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Aftermath, Chapter 1
Posted By: FOrunnER
Date: 16 October 2003, 4:48 AM


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NOTE: POST COMMENTS AFTER READING, VIOLATERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. (P.S. I know some people don't like humans having better technology cough*Gruntar*cough, so if ya don't, don't read this)

The human-covenant war had been over for nearly 20 years. A Spartan-assassin team had been sent to the Covenant home world and killed the head prophet despite warnings that this could escalate the war. On the contrary, it struck fear into the Covenants heart, they had been brought up to believe that the high prophet was immortal, and the fact there were beings powerful enough to kill him shook them at the core. After this the Covenant had taken a new approach to the war: run. The humans had come for the covenant, world by world. In almost every case the protecting fleet of ships retreated or gave only half-hearted attempts to fight. At first the humans nuked the planets, but then soon dropped ground forces to capture them. Soon, the Covenant that survived the war were now the humans personal slaves, humans had become the tyrants to the Covenant. After driving the Covenant fleet out of the system, they began operations to scavenge Covenant technology, and were successful, combining there technology with the Covenant. For a period of nearly eleven years after the war it seemed as if there would finally be peace, everyone was happy, except for the Covenant slaves, but nobody cared about them much. Then nine years ago it was proven once again that humanity was destined to always be at war. A new terrorist group, called the United Liberty Movement, or UML, had been attacking the so called 'UNSC oppressors'. They rallied against the UNSC, and soon created there own warships or stole UNSC ones. That was when it became an interplanetary war, nearly a third of UNSC planets were under UML control. The UNSC was preparing a fleet to take back one of those planets, those planets, Rhycheck IX ......

"Sir, reentering normal space in 2 minutes", said the Grunt in a squeaky voice, the translator around his neck converting it to human words. The ship commander, a human of course, looked as menacing as ever. When he spoke back the Grunt, Tayayp, jumped.
"Good, Lieutenant Streets, make sure we arrive outside the UML probes, we don't want them making a run at us before we get a chance to surround them", he said. Another human replied 'Aye Aye'.
Commander Corbin's looked around at the bridge of the Old seeing eye, a destroyer. Most of the crew were bridge officers, his Lieutenants, but there was a good number of slave bridge crew (covenant) that did not even rate junior bridge officer. A civilian had more authority than them, there were seven Grunts and a pair of Jackals. He didn't like them. At one point they had relentlessly tried to kill humanity, and then feared them after some silly superstition that the high Prophet was invincible and only gods could kill them. The fact was, that if the Covenant had kept on fighting after that, they would have eventually lost. But thankfully, the Covenant were stupid. However, they served there purpose as useful and expendable slaves, but thought about no more then a piece of gum under anybodies shoe.
The ship jerked slightly and Streets said, "Exited slip-stream. Were heading on course 00062 by 02111. That should put us in a position where the suns glare should cover our image".
"Good. Tell the rest of the fleet to come in at our position. We'll move out as soon as everybody is out of slip-space", he said.
"Aye sir".
"Lieutenant Vorin, warm up our weapons systems, make sure there ready to fire on a moments notice. Power up secondary shield but don't power primary one till were engaged, we may need the power", again he was met with an 'Aye sir'. The ship sported the most advanced weapons to date. They had 200 hundred K-1 Kinetic missiles, a missile that exploded in a fiery white flash, doing nearly twice the damage of the old Archer missiles. There were also Photon Lasers, these were like the Covenants pulse lasers but were red and took slightly longer to charge, but packed a more powerful punch. And the main weapon that replaced the MAC was the PPC, Particle Projection Cannon, it looked like a giant blue plasma pulse but sort of glittery, and packed ten times the punch. Most ships had two rechargeable shields, the secondary and primary. The primary covered the secondary and was extremely strong, the secondary was under the primary and very weak, however in normal situations it could hold out long enough for the primary to recharge.
A dozen other ships appeared behind the Old Seeing Eye, 5 more destroyers, 4 frigates, and two flagships. Flagships were much different than Frigates and Destroyers, which were basically the same in design and weaponry besides the size difference. Flagships were meant to be sniper ships, like the Covenant had had. They only had one shield, 200 hundred K-2 Kinetic missiles, and no PPC. What it did have was a LRLD (Long Range Laser Destroyer), like the Covenant ships. It took a lot of power to use which was why it was devoid of secondary shielding, Photon Lasers, and a PPC. They usually hung back and were protected by other ships while they sniped others that were causing the most trouble.
They moved out and surrounded Rhycheck IX, and the guarding ULM fleet. It was a mixture of old and new. A few were updated Frigates and Destroyers like his, a few were outdated by five to ten years, sporting Plasma Core MAC 's and Pulse lasers, one Frigate, The Lion, was outdated before the end of the Human-Covenant war, having no shields and a Mark V Mack. There were 15 of them, all motionless. At first the ULM ships didn't notice the UNSC ships because they were jet black to match the void of space. But either by radar or somebody looking closely, they were noticed and the ULM started to spread out, but the UNSC was already engaging them.
The 20 year old Lion made a suicide charge strait at the old seeing eye. It launched a couple hundred Archer missiles and a MAC at them, but it had almost no effect "Shields are at 95% power and rising two percent per second", said Vorin.
"Send some kinetic missiles its way and target that destroyer leading the pack", he nodded and fired the missiles. The K-1's were sent rocketing towards the Lion and destroyed the Lions old titanium A armor, ripping through it like Swiss cheese. 80% of the ship was breached and it lost power. Some internal explosion reached the engine and it exploded. But by that time the Old Seeing Eye had faced its focus on the lead destroyer, the Proud Rebel.
"Give me a firing solution that will have the Photon Lasers impacting right after the PPC charge", said the Captain.
"Online sir", said Vorin.
"Fire".
The giant pulse of blue energy flew towards the enemy ship with six red lasers trailing it. The PPC hit and splashed across the primary shield, bringing it down, and the Photons impacted a second later, 5 splashed against the secondary shield, but one got through and gutted the ship from side to side.
"Energy shield down, we hit her in her midline. Detecting radiation spike, there charging up there PPC".
"What are our weapon status?", the captain asked.
"PPC at 72%, Photon lasers are still in second recycling phase. Kinetic missiles A8-L10 serviceable".
Damn, he couldn't fire the PPC till it was at least at 90%, and the Photon lasers had five recycling phases. That was the one drawback to energy weapons, the long lapse to recharge. But they still had missiles, though they would not do as much damage as Photon lasers, certainly not as much as the PPC, but it would let them keep the offensive. "Launch missiles A-8 through D-8 , try to aim for weapons systems, weak spots, anything".
At the same time they launched a salvo of missiles the Proud Rebel fired its PPC, Photon Lasers, and a batch of Kinetic missiles. "All power towards starboard thrusters, I don't want to anywhere near that PPC shot", he yelled. The ship lurched with startling speed, but not fast enough. The PPC slammed into there shields, bringing them completely down, the weak secondary shield took four of the Photon laser shots thrown at them, two it dodged. But the K-1 missiles tracked them and hit, taking down the secondary shield, which had been holding at 2%, and ripped through the ship.
The ship jerked beneath the ship, shaking them. A lot of the bridge crew not strapped in seats were thrown about, one of the Grunts ran around screaming wildly in fear. Somebody kicked him and he hit one of the walls, then fell silent. Most likely knocked out cold, but they paid it little head.
"Report!!", he yelled. One of the bridge officers checked a monitor and said, "Sir, sections 33 through 50 breached, atmosphere venting, sealing sections", he said and tapped a few controls.
Meanwhile there K-1 Missiles hit and caused the same effect.
Lieutenant Vorin spoke, "Sir, PPC at 98% charge and both Photon lasers are in fourth recycling phase".
He nodded. He could fire the Photon lasers in fourth recycle phase, they would just be weaker, but speed was of the essence. However before he could give his order, the Proud Rebel exploded. One of the sniper ships had sent a blue-white lance of energy at the Proud rebel and she exploded. Another one hit the Freedom Fighter. In a matter of minutes they surrounded and destroyed the ships, but the battle for Rhycheck was just begging......

So what do ya think? And yes, the ending was rushed





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