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The Discovery: Chapter 5-Snags
Posted By: strategyfreak<strategyfreak2002@yahoo.com>
Date: 8 August 2002, 7:55 pm
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"All right, Aurora, let's move out. Chief, are you guys ready?" the Admiral's voice said through the COM channels. MC, inside the captured Covenant ship with a squad of veteran Marines and James, were to be the strike team that would hopefully capture or kill the Covenant prophet leadership, since they were probably the ones who directed the highly religious Covenant.
"Yes, we're ready. Cortana is uploading the coordinates to the homeworld into your nav databases. As soon as you get those coordinates, we move out," the Chief replied. A few seconds later, the trio of ships disappeared a bright green flash.
On the alien cruiser, the Marines were busy exploring the strange ship, which they had never been on before. They also had brought the captured Elite along. It would be used as identification. They still had it in the plasma chains, so it couldn't break loose and regain control of the vessel.
Cortana advised them to use the newly installed human cryo tubes, developed on the Elite tube but not exactly the same because the scientists were not sure what side effects the alien cryo tube might have on the occupants. Fortunately for the Marines and SPARTANs, they did not have to swallow the inhalant surfactant, which they hated.
After a while spent hacking into the Covenant battlenet and screwing up their chatter pretty badly, Cortana began to get bored. She had gone through the ship's schematics and knew how to fire the weapons, do pinpoint maneuvers in Slipspace and had also altered the ship's computer so that its automated guns would fire on other Covenant ships, which the computer would have originally identified as friendly craft. However, she shut the guns down because they would just attract attention if they fired on Covenant ships, presumed to be orbiting around their homeworld. She decided to elaborate on the plan to go down on the planet and decided to tell it to the troops when they arrived. *** A few days later, the three ships, two human and one Covenant, emerged from Slipspace. On their viewscreens was a blue-green world, which was surrounded by-
Nothing.
"What the HELL is going on here? This is definitely NOT the Covenant homeworld! My ship's scanners say there are only a few SMALL Covenant settlements on this-this what the crap is this, anyway?" the Captain of the Aurora yelled angrily through the COM channel.
Uh, sorry people. This appears to be some sort of colony. I must have gotten the coordinates screwed up. I'll transmit the proper nav data to-
"Sir!" the communications officer on the Maw suddenly interrupted Cortana's message. "I've just received a distress call from a merchant ship, the Atlantis. Covenant hackers downloaded their nav database! The ship suffered no physical damage, but they probably know the location of Earth by now! The ships around Earth are in full combat state, and are requesting our help. They are expecting an attack any day now! They are powering up the orbital and lunar guns, too!"
"Why didn't those idiots erase their database?" asked the pissed off Admiral.
"The Cole Protocol only applies to UNSC vessels, sir. That was a civilian ship," replied the COM officer shakily.
"All right then. Everyone listen up, this is the Admiral speaking. I want a full retreat back to the Earth system at best speed. We have to get there before the Covenant. Well, don't just stand at your stations, do something useful!" the Admiral ordered through the COM channel. Everyone on the bridge of the Maw jumped, trying to look as if they were busy or helping in some way.
Cortana decided not to waken the two SPARTANS and Marines from cryosleep. After all, they were heading back to the Earth system and she didn't need any help piloting. She checked on the Elite; it was still in a cell of the secondary brig. She wakened a Marine to bring it food because it had to be alive for identification later when they continued their mission. After he climbed back into his cryo tube, Cortana calculated the odds of winning the battle for Earth should the Covenant attack with 200 ships. It had changed since the early simulation of the battle because of all the defensive and weapon upgrades. The chance was now around 70%. Since all the crews were in cryosleep, she sent the data to the Maw's AI, Havoc, another "smart" AI like her. Then she sent it to the Aurora's AI, Mugatu, who was not smart and was quite obnoxious, a little like Beowulf, an ONI AI whom Cortana loathed. The ONI and Beowulf were gone now though, and Cortana was privately happy. They had been too secretive and paranoid.
Havoc acknowledged the information, but Mugatu, being the annoying AI he was, replied with a message that aggravated Cortana. Thanks for the info, but I could have figured that out by myself. She decided not to respond. *** As soon as the three ships exited Slipspace, in perfect formation, the AIs wakened crews and did scans of the area. The Covenant had not attacked-yet. When the crew arrived on the bridge, the AIs told them the odds of winning against 200 Covenant ships. The Admiral ordered the ships to stay in orbit around Earth. All the ships were in full combat status. Everyone on the vessels, even the battle-hardened Admiral, was tense, expecting to Covenant to arrive in the next second.
A day went by without any problems. As the Admiral was having a quick breakfast in his office, Havoc's voice spoke through the speakers of the Maw.
Objects detected along the edge of Earth system. Shape matches known Covenant profiles. 153 vessels confirmed. All crew to your stations. The AI sent the warning to all the ships in the small UNSC fleet, and then continued speaking. Enemy vessels at extreme range. In range of lunar guns. They will fire on your command, Admiral. By now Admiral Stanforth had rushed up to the bridge of the Maw and was sizing up the situation.
"Send the order to fire, Havoc," he ordered.
Firing now, Admiral. reported the AI. Two huge flashes of the plasma-charged MAC rounds, each 6,000 tons, erupted from the enormous guns. All eyes were on the bright blue streak as it covered the distance between them and the Covenant fleet.
Impact will be in 16.9 seconds. They will also be in range of the orbital guns in 13.2 seconds. They are all charged and ready to fire on your command once again, sir.
"Tell them to fire as soon those bastards get close enough," the Admiral said harshly. A few seconds later, the guns fired in unison and 15 deadly blue flashes sped toward the massed Covenant fleet. By now the first two shots had covered almost all the distance. Some ships moved out of the way, but with the tight formation they had earlier many were in the path of the arcs of flame.
The first shot drilled through two destroyers and four frigates, shattering the hulls of two and completely disintegrating the rest. The second destroyed a cruiser and three destroyers. One of them took the shot in their reactors, and it disappeared in a fiery explosion. Their shields were almost completely useless against the huge, supercharged projectiles. When they regrouped to retaliate, the orbital guns' shots impacted. Thirteen more ships disappeared from the Admiral's tactical display.
By now, the Covenant were in range of the small fleet's guns. They fired their smaller plasma-energized rounds. It would rip through the shields and severely damage a Covenant ship, making them easy targets for Archer missiles. Although one of the weapons not upgraded, the shield-less and damaged ships would be destroyed. The Covenant recovered from the shock of loosing so many ships and fired back. Only a third of them could fire, otherwise those in the back would hit their own. They spread out so they could all fire.
Two UNSC frigates were blown to pieces. Another orbital gun had its shields hit four times. It gave and three more shots turned it into a flaming, half-disintegrated wreck.
The remaining 14 orbital guns and 17 ships fired in unison, sending 31 shots into the Covenant fleet. 35 ships were destroyed. The lunar guns were still charging, but their shields were more powerful than five orbital guns combined and it had seven added meters of protitanium, so it was considered safe. The Covenant fired again. Another two frigates and two destroyers were hit and shattered to pieces. There were only 13 ships left. Just our luck, to get the unlucky number, thought the Admiral.
"All ships, the lunar guns are now charged and ready to fire. We need one huge last salvo with the ships and orbital guns firing along with them. On my mark, 3, 2, 1, MARK!" the Admiral yelled into the COM system. Since all were firing at once, the shots looked like one solid, boiling blue mass of energy. The fifty-odd lingering Covenant ships were hit by the salvo. Most were utterly annihilated, and the few heavily damaged remaining ships were brought down by Archer missiles.
The Admiral gave a huge sigh of relief. They had successfully defended against the Covenant onslaught.
Or-had they?
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