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"Sir!" The analist yelled to Stanforth,"Enemy ships are in range! Permission to fire sir!"
Stanforth pulled out a cigar,"Fir-"
"SIR! Slipscpace openings detected!" The analist interrupted Stanforth.
"What? from where?"
"Uh lets see...sir, holes are opening up from INSIDE our defenses! Holy crap, thats a lucky jump!"
"No ones ever been able to get a jump in that accuratly, besides the Covenant." Stanforth said with a grim look.
"You don't mean?"
"Direct all the defenses that are in range of those slipspace openings to fire at them! I want those anti-matter dispersers ready to fire!"




      The large orbital anti-matter dispersers swiveled over towards one of the holes that was opening up. The Dispersers unleashed hundreds of small anti-matter mines, that immediatly set themselves around the slipspace openings.
Everyone waited for something to come out of the holes.
"somehtings not right..." one person said, looking at the hole.
Hundred of slipspace holes suddenly opened up on the other side of the planet, outside the defenses, and thousands of covenant fighters poured out, and swarmed the first UNSC cruisers.
"Tell all crews to fire at will!"Stanforth stammered.
From the holes that the fighters came out of, many large carriers and cruisers jumped into normal space and unloaded their plasma upon the unsuspecting humans.
The 10 UNSC nuclear frigates fired nuke after nuke at the hordes of fighters. The fighters were immediatly turned to dust, along with 5 UNSC cruisers. The UNSC carriers deployed all their fighters, and the longswords streamed after the Covenatn fighters.
Defense satallites aimed their turrets at some medium sized cruisers, and fired all their salvos of archer missiles.
Then finally, a few massive capital ships emerged from the distraction holes from inside the defenses. The capital ships were battered with wave after wave of anti-matter charges. The first two capital ships were torn to fragments, and their flaming pieces rained down on the atmosphere. The 'Beacon of Hope' arrived with an escort of 15 capital ships and 20 cruisers a little way away from the firefight.
The Super MACs heated up, and fired at the Covenant Cruisers, diminishing their shields and tearing gigantic holes in the body of the ships.
Three orbital nuclear stations(ONS) targeted one certain Covenant battle grounp, and fired their nuclear misiles which brightened space for a second, and left only but dead hulls of the ships.
Battle group Charlie consisted of 2 Capital ships, 3 carriers, 8 cruisers, and 5 destroyers.
"Move to engage from the left wing of their force!" The Charlie commander ordered,"Charge the MACs!"
A few cruisers and the capital ships had MAC cannons and they fired at one group of Covenant crusiers, and a few were rendered useless. The rest of the CC's turned their attention to the battle group, and rained large plasma bursts on their ships.
"Report!" Charlie command screamed, while he held onto the rail.
"Covenant to human kill ratio for us is....3:2 so far sir!"
The Capital ships turned their side to the CC's and fired their salvo's of Archer and Anvil 2 missils at the enemy. The missiles streamed towards the enemy, but most of them were shot down, this missile fire was just to buy time to charge the MAC's again.
The CC's continued to fire their dozens of plasma cannons, and a few more cruisers met their fate.
"MAC cannons charged sir!"
"Tell the battle group to fire on my mark!"
"Yes sir!"
"Mark!"
The remaining cruisers and capital ships fired their volley of MACs which tore through the front line of CC's and hit a few behind them.
"Ready the Nukes!"Charlie Command ordered the ensign.
"They're ready sir!" The ensign squelched.
"Fire all of them!"
Both of the capital ships fired their nukes, 6 in all. They were all destined to detonate in a different area, dishing out the damage.
The 6 nuclear missiles sped towrds their targets, and detonated all at the same time. The Poeple watching had to shield their eyes from the bright flashes.
The charlie Battle group looked out to see that all the CC's were destroyed. They all got up and cheered, but then they heard a screeching noise, and the hundreds of men of charlie team's heads exploded. The Capital ships along with the other ships of charlie team imploded, and were crushed to a third of their original size. Large figures of ships loomed over the defeated charlie battle group, and set a shadow over the entire planet. The Forunners have arrived.




"What the hell are those?!?"A pilot next to Keys remarked.
"I have no idea, but they're big." Keys stared at the monstrotious ships coming out of slipspace.
"A new covenant battletype?" One Ensign asked.
"No, look they're attacking the Covenant also!" Keys said suprised,"Steer clear of those strange warships, we don't want to get in their way."
The DOC fleet continued towards the large battle taking place between the 10,000 covenant ships, the 25,000 UNSC ships, and the estimated 1,000 strange unknown ships.
Keys watched the large ships fire strange pulses that crushed any cruiser, or orbital defense, like it was exposed to a vacume.
"Sir! Incoming carriers!" One ensign yelled over to Keys.
"They're going for the planet also. The covenant usually don't send in ground troops when they have an advantage like this." One person said.
"They must be going for the weapon also. Shoot them down!"
The DOC fleet fired their archer missiles at the group of five carriers that hurdled past them. The hundreds of Archer missiles from the DOC ships hit their targets, and two carriers were torn apart, and threw dropships out of their cargo bays wildly.
"Deploy the fighters to mop up the dropships that are already out." Keys ordered, and watched the small force of 200 fighters fired missile after misile, pummeling the dropships until they were nothing more than shrapnel.
The Super MACs defense satalites, and ONS's were concentrated on the new enemy that loomed over them. The covenant left the fighting of the humans, and charged at the Forunner vessels. When the CC's got close, the forunner vessels opened smallhatches in their hull, and in each hole, popped out a laser turret. The lasers seemed to be constant, as hundreds of them streamed down from each ship, and cut-away at the covenant ships. The Covenant fired their plasma bolts, plasma lasers, and even plutonium moon crushers. The Forunner ships had no shields, but their armor was extremly thick. The ONS's turned their silo's towards the closeest forunner ships, and fired their oversized nuclear missiles. Morale was boosted when the first forunner ship exploded into particles when a volley of 15 nuclear explosives and dozens of plasma bolts hit it.
The UNSC mobilized all it's space units to fight the forunner, and so did the covenant. The super MACs punched holes in the ships, and the archer missiles were directed through the holes to detonate inside the ship, causing more damage. Fighters covnenant and UNSC alike, wove in and out of the forunner behemoths, unloading their weapons on the un-shielded armor.
All of the UNSC Capital ships aligned themselves, a little ways away from the firefight, and told the UNSC to withdraw from the vicinity of the forunners ships. Once the UNSC vessels cleared out, and left the Covenant to fight them, the Capital ships, 30 in all, and the 15 ONS's unlocked all their nuclear missils and fired them at the battlezone.
"Oh my god." One Marine said as he watched from the viewscreen in one of the cruisers. The missiles streamed from the ships, and the planetary ONS's, and when the misiles reached their destination, there was a series of bright flashes followed by a rumble that knocked a few soldiers off their feet. The flashes continued, as more missiles made their mark. After about 30 seconds, the flashes stopped, and people un-covered their eyes, to see what was left. There were pieces of debris that floated everywhere, along with a few dozen Forunner capital ships. The entire Covnenant armada was elliminated.
      The remaining forunner ships turned their noses towards the capital ships, who were now fleeing to the other side of the planet. Large cannons opened from the noses of the remaining ships. Red light glowed from the barrel of the cannon and got brighter.
"They're about to fire on us!" One pilot screamed from one of the capital ships.
Teh commander of that capital ship ordered,"Tell the cruisers, and fighters to hold their postiton or attack, to provide a distraction for us."
The cannons sayed trained on the UNSC capital ships.
"SIR! They're targeting us!"
"Tell The remaiining UNSC warships to atatck!"
The remaining Cruisers, 2,000 in all attacked the forunner ships, while performing evasive maneuvers.
A few forunner ships pointed over to the annoying cruisers, but most kept their cannons pointed towards the retreating capital ships. The forunner cannons now entirely glowed red, and without warning, they all fired. Large balls of pure positivly charged atomsfired out of each of the ships. The large balls or energy hit a cruiser, and blew it to fragments. The protronium weapons that were pointed towards the UNSC capital ships, fired. The first protronium charge hit one capital ship, and blew half of the large ship apart. The other charges hit many other capital ships with deadly accuracy. Now, 10 Capital ships floated lifelessly in space, to join the other millions of space junk now polluting the space around Reach. The forunner ships opened fire on them with their pop-up lasers, and eventually defeated the UNSC distraction force. The surviving capital ships were safe for now, thye had reached the other side of the planet, hiding from enemy fire. The orbital defenses on that side of the planet managed to destroy two more Forunner Ships, before they were completly annihilated.




      Keys ordered his fleet to pursue the covenant carriers, and now the carriers stopped, near the atmosphere of the planet.
"Tell the fleet to halt!" Keys ordered, and the whole DOC fleet came to an abrupt stop. The Covenant carriers powered down their engines, and sat there, doing nothing. Keys saw the holding bay shields start to power down.
"Ready your weapons!"Keys yelled, and sure enough, out each holding bay came out more than a hundred dropships.
All three carriers were deploying all their dropships, which quickly accelerated towards the surface of the planet.
Keys made a quick dicision,"Ok tell the Attack fleet to stay in orbit, and destroy the carriers, or any other attackers, while the drop-fleet and any other able-bodied marine gets into a Pelican. Looks like some of us are going to have a chance to fight on solid ground."
Keys grabbed his eqquipment vest, and headed out of the bridge.
"Keys! where are you going?" Mendez asked him.
"Mendez, they need me down there, I have to go, you stay here, and take command of the fleet."
"No. I'm coming to," Mendez said, and ran up to Keys.
"Well we'd better hurry." Keys said, and they ran down the hallways, and reached the loading zone, which was a ruckus of MArines scrambling for their dropships, vehicles being loaded up, and personell trying to direct the ships out of the bay, and into space.
"Right here." Keys pointed over to a pelican with a warthog being hoisted onto it. Keys saluted to the pilot,"Permission to enter this vehicle."
"Anything for you Keys and Commander Mendez." The pilot said, and ran to the cockpit.
Keys and Mendez took a seat in the Pelican, and looked around at the soldiers. A few of them had commisioned gear from when they were in the UNSC, and some of the others just had stolen armor from the UNSC munitions plant.
The Pelican lifted off, and exited the Capital ship 'Ares'. The Pelican joined up with 800 other Pelicans , and they began their decent, in pursuit of the Covenant invaders.
"Ok drop-point had been set for us." Their Pilot said to the marines, keys and Mendez,"Our LZ is a UNSC fortified lookout post, along with a small city that surronds it. One branch of covenant dropships reportedly headed in that direction. Our drop will be assisted with about 80 other pelicans. The Pelicans, besides the ones heading in our direction, are either following Covenant drop-parties, or dropping near the UNSC HQ. An estimated 600 Pelicans are dropping near the HQ, so we should have pretty good ground support. Once we reach contact with the other teams near the UNSC HQ, Commander Mendez is going to call in for air support."
"Got it." Keys confermed
"Ok, our team has just passed through the atmospere, and I have visual of the city-what the hell?!?" The pilot screamed.
"Whats wrong Pilot?!" Keys asked.
"The Covenant drop party just sped right pat us! It's like they're running away fromt he place!"
The soldiers in Keys dropship looked at eachother.
"Did any make a drop?" Keys asked the pilot.
"...yah about half of the drop squad did, but they look wrecked."
"What's goin on..."Keys asked himself.
Commander Mendez looked up,"Did the UNSC destroy them?"
The Pilot paused, to look down at the city, while the Pelican raced down to the surface,"Well that's strange..."
"What?"
The Pilot answered,"Uh it appears that the UNSc have been defeated, there's broken smoking tanks, the entire outpost is rubble."
The Pelican fired it's landing thrusters, and n there were no shots fired at the ship, as they thouched-down on the flat desert sand, just outside the city.
The Soldiers jumped out of the Pelicans, and ran to evade any fire...but there was none.
Mendez, and Keys slowly walked out of the Pelican, shielding their eyes from the dust being kicked up by the Pelicans. Keys walked over to an officer, tripped on somthing, and fell down.
"So,"One officer said,"The covenant dropped down, killed all the men here, and made a hurried rush out of here?"
Keys looked at what he tripped on: it was a bump in the sand, and a bit of clothing showed form the bump. Keys brushed the sand off the bump to find a mutleated human body, His throut was completly ripped out of his neck, and his insides were bowled out.
The officer squinted at the ugly sight.
"No,"Keys said,"Because there had to have been enough time for the sand to blow over this body, there was an atatck before the covenant...something that spooked them enough to run like hell out of this city.
"Mabye a few soldiers went mad?" Mendez offered his opinion.
"I don't know."Keys said looking at the wounds,"Look."Keys pointed to the dozens of slashes on the soldier's body,"No bullet holes. so if it was a person, they used knifes and other sharp objects like-"
"Teeth?" Mendez said loking up at Keys.
Keys grabbed his assult rifle tightly,"Whatever it is, we're going to find it, tell our men to fan out, and comb this small city, and tell them to stay in groups.
"Yes sir,"The officer said, drawing his eyes away from the mangled body.
Keys took a big gulp, trying to hold back the vomit.
Keys motioned for six men to come along with him, and they immediatly rushed over.
The groups of people began to take step after step into the city. The large buildings left darkness in the city. the only noise was the -click click- of boots as they slowly walked into the city, with their guns at ready. Keys saw a pile of something, and he ran over to it. He couldn't hold it back, and barfed. The pile was a pile of bodies, and body parts. The dead was a combination of soldiers and civillians. Keys looked down the street to find piles of dead people packed on the corners of streets. Keys felt something drip on him from above, and he looked up to find a few dead civillians hanging by their spinal cords, as blood dripped from their slit throuts. Keys head glass break from ahead of him, his shaking hand directed the gun in the direction of the noise. Keys' group caught up with him, and they all looked away fromt he pile he stood next to.
"Who would do something like this?" A soldier asked.
Keys rounded the corner of the building and saw the glass shards laying on the ground,"not who...what."
Keys looked inside and saw a civillian that was barly alive, hanging out of the window.
The man had his eyes gouged, and his arms ripped to shreds,"p-p-ple-please, just-just-just kill me."The man struggled to say,"D-D-Don't torture me like the others!"
"Shh shh!" Keys said, running over to the man, and got bandage out, to bandage his face, and arms,"Who did this?"
The man rabmled on,"we heard a rumble in the sky, and when we came outside to look, small creatures engulfed the city, k-k-killed everyone I presume. Your not safe here, I've been hiding for an hour, and I hear them walk by this place once in a while. It's strange. They we like small creatures...kinda like fat nasty squid, but now I hear footsteps, like they have evolved. I ahve no idea what they are, but I hear Covenant dropships earlier, and for once, I was glad to have them here, but they we soon also killed, the survivors fled, and thats when I heard you."
"When was the last time you heard these creatures pass by?" Keys asked the man.
"About a half a minute before I heard you guys. They must be really close, you have to tell your sqad to get out of here, before they die also. Keys heard something outside, and motioned for everyone to get inside the building. Keys dragged the man inside, and they all waited behind the wall, next to the door. They all sat with their backs against the wall, waiting for what ever it was to pass by. Keys heart raced, along with everyone else.
Keys looked at the faint sunlight coming through the window. Keys suddenly froze, as he saw three shadows the size of men, start to pass by the window. The language somming out of their mouths was definatly not human. One soldier took a wiff of the dusty air, and drew in a big breath to sneeze.
"No no no." Keys lipped to the soldier about to sneeze.
The soldier held back the sneeze, and then relaxed, he had stopped the sneeze from occuring. Keys silently sighed, and watched the shadows slowly walk past the windows.
The soldier immediatly put his hand over his mouth,"AAACHOOOO!"
The shadows stopped in their tracks.
Keys could only lip one word before they were all discovered,"fuck."


<Next part: Wings of Death Part 18: Get Us the Hell Outta Here!>

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