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The New Legacy Massacre by Psycho-Monkey
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The New Legacy Massacre Chapter 1: Distress
Date: 10 May 2007, 11:19 pm
Part 1: Distress
Planets were coming up short now in the war. As the Covenant ravaged each hunk of rock controlled by the UNSC, the quicker UNSC realized that they had a shorter amount of to react. While true that losing a planet means one less planet to spend resources on to protect. The Covenant seemed to have a habit of traveling to every human-controlled planet and wipe out any trace of human existence on it. This habit of the Covenants' slowed them down... a lot. Usually allowing the UNSC to rally up enough forces to try to uselessly protect the next planet on the Covenant's hit list.
Every planet lost was a sign to the UNSC that the inevitable was coming all too close for comfort. The UNSC realized this in the beginning of the war. That is, until the invention of the Jump drive came along from the wonderful labs of ONI. Everyone knows that the speed of light is the fastest any object can go in this universe, with the Jump drive one simply "jumps" into the area desired using another universe. The schematics were very vague with any scientist trying to explain simply saying, "You simply don't have the math to understand the concept."
Thus new hope rose, the Jump drive was faster than slipspace - roughly ten times faster- and most of all, nearly untraceable. The technology required to trace a "jump" is way out of the Covenants league, ONI scientists were sure of it. This meant that colonization could effectively be taken beyond this galaxy, far away from the war and the Covenant. In a sense, this plan was an example of divergent evolution. A small group leaves the original population to colonize a new area. The originals would definitely be lost in the process, but ONI was making sure that the plan was kept a secret from the majority of the population. Messages were sent not via transmissions but simply sent over by hand- written on paper nonetheless. After the messages were read, they were effectively disposed of.
However, the Jump drives were very expensive, and only equipped to a couple thousand of ships. Most of those ships were used to safeguard the new colonies, while only a couple were used on reconnaissance in the war front. The colonization effort has been in effect ten years into the war.
Thus, the Colonies were formed. There are around five planets, each having a growing population. Every two years a new planet is found with a stable atmosphere to colonize. Although the Colonies have had their share of failures in colonization, ninety percent were successful. Aside from colonizing planets, bases were also made on large asteroids. Most were considered to be planets, but then the scientists were reminded of the Pluto debate and instead called them asteroids. Refugees from the lost planets back in the Milky way was the bulk of the Colonies total population. The reason the refugees had to move out to a new life was because the remaining planets couldn't carry anymore human beings as their population quotas were far beyond exceeded. So in a way, two birds were killed with one stone.
New Legacy is the homestead of the Colonies. Legacy was essentially the equivalent of Earth and the first to be colonized. The planet had a population consisted of mainly refugees. The one trait that was discovered first in New Legacy was it's abundance of resources. As a result, Legacy was one of the largest industrial planets in the Colonies; building ships and building materials to help the newer additions to the Colonies. New Legacy was obviously the new shining hope in mankind's future.
The Covenant arrived with minimal warning. It is still unknown as to how the Covenant found about the Colonies and even how the location was determined. Either way, the guarding ships of New Legacy were very unprepared for the onslaught of Covenant cruisers drifting menacingly in front of them. The battle was lost, (I regret to say that the ships couldn't put up that much of a fight) this class of UNSC ships simply weren't designed to have a stand-off with hundreds of Covenant cruisers. Hundreds of debris and dozen of huge chunks of once proud UNSC ships drifted aimlessly around New Legacy. The Covenant, not one to usually admire their destructive art, quickly took orbital positions over New Legacy and unloaded millions of drop ships; in which the series of events that followed created the largest secretive clusterfuck known to the UNSC and insultingly christening the clusterfuck, The New Legacy Massacre.
The New Legacy Massacre Ch 2: Retaliation
Date: 24 May 2007, 4:43 am
Part 2: Retaliation
We received the distress signal from New Legacy around two hours ago. I wasn't personally hanging out in the cafeteria of the Manhattan at the time when the rumor started, but word is that the Covenant found us. If you think about it we are pretty screwed out here - being so far away from the Milky Way Galaxy that is. We have absolutely no reinforcements besides the ones we already have here and all of our ships and supplies we have to make ourselves. Basically the UNSC gave us supplies and said, "You're on your own from here!" At least they gave us an objective, survive at all costs.
Not to sound conceited or anything, but that's one of my specialty's and the reason I was made gamma squad leader. I don't know why, but I guess since the powers that be saw my survival record, they figured that my 'luck' might transfer to the rest of my squad if I'm squad leader. That theory doesn't really help me sleep at night but it does give me something instead of nothing.
It wasn't until I was hungry that I decided to entire the chaotic mess that we've come to know as the cafeteria. Being so chaotic, trying to sort the conversations you hear in the cafeteria was like stepping head first into a beehive... basically you heard a lot of buzzing (pun intended). "Did you hear?... Gone!... In little than... must've been outnumbered... I personally knew someone on the... yeah the Toronto... first to go I hear!..."
"That's what I heard, man.... large-scale retaliation!... all the ships in this galaxy... one massive strike... Too much? Of course!... well, it is New Legacy... our Earth..."
"If we go I hope I'm in the first wave... bastards... the lot of them... killed too many good kids... friends nonetheless... how many ships were guarding - five!?..."
"How did they?... I mean we're so far away... ONI doesn't usually- I know- ONI doesn't usually let a project as big as this out this easily... only settled in for ten years... inadequate defense too... no where else to go... fish in a barrel..."
I left the cafeteria and roamed the hallways, but here too, it was a buzz, "Every ship here... we're going first.... twenty other ships with us... everyone one else rallying somewhere else... I guess... we're a distraction..."
All this talk of a retaliation was giving me a headache. On the Manhattan everything was a rumor until a higher ranking officer started talking about it, and I wasn't ready to believe a word. Which actually reminded me... where the hell were all the high ranking officers? I recalled that most were none to be found. After I finished eating I took a nice long walk back to my room. Upon entering my computer screen flashed, the LCD light of the monitor illuminated the whole room. Great, was the first word in my mind. The screen went dark, then opened a window with a message sent two hours ago. The message stated that there was a meeting in the briefing room in an hour and... a half... shit... I quickly donned my uniform and bolted out of my room towards the briefing room.
Upon arriving at the briefing room and snuck quietly towards where the rest of my squad was sitting. Jack, Penny, Titus, Kenneth and three new guys. The gang's all here. "You're late," whispered Jack. "Not like it really mattered the meeting was just about to end, sorry Tom."
I heavily sighed and wished I had arrived at the end of the briefing. Well, at least I didn't get caught... I whispered back, "Fill me in later Jack."
Jack nodded back, the universal okay sign- well, at least for me. My friends and I went back to the cafeteria and Jack with help from Penny and Kenneth and the unnecessary commentary by Titus, filled me in on the plan. Jack explained, "As you may, or may not have heard from all the buzz going around at breakfast, we lost New Legacy twelve hours ago."
"Fuckers came and raped the five ships defending it!" yelled Titus.
"Thanks...," whispered Jack to Titus. Then he said to me, "The Covenant wiped out the five ships and, instead of glassing New Legacy, decided to invade."
Kenneth added, "I don't think Jack needs to say what defense a mainly industrial planet can hold against an invading force of millions of heavily armed Covenant soldiers."
"Indeed," Jack took back control of the conversation. "Within ten hours the Covenant completely annihilated the population-"
"Didn't stand a god damn chance! The platoon stationed there where slaughtered the minute they tried to load their clips in their rifles," interrupted Titus.
"In other words, the population was massacred?" I said.
Penny corrected me, "We don't know if they were massacred, hopefully the Covenant are rounding the survivors into camps."
"Which leads me to ask this question," I paused to add tension, I liked doing that for some reason. "Why didn't the Covenant just glass the planet? The planet obviously has nothing that could interest them, they already have a seemingly unlimited amount of resources and can call for reinforcements anytime they want..." I stopped and thought about what I said for a second, and then added, "Unless-
"Yeah," agreed Jack. "The Covenant are in the same boat we are in."
"Fucking stranded!" said Titus.
"Do you have to cuss so much?" asked Jack, he then continued as if Titus never spoke. "This is all the Covenant we are going to see. They aimed for New Legacy first because of its abundance of resources, so most likely that planet is their new base of operations/ factory. That would also explain why there were millions of dropships- and I literally mean millions- landed on the planet. The new ships and munitions the Covenant are going to build will need something to operate them."
Titus then added without cussing, "Which know leads us to the game plan."
"The Covenant are going to expect us to mass an armada out of the remaining ships here for one single strike," said Penny. "Assuming we would mass and strike, they have brought extra ships to adequately defend their newly acquired base. However-"
I interrupted, "This strike isn't intended to be carried out with an armada, is it?"
"Correct," Jack said. "Their is going to be two waves. The first wave -which we are part of, by-the-way- is made up of a hundred and fifty ships. The idea is to draw the bulk of the Covenant ships away from the planet, while us Marines and Helljumpers land and take out their base of operations. While the first wave is upside drawing the bulk of the Covenant ships away from the planet -thus, giving us some safety from hailstorms of plasma fire, but only some if I might add- the remaining UNSC ships in this galaxy will mass to prepare for the second wave."
"With their base of operations taken down, we're hoping their ships will be disoriented." Penny said and then added. "Allowing the second wave which has massed the remaining UNSC ships to come in and give a well-deserved dish of vengeance on the Covenant vessels that decided to stay behind. After they are gone, the first wave will, hopefully, still be around to lead back the rest of the Covenant armada back to New Legacy were they will be ambushed."
"I'd rather have every single ship massed together for one quick strike against those bastards!" said Titus in disagreement to the plan.
"Sounds like a plan," I replied, ignoring Titus. "When do we get ready to go?"
"We're set to leave in two hours," answered Penny."
"Alright! Let's get moving then, we have a big day ahead of us."
Little did we know, the Covenant were ready for us. Ready, whether we arrived in one wave, or two waves or even three waves. Hell, they weren't prepared for us... They were already god damn firing before we arrived. They had their plan set too. Oh god! If only we knew earlier about... about...
Titus!
You stupid bastard...
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