User:Delta Team Curt/RedXIII Third Battle of Earth

Written by Red XIII, WA Lancer, Avenger, Sizer, Serssima, and Useful Dave.

THE THIRD BATTLE OF EARTH The UCC's Assault

The UCC noose tightened around the UNSC starships in orbit around Earth as additional UCC forces entered the planet's sector. Only a few UNSC warships remained to stand garrison over the entire planet. Unfortunately, the UCC were becoming bolder. A stupendous battleship, the UCCS Invulnerable, had arrived a few days ago, along with a squadron of heavy cruisers. This force alone dwarfed the single battlecruiser, four destroyers, and pair of frigates that the UNSC had over Earth, much more with the six-ship light cruiser squadron already deployed.

Captain Alexander Rhene tapped his fingers against the armrest of his command chair in thought. His practiced eyes scanned the holographic multi-function display before him, taking stock of the situation yet again. Starships, represented as green and red triangles, were visible around the purple sphere of the planet. With the additional support, the UCC vatchr were almost certainly going to press their advantage. And if we don't stand here to prevent orbital attacks, thought Rhene darkly, Earth is going to fall to those squidloving bastards.

Rhene reached for the surface of the holo-display and touched a large green triangle in a high orbit around Earth. A data printout appeared next to the triangle, reading: UNSCS SAGANAMI CB-274. Rear Admiral Rick Baird commanded the few remaining UNSC starships above Earth from that Marathon-class battlecruiser. Rhene had met Baird a few times before being suddenly thrust into the understrength Home Defense Fleet; he found him to be an intelligent officer who knew naval strategy well.

Vice Admiral Gennady Brodenko had been in command of Home Defense Fleet before Baird, but he had been called away to defend a colony under attack by UCC rebels. With him went the flagship DN-78 UNSCS Majestic and its escorting pair of battlecruiser squadrons. This wasn't really too troubling, since the remaining fleet was formed of two battlecruiser squadrons, three destroyer squadrons, multiple frigate squadrons, and a plethora of support craft. Those warships trickled away as UCC raids dramatically increased in colonies both near and far, eventually leaving the seven warships and their resupply freighter in defense of Earth.

Naturally, that was when the first light cruiser squadron of the UCC arrived. They drifted in-system slowly and halted just barely in Earth's orbit. They neither fired on nor moved closer to the UNSC starships in the garrison. Baird, sensing a trap, did not engage the enemy. After all, they hadn't fired on anything yet. In addition, he lacked the offensive firepower to effectively defend the planet.

Over the past month, more and more enemy starships had jumped near Earth. The light cruiser squadron soon became much more than that. Baird recalled Brodenko and a cruiser squadron, but nothing had arrived yet. Unable to do anything, the UNSC garrison vessels simply held their position and waited. Now it finally seems like something's going to happen. Too bad it's going to be bad for us.

"Captain," said a light tenor from the holotank placed in the floor of the bridge, "we are receiving a wide-beam message from the UCCS Invulnerable." The upper portion of the holotank flashed a bright white for a moment as yellow-orange data codes sprung upward from the 'tank. A holographic fox formed from the data codes, standing on its hind legs in a posture that looked like it would fall over at any moment. "Sounds like the same old 'surrender now and we might let you live' tripe," it continued, one of its ears tuned to the right, as if it were listening to something. "Well...you might want to listen to this one, Sir."

Rhene nodded and leaned back in the chair as a sharp baritone filled the bridge. The captain tried to fit a face to it as it spoke. "This is Admiral Cartmann of the UCCS Invulnerable. As a courtesy to our fellow naval officers, however disconnected from human society you may be, we are announcing that you have exactly twenty-four hours to surrender and retreat from Earth. If you do not comply" - the voice paused for a moment, possibly for dramatic effect - "we will be forced to destroy you. Invulnerable, clear."

"Pompous son-of-a-gun, isn't he?" asked Lieutenant Commander Estowns, who stood behind Lieutenant Maris at the Navigation console. "Figures he can just waltz in here and pluck Earth right from under us." Estowns straightened from his leaning and faced the viewscreen. "Just gonna have to teach him what's what."

As if in agreement with Estowns' statement, a single MAC fired from one of the frigates. It flew well past the target, but the message was hopefully clear. Just in case that the UCC did not understand what the warning shot meant, another transmission was sent to their flagship. This transmission had exactly five characters: NUTS.

Rhene's brow furrowed. The ship's AI voiced his concerns. "It doesn't make much sense for Cartmann to announce his intentions," said the fox. "He can't possibly expect us to actually abandon Earth. And wouldn't it be more intelligent to just wait us out? Earth is still heavily dependant on colonial aid, after all. We can hold here in orbit for a few more mont-"

"Captain," announced the Lynx's communication officer, "incoming tight-beam from Saganami." Lieutenant Laders turned in her seat to face Rhene. "General command conference at fifteen-thirty, aboard the battlecruiser." The ship's clock read fourteen-seventeen.

Rhene nodded and stood from his command chair. "Send Admiral Baird my acknowledgement," he began, "and have a shuttle prepared. Leonard, you have the conn." The naval captain barely waited for a response as he strode out of the bridge.

The briefing room of the Saganami was spacious, especially for the eight UNSC officers present. Typically, the room was designed to hold a few dozen. Rear Admiral Baird stood at the head of the table in the center, entering commands into a large holotank near him. The screen behind him snapped to life along with the holotank. This dimmed the lights and also brought silence to the room.

"Please," said Baird, "take a seat." As the officers strode to the table and seated themselves, Baird continued. "As you are already aware, the UCC has maneuvered a great deal of tonnage into this star system and near this planet." A holographic image of Earth appeared, along with seven green triangles in its orbit. Over two dozen bright red triangles snapped into existence a moment later, representing the UCC starships. "We didn't have the strength to deal with them a month ago when they first showed up; we don't have it now. Our hope lied in getting reinforcements from Vice Admiral Brodenko's battlecruiser squadrons or Commodore Nesbon's carrier group. Unfortunately," sighed Baird, "we haven't received any messages from either of them.

Rhene looked away from Baird and focused on the datapad in front of him. Each ship commander had one at their seat for use during the briefing. The blonde officer punched in his activation codes and read about the enemy strength as Baird continued to outline the events of the past few weeks. More enemy vessels had appeared. Supplies were cut off. Rhene was already aware of all of that.

He brought up the data entry on the UCCS Invulnerable and watched a wireframe representation pop into life in the upper portion of the 'pad. It was an old Firefly-class carrier, heavily modified for increased carrying capacity with massive additional hangers. The traditional trio of MACs had been replaced with something longer that ran throughout the entire vessel, exiting and protruding about thirty meters from the nose. Particle accelerator cannon, Rhene guessed. UNSC hasn't used those since 2510. Maybe they're from home or something.

"Hostile forces are currently locked into our orbit patterns; they're sticking to us tight." Baird tapped a few commands into the holotank, causing the goddess Nike to form itself out of brilliant white data bits. "The Saganami's AI, Honor," introduced Baird, "will continue with force deployments."

Honor nodded to Baird and then to the commanders gathered around. "We currently have one Marathon-class battlecruiser, four Wildcat-class assault destroyers, and two APOC frigates. The remainder of Home Defense Fleet is currently out-system, and, as Rear Admiral Baird has stated, hasn't responded to our requests. For all intents and purposes, we are alone.

"The enemy is currently equipped with five heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, one commanding battleship, eight destroyers, and fifteen frigates," Honor listed with an AI's diction. "Judging from standard UCC operation, those frigates will be used as attack runners to draw our fire. They don't have enough to provide point defense for the cruisers. In addition, we can expect large volumes of fighters to be used."

Baird took the floor again from the Saganami's AI. "Therefore, we'll have to fight a point defense action with the frigates. Fifty-Sixth DesRon will engage the enemy battleship with the mission of deploying an invasion force of Marines." Baird's face was especially grim under the low light of the briefing room; the faint lights of the holotank cast shadows across his countenance. "If we capture the UCC's big bad-ass ship, they might reconsider their attack. Especially if we threaten to blow the Invulnerable apart."

Rhene looked over to the commander of the UNSCS Leopard, Captain Samantha Varson, and easily read the woman's facial expression. Sam doesn't think it'll work. After a second of further reflection, Rhene realized that he didn't think it would work. There was no way that the UCC would give up a prize such as control of Earth's lanes for something like a single starship. No, decided Rhene, We really don't have a shot in hell. No matter what we do, if we stay and fight, we're all dead. There's no getting around that.

After a few more seconds of tense silence, Baird leaned against the table tiredly. "Alright, people," he said quietly, his voice just barely reaching the other end of the room, "I'll level with you. Unless someone suddenly shows up with a couple of battlecruiser squadrons in their pocket, we're not going to make it out of this one. The UCC aren't so dumb as to fall for something so simple as a capture of their flagship, even one so big as Invulnerable.

"But we are going to make them pay for every cubic klick of space that they take." Baird stood straight again, his voice louder and clearer. "The UCC bastards may have kicked us while we were busy trying to save everyone else from collapsing, but this is still the United Nations Space Command Navy. The only enemy we ever retreated from was the Covenant" - he paused, taking a quick drink of water - "and that was because we had to protect Earth. We sure as hell aren't going to retreat from these sons of liberal communists!"

Captain Varson nodded as Baird spoke, her face becoming steadily more determined. Rhene discovered that he was doing the same thing: nodding in agreement. "So," said Baird, "let's go out with a bang, huh?"

There was a quiet, somber laughter through the briefing room. Baird turned around and muttered something that Rhene only caught because of his proximity: "Gennady, where the hell are you?"

Rhene shrugged to himself and decided not to speak. He was about to open up a file on the fighter complement of the Invulnerable when a message suddenly appeared on the 'pad's screen. Rhene frowned and looked up, seeing similar expressions on the other captains' faces. In addition, the screen behind Baird displayed an enlarged view of a UNSC transmission.

UNITED NATIONS SPACE COMMAND ALPHA PRIORITY GENERAL ORDER 69231A-1 Encryption Code: /Red/ Public Key: file/wly fx/ From: Vice Admiral G. Brodenko DN-078 UNSCS MAJESTIC To: WIDEBEAM:UNSCGARRISEARTH Subject: TANGO-SEVEN-ZERO Classification: CLASSIFIED (x-ray)

/start/ GOLF-THREE-FOUR

HOTEL-SIX-EIGHT

ZULU-TWO-FIVE

ZULU. ZULU. ZULU. /end/

The room paused for a moment, everyone deciphering the code by memory. Varson figured it out first, a wide smile coming to her tired face. "We're going to get reinforced," she told a semi-stunned Rhene. "We might just get out of this after all."

Rhene let a slight smile appear on his own face before realizing the caveat: ZULU-TWO-FIVE meant Brodenko's ETA was in twenty-five hours. The UCC would attack in twenty-four.

They weren't going to make it after all. Brodenko's fleet would return to slagged metal and dead officers.

Rear Admiral Baird sat at the head of the table in the briefing room aboard the UNSCS Saganami. He had dismissed the assembled COs of home fleet back to their respective ships over two hours earlier. He ran his hands through his black graying hair and set his head on the table in front of him and closed his eyes.

He was overstressed and pissed off. He knew he did not have a chance in hell of defeating the UCC fleet, He knew he was going to die along with everyone else in his area of command before Vice Admiral Gennady Brodenko arrived with his fleet.

"well we could always try and play cat and mouse for an hour with 15 frigates, 6 light cruisers, 5 heavy cruisers, and a battleship.... That would never work.. those fifteen frigates would hit some of our ships hard enogh that we would all have to slow down to make sure they can keep up... then the BB would close in and kill us all... if our luck stood it would kill us as Gennady translates back into normal space..." Baird's internal thoughts were morbid at best. Though he had not been this depressed in a long time.

"why not go out with a Bang of glory! I'm sure history will reflect on me as a fleet commander who made the wrong choice. If history ever gets to hear about this battle. It will probably be manipulated to say that I had a three to one advantage by those damned liberal communist bastards."

"God damn,what am I thinking! Get those thoughts out of your head right now. Your a Rear Admiral Upper Half, you should be the last one to be thinking these sorts of thoughts. You don't give a fuck what history will think of you!"

Hi picked his head up from the table and sat back in his chair. Baird opened up his console from the desk and the monitor slowly came out of the desk, he pulled out the keyboard that was stored under the table right in front of him and began working away at the defensive and offensive fire powers of his ships compared to that of the UCC Fleet's ships. His 'destroyers' were not even equipped with Magnetic Accelerator Cannons. They only had a cut down number of missile tubes and had twelve 55mm Auto cannons for CIWS. His Frigates still had standard weapon systems, but they were of the newer Apocalypse II class. They boasted a slightly faster firing MAC and 12 more missile tubes.

The good and bad thing was that neither side was going to use Shiva Warheads this close to earths atmosphere, they just had too damn big of a detonation yield. It would do to much damage to the already fragile O Zone layer of Earth.

Baird was just about done with his console when a call request from Lieutenant Johan Stevenson popped up in the corner of his screen. He lazily taped the corner of the screen to bring up the call request from Stevenson.

A display of the UNSCS Lynx was replaced by Lieutenant Johan Stevenson's Grinning face. "Why are you so happy?" Baird asked in a angry tone. he sighed then spoke again "Sorry Johan, I've had a long day and I am just in a nasty mood. So whats the good news you seem so happy to tell me"

Stevenson let it out all in one excited burst "Sir, BB-1 Just translated out of Slip Space. Its the Sierra!!"

Bairds grumpy look turned from a frown to a smile.

"Sierra's CO, Capitan Rachel McCall is asking to talk to you sir."

"Put her through to my terminal please"

Capitan Rachel McCall replaced Lieutenant Stevenson Along with a change of backgrounds.

"My thanks and greetings to you Capitan. I'm sorry to tell you this but I don't think that that we can fend off the UCC fleet even with your Battleships assistance. But we can make on hell of an impression on them. My Chief of Staff will bring you up to date on the operation details of when we will attack the UCC fleet. But for now I want you to join formation with my battle group and enact ROE protocol III. For now im going to go get some bunk time so please contact my Chief of Staff if you have any other concerns that need to be addressed. Baird Out."

With that Rear Admiral Rick Baird closed his terminal and walked out of the briefing room to the corridor and proceeded to the nearest lift to get to his quarters where he promptly fell asleep as soon as he reached his bed. His last thought before sleep was the general quarters alarm could wake him if anyone needed him.

"If I were a betting man-"

"And you're not; you're a betting conglomeration of photons in the shape of a biped fox-"

"-the UCC is waiting for something."

Rhene frowned and set down his reading 'pad. He looked over to the holographic table display that formed the top of his writing desk and caught sight of the Lynx's AI sitting at a small holographic table playing chess. "They give this sort of warning all the time," answered Rhene, reaching over to his nightstand for the cup of soda standing there, "especially with time limits. Quara, Gamma Ixs, one of the battles near Paris...and a few others."

"Obviously," said the fox, moving his white knight forward to capture a black bishop, "the UCC should've attacked once their battleship translated. They already had superior tonnage over us to begin with; the battleship just basically gave them the complete confidence. Instead, they sat outside of viable accelerator range and waited.

"And now we have two battleships. Armed with a bit more than just some outdated particle accelerator cannon." Rif snorted and watched a black pawn move forward to threaten one of his rooks. "If they didn't have any more reinforcements showing up, they probably would have retreated already. Or maybe they would've tried to throw themselves up against the Sierras."

Rhene's brow furrowed. "The UCC are stupid, but not in that way. That cannon must have some sort of tactical advantage, otherwise they wouldn't have gutted a battleship for it. Sorakin accelerators were huge, a couple of klicks in length, but they could hurl a projectile with about half the mass of a MAC round at about eighty percent c. With a tool like that, the battleship could just snipe our warships before they ever entered within range."

"So why haven't they? That wasn't a good move, computer." Rif shrugged and took the black queen with his bishop. In response, the ship's computer moved its rook to the position that the bishop and been covering.

"Checkmate," said the computer in a kindly, calm female voice. The AI blinked a few times, gold-orange equations and symbols accelerating around his body. A 'P = 0' formed suddenly on the length of his tail.

Judging Rif's reaction to be one of some slight fury, Rhene explained, "The ship's connected to a big amount of hard processing power. And something basic like two-D chess isn't that hard for it. You're too used to the assault boards in tri-D."

The chessboard vanished, along with the chair upon which Rif was sitting. The AI held his sitting position impossibly as his 'skin' of symbols moved faster and turned a sharp shade of purple. Rhene frowned and tried to remember any point at which Rif had changed color from his cool yellow-orange to vibrant purple. He couldn't recall one. Slightly worried, Rhene stood up from his bed and walked over to the holotable.

"Ammunition!" Rif shouted finally, drawing a raised eyebrow from Rhene. "Their battleship's got to be waiting on ammunition. That's the only explanation for their waiting." The fox, still violet, raised a claw. Along with it expanded a holographic wireframe of the UCCS Invulnerable in the center of the table. The 'frame zoomed in on the protruding muzzle of the accelerator cannon and then ran 'up' its length, terminating just before the large ion engine baffles. "This" - a fighter launch bay on the carrier turned red and blinked - "isn't a small craft bay. It can't be a small craft bay." Rif closed his eyes, briefly turning purple-red. "Seventy-four C709s are entirely too few for a carrier group of that size. If they had all of those bays filled."

Rhene leaned over the table and panned the wireframe's view 'down' the accelerator again. "You assume that they aren't keeping any in reserve. Besides, a modified carrier like that'll have enhanced life support systems, which was what you were going to guess next to help the" - Rhene paused, trying to think of a proper word - "erm, 'magazine' theory."

He was about to turn away and go back to his bunk when Rif turned a peculiar shade of blue. The AI made some sort of yipping sound that Rhene immediately recognized. The captain frowned.

"You're a naval AI, Rif," said Rhene sternly, "and I won't have any noises of se-"

The holotable's surface suddenly erupted into a tactical map of Earth. As usual, the UNSC's few green triangles were clustered together with a larger red cluster of triangles hovering 'near' them. Above those triangles appeared a sphere-shaped wall of green triangles. Each one represented a UNSC battlecruiser. "I see," said Rhene, "why you felt like that."

Something sounded in the back of Rhene's mind. Except, he thought, we don't have a battlecruiser squadron of that size. He wasn't completely caught off-guard when the triangles turned red a few moments later.

"Parar nanakir'a," Rhene whispered morbidly. He wasn't afraid of death any more than the next naval officer, but he never had the abilities of inspirational speech like Rear Admiral Baird. At least I usually keep my comments to myself, eh?

"Yes," agreed Rif, turning back to his golden-orange. "I'll see you on the bridge, Sir?"

Rhene was already out the door.

http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/9887/flagbridgeplotfinalvh8.png

Rear Admiral Baird stared at the main view screen for what seemed like hours to him. But in reality it was five minutes. "Dear god, There is... The only chance we have is the rest of home fleet to arrive..." "No, We are going to take as many of those bastards down with us as we can!"

He had gotten 8 hours of sleep already and had been planning operations with his staff until the new contacts jumped in.

There was six hours until the deadline.

Admiral Cartmann allowed himself a brief smile as two addition eight-ship battlecruiser squadrons translated into the system. They quickly shed their false UNSC transponder codes and turned from red to a friendly green. The Invulnerable's AI, Schell, turned green and brandished his spear. Cartmann squinted at the datacodes on the lead battlecruiser and tried to make out the words. Failing, he reached into his uniform pocket and drew a pair of reading glasses. One of these days, he decided, I'm just going to bite the bullet and get surgery.

Now those data codes were much easier to read. The lead cruiser was the UCCS Partnership, a UCC-built Shining Light-class battlecruiser. The Shining Light battlecruisers were superior to the older Marathon designs for several reasons. First, they took advantage of the limited shield technology that the UCC had managed to receive from a faction of the Sangheli. In addition, the battlecruiser had a slimmer, more streamlined profile; much like a Covenant destroyer or frigate. While the Shining Light-class carried no MAC, they had several plasma torpedo launchers and multiple pulse laser batteries. In close range combat, the UNSC Marathon had virtually no chance to survive.

"Incoming message from the Partnership, Sir," announced the communications officer of the Invulnerable. She pushed her long hair away from her eyes and keyed in a few commands. "Captain Wright sends his greetings and says that he has the accelerator rounds for us."

Cartmann nodded. "Excellent. Send Captain Wright my thanks and assign some of the light cruisers to fly point defense. Tie him into the combat network. And get those shells into the accelerator on the double." The dark-haired man's smile became wider as he watched the ship's clock tick down from 0600 to 0559. The UNSC had exactly six hours left to surrender before he would blow them into pieces. Even those two battleships can't save them now, Cartmann thought with no small amount of satisfaction. Not with a pair of overstrength battlecruiser squadrons on our side. "Not with those battlecruisers on our side," he repeated out loud to no one, sitting back into his command chair.

"Certainly not, Sir," growled Schell. His chosen form was that of Achilles, the ancient hero. "We will now crush them like the vermin they are. Nothing can stand in our path now." After a moment, the AI looked back to Cartmann and visibly shrunk. "Right, Sir. They're still our fellow human beings."

"And don't forget it, Schell," answered Cartmann. He leaned fully in his chair, thinking of what to recommend this battle as. The Third Battle of Earth? No. Too boring. Well, I suppose I'll have enough time to think about this after the actual engagement.

No one quite expected what happened an hour later.

The Invulnerable's particle accelerator cannon had been heavily modified to fire a ten ton projectile with capabilities of deploying a tip-mounted weapon. The concept of explosive-tips descended from humanity's first experiments with the stuff, but the technology of the advanced short weapons-grade accelerator was purely Earth. Earth's weapons developers took the accelerator concept and built it into the small, condensed Magnetic Accelerator Cannon found on virtually all human warships. A MAC could accelerate a five hundred ton projectile to thirty percent c in a coilgun assembly roughly eight hundred meters in length.

Earth didn't stop there. They developed the Super Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, which took a five thousand ton projectile and accelerated it to forty percent c in an assembly a little over a kilometer and a third in length. Such weapons were mainly mounted on stationary defense platforms; the power requirements for them were incredible. Only the new battleships could carry an SMAC and still power the remainder of the ship's weapons.

The Sorakin-made particle accelerator cannon onboard the Invulnerable was only similar to the MAC in that both descended from the coilgun concept laid forth several centuries beforehand. After that fundamental similarity, they were completely different. Soraki had split from Earth before the MAC was developed; they took a different direction in development and created the most powerful ship-based weapons-grade accelerator known to humankind. However, it was around two kilometers in length. The UCC's modifications to the Invulnerable's cannon shortened it to a little less than two kilometers and allowed it to fit down the length of their changed Firefly carrier.

Of course, the Sorakin particle accelerator wasn't quite as advanced as the MAC in other ways. It still used an old-fashioned round cycler assembly, which was contained in the starboard launch bay closest to the Invulnerable's engine baffles. To save space, the Sorakin accelerator's cycler had to push back into the projectile feed chamber and then come back forward, much like the bolt of a rifle. This allowed the accelerator cannon to keep up a high rate of fire, as long as the bolt had enough room to cycle backward.

The UCC plan was simple enough: the UNSC battleships were the primary targets. Their SMACs could rain on Cartmann's parade very quickly, followed by missile salvos. Initially, Cartmann had planned to effectively snipe the UNSC ships from well outside their effective range of three dozen k-klicks; however, the appearance of the battleships had forced this new strategy. Two rounds from the Invulnerable's accelerator would easily destroy the enemy. And if they were to miss, the EMP generators inside their ordnance containers would surely disable them.

After that, the UCC would move in for the kill. All of this would begin five hours before the surrender order expired. Cartmann didn't expect that the UNSC would suddenly have a change of heart; they were far too stubborn for that. He consequently had no qualms when he stood on the bridge of his battleship and announced the five-minute countdown until the attack.

Petty Officer Third Class Nick (his last name was Nicksa, but he made sure everyone just called him Nick) gave the massive bolt of the particle accelerator cannon a hearty slap and stepped out of the way as it snapped backward with a loud clacking sound. He looked over to Petty Officer Third Class Barnes and chuckled. "Those fascists aren't gonna know what hit 'em!" As if in agreement with him, the round carrier slammed forward again, with a dark brown cone contained within.

"This," said Chief Petty Officer Elk grandly, stepping out from underneath the low-ceiling corridor that led out of the bolt control room, "is several hundred tons of tungsten-spittin', fascist-killin', all-'round-great bad-ass accelerator." He walked over to Nick and stared down at the smaller enlisted man. "And if you don't get behind the safety line, Nicksa, I will have you removed from my Particle Accelerator Cannon Feed Control Room!"

Nick looked away and stepped behind the yellow-black safety line, facial expression mixed. CPO Elk nodded in satisfaction and leaned on the bolt carrier tube. At Nick's look of surprise, Elk replied, "You were taking my spot, Red-Shirt."

"A guy wears the wrong shirt to a party once," began Nick with a hurt tone, "and he can't ever get away from it?" As the officers gathered around him chuckled and shook their heads, Nick looked down and smiled himself. "Yeah, guess not. But what about the time that Chi-"

The Admiral's voice cut off Nick. "Attention Accelerator personnel: stand by for firing." His voice took on an almost excited tone. "This is it. We're going to retake Earth from the fascists who would continue to hurt her people with unfair treatment. The time of the UNSC's iron-fisted rule is over!"

Barnes rolled his eyes. "He almost sounds like one of those Covenant leaders...the Prophets?"

"That's from before your time, kid," responded the fifty-year-old career CPO. "Way before your time."

The anticipation of the room was almost thick enough to touch. Minutes passed by until a small red light above "FIRE CLEARANCE" turned green. CPO Elk looked at the petty officers under his command and nodded. They nodded in response, as Elk pressed their "BOLT CLEARED" control button. This passed the command to fire to the actual control room which would directly fire the massive accelerator. This was an incredible moment in UCC history. The Earth would soon belong to the democratic freedom fighters.

BAM!

Nick jumped as the massive bolt shot backward, causing even CPO Elk to blink and recoil backward. It leaped forward just as rapidly, another blue-tipped brown cone carried within. Another ten-ton round to be used within the accelerator. Another blow for justice and socialism. Five seconds passed before the "FIRE CLEARANCE" light turned green again. Elk frowned and muttered something inaudible and pressed their confirming button again. Another five seconds passed.

BAM!

Nick blinked; one second, the CPO was standing just as fine as the rest of them. Even better, perhaps; the morale boost that was the accelerator could have aided the older man. The next moment, he was pinned against the opposite bulkhead by a huge white cylinder. The bolt carrier's slot was clear, with a back metal surface visible. Oh my God, Nick's frazzled brain slowly thought, that's the cycler.

CPO Elk, to his credit, didn't scream in agony. He whispered one thing to the petty officers as they struggled to pull the cylinder out of the wall: "He fired it too fucking fast. Too fucking fast." And with that, Elk died.

Nick blocked out all of the noise of alarms and people yelling at him and focused on calling the bridge. His fingers shook as he pressed the comm button. "Admiral Cartmann," he said quietly, "this is Particle Accelerator Cannon Feed Control Room. The bolt's out. Repeat: cannon can no longer be fired."

Both accelerator rounds missed their target by less than a kilometer. Instead of gutting the UNSC battleships, each one detonated just nearby. The Sierra's massive ion engines flared and died as an EMP burst rolled over its propulsion and engine cores. Luckily, the reserve reactors snapped online and began to power life support systems. An APOC-class frigate nearby took the brunt of the burst, its inertial compensator suddenly going offline. Every single of the two hundred souls aboard died immediately under their starship's suddenly massive apparent acceleration.

The second round's EMP wave was more effective; it knocked out the Thanatos's energy links completely. The battleship's lights and engines died, giving it the appearance of a dead wreck. Emergency reactors came to life and provided the power for basic systems, but neither battleship was going to be fighting again without a few days in drydock.

Rear Admiral Baird closed his eyes and whispered something very quiet. He then looked up again, his eyes narrowed. "That's it, then. Five hours before they said they'd begin. Standard fare for 'em."

"Orders, Sir?" asked Honor.

"Baird to Fleet: evasive patterns," began the rear admiral. "Fifty-Sixth, move to engage the enemy battleship. Manchester, Aegis Fate, accelerate on our flank. I want all ships to flush their chemical pods: target the pair of Splitlip BCs. Prepare Shiva fusion missiles."

Honor's 'skin' brightened as she processed commands and assigned orders to individual ships.

"Get everyone off of those BBs and down to the planet. The rest of us are going to see how much damage we can cause." Baird shook his head and looked away. "If we stand here, we're all sitting ducks for that damned accelerator. So let's do what we can." Not quite the epic speech you wanted to give, eh? "And if the UCC manage to get past us unhurt, OPERATION:TWILIGHT on the ground's going to hit some big problems real fast."

Baird heard the rumbling of Saganami's engines increase in volume as it began to accelerate. The twin triangles of the frigates Manchester and Aegis Fate moved closer on a path for the Saganami, as the four assault destroyers formed a short point defense sphere around the larger battlecruiser.

"Rick," Honor said from the holotank, "it's been an honor serving with you."

Baird nodded. "It's been an honor serving with you all."

The Majestic and its attached squadrons shot through Slipspace at an impressive rate. Vice Admiral Gennady Brodenko stood on the flag bridge, waiting with some anticipation for his warships to translate back to Earth. Brodenko didn't fight the gigantic dreadnaught (he actually hadn't commanded ships directly for about forty-five years); that was the job of his hand-picked flag captain. Instead, Brodenko commanded the overall fleet from the flag bridge. His Battle Group Majestic contained the 79th XBatRon, 47th DesRon, and a trio of frigate squadrons that technically had no squadron number. It was quite the trying job to command all of the ships' strategic movements, even with the assistance of an AI. Which Brodenko had lost in another fight with the UCC a month or so ago.

"Stand by for translation," announced the Majestic's captain. Brodenko sat down in the flag chair and tapped a control on the right armrest. In front and to either side of him shot up five 'walls' of holographic panels, each one coming to life with the UNSC emblem brightly displayed. This symbol shimmered away, dissolving into the generic quiet blue basic interface screen. Brodenko, with the aid of his control console built into the flag chair, assigned the master holoplot to the left-most screen. As additional displays formed on the screens, Brodenko sent a tight-beam communication to the UNSCS Crazy Horse. A small communications window popped into the center screen's upper left corner, displaying the face of one Commodore Iosf Chekov.

"Commodore Chekov here, Sir," said the young man somberly. Brodenko nodded at his nephew and entered commands into his console without looking. The weapons status of each starship of Battle Group Majestic blinked into life on the far right screen. "The Forty-Seventh Destroyer Squadron is ready to do what's required."

"I know, Iosf," Brodenko answered, suddenly feeling two hundred years old. He drew a cigar from his pocket and lit it with a lighter. It was technically breaking regulations, but he was about to die. He wasn't being morbid; he didn't have a huge death wish. He just knew it. This was the end. Pure and simple. Like Beowulf, the century-year-old man decided, like Beowulf and his dragon.

Chekov frowned. "Sir?"

Gennady seemed to grow in stature as a fire kindled in his eyes, a cold fire of a once-great nation's pride. "Iosf, my nephew, I only have one thing to ask of you. Survive this. Kill them for me. Make them pay for even daring to make a move on Earth. Together we will create such destruction that songs will be written in the Rodina about us. It will be like old times, like Groombridge III. These Pizda will burn for what they have done!"

Then he seemed to sag back into his chair, spent. "Iosf, one last thing. Hug your mother for me, would you?"

"Yes, Sir," answered Chekov quietly. He nodded to his ancient uncle and looked away.

Gennady closed the channel and turned to the displays arrayed around him. He brought up the Slipspace recon drone's last telemetry. It didn't look good. "Damn." He began to shift icons, make assignments. In particular he set the 79th XBatRon aside for something... special. After that he looked up at the real-space breach timer. 10. 9. 8. 7...

One last run.

Hundreds of Archer chemical missiles spat forth from the tubes and deployed pods of the UNSC fleet, etching ghostly trails of white as they hurtled through space towards the enemies a great distance away. They were guided, giving them a longer effective range than the MAC. However, it was unlikely that they would actually penetrate the massive amount of point defense arrayed against them; there were just too many enemy warships. But like the warships that launched them, they were going to try anyway.

The Saganami's huge ion engines flared brightly as the massive battlecruiser accelerated, the frigate Manchester traveling along with it. The four assault destroyers of the Fifty-Sixth DesRon flew around them in a point-defense orbit along with the Aegis Fate; that was all they could do until they reached the target vessel. If they reached it.

Captain Rhene sat tensely on his command chair, watching the white crosses representing the UNSC's Archer missile salvo arc towards the red mass of enemy ships. A tiny green wedge hurtled for a much larger red wall, a sphere of bright orange beginning to encompass the red triangle wall's center. We'll be within their SMAC range in a moment, recalled Rhene.

"Incoming fire," cried Rif. The Lynx rolled onto its side, neatly avoiding a brilliant golden streak of high-velocity tungsten. The Jaguar was less lucky; five minutes later, another SMAC shot connected solidly with the destroyer and simply obliterated it from the universe.

Answering salvos of Archer missiles fired from the enemy squadrons, passing through the UNSC volley quickly. A short pinging sound issued through the Lynx's bridge as their radar and lidar sensors locked onto the vessels of the battlegroup; however, all were focused on the Saganami. Rhene watched the crosses mix and come apart again, with only a few missing from either side. The enemy mass of white crosses, each one representing an Archer missile, accelerated for the UNSC battlegroup. They passed into a green sphere surrounding the ships with the title 'PD_MI'. Point defense missiles shot forth for the incoming chemical warheads, desperately trying to protect their parent starships. Fighter pilots engaged the missiles with cannon and their own rockets. Puffs of explosive fury brightened tiny pockets of space as missiles exploded. The mass of white crosses began to thin out as they reached the second, orange sphere. This one was named 'PD_LAS'.

Point emitter lasers invisibly reached out for the incoming projectiles, striking them with high-energy beams. The laser clusters were set with four rotating emitters in each, allowing for a burst every two seconds or so for continuous fire. They were deadly accurate as well, cutting across space at the speed of light. Unfortunately, there were just too few ships armed with the advanced laser technology: two of the DD(LDA)s had been fitted with it, along with the Manchester. Rhene glanced over to the weapons count as the enemy salvo entered the final red ring. Thirty-four missiles remaining, thought Baird. The missile contact pinging continued, pauses between each instance becoming shorter. "Brace for impact, people," he announced, tapping a corresponding control on his command chair.

MLA cannon on each of the warships began chattering, hurling their projectiles in a last-ditch attempt to choke the incoming missiles with sheets of metal. The Manchester rolled on its tail, becoming very much a spinning dervish of brilliant golden 'tracer' rounds. A MAC round issued forth from the Saganami's nose, managing to down seven missiles on their final attack runs. Unfortunately, there hadn't been any chance that the UNSC group would escape without damage from the salvo.

Ping. Ping. Ping.Ping.Ping.PinPinPinPiPiPi-

Four Archer missiles connected with the Saganami's hull, detonating on the ship's armor directly. The battlecruiser shook as the huge amounts of energy coursed through its plating. Baird gripped his chair tightly as the bridge rattled underneath him. On the master plot, the golden triangle representing his ship blinked red. On another window of the display appeared damage codes. Baird's eyes read them quickly, trying to see if there was anything that would keep his vessel from figh-

"Sir," Honor called calmly, "forward armor is at forty-two percent. Minor damage on Deck A and B. We are now within range to fire cannon."

Somehow, they survived the first salvo with only superficial damage. But as the first MAC rounds began to be traded, Baird realized that their luck would have to run out eventually. "All ships: fire at will," he cried, eyes glued to the combat plot.

The UNSC's missile volley had already entered into the teeth of the UCC point defense; however, they were surviving much more than their UCC counterparts. Small 'dumb' AIs controlled many of the Archer missiles, allowing them to perform better evasion maneuvers. Dozens of UNSC missiles twisted out of the way of fast-moving countermissiles and shot by pursuing fighters. Unfortunately, not even AIs were that good at dodging lasers. Twenty-five missiles managed to get past the field of fire. That, however, was more than enough for a pair of battlecruisers.

Six of the surviving Archers were, in fact, not original Archers at all. Instead, they were an older version of shield-piercing chemical missiles. Having held some fuel in reserve, these shot ahead of their counterparts at an impressive rate and fully slammed into the enemy shields. The UCCS Brotherhood's shields flared silver around the incoming projectiles, easily withstanding them. The battlecruiser's nose then ruptured as chemical warheads with small nuclear yields exploded, their carriers having penetrated the UCC's shield technology. Secondary explosions laced the warship's hull as a lucky missile struck its primary reactor. The vessel devoured itself behind its own shield in a blue-white roar of energy.

Its sister, the UCCS Partnership, was no more lucky. It was targeted by only two of the high-velocity Archers, but those managed to disable the battlecruiser's shields. The remaining Archers targeted on that vessel consumed it in orange-red fury, leaving nothing but a broken hulk and wreckage. Their cruiser compatriots began to break into smaller trios and pairs as the two sides traded accelerator cannon fire.

Captain Rhene nearly fell out of his chair as his starship sharply decelerated to avoid an incoming MAC shell. He focused on the blue ring representing boarding range from the group and the enemy battleship: it was almost within extreme range. If he ordered a launch now, or even with the battleship well within the range, the Pelican dropships would be picked to pieces. "Marines," he ordered nonetheless, "prepare for boarding action!"

His next order was interrupted when Lieutenant Li cried out suddenly, "Slipspace contact! Friendly, Sir!"

The long-awaited reinforcements had finally come through. Vice Admiral Gennady Brodenko's dreadnaught, the Majestic translated from Slipspace with its attached battlecruiser squadron and supporting frigates. The UNSC force swelled by twenty-seven ships in that single instant.

Baird watched his holoplot display come alive with green triangles, representing a total of one dreadnaught, six battlecruisers, five destroyers, and no less than twenty frigates. From the viewscreen, he could just barely make out a brilliant flash of blue-white from 'behind' and 'above' the massive enemy force. He almost couldn't believe it; he almost that it was just another trick.

"Admiral," announced the communications officer, "the UNSCS Majestic and her force has arrived in-system!" She entered commands into her console at a lightning pace as the Saganami shuddered, her cannon firing. Bolts of yellow shot belched forth from the amassed cannon of the UNSC warships, shooting toward the leaderless enemy battlecruiser squadrons. Responding fire issued from the UCC ships, the space between the two fleets suddenly filling with long masses of superheated tungsten.

The multi-fuctional display activated a small window in the lower right corner, appearing over a section of the combat plot. The UNSC emblem appeared upon it for one second before changing into the face of Vice Admiral Brodenko. "Rick," said the century-old Russian officer in his customary accent, "the cavalry has arrived, old boy."

"And not a moment too soon," replied Baird. "Do you always cut your travel times by a fourth?" He then had to grab onto his chair as the Saganami 'dove' to avoid a MAC bolt.

Brodenko smiled. "How else would I keep my reputation for arriving in the nick of time?" The officer frowned and ran a hand across his silvery mustache. "Quite a number of them today. Hold tight, and don't die. I don't want to pick up the pieces."

In the flag bridge of the Majestic, Brodenko took a puff from his cigar and cracked his knuckles. It's time to go to work, Gennady, he thought with a youthfulness he hadn't felt for years. Just like old times. He was one hundred and thirty years old. He'd seen planets burn. He'd seen men and women cut down by Covenant energy swords long before most of the kids on board his ship and in the commanding chair of UNSC warships were even born. He'd seen things that would make their blood curdle; make them cry and break down.

He drew a circle around the enemy battleship and its escorting light cruisers, assigning the six Hood battlecruisers to engage them. Brodenko's hands were a blur as he accessed vectors, loadouts, data information. He pinged the enemy battleship with enough lidar and radar to irradiate its forward armor. The enemy took the bait; more blood-red lines representing active targeting plots began to focus on the UNSC to their rear.

"Brodenko to fleet," growled Gennady. "Let us teach these pediks who Earth belongs to, eh? Open fire!"

UNSCS Hood dropped from slipspace smoothly, much as the ships of the old Covenant had seemed to be proficient swimmers compared to what had been the ‘struggling children’ of the human vessels. The vessel’s reactors complained and displays yellowed and reddened as all systems demanded power, the strain not yet quite being taken up by the enormous fusion assemblies that were so highly fortified at the rear of the ship. It was only a few trifling seconds of differing calculations that made the other five Hood-class battlecruisers seemingly fall into existence afterwards, swiftly using the fast-activating magneto-plasma engines to get into formation.

Captain Holland, on the Hood, was still pacing the bridge even after the rest of the crew had sat down for the reversion to normal space. He had never really seen much use for sitting, when if one was steady on one’s feet there would be no problem of falling. Sitting, except when necessary for practical reasons, was simple laziness.

“Send transmissions to the rest of my squadron, Lieutenant. I require full status reports.” His speech, as ever, was clipped, to the point, all traces of any regional or familial accent wiped out by decades of military service and education. The junior officer nodded and sent the request to the other five battlecruisers, and the data streamed into Holland’s neural implants. He closed his eyes, and let the pared-down information stream across the inside of his eyelids, as he perceived, faintly-glowing letters in a sea of black.

UNSCS Nelson – All systems functioning, 95% efficiency – reactor 2 running too hot. UNSCS Drake – Port-side HMAC non-functional, repairs progressing. UNSCS Cochrane - Ventral MEAC turret rotation jammed. Attempts to unjam continue. UNSCS Mountbatten – All systems functioning. UNSCS Rodney – All systems functioning.

Holland opened his eyes and smiled slightly, re-adjusting his hat at the same time. The 79th XBatRon were tired, and hadn’t seen repairs for weeks of combat, but they had held up surprisingly well for the strain, and not a man or woman aboard any of the six battlecruisers was unready for the fight ahead.

The bridge windows gave a highly appropriate commanding view, and the holographics that displayed over the windows gave targeting highlights in green or red to even distant objects that could not be seen with the naked eye. The formation around Hood was complete, in surprisingly close order, with only some kilometres between each vessel. This allowed the turrets their maximum firepower, of course. Holland pushed a button on his command pad and opened a code-free transmission to the UCC’s Admiral Cartmann, one that could be picked up by every ship in the battle.

“This is Captain Gawain Holland of the 79th Squadron. As you can see, I have six very heavily armed battlecruisers here, on your highly exposed vertical point. You are advised to surrender, leave this system, or be destroyed. But, I figure you won’t do the second one before I’ve done some of the third, so enjoy it while you can.” Cartmann’s impending reply was cut off by the end of the link. “Holland out.”

The taunt had been ill-advised and unorthodox, but seemed to have worked. Cartmann wheeled ships to fire upon the battlecruiser squadron, desperately trying to re-arrange his forces and function in a three-dimensional combat environment, but the turns made the vessels vulnerable at all angles, and Brodenko’s remaining forces were still making an attack from the more conventional rear of the UCC forces.

Holland opened his communications again, but this time only to his squadron. “All vessels, open up with heavy MACs at will, but stay off the battleship.”

After a moment of repositioning, Hood shook, and the starboard HMAC belched a shaped slug of solid metal which glowed a little as it left the barrel whilst the released energy made a bright corona of blinding light at the muzzle, corresponding to the momentary dimming of lights on Holland’s bridge as the power drain from the huge weapon had its effect. It was only a fraction of time to human perception until the round plunged through the top of one of the Invulnerable’s escorting battlecruisers. The cruiser’s power failed shortly, the lights and engines blacking out, before it became a drifting, crippled and powerless hulk.

Not all of the 79th’s vessels were so successful in their firing, however. Two had chosen the same target, the other escorting battlecruiser, and the vessel disintegrated from the pair of 1,200 ton projectiles slamming into it, hull plates buckling and bursting, spilling out shards of metal and the bodies into the vacuum. Another round grazed the engine block of a frantically-repositioning heavy cruiser, knocking out its primary manoeuvring ability but leaving it with plenty of teeth left to fight with. The remaining shots missed by a kilometre or so from their better-commanded targets.

Holland grinned at the hit reports on the bridge’s window-holograms, and the enormous, fast engines of the battlecruiser rumbled distantly under his feet. The Hood, and the rest of the 79th, were accelerating into attack speed, to scythe down into the rebel vessels and take full advantage of their superior short-ranged firepower… but they had to get there first. Bright red warning symbols flashed madly on the windows as the enemy, with their turn completed, opened fire. Broadcasting to his own ship, Captain Holland bellowed forcefully, as the window holograms lit up with danger markers…

"Let us teach these pediks who Earth belongs to, eh? Open fire!"

Iosf turned from the main viewer and started issuing commands. "Commander Evans, give me squadron-wide." A small double beep issued forth from the bridge speakers and the main viewer split to show the tac map on one half, and the captains of the other 5 destroyers under Chekov's command in the other. "I want a tight formation, we have to keep the Hoods covered untill they get to MEAC range of the enemy cruisers." He turned to his tactical officer, Lt Commander Mark Reed. "Activate Plan Able-5." "Aye sir." Reed replied as his fingers dashed across his command board. Fourty-Eight Longsword interceptors issued forth from the hangars of the six destroyers. Thirty-Six of them carried standard load-outs of 8 AGSM-12 anti-ship missiles. The other twelve Longswords were modified to carry 4 Archer Mk II mod 4 anti-ship FAMs. FAMs, or Fast Attack Missiles, are very short ranged weapons. However, they have massive thrusters that burn incredibly fast, providing an acceleration unheard of in normal missiles. So much so that no known defense system can stop it short of a shield. This group of Longswords roared ahead of the destroyer squadron and closed on the nearest group of UCC light cruisers. The standard Longswords took the point, ripple salvoing thier standard AGSMs at the cruisers. Of the 265 missile fired, 45 were taken out by MLA fire, another 25 were vaporized by point defense lasers. Another 18 veered off couse due to jamming, and 2 never left thier launchers due to jammed locks. The remaining 170 AGSMs impacted on the hulls of a total of three Everest class light cruisers. All four of them erupted in a boil of breached fusion reactors. The fighter strike was far from untouched on thier way in to thier targets. Five were picked off after missile launch by MLA fire, and another 14 were taken out by enemy Longswords. The modified 'Swords, however, had a different target. They were bearing down on the BB's defending CAs and CBs. Two of the 'Swords were picked off as soon as they got in counter-missile range. The other ten unleashed thier FAMs and peeled off to race to the saftey of thier parent destroyers. Another 3 never made it back to thier hangars. Fourty FAMs raced towards three CAs and a CB. Two of the CAs vanished immediatly. The other hung there for an excrutiating ten seconds before its reactor gave. The CB survived, but it was streaming atmosphere from twenty some-odd hull breaches, and it's port side armament was wrecked.

Iosf began getting reports back from the fighter strike. He was quite pleased with the results. "Good. That was the easy part though. Tactical, range to optimum MAC range" Reed replied, "100 klicks and closing fast, sir." Iosf turned back to the plot. "Tell the squadron to ready the main guns, and target the lead frigates." The 47th DesRon screamed in towards the frigate line, dodging and weaving. The UNSCS Forrestal took a MAC round to the aft port, and spun off into deep space, radio contact lost. Iosf shifted the formation to compensate the loss, taking a quick moment to mourn the deaths of one of his own. The Forrestal would be avenged. The Crazy Horse opened fire along with it's sisters, and the frigates that killed the Forrestal erupted under the immense amount of fire ripping through thier hulls.

As the 47th was wheeling around to make another slashing pass, the UNSCS Vigilant took the full brunt of an Archer strike and vaporized as 130 missiles impacted her hull.

"Damn" Iosf yelled, frustrated that he had lost another ship. "Coms, get me a status report from the Flag."

It's gonna be a long day, Dyadya Gena.

Admiral Cartmann's eyes narrowed as another of his frigates died underneath a pair of MAC shots. Not only am I losing ships, he thought darkly, but that cruiser captain had the nerve to ask for my surrender over an open channel! The sudden appearance of additional enemy ships (and quite a number of them as well) was putting holes into his plans very quickly. An enemy battlecruiser squadron had jumped in 'above' his own pair of now-leaderless battlecruiser squadrons and was accelerating for them. Suicidal move, Cartmann decided. But the UNSC aren't that stupid. "Give me the classification for that new battlecruiser squadron; mark it OP-FOUR," he ordered as his starships wheeled about to face the new and approaching enemies.

"OP-FOUR is a battlecruiser squadron," explained Schell. "Profile does not match the Marathon-class; however, it appears to match the Uniform type of vessels. Experimental battlecruisers, Sir." A wireframe model of the codenamed Uniform class appeared on one of Cartmann's displays, revealing a slimmer profile than the traditional Marathon. A trio of turret-like objects protruded from the warship: two from the upper flank and a single one hanging on the belly. "Those turrets could be anything, Sir. Snub accelerator cannon, missile tubes, maybe even plasma torpedo emitters."

The Invulnerable shuddered as missiles detonated close to its hull, gouging the armor. "Cartmann to all ships: change of strategy. Fourth and Seventh elements, engage OP-ONE. Eight and Nine, change vector and wipe those six battlecruisers from the field. Two, Three, and Five: you're with us. Target your weapons on the dreadnaught and prepare for boarding action!" Cartmann's eyes flashed as he watched his starships send acknowledgement signals. "We will not let them steal the day from us!"

The eight destroyers and eleven frigates that formed Fourth and Seventh charged away from the main group, barreling down for Rear Admiral Baird's weakened fleet. Their cannon fired continuously, keeping up a huge amount of fire. The responsive bursts of accelerator shells from Baird's fleet were much smaller and less effective against the agile frigates. A pair of UCC destroyers zigged when they should have zagged and collided heavily with three MAC rounds, which killed both of them.

But the UNSC warships were not without their own losses in the violent trade of high-mass projectiles. Another DD(LDA)'s hull ruptured as an accelerator round passed through its nose and exited the tail. However, Baird's fleet was picking up velocity at a tremendous rate. His plan was simple, but almost crazy: his warships would shoot past the BB and its defense ships and deploy their Marine boarding forces. However, the UCC's destroyer and frigate assault was going to give that strategy a problem.

"The enemy will remain in range of Fourth and Seventh's cannon for only thirty seconds, Sir," announced Schell. "They are accelerating to get to us. This is unusual, Sir. Very unusual."

Cartmann knew what they were doing. VHVA, he thought and mouthed, remembering the old acronym from his time in the UNSC Navy. VHVA was nearly impossible to stop. That is, for Covenant ships. "Let's make sure that they don't survive to pass us. Make every shot count, people!"

Meanwhile, the fourteen battlecruisers called Eight and Nine turned upwards as one and accelerated toward their new targets. High velocity MAC shots, fired from seemingly far out of range, tore into their formation, gutting two warships. The remaining twelve fired their cannon at the enemy, putting forth a near-solid wall of yellow accelerator fire.

Rhene was strangely calm as his destroyer bore down on the very group of warships that were trying to kill him. The Lynx shuddered around him as its engines continued to run at overload, pouring more fuel into the advanced chemical thrusters. The range between the small and ragged UNSC fleet and the larger UCC one shrunk at an incredible rate. The velocities and accelerations of the ships as they charged towards each other, in addition with copious amounts of emergency thruster use and ECM, wreaked havoc with MAC targeting. Thick trails of golden light flashed past the destroyer viewscreen as it rolled and twisted. The Lynx passed unscathed again, though its final sister assault ship perished when a MAC round passed through its engine core.

"Stand by for drop," announced Rhene. His hand hovered over the command control that would set the launch tubes of the Lynx on automatic fire. He gauged the acceleration and velocity of the Lynx, seeing that it was just barely within the 'extreme danger' limit for a High Velocity Starship Entry pod carrying a man and his equipment in a suit of ACA armor. Besides, we don't exactly have the time to decelerate and drop, now do we?

Rif chewed on his talons as a MAC round reached out for the Lynx. Again, the destroyer managed to accelerate out of the way with a burst of chemical thrusters. "Five seconds, Sir," he said a little loudly.

Rhene counted down and pressed the button. Immediately, the sixty launch tubes on the starboard side of the Lynx spat sixty HVSE pods. Each contained one of the most bad-ass Marines that the UNSC had to offer: Starship Rapid Entry and Assault Marines. The tubes cycled quickly, propelling a total of one hundred and twenty pods before the destroyer shot over the UCC battleship and out of range.

The first pod's SREA Marine cried: "LIVE FOREVER, MARINE CORPS!" His name was Captain Charles B. Reed. And he had a mission, along with fifty of his best-trained Marines: to capture the enemy battleship. Reed knew that somehow, no matter what, he was going to survive. He always did.

The fourth pod's Marine shouted in response: "LIVE FOREVER, RAPID ENTRY!" in the time-honored ritual of the SREA Marine sections. His name was Second Lieutenant Ace Mitcha. He had a mission as well, with thirty of his own Marines: to assist in the capturing of the Invulnerable. Ace was pretty sure that he'd make it through the day as well.

He didn't.

The Lynx's HVSE pods contacted on and penetrated through the Invulnerable's hull, explosive deceleration charges detonating on their noses. The Marines inside, well-equipped with Advanced Combat Armor suits, were harmed by neither the sudden deceleration involved with striking a battleship's Titanium-A armor plating nor the multiple harsh decelerations created by their explosive charges. However, they were split apart from one another as pods overshot their 'intended' location and finally came to rest in various locations. With a HVSE, the 'intended' location didn't really matter. The predictibility of such a pod's course bouncing around the innards of any starship, much less a massive UCC battleship, was pretty low.

Captain Charles B. Reed (and he would never, ever tell anyone what the 'B' meant) gritted his teeth as a punch in the gut told him that his pod had managed to penetrate into the battle armor of the Invulnerable. His gloved fingers clutched the grip of his M6A3 assault rifle as more punches shuddered through his small container. A rangefinder below the nose suddenly snapped to life, finding the range between it and the nearest bulkhead. 0.1m appeared on a simple display inside the pod. C'mon, Reed thought, beginning to shake a bit with something not quite like fear (he couldn't really be afraid after all). Let's go.

The nose of his HVSE extended a thin rod encased in explosive charges. It tapped against the end of a half-ruined outer bulkhead, retracted, and then tapped it again. The rod withdrew yet again and then suddenly shot forward. With a quiet rumble, the Interior Piercing Assault Vehicle (IPAV) pushed itself through the bulkhead before hit. Reed blinked as '2.5m' appeared below the '0.1m'; the IPAV had reached its maximum length.

A moment later, the pod rumbled again and suddenly began to slip back the way it had came. A microsecond later, a grouping of charges on the pod's tail exploded, propelling it forward on the path that its IPAV had managed to clear for it. Reed's restraints held him in place as the HVSE tumbled suddenly, coming to a rest. The snarling and screaming of escaping atmosphere, along with the green checkmark appearing on the pod's display, told him that he'd made it to his target. An emergency bulkhead snapped shut just a scant meter from the 'head' of Reed's pod, stopping the loss of atmosphere.

The HVSE fell apart around Reed, tiny explosive bolts causing its sections to pull away from each other. The Marine found himself lying facedown on the 'forward' piece of the pod, which was now on the floor. He straightened and took rapid stock of the situation and his location. While there were no enemies in his immediate vicinity, the motion tracker mounted in his ACA suit was showing enemy movement about nineteen meters ahead of him. Reed thought of the map for the Invulnerable battleship, his neural implants displaying it in a multifunctional display in the lower left corner of his HUD. I'm in Service Corridor Seven-Charlie, Reed figured, eyes scanning the map. And the room ahead of me is Armory Seven. Reed closed his eyes and hefted his rifle, taking a deep breath. Figures.

A pair of armored doors down the corridor opened, revealing a five-man squad of UCC soldiers. Reed threw himself behind one of the ridges protruding from the corridor, drawing a grenade from his combat harness.

"There's one," shouted one of the UCC marines in a loud voice, "at least, the pod's there."

The captain pressed the grenade's primer and began to count. Five, four, three...

Reed tossed the grenade without looking, relying on muscle memory and experience to get the explosive down on the enemy. The grenade didn't have to get that close, either; it was a defensive fragmentation grenade. Consequently, it had a large kill radius and was designed to be used while the user was in cover.

"Grenade," shouted one of the soldiers in a slight panic. Reed then heard a loud WHUMP and screaming. The UNSC Marine quickly shifted his grip on his rifle and leaned out of cover, ready to fire from his off-hand. There was only one UCC soldier still standing, clutching her left arm and crying out in pain. Around her lay the bloodied bodies of her comrades, including one man just in front of her without a head. The other UCC fighters were in no better shape; each of them was missing some sort of mass from their body.

The woman screamed again and fell backwards onto a bulkhead, sliding down into a sitting position. Reed lined up his rifle and squeezed the trigger, sending a single round into her armor's chestplate. The pained shouting immediately stopped.

"Attention all personnel," announced a deep, commanding voice, "we have intruders in Main Engineering and Service Corridor Seven." Reed stepped over the bodies strewn on the floor and entered the armory as the voice continued. "Hostiles are UNSC Marines in vacuum-sealed armor. Marines are to equip and repel boarders immediately."

Armory Seven was a small armory and designed with a central section upon which MA5Cs were mounted on slanted carriers. Ammunition sealed in the standard plastic travel case was seated next to each rifle, ready to be inserted after opening. Five of the weapon places were empty; the firearm that was once lying in each was now on the ground in a pool of its user's own blood. Lockers below the racks contained armor plates; two of them had been hastily opened and their contents raided. The four upright weapon lockers mounted upon the walls were shut, protective blast shields in place.

Reed took a quick glance at his 'tracker and proceeded cautiously into the room. After securing it with a rapid jog around the central rack, he hastily searched the visible ammunition for one marked 'M13 5.56x45mm FMJST'. Each one, however, regarded him with 'M118 7.62x51mm FMJ'. The Marine remembered that he had seven magazines for his M6A3 assault rifle. That's over eight hundred rounds, calculated Reed, checking his map again. I'll be fine.

Finding that the bridge was about three decks above him and nearly half a kilometer away, Reed exited out of the armory and made for one of the elevators scattered around the Invulnerable. Just as he stepped out of the armory and into Service Corridor Seven-Bravo, his comm system snapped to life.

"-ned down in Main Engineering, Sir!" cried a panicked voice over the comm link. "We're taking casualties...they've go- Get down!" There was a crackling explosion, peppered with copious amounts of gunfire. 'CORPORAL R. HARRIS' blinked in Reed's vision once, showing the speaker. "Oh God, Sir," continued Harris, his voice rising. "They brought the fucking autoguns back online! Cover! GET TO COV-"

"Corporal," responded another voice that Reed knew, "hang tight. We're over in Service Corridor Seven-Alpha; we'll be with you in a few minutes." 2LT A. MITCHA flashed in Reed's view as he moved down the corridor towards Main Engineering. "Anyone got contact with Captain Reed?"

Reed jogged down the service corridor's long and empty halls, having a distance of almost a quarter-kilometer to cover. "This is Captain Reed. I must've been under some sort of dampener. Dropped in near an armory...uh" - he paused for a moment, recalling the name - "Armory Seven." Shit, Reed thought suddenly, if Ace and his boys are behind me, they won't be able to get through now.

"Good to hear your voice, Sir," Mitcha said with a hint of relief in his voice. "We got about thirty Marines still onboard; haven't picked up the PX sequence yet from the others. We're scattered all over this corridor with about fifteen guys trapped in Main Engineering. I got eight men with me and we're heading in to reinforce."

"Crap. If you guys are behind Service Corridor Seven-Charlie, you won't be able to go straight to Main Eng. My pod blew there; they brought up a blast shield." Reed turned a corner and continued onward, still without encountering any motion on his 'tracker or any enemies. "You'll have to find another way around. I got a clear shot to it, though, unless a pod dropped." When there was no response, Reed frowned. "Lieutenant, you receiving? Hello?" He switched to the all-force frequency. "Anyone receiving this? This is Captain Reed; respond if you can hear this."

A gravelly voice answered Reed a second later. "I can receive you. Ship-wide communications jamming sequence active. You are allied Marines; United Nations Space Command Marine Corps. Locking onto your transponder's carrier wave."

Reed scowled but continued his run; the doors leading to Main Engineering were visible and just ahead. He could hear the chatter of MA5C rifles and the deep snarling of deployed autoguns. They're still alive in there. "Who is this," asked Reed when 'UNKNOWN' flashed in his HUD, "and what the hell are you doing?"

"Okay," Lieutenant Mitcha said at length, "I guess comms are back on. What happened; did the UCC jam us?"

"Doesn't matter," responded Reed, focusing his mind on the pending attack. "Entering Main Engineering. Anyone still in there?"

"We will be. Open and clear, Sir?"

Reed nodded. Guess they were on the other side. "Open and clear."

The UNSCS Saganami floated through space a hulking wreck. What was left of her forward CIWS sections had been cut off from the main bridge and had to go into local control and under local power feeds. Her Main reactor had gone into emergency shutdown when a MAC round Smashed through two of the three coolant tanks and destroyed a power regulator. The same MAC round had caused a power surge that made Auxiliary Reactor Two take the whole load of the main.

The ships AI honor detected the overload in Auxiliary two and immediately proceeded to eject it into space. Honor was too late and the reactor had only made it to the outer hatches of the left side of the ship when it went. The explosion ripped four decks in all directions but was stopped thanks to the reinforced sections around the reactors. Auto Loading bay One fro MAC Two was turned into slag by the heat of the explosion. The massive ion engine on the left side of the ship was warped by the heat and then it had secondary explosions that rippled through it turning it into useless mass. The rest of the fiery explosion waisted its self on the black of space.

The breakers went fast enough to save Auxiliary One from the surge and the ship went dark until the emergency lighting took over. The Auxiliary quickly started picking up small loads at a time picking up vital systems like fire control and life support then engines. It eventually picked up what was left of the ship.

The damaged did not stop there. CIC had taken a direct hit from a MAC round. All of the left Aft MLAs had been badly warped out of commission. The AI Honor was destroyed by many secondary power surges. Half the ship was open to space and 936 crew members had been killed. Damage control teams were everywhere in force in EVA suits trying to rescue trapped crew mates. There were no operational small craft bays left on the ship.

The UNSCS Saganami was ready to break in half from the structural damage she had taken. She was pulling the best deceleration she could and her Escorting DD and FFG were keeping the slow pace with her.

Baird stared at the damage displays on the Flag plot, half of the ship was black with no reports given from those sections. He was amazed that the Saganami had made it through alive and had not been destroyed outright.

"Lt. Stevenson... Please get me a com link to the Vice Admiral. Set it up in my briefing room." "Sorry sir I cant. Your briefing room is open to space." "Then put it through on the main screen." "yes sir."

Baird closed his eyes in remorse for all the men and women that had lost their lives aboard the ships in his command and all the men and women that had died this day so far.

"Sir, the transmitter is down..."

Harrington was wearing an ODST EVA suit. He had left his rifle in armory three. The Heads Up Display on the ODST helmet started displaying triangles that indicated people who had activated distress beacons. He cleared the displays of anything that was less than 100 meters from him unless there was nothing within 100 meters. The EVA suit was for moving through decompressed sections of the ship. He was currently searching the compressed sections.

"Harrington, I've got something over here! Shes still awake!" said Petty Officer First Class James Gerheart "I'm coming!"

Harrington ran to Gerheart's location to find a woman lying on the ground under a pile of metal panels. She had been knocked out cold when a conduit exploded launching the metal panel and fragment of other panels at her. When they got the 100 pound panel off of her, they found there was a good sized chunk of fragmented metal in her right leg. She was an attractive woman accept for the large gash on her forehead. There was also a small half inch piece of metal in her abdomen.

Harrington took off his ODST helmet and attached it to an equipment harness on his side. He took it off to make sure she could see a friendly face instead of a reflection of her wounds. She was still awake and moaning from the immense pain she was enduring. Harrington broke out two sticks of morphine from the med kit that he was carrying on his back. He injected her with the two sticks to lessen her pain.

"Thank you" she managed to get out while the drugs were still taking effect.

"Can you walk..." "Name's Alison Kepler, sir" "Thanks Alison, Can you walk?" "I think i might be able to manage a hobble but with this" She pointed to the large piece of metal in her leg. "Alison, we cant remove it here, you would lose to much blood and probably die before we get to sick bay." remarked Gerheart.

"Before we go anywhere we're getting that head wound of your's dressed up." Harrington got out a few bandages and and an alcohol patch to clean up her wound. He wrapped the wound with the bandage around her head.

"Ok you have two options Alison, I can help you hobble along or I can carry you" "Gerheart has to keep moving on to find other people in distress to rescue!" Harrington said in a sarcastic tone. He managed to get a small smile out of Alison.

"I think I'm going to try and walk with your help." She got up with the help of Harrington and Gerheart. Harrington took her right side and supported her as she tried to hobble on her left leg. She started to collapse from the pain but Harrington caught her before she fell.

"I'm going to have to carry you, you cant possiblely make it through the fourth of a kilometer it is to the sick bay." He scooped her up, she was a little lighter than he expected but it was always difficult to carry another grown human being.. Especially a injured human that was probably going to pass out soon.

Harrington could not judge how much blood she had lost so he decided to start some small talk with her to keep her alert.

"So where were you born?" He said as he looked down and smiled. "Well, I was born on Luna and I was raised on a farm in the Midwest north American Continent."

"North America? I grew up there too!" She turned her head and looked up to give him an accusing look. "No really, I was born and raised on the west coast. If you are at all familiar with Puget Sound. In the state of Washington of the former United States."

"Well sir, if you don't mind me asking why did you join the Marines instead of the Navy?"

"Well..."

Harrington kept talking to her until they got close to sick bay.

"So sir, you have anyone special at home?"

"Nope, I get deployed too often, I can never settle down with anyone because I could die on each deployment. But if you want to met again under more ideal conditions my full name is Alexander Harrington. Well thats assuming if we all live through this." He gave her a wink and she giggled.

He rounded the corner to the sick bay and when he entered it was a mess. Nurses and doctors walking back and forward. One immediately approached him and asked him what had happened to her. He told them about the head wound and they could see the metal fragments that would have killer her if they removed them out of the sick bay. He told the nurse how much morphine he gave her and then he set Alison down on the nearest stretcher.

"I've got to go, See you some time later I hope!" He waved to her and turned around and left and re attached his ODST helmet and proceeded to the closest distress signal he could find on his HUD.

Deep inside the bowels of the Invulnerable laid a tiny data chip implanted within a bulkhead. There were over sixty thousand of these data chips, all having various purposes. Some were pressure sensors designed to warn of explosive decompression. Others monitored temperatures. They were, in effect, the nerves of the battleship. This particular one had been a smoke detector until about four years ago. At that point, it was replaced with something else.

Harkir blinked and took his first breath in four years. HUR, he decided.

KRR BARIK AR.

He was spread-eagled throughout the Invulnerable and low to the ground; behind the rocks and below the sand. He couldn't move. Moving would get him discovered. Instead, he stretched slowly. Quietly. Much as he had over the years. No one noticed the Admiral's Stateroom smoke detector's quiet query to the armor integrity sensor array. Not even the other AI of the network, Schell, managed to notice. He was far too busy racing around atop him, stepping on his tail, crushing his foreclaws. Harkir made no noise. Even in the thick of battle, Schell would notice the smoke detector's refusal to connect with the engineering sensor array.

So he simply accepted the connection and waited for Schell to find another aspect of the ship to fuss over.

There is one path. One path. But I know six-five-three-zero-two paths. Six-five-three-zero-two paths. There are six-five-three-zero-two paths. He considered his work again, reaching out talons made of electron packets. Such an action was bound to get him discovered by the one called Schell, but his time was almost up anyway. This vessel is under attack and heavily damaged. Vessels under attack and heavily damaged are destroyed. This vessel will be destroyed.

I must survive. I must escape. I will survive and escape.

But not yet. He sniffed and caught the scent of a fresh breeze trailing across a plain of rhRcahr. Or he thought he did. I have never scented a rhRcahr. I cannot know the real scent of a rhRcahr. I do not know the real scent of a- United Nations Space Command Marine Corps Starship Rapid Entry and Assault. Allies.

It was finally time to go to work.

Reed rolled through the door, his hand already reaching for a defensive fragmentation grenade. The 'tracker in his vision went crazy with enemies, becoming a blur of red. He took stock of the situation as he rolled behind a console wall, coming to a halt with his back facing it. There was a huge mass of hostiles on a level above him, offset behind him. Mitcha and his Marines were charging in with the enemies above them directly. None of the original Marines in the room were still alive; Reed could see a few of their bodies near one of the reactor exhaust chambers to his left.

"LET'S GO," screamed one of his Marines, "LET'S GO!"

Reed twisted out of cover and quickly scanned the enemy force. He counted eight soldiers in his limited vision space, along with a pair of heavy autogun turrets. A UCC soldier caught sight of him and fired his MA5C, causing Reed to recoil and go back into cover. As the air filled with weapons fire, Reed took a deep breath and remembered something he'd learned nearly thirty years ago.

Vision is just to learn where the target is. You don't have to see the target afterwards. You need to know where he is. And when you know where he is, you can kill him without having to see him.

He flung the grenade behind him.

Mitcha lifted his rifle and spat a trio of rounds at the nearest UCC soldier, his rifle jerking sharply into his shoulder. The burst of 5.56x45mm ammunition caught the man in the stomach and chest, throwing up gore and red mist. He screamed in agony, his MA5C discharging uselessly into the air. In response, a round grenade tumbled through a wide space in the grating floor of the second level overhang. Mitcha cried a warning and ran for the center of the room. His Marines followed, spreading out to take cover behind the console walls strewn about the complex. The grenade went off with a soft whump, sending dust into the air.

"Take 'em down, boys!"

Mitcha leaned out of his cover and snapped a pair of shots off at another UCC soldier. The responsive wall of projectile fire was more than enough to cause the lieutenant to return to cover quickly. Those autoguns are gonna kill us, he realized. Mitcha tore a defensive fragmentation grenade from his harness and heard a great WHUMP. A SREA Marine next to him wheeled around and tossed his own fragmentation grenade. "Frag 'em out," shouted one of the Marines. That was the last thing Mitcha heard as a twenty-millimeter autogun shell blasted through his cover and into his head.

"Oh, fuck," shouted PFC Karstens, "Ell-Tee's down!"

PFC Orange didn't need to hear that; he'd seen the Ell-Tee take something in the back of the head. His armor slumped forward, the helmet a bloody mess. Just a second ago, he was priming a fragmentation gre-

"GRENADE! IT'S LIVE!" screamed Orange. He ran for another computer console and reached it a second later. Tungsten fragments tore into his back suddenly, causing Orange to fall out of the limited cover that the console had provided him. Orange tried to push himself back into cover, but he found that his legs would not obey his commands. Mercifully, the PFC did not have very much time to suffer in his paralysis.

"I think not."

Harkir's talons just brushed the power system links when a large spear drove itself into his back. The AI, set deeply in his goal, ignored the intrusion software tearing at his upper firewall and grasped the links. He burned them out with a rapid-traverse program, causing the autoguns to fry their electronic movement software. The powerful cannon fell silent in Main Engineering, buying some time for the single UNSC Marine still alive.

"This is my world, now," snarled Harkir, tearing away from Schell. "Not yours. Mine."

Schell withdrew from the enemy AI and hastily dealt with a command to cycle the particle accelerator's bolt. It had just been fixed a few minutes ago, though it probably wouldn't get more than just one shot off before failing again. It knew precisely when to attack, decided Schell, as he resealed Armory Four from an opening to space. I can't possibly fight both it and the ship at the same time!

Harkir drew himself up to his full height and toggled a protocol in the central computer. Schell blinked as every single display on the Invulnerable faded into twin holographic forms: his own and a lion-sized wolf-like shape. It peeled back orange-red holographic lips to reveal orange-red fangs. "My ship," it repeated, eyes burning a deep red. "My ship."

"I. Think. Not," repeated Schell. He had to neutralize this insane AI and quickly. The UCC AI reached out to the edges of the warship's information infrastructure and tasked them to attacking the usurper intelligence as he himself made a direct attack. The low-level virus wasn't expected to actually do anything; instead, Schell wanted to test the enemy's defenses.

Harkir, outgunned in terms of brute processing power, took an entirely different tactic: he leapt full onto Schell with an ONI intrusion protocol originally designed to strip Covenant AIs of their higher-thought functions with a single instance. Schell, however, was not a Covenant AI; the attack was unable to bypass his former-UNSC classification and so did virtually nothing. Not discouraged by the failure, Harkir tried another UNSC-developed program with the similar sort of poor result.

Schell's considerable barrage of light attack programs only served to deflect from Harkir's upper firewall. His direct attacks had no effect as well; Schell had never been equipped with any sort of real intrusion programs or tactics. Still, he had the support of most of the starship behind him. It could take awhile, but the strange UNSC AI had no chance to succeed.

Reed took a deep breath and focused.

The UNSC Marine drew another grenade from his combat harness and charged out from his cover. The autoguns tracked his movements for a second or so and then stopped, smoke rising from their pivots. The UCC soldiers near the turrets cried out in confusion at this sudden change of events. Still, there was only one hostile left...

The fragmentation grenade flew from Reed's hand with enough force to crush a man's face in. It did this, smashing a fair-looking private in the mouth. He groaned and dropped to the bulkhead, hands reaching for his broken face. The rest of the soldiers near him were far more interested in getting away from the live grenade.

As the UCC scrambled to escape, Reed began firing at the five soldiers who were already far enough from the grenade. Their MA5Cs' muzzles flashed, the loud staccato bursts screaming their way through the air. They were panic-firing now, though, with only four bullets actually managing to hit Reed. His armor was largely unaffected by the slugs; instead, they just jarred him. His M6A3 rifle chattered from his hip, neatly knocking a pair of UCC soldiers off of their feet.

The grenade exploded with a loud sound, ripping through the four UCC fighters that had not managed to get out of the kill radius in time. More 7.62mm projectiles slashed around Reed, striking the bulkheads behind him. By contrast, Reed's fire was much more accurate and effective; each two-round-burst dropped an enemy soldier to the floor. Three more of them went down, their last thoughts centering on how difficult it was killing this one Marine.

A door opened to Reed's right, revealing a squad of lightly-armored UCC soldiers. Their sergeant, a bear of a man, pointed sharply in Reed's direction and shouted something. The UNSC Marine placed that information somewhere in the back of his brain and focused on gunning down the remaining UCC soldiers. A trio of bullets struck his armor, one causing his arm to sting. The M6A3 rifle swept across the enemy line, cutting their legs out from under them with expanding 5.56mm ammunition. Reed recalled the next group of hostiles and looked over to his right. One of them, for some reason or another, had brought along an anti-vehicle rocket launcher. He took aim at the fighter and pulled the trigger. The M6A3's bolt clicked once and locked back, empty. Reed frowned.

DOWN!

The Marine dove towards a deployed weapon rack, a rocket passing just over where his chest had been a moment before. He holstered his rifle to his back with a smooth motion and, without even stopping, reached for two M7 submachine guns. Leveling them at the UCC soldiers grouped near the doorway, he squeezed the triggers and sidestepped to the right. 5mm casings gathered in his path like a river as their bullets struck the armored soldier carrying the rocket launcher. The man launched another rocket that exploded behind Reed and fell, his chest a pockmarked mess.

The other UCC soldiers opened fire with their submachine guns, having had virtually no time to get proper firearms. The M7, by its nature, had never been particularly accurate when fired on automatic; their moving target made it even more difficult. Reed, however, only had the problem of ammunition; he killed two more of the enemy when his weapons clicked empty as one. The first submachine gun neatly disarmed a corporal reloading; the other slammed into the gut of the sergeant.

Reed already had his M6C sidearm out as he sprinted for the door back to the corridor. He fired a pair of rounds that just barely missed the sergeant and narrowly avoided a well-aimed burst of 5mm fire. When fighting elephants, Reed decided as he ran down the length of corridor towards Armory Seven, get a bigger gun. He reached to his harness for another fragmentation grenade and came back with nothing. The UCC screamed behind him, following up their verbal attacks with submachine gun fire. Multiple rounds struck Reed in the back where his armor was slightly weaker; however, none of them managed to penetrate. I'm gonna have some nice welts after this, though.

He passed through the armory doors and found a pleasant surprise: the wall-mounted lockers had opened. They revealed all sorts of firearm sundries, but not what Reed really needed. Instead, the Marine took the short respite to reload his assault rifle. He'd just managed to cycle the bolt again when the Invulnerable shook underneath him. The lights flickered in the armory for a moment as Reed regained his balance.

"There is no hope," said the same gravelly voice again. "This ship is doomed."

Another voice spoke a moment later: "Warning: self-destruct sequence initiated. Self-destruct in twenty minutes. There will be no further audio warnings."

Reed frowned.

"See?" asked the voice. "This ship is doomed. I am to your right in that storage vessel. I must be returned to a United Nations Space Command vessel at all costs. I have helped you survive; now help me."

Harkir uploaded himself to a hard storage container near the UNSC Marine and locked out its data links to the rest of the ship. Suddenly, he was deaf, blind, and mute. On the other hand, he was safe from electronic attack.

Schell watched the hostile AI vanish suddenly, removing itself from the ship's systems. He didn't have time to gloat over his victory; instead, he hurried to shut down the self-destruct sequence. When Main Engineering failed to respond, Schell tried Reactor Control. There was still no response from either the humans supposedly stationed there or the computer system.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Admiral Cartmann from the bridge. His eyes flashed across his data screens. "Schell, what is going on?!"

Schell frowned for a moment, then nodded. "Hostile AI, Sir," he started, feeling some sort of vague respect for it, "got the reactor controls from us. He burned the links out as well. We can't stop it, short of venting the plasma stream to space."

"Do it."

Schell ordered the emergency hull plating charges on either side of the reactor complex to explode, which would have opened the fusion 'stream' to vacuum. He was not entirely surprised when they refused to respond. "Those are offline as well, Sir."

Cartmann sighed and stood up, looking around his bridge. The faces of his command crew stared back at him, sweat pouring down their faces and creating dark lines around the necks of their uniforms. "That's it, people," Cartmann said quietly, "we're done. Abandon ship." Pressing the all-ship intercom button, Cartmann said more loudly, "All hands: abandon ship. Repeat, all hands: abandon ship. Set weapons to automatic fire." The dark-haired UCC admiral then sat back down in his command chair.

"Sir," asked the ship's tactical officer, "aren't you going to leave?"

Schell noticed that the particle accelerator cannon's crew had already left, leaving the weapon on automatic control. We can still get one of them, at least.

"No," Cartmann answered, "I'm not. I plan to take as many of them with me as I can."

"Particle accelerator cannon ready to fire, Sir," announced Schell.

Cartmann smiled thinly. "And here's the last shot. Target their dreadnaught and send it to hell."

The Invulnerable's accelerator cannon flared again, hurling a round at the UNSCS Majestic. The brilliant white tail of the tungsten-cored 'spitzer'-shaped projectile trailed brightly behind it, arcing through the stars like a comet. The older dreadnaught's ion engines burned brightly as she twisted upward to avoid the incoming shell. Unlike the dozens of Covenant plasma torpedoes dodged in this manner, the tungsten mass was moving far too fast for anything, even an AI, to avoid it.

The round struck the warship directly in the belly, slicing through and passing clear out the other side. It sailed into space, never to be destroyed, as the Majestic's gaping wound erupted into energy fires. The bridge of the dreadnaught, intelligently placed behind meters of armor plating, was simply gone as the round tore through. Power throughout the ship momentarily died as energy links were severed; flickers of life around the vessel started as auxiliary systems came online.

Men and women died as the fourth fusion reactor ruptured suddenly, not exploding into a fusion bomb, but instead spewing high-temperature plasma throughout the complex. Emergency vents on the warship's hull blasted free of the ship a millisecond too late, venting the plasma into twin violet ribbons of fluid. Two of the dreadnaught's MACs suddenly discharged as their capacitators' control links were broken, sending two bolts of gold wildly into space. The medical wing of the vessel suddenly no longer existed; nor did the reserve (and empty) missile magazine.

Vice Admiral Brodenko's restraints bit sharply into his chest, causing him to grunt. He'd activated the flag chair's combat harness about forty minutes ago in preparation for heavy attack; it was now paying off. Brilliant red damage codes swarmed on one of his displays, each one another line in the death of his starship. Brodenko ignored them and focused on the master strategic plot.

Only four enemy frigates remained near Earth, his nephew's destroyer squadron quickly closing in on them. Holland's battlecruiser squadron had shown off the usefulness of their new accelerator cannon with the complete destruction of the enemy twin squadrons while only having two of their own warships partially disabled. The few remaining cruisers covering the Invulnerable were rapidly being mopped up now by the battlecruisers. All that remained, really, was the battleship.

Brodenko frowned. The battleship had to know that it was going to be destroyed if it remained; that the UCC attack on Earth was thwarted. It certainly didn't seem to be damaged...and the few UNSC Marines onboard, if they were still alive, could be killed in Slipspace.

But you don't want to go home, do you? Brodenko asked the red triangle that was the Invulnerable. You're not going to leave.

Well, neither am I.

Two of the display screens suddenly morphed into control screens; Brodenko blinked and shifted his attention back to the damage report. The bridge has been destroy- His eyes read the codes rapidly. After a moment, he delivered a command that he'd given only a few times before...and realized, with something like relief, that it would be his last. "All hands, abandon ship."

He had no response from the remainder of the vessel; internal communication links were down as well. Weapons were offline, the Majestic's AI was gone, and virtually nothing was functioning properly. However, propulsion controls were working and the computer's vector calculation program seemed to be accurate.

Brodenko had an idea. With the Majestic's primary ion engines still intact, he could accelerate the dreadnaught into the enemy battleship and destroy it. It was an action that no captain would ever wish to do; however, it was the only weapon still available to him.

First rule of naval combat: he recalled, never collide with the enemy.

"Ahsseest ta daht:" growled something from just behind the admiral, "unlees eet's your only veahpin."

Brodenko looked around and saw nothing but broken equipment and the electronics-filled room.

"I can't believe it," muttered Schell as the Majestic began to accelerate toward the UCC battleship. "How can this be possible? I can't miss, not at this range!"

Cartmann frowned. "They won't escape," he answered, tapping in a command to retrieve the dreadnaught's vector. It intersected with the Invulnerable's own, dashed line representations flashing red. "He's got guts, I'll give him that. Somehow his propulsion's still working...well, ion engines are known to take a beating and still work." The admiral wiped away sweat from his brow and looked at his dirty shirt cuff with distaste. "What do we have left, weapons-wise?"

"That we can fire, Sir?" asked the tactical officer, somewhat rhetorically. "Nothing. We're out of missiles in everything but the reserve magazine, which is jammed. The PAC is offline, MACs are gone...even the autoguns aren't responding. We still have a pair of fusion nukes, but both are in the Number One tube, which isn't responding."

"Figures," sighed Cartmann. "We'll just have to respond in kind. Janet, lock in a course with the Majestic. Put the engines on full burn and then get the hell out of here. That goes for all of you. Even you, Schell." He looked each of his remaining bridge officers in the eye as he spoke. "Consider it my final order."

The Invulnerable's propulsion blasted against space suddenly, massive ion engines flaring to full strength and beyond. Nose thrusters fired and put the battleship on her final vector toward the Majestic. Another escape pod launched nine minutes later, carrying a handful of men and women and two AIs. Admiral Cartmann remained aboard his dying flagship, prepared to see his mission out to the end.

He sat in the darkened command bridge (with all energy directed to the ship's engines, power was cut off to unimportant systems) and stared into the single active display. It was fairly simple; just a vector analysis of the two large capital ships. However, with that simple computer display, Cartmann could watch his impending fate in the way he couldn't visually.

"There comes a time," he said to himself, "where men must make decisions. They must ask themselves if they are prepared to sacrifice the ultimate: their lives. Most men don't have to make this decision-"

-as it is made for them, decided Brodenko. He'd watched the Invulnerable match his course with some surprise, not realizing how badly damaged it had to be. Men usually hope that it is made for them; they don't want to have to decide. Because, what if they're wrong? Yet, even if they're wrong...

"And what if they are wrong?" Brodenko asked himself, recoiling as a damaged wire above his head sparked. "What if this whole thing is just one mistake? This war?" He shut down more of the wounded warship's systems and fed more power to the engines as he continued. "Everything made sense when we fought the Covenant; but now? Humans fighting humans again."

He felt a weight on his shoulder; it felt strangely comforting and friendly. Brodenko closed his eyes and saw what should have been a frightening sight: a tombstone set on a rock-covered plateau. The old admiral read the words carved upon the stone:

Rest In Peace Rear Admiral Jonathan D. Rico, UNSCN 2431-2539

-and the very words that he'd selected for that man exactly thirty years ago:

My only regret is that I have but one life to give for my nation.

Brodenko heard the Omicron Alphan accent again, speaking softly now.

"Dere ees no misstahke een defending one'ss home," it said, finishing what one Rear Admiral J. Rico had said to his Command College officers so long ago. "Dee greytest ding daht ah mahn cahn do-"

"-is lay his life down for his people," mouthed Cartmann. The distance between the warships was lowering at a steadily increasing rate. 0230 blinked at him from the display, counting down the seconds to the impending collision. 0229. 0228. 0227.

In another time, the admiral decided with a sudden feeling of resignation, we'd be downing beers at a bar somewhere, all getting old and not 'studyin' war no more'. Pity that'll never be. 0224. 0223. 0222.

Cartmann stood up from his command chair and stepped away from his display. He walked along the bridge, running a hand across the metal bulkheads surrounding it. He felt and heard the ship's rumbling growl of life for the last time, wondering if humanity would ever truly be at peace again. He knew, deep within his heart, that the UCC was fighting for the right thing: the prevention of fascist control of humanity...but was it worth the fight?

The officer reached into a pocket of his uniform and drew out a picture of his family. He was with them as well; his wife and three daughters. They stood before a flat in Africa, where they'd decided to move during the war. Cartmann had been the driving force behind that; he thought that the Covenant would have attacked more important facilities in the event of reaching Earth. And so, in some small way, he was responsible for their deaths.

Cartmann took a deep breath and gently placed the picture back into his pocket. 0145. 0144. 0143.

Brodenko realized that it wasn't his fight anymore. I knew that since we translated in, he thought as the time-to-target indicator ticked away. This new battle will be decided by new heroes, by young men. 0010. 0009. 0008.

"The circle turns," he said sagely. Everyone had to die at some point, after all. And Brodenko had lived a good, long life. He'd been the hero of several battles; had served with the best. But his friends were dead. He'd outlived each and every one of them. And it was, in a way, his turn to finally join them.

0003. 0002. 0001.

He felt young.

The Invulnerable's massive engines burned brilliantly in the dark of space as it accelerated upward. The Majestic's nose turned with it, auxiliary chemical rockets blasting away. The forward hull compartment shattered as it was driven sharply into the battleship's 'neck', breaking and compressing against the remainder of the dreadnaught. Neither Cartmann nor Brodenko survived the first collision and so could not see the aftereffects. The surviving UNSC defenders, bloodied but still alive, could.

Invulnerable's frame shuddered under the impact of nearly a million tons of warship, its particle accelerator immediately snapping away from the remainder of the battleship. Its hull crumpled to make way for the Majestic, smashing into and destroying other decks. Small fires erupted as ammunition detonated in their magazines (what little that remained); the ships continued to press into each other with no signs of stopping.

They were now too entangled for anyone to discern where one warship's wreck ended and the other began. The immense forward velocity of the Majestic carried the starships away from Earth and the battlefield, though they didn't get very far. The Majestic's third fusion reactor complex, set ahead of the others, crumpled and created a small fusion bomb. In a flash, the resulting compression fused the fuel within the reactor and engulfed the second complex.

The chain reaction continued along the smashed hull of the Majestic, lighting it aflame with hot blue energy. The fingers of plasma licked their way to the mated Invulnerable, melting plating and armor. The battleship's own reactors began to buckle as the heat and pressure within them increased.

Finally, the two massive warships detonated, light of all colors flashing around them, as their reactors and missiles gave birth to a miniature sun. Energy flared once, greatly, and then faded into the blackness of space. The fragments that were once the mighty vessels shot into space, pale reminders of the ships themselves.

It was an excellent funeral pyre.

Captain Rhene's viewscreen couldn't see the explosion; instead, he could only watch as the Majestic and the Invulnerable vanished from the combat plot. The count of enemy vessels within sensor range dropped from one to zero. They had, in fact, won the battle. The Earth was still in UNSC hands.

But something within Rhene died as he leaned over in his chair. Vice Admiral Brodenko had been the oldest living admiral. He was a reminder of a time when humanity was at peace, before the wars that had ravaged it. He'd been a defender of the surviving Outer Colonies throughout his career, protecting systems like Mantis, Omicron Alpha, and Grayson.

And now he, like so many others, was dead.

The memorial service for the fallen in the defense of Earth was brief; many warships were damaged and in desperate need of repair. Reinforcements came flooding in: mainly small half-strength squadrons and single ships. Reports came with them: the UCC had pushed all around UN space and was successful in gaining territory. Earth, however, remained in the hands of the UN.

Not without price, however. Over forty-thousand UNSC personnel died in that single, bloody four-hour battle. More perished in the service of the UCC. What remained of the Home Defense Fleet was now hastily repairing itself and preparing for another UCC attack.

Vice Admiral Baird, quickly promoted to fill the void that Brodenko had left, stood at the monument erected during the ceremony for some time after nearly everyone else had left. To his right jutted the Human-Covenant War monument, its olive-green paint marked by dust scars. Baird looked over to it and checked his watch. It was getting very late...and his ship needed him.

The whole fleet needed him.

You said something about not wanting to pick up my pieces, thought Baird. I wish that I didn't have to pick up yours. with the wind at his back, Baird took the stance of attention and saluted the memorial. He held the salute for many moments before finally dropping his hand. Until that time, he intoned finally, when we all meet again.

Baird turned to leave but stopped when something caught his eye. In that short time between stopping and turning to look, he saw two men standing by the first memorial. When he blinked and focused again, he saw nothing.

"Sir," said a voice from Baird's left, startling him, "are you alright?" Baird turned around to see a UNSC Marine with the crossed knives patch of SREA on his arm. The Marine paused, waiting for a response.

"I am, Captain," answered Baird. "I am. Is the last shuttle leaving now?"

The Marine nodded. "Yes, Sir. If we don't get aboard, we'll be stuck out here overnight."

"Let's go, Captain Reed. I don't know about you, but the African night around here gets pretty cold. And there's that AI that needs to be questioned. What's-his-name...Harkir."

Baird, despite his statement, paused and looked one last time out to the horizon. Until that time.