who docked aboard the Valley Forge.

The Taskforce then began to flee the system, and as they did so, they witnessed the Covenant spliting into two units, one to glass the planet, and another to hunt down the remaining UNSC forces. The Taskforce transitioned to slipspace soon after, and arrived at the Eagle Nebula a few hours later. However, they were pursued by Covenant forces and ambushed. The enemy forces consisted of a pair of Covenant supercarriers, a fairly even match. The Valley Forge immediatly launched a Shiva warhead, and this was followed up quickly with a salvo of Archer missiles, neither of which broke through the Covenant energy shielding. Angered, the Covenant ships launched a salvo of plasma torpedoes, and the flaghsip of the fleet, the UNSC Danas, took several direct hits and was heavily damaged.

Not long after, both sides released their fighter craft, as well as boarding craft on the Covenant side. The fleet fired several MAC rounds, which all targetted one of the supercarriers, and destroyed it. The remaining ship retaliated and destroyed the Danas, before a boarding craft docked with the Valley Forge. Aboard the ship, the SPARTANs picked up earlier defended the internal areas, and eventually boarded the craft itself. Acting on the final orders of Admiral Stevenson, the Deadalis broke formation and fled on an outsystem vector, expending the last of it's archer missiles on the remaining Covenant supercarrier. The Valley Forge then proceeded to ram the supercarrier, firing it's MAC gun at point blank as it did so. This destroyed both ships, and the Deadalis, the only surviving ship, jumped into slipspace.

After this battle, termed the Skirmish of the Eagle Nebula in later days, the Taskforce was officially disassembled, even though the survivor, the Deadalis, went on to fight in several other battles.

Fleet Units
The Taskforce was composed of three ships. Two of them were Marathon-class Cruisers, huge behemonths of ships that could obsorb several plasma bolts before falling and which carried impressive arsenals. Taskforce Avenger also contained another ship, a single FFG-class frigate, which was protected and which carried significantly less weaponry.

Role
The Taskforce's original role was the defense of Reach. However, once Reach was destroyed, it's new task became to warn Earth of Reach's glassing. The ships then became messengers.

Roster

 * UNSC Deadalis
 * UNSC Valley Forge
 * UNSC Danas