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The Shrine World
Posted By: Hardballer<fletcher.cruicksh.00@tased.edu.au>
Date: 8 September 2006, 12:47 am
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Aboard UNSCV: Rising of Spring
Captain Bowers of The Rising of Spring watched as the huge Covenant fleet destroyed Reach. It was hopeless, hundreds of Covenant capital ships swarmed around the planet. In mere minutes Humanity had already lost this battle, like nearly every other it had fought against the Aliens. Bowers ordered his squadron of small Long sword fighters to disengage and dock before any of them got killed. There was nothing they could do against such a huge fleet. A few seconds later he received two transmissions:
"Pillar of Autumn to all UNSC vessels, this is Captain Keyes. I'm taking the Autumn into a blind jump, hopefully I can get some of those bastards to follow us."
"Autumn to Spring, I'm aiming for the gas giant, Threshold, you should do the same Bowers… There's nothing you can do here."
Captain Bowers watched as the Rising of Spring's sister ship turned away from the battle and disappeared in a flash of blue light, fourteen Capital ships followed her. Bowers yelled to everyone on the bridge, 'The Autumn just made a blind jump towards uncharted system Delta, they're being followed by overwhelming Covenant forces. Pull us out and follow her!'
A moment later a short, red faced man from the ops crew bustled up to Bowers, 'Ah, sir?' he said, 'You realise that making a blind jump into an uncharted area of space is more dangerous than a Covenant Amada? And we don't know where he's going to stop, there's no way we're going to-'
'I am the Captian of this ship!' yelled Bowers, pointing his cigar at the hapless little man, almost burning out his eye, 'At the moment you are just a yellow jumpsuit in a whole room full of yellow jumpsuits. So do your job, now.'
'Um, so that's an order right?'
'Of course it's an ORDER! I'm the Captain, my word is LAW!'
With that the little man scuttled back to his post, wiping bits of Bowers's spit from his face.
Bowers lit the cigar and dragged hard, waiting for the countdown. A hologram popped up beside him on a pedestal, it was Aloysius, the Spring's shipboard AI.
'Tactful, Captain.' said Aloysius, giving Bowers a cheeky wink. Bowers accepted it; there wasn't really anything he could do to a construct. Anyway, he reasoned, he's artificial, his words don't really exist. Smiling to himself, Bowers stubbed out his cigar and placed it in his pocket for later (if there was a later).
Aloysius held his holographic hand to his temple and deep vibration suddenly took hold of the huge ship. 'Captain. We're ready.' he said. Bowers snatched up the intercom mic and opened all channels, Aloysius began a countdown.
"All personnel, this is the Captain, when the countdown reaches zero, we're gonna' hit light speed, hold on tight."
With that, Bowers pressed a button releasing two hand-holds which he took up in his hands and braced himself for the acceleration. Aloysius's countdown reached zero, the deep rumble rose to high-pitched whine and then the Rising of Spring shot away from the battle of Reach.
* * *
Once the Spring made light speed it wasn't so bad, Bowers found he could stand up, but the artificial gravity had been disrupted so he had to hold on. A few of the Ops crew floated around, food and plates from the mess next-door floated on to the bridge. Aloysius actually chuckled as the red-faced "Yellow Jumpsuit" bounced off the roof.
'What's going on here Aloysius?' asked Bowers, 'It's never been so smooth before.'
'Pre space rupture glide. The Autumn and all of those Covenant ships opened up a big hole in space and we're following it.'
'Ahhh, that makes sense.' said Bowers, who was lying; he'd always assumed that space already was a type of hole.
'Thirty seconds to deceleration…' Announced Aloysius, 'Here comes the fun part!'
Holding on with one hand, Bowers felt for his cigar, he felt that being Captain just wasn't the same without it-
"6… 5… 4…"
Just when the cigar reached his lips, the ship bucked terribly, knocking it from his lips and sending it spinning away. The ship rattled violently, stars appeared around them, then the gravity came back. A few of the ops crew fell back to the floor, a plateful of packet-mix eggs 'n' bacon landed all over Bowers, and his cigar ended up on Aloysius' hologram pedestal, it did interesting things to his anatomy.
The ship steadied out and Bowers raised himself.'Aloysius, where are we?'
'You're not going to like it, but we missed the Autumn…'
'Ok, turn us round and try again!'
'Negative Captain, if we try anything in the next thirty minutes, our fusion reactors will go into meltdown. Also, when we passed the Autumn we drew off two of the Covenant ships. I can hold them off with the main cannon for a while but our best course of action is to land on that planet on our six, then take off when they prepare to bomb. Luckily it has a human compatible atmosphere.'
Overwhelmed with the tide of information, Captain Bowers simply replied with: 'Do it.'
'Very good, I've already programmed a landing path.'
Scraping Bacon chunks from his jacket, Bowers wondered why the UNSC even bothered with an Ops Crew and Captain…
'Oh, and Captain?' said Aloysius.
'Yes?' said Bowers, dreading what came next.
'Please remove your awful cigar from my pedestal, it's making me look rather silly…'
Bowers picked up his cigar, lit it, and very deliberately puffed a smoke ring through Aloysius's head.
'Amusing.' droned the AI.
* * *
Aboard Covenant Capital Ship: Deception
Skeft Ferum'ee high Commander, stood behind his two pilots. He was a large warrior and he towered over them even when hunched over in Elite combat stance. One of his pilots turned to him with an expression of pain.
'Commander…' he said in his deep voice.
'What is it?'
'The infidels have landed on a Shrine World.'
Skeft raised a clenched fist, his mandibles flared as a low long roar escaped his throat.
* * *
They had landed on a plateau, overlooking a vast rainforest. In fact, they were surrounded by the strange forest.
Aloysius turned to Bowers and said 'Well Captain, it was a rough landing… (Running scans) Good, nothing was damaged all the defences are still online.'
'How long until the engines cool down? Is it safe to leave the ship?'
'We can take off anytime we want, but those two capital ships are guarding us, we wouldn't make it out of the atmosphere, which by the way, is very similar to Earth's, minus the pollution. Something's bothering me about this Captain, the Covenant normally has no qualms about destroying small planets such as this one- Wait, one of the Capital ships is landing!'
'Try and hack their transmissions, find out what they're doing. In the meantime…'
Bowers opened up all comm. Channels:
"Ops crew, get on all the cannons, the second that capital ship enters the atmosphere, concentrate your fire on the front of the ship, you know the drill.
Marines, I need 200 men out there, make a defensive perimeter around the Spring.
All Pelicans, I want the entire squadron on standby, Six marines per bird.
First Long sword wing, make a quick recon of the Covenant positions then return, don't try anything fancy, this will get hot."
Within a minute marines surrounded the ship and placed barriers and mounted guns, dozens of snipers had climbed rock formations and a couple of teams rolled out Scorpion tanks and Warthogs. Just as the huge Covenant ship entered the atmosphere, five Long swords shot out of the rear hanger and made a large arc towards the landing ship.
Aloysius's hologram flickered into life. 'Captain, I believe this planet is our saviour. As you know, the Covenant are highly religious, and apparently this planet is sacred to them, they call it a "Shrine World". Their religion dictates that any fighting here must be done "warrior to warrior".'
* * *
The five Long swords closed in on the Covenant capital ship. The Covenant saw them coming and, immediately, a dozen Banshees flew out to meet them.
"We can take them boys," said Lieutenant Jones over the radio, "re-group, mushroom formation… 3… 2… 1… NOW!"
The three Long sword pilots in the rear gracefully manoeuvred their fighters above the forward two. "Perfect, now standby to open fire, maintain cannon fire for three seconds then break up."
"Red two, roger."
"Red three, affirmative."
"Red four, standing by."
"Red five, whatever."
"Ok… FIRE!"
A line of cannon rounds smashed into the tightly grouped Banshees, most of them exploded, the remaining three spiralled in smoke and flames towards a small inland sea. Jones and his wing shot away from each other at right angles, with nearly perfect timing, neatly avoiding the bits of Banshee still suspended in the air. "Well done. 500 metre spacing, we'll make one low pass (keep your cameras on) then head straight back."
* * *
The capital ship lowered into the atmosphere, just out of the Rising of Spring's range. 'Bastards.' spat Bowers.
"Captain Bowers, come in, Captain Bowers, this is Lieutenant Jones of the first Long sword wing."
"Go ahead Jones, what are they up to?"
"At the moment they appear to be setting up some sort of base in a clearing. There are a large number of un-armed soldiers placing plasma shields and turrets. We fragged a couple of Banshees they sent our way, but it doesn't look like they'll be attacking us anytime soon."
"Good work, over and out."
Bowers called up Aloysius, 'Hey, pomp and circumstance.'
'What, both of us? You must have a plan Captain?'
'You bet your holographic… Well, yes. Fire up the engines, we're taking this capital ship on. Fly us in low.'
The Rising of Spring took off slowly and trawled towards the Covenant ship.
"This is the Captain, ops crew, stay on those cannons, in thirty seconds we'll be in range. Our ion beams have a longer range than the mini-MACs and projectiles, so I want the ion cannons to pick a forward target and concentrate fire on one area. MAC cannons, the second you're in range, I want a hole blasted into the side of them at that same point. Artillery and torpedoes, once we're through the side, let em' have it!"
Just as Bowers finished his monologue, the ion cannons opened up; four continuous beams of negative ions ate away at the Deception's energy shields, broke through and began to melt the hull. Then the MAC cannons opened up, punching through the weak-spot, closely followed by a volley of artillery and torpedoes. The attack happened so fast that the Deception didn't have time to manoeuvre before a second volley of torpedoes glided into the ravaged ship. Bowers held his breath as the Covenant ship turned to face them. Suddenly, the front of the ship exploded in a giant purple blast.
* * *
'Commander! The Human vessel is attacking us!' yelled Skeft's first pilot. Skeft's eyes were drawn to the shield meter; the Deception was being fired upon with some sort of charged weapon, quickly draining the shields on the prow. 'Divert all power to the forward shield generators!' growled Skeft as he turned to the engineers.
It wasn't enough, before the shields could be replenished, several primitive Human energy rounds smashed their way through the hole, damaging a power conduit. All the lights on the starboard side went out. 'WORT!' screamed Skeft. Four red Majors ran into the room carrying weapons. They clustered around the giant warrior, one of them said to him, 'Commander Ferum'ee, you have to leave the ship. The Humans got a lucky shot in-' the ship rocked again from another impact, this time it slowly began to tilt forwards. Skeft didn't even wait for his Majors to follow; he ran to his escape pod and slammed the door down. He punched the release button and the pod shot away from the Deception, just as the head of the ship exploded, the Majors weren't so lucky.
Skeft nearly passed out, due to the acceleration. He let out a muffled groan as the wall padding expanded to protect him. On the ground, amongst an assorted group of Covenant soldiers, a Jackal screeched and pointed at the exploding ship. Skeft's pod smashed into the ground right next to it in a shower of dirt, sending the ugly creature bolting into the rain forest carrying its shield over its head. The pod hissed and then split open, leaving the enraged Commander to watch what was left of his ship fall into the forest.
High on rage and adrenaline, Skeft turned and sprinted to the command post of the temporary base, his golden armour hurting the eyes of many dumbfounded on-watchers. The Humans would pay for this; he would make sure of it.
* * *
The ops crew watched as the Covenant ship fell to the ground. Maybe ten seconds went by in total silence, before every Human on the planet yelled and whooped in joy. Aloysius was impressed. 'Un-orthodox but effective…' he said to the Captain. Bowers was just a surprised as anyone else. Then a Covenant anti-matter charge impacted on the top of the ship.
Outside, seven Covenant Seraph fighters entered the atmosphere and fired on the Spring. Under Aloysius's orders, the second and third Long sword wings shot out of their hangars. The second wing flew straight at the Seraphs, unleashing a hale of cannon fire, while the third wing divided and flanked them.
It was a close fight, the Seraphs were a lot harder to destroy than their little Banshee cousins, and they had far superior firepower to the Long swords. Although the Covenant weren't expecting such a fast reaction, but they still shot down blue two and blue four of the second wing in seconds. The third wing, however, destroyed three of the seraphs with missiles on their first pass. Now it was a real dogfight. The remaining Long swords tailed the retreating Seraphs, outnumbering them two to one. It should have been a simple task to lock missiles on to the fleeing Seraphs, but the rear gunners destroyed four more Long swords before the fight was over.
'Aloysius what was that?' barked Bowers.
'Anti-matter charges, impacted along the barracks level. Luckily you ordered the entire first and second echelons off the ship, no casualties… But…'
'But?'
'I ordered the second and third Long sword wings to attack. Only four came back. They did what was needed, the second capital ship is leaving, but a large formation of Covenant drop ships is setting a course straight for that base the Covenant were building. With the Seraphs destroyed, we can take out most of the drop ships before they land. Permission to send out the first wing?'
'Granted. Now set us down where we were, we'll pick up the marines and leave.'
'Aye aye sir.' Aloysius actually saluted. That was a first.
Marines cheered as the ship set down on the now heavily fortified plateau. Un-noticed by anyone, four Covenant special ops Elites clung to the hull, they had hovered down wearing jet packs, and now, with their camouflage on, they were only visible as a slight shimmer in the air. Sneaking out of view of the Marines on the ground, they climbed to the top of ship, where they activated their energy swords and began cutting through an airlock. Because they were in atmosphere, no warning of an airlock breach made it to the bridge, or Aloysius. The first one discarded its jet pack and dropped into the hole, closely followed by the second and third. The forth, though, fell down dead and very visible, it landed right next to the first Elite, their squad leader. He was puzzled by this, but their mission could not fail. Paying a moment's respect to the dead soldier, the group hurried away down a hallway. If the blue prints they had were correct, they were only moments away from victory.
* * *
Corporal Meirs, who had just climbed a large, convenient tree, got comfortable, checked the load on her rifle and began to scan the scene below. A few seconds later, another sniper, private Mahoney, climbed past and laid down on the branch above her. They watched with interest as the Rising of Spring took off and attacked the Covenant ship. 'Impressive.' stated Meirs.
'Meh,' replied Mahoney, 'I've seen more impressive things before.' Meirs was amused by this.
'Oh yeah? Like what? And don't make a crude reference to your genitals; honestly, I'll have you mopping the mess for a week.'
'I was referring to your sniping, corporal.'
'Oh, how sweet.' said Meirs sarcastically, 'You know if the male population put as much effort into fighting the Covenant as they do into trying to get laid, we would have won the war by now.'
'Ha ha… Oh Corpr-'
'Shh! What's that?' hissed Meirs
'What?'
'Those blue flashes, on top of the Spring?' Meirs scoped in on the flashes (looking right through the Elites)
'Must just be some reflected light… Hey!' Meirs and Mahoney both spotted the jet packs appearing out of mid air and apparently placing themselves on the top of the ship. Meirs squeezed off a shot at a glimmer in the air and hit a Covenant Elite right in the neck.
"Captain Bowers, this is Corporal Meirs, Bravo team. You have an un-known number of hostiles entering the Spring. Do you copy?"
"Report."
"Covenant Elite units in stealth camouflage cut their way through… uhh… airlock 17C.."
"Ok, hold your position, keep your eyes peeled for anymore."
"Affirmative."
* * *
Bowers yelled through the comms.
"All personnel on board the Spring, we have hostiles somewhere on the upper decks. Third echelon, gear up and scour the top levels of the ship from the bow, Fifth Echelon, do the same from the stern. All non-combat personnel, get side-arms."
Aloysius checked the automatic door logs. His sub-systems recorded every door that opened on the ship with a limit of two hours. If the Elites had entered through Airlock 17C, and were travelling at an average speed of eight kilometres per hour… Then they must be- 'Gotcha!' said Aloysius triumphantly, as he closed blast doors down around the engineering block. 'Captain, I have them trapped… Oh no…' Now that the blast doors had closed, the Elites were trapped. But they were trapped with a small fusion reactor that powered the lighting. Those fools! If they were intending to destroy it they would set off a chain reaction big enough to destroy half the planet.
Sierra team of the third echelon were nearing the engineering block, in fact they just jogged around the last corner in time to see the blast doors close in front of them. Then they received an urgent message from Aloysius.
"Sierra team, I'm opening those doors, the second they open, I want you to light that room up."
"Roger that, Aloysius!" said team leader Lawrie. To his marines he said: 'Alright, you heard him, grenades at the ready.'
On the other side of the door the Elites were setting up a small bomb on the side of the reactor. They knew it was a suicide mission. That filled them with courage, they had nothing to lose. Their camouflage had run out now so they guarded the entrances while they waited for the fuse to count down. It still had four minutes, when a huge door opened, on the far side of the room, and through it, a dozen Human grenades followed it. The resulting explosion killed one of the Elites instantly, and disabled the energy shields of the squad leader, who roared and charged out to meet the Humans, firing his plasma weapon. He felled one of them in his dying moments, as their crude projectile weapons tore holes in his chest. Sierra team ran into the room lighting the way with their rifle torches. As they searched the room, the last Elite snuck from shadow to shadow, un-noticed. Lawrie discovered the bomb, and as bent down to de-fuse is, the Elite pounced from the shadows and broke his neck, stuck a grenade to one of his team members and then spoke a prayer as the rest of sierra team cut him down.
"We defused the bomb, Aloysius. Two casualties. There were three Elites, the room is clear now."
"Good work sierra team."
* * *
Aloysius reported to Bowers the latest information.
'The hostiles were aiming to blow up the ship, they would have done more than that… Sierra team of the third echelon got them. Meanwhile, the Long swords are back. They destroyed all but three of the Covenant drop ships before they ran out of ammunition. And I intercepted an interesting transmission… The Covenant plan to attack us from their base in roughly two hours, it will take longer than that before we can repair the airlock, so we're going to have to make a pre-emptive strike. I've planned an attack, as long as we're careful, we can take them out with very small casualties on our side…'
* * *
Pelicans dropped off six teams of twelve marines in a five hundred metre radius around the Covenant camp. As they closed in and got into positions, five Long swords shot overhead and dropped special pods in to the middle of the camp. The pods stabbed into the ground, and stood in an ominous silence for ten seconds. There were five pods, and just when the surprised Covenant soldiers were drawing breath, the doors of the pods shot off and out of each one, sprung a special ops "Helljumper" soldier wearing strong black armour.
Half of the Covenant weren't even armed and it didn't take long for the Helljumpers to destroy the gun emplacements surrounding the small camp. Then one of them fired a flare into the sky. Immediately all of the Marines charged into the fray. It was over in minutes and all that remained was the command post, where Skeft Ferum'ee was waiting.
With him, Skeft had seven Elites, they all carried a plasma weapon in each hand, all except for Skeft. He carried two three foot long energy swords. They were mighty weapons, nearly weightless, and able to cut through nearly any armour like a hot knife through butter. Skeft was out to spill Human blood. The Elites watched as marines closed in on them. 'ATTACK!' roared Skeft.
Eight Elites vaulted the wall and dropped in front of the Human soldiers. In the middle of it all was Skeft, swinging madly with his swords and roaring with delight as he felled his enemies. He survived long after his fellow Elites, but the great warrior eventually fell, surrounded by thirty Humans. And with his death, Humanity won a battle, like a handful of battles they had one against the Aliens before.
The End
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